Jan
12
2010
Combine Your Business Resources to Gain a Competitive Advantage
Marketing your business is pretty much like exercise. Each small thing you do usually accumulates and eventually leads to giant results. It is a good thing to focus on building your online reputation, but it also equally important to leverage the skills and resources of other people by entering into mutually beneficial partnerships.
Of course, there are risks involved when entering into partnerships with other entrepreneurs. This doesn’t mean that you cannot profit from partnerships and joint ventures. As you gradually expand your online influence, people will start to naturally seek you and your services. Eventually, you’ll get offers from others to strike a joint venture with them. A lot of these partnerships don’t need any money to get started, and usually the mutual exchange can do wonders for your online business.
Be a Guest Blogger
If you have a blog with average readership, you can increase your blog exposure by commenting regularly on other blogs. By being visible to the blogosphere, you are more likely to strike new acquaintances and potential partnerships with other blog owners.
Being a guest blogger is pretty much like being a guest on a TV program. You will be asked to write a post/article that will be feature in a particular blog owned by someone else. This may be a one time guest posting, or an ongoing deal. The benefit of guest posting is that the readers of that popular blog owned by someone else will get to see your article. A short bio description of yourself and your website link will appear at the bottom of each guest post. This way, people get to see your site as well.
Guest blogging is a give and take process. In contrast, you can also ask someone to write a guest post for your blog. They will then inform their readers and mailing list about the article posted in your blog, which will result in a huge traffic spike for you.
The Importance of Joint Venture Events
Building a huge marketing list that is primarily interested about your products is very important to business. By growing a subscriber list, you are actually increasing your chances of generating lots of potential customers. One of the best ways to grow your list is to attend a joint venture special occasion.
To be able to participate, you must be invited. Those who attend the joint venture event will be offered a free gift. Interested prospects must visit your website and sign up/subscribe to be able to gain access to the free gifts.
By doing this, you are not just giving away something of value to prospects, but you’re catering to the needs of joint venture partners as well. Gather as many joint venture partners as you can, and delegate to them the task of promoting the event. Not only will they send invites to hundreds and thousands of people in their customer lists, they will also add lots of new names to your OWN list.
Through industry events and joint venture meets, you keep possibilities open for long term business relationships and partnerships. Once you land a joint venture that works well, people won’t hesitate to work with you again because they already experienced good results with you in the past. The key is to provide strengths and resources that your business partner doesn’t have. Likewise, seek partnership with a fellow entrepreneur who possesses resources or skills you don’t have. For example, if you have an excellent product, but do not have the expertise to promote it to the masses, it is helpful to strike a joint venture with someone who has tremendous marketing skills (but has limited skill in product creation).