The fundamental principles behind joint ventures makes solid business sense. It is often cheaper to pay a content rich website a percentage of sales, or a fee for inbound traffic, in exchange for exposure.
Content rich websites are hard to manage, expensive to build, and are usually out of date within months. Adding content weekly can cost $8 - $15 an article. Managing a 1000 page content rich site, including newsletter, forum, blogs, and community can be downright dehabilitating.
That is why the web works to join content rich web sites with small businesses ventures. But, like everything, there is a right way to form a venture, and a wrong way.
Affiliate Programs
One of the most popular is the affiliate programs run through Commission Junction, Click Bank, and Amazon's fulfillment program. These let the web publisher choose the products they want to promote. In return, the small business receives a ˜pre-selling' tool, and increased traffic.
However, not all web publishers are equal. Many do not understand the finer points of pre-selling. They believe their only purpose is to create a ˜place holder' on the web for the ad to appear on.
This makes it frustrating for the small business owner who pays for thousands of clicks but makes relatively few sales.
Most businesses throw up their hands after a few months and cry, ˜Is there something better?'
The answer is a simple “ Yes.
Joint Ventures
There are thousands of joint venture opportunities out there. There are probably less than a dozen legitimate ones. Most of them, priced way beyond what a work at home professional can afford.
This forces work at home professionals to do things the ˜old fashion' way. Take time to surf the web. If one or two websites offered a great ROI (Return On Investment) for your PPC (Pay Per Click) Campaign, then visit the website.
If the website includes a forum, blogs, new content, mailing lists, then the small business person found a gold mine. Contact the web publisher and ask them if they would be interested in a Joint Venture.
The odds are good that Google is not paying them something equivalent to what you are paying the PPC program. If Google is charging $.50 per click, and the monthly cost is $100.00 then offer the publisher $50 - $100.
In many cases, some of these publishers are happy to receive a guaranteed $20 a month.
Quality
Freedom to surf the website and look for the best content management sites can dramatically increase their ROI.
Some of the biggest content management sites have their own advertising fees. This can make life easier, but there are ways to offer publishers more value.
Add Value
One way to add value is to ask the publisher whether there is anything you can sell for them. Many web publishers can easily whip up a book. Adding it to your ˜package' can improve their desire to help you sell, and give them more links.
Success
The success of a joint venture program is wrapped up in the contract. If the venture doesn't require a legal contract, then contemplate using a service like www.adbrite.com where you can work together, using the Adbrite platform to keep track of data and help build wealth.
