More and more people are suffering from economic setbacks and corporate layoffs.  What is the solution for many of these people? They consider starting their own freelance business working from home. 

Forming a home business has become as easy as pressing a few keystrokes and hanging out your virtual “shingle.” However, being in business for yourself is not so helpful if you can’t make the business come to you. That is why many home-based businesses thrive with joint venture partnerships.

What can a JV do for your home business? Here are some of the growth possibilities you could experience with your home business through joint ventures:

Internet Marketing

Marketing is one of the most grueling tasks for most home business entrepreneurs. You want to focus on doing the business you love, whether it be consulting on retirement investments, designing web sites, or working as a virtual assistant. Marketing means you have to make time in your schedule to generate the business that keeps you in business. 

Thankfully, a joint venture can help. How? Look for a potential joint venture partner who specializes in Internet marketing. These kinds of specialists can help you gain customers or clients in some of the following ways:

• Increased mailing list – Your marketing materials need to get into the hands of your potential customers. Whether it is email or regular mail, you want focused marketing material read by those who will most likely look to purchase your product or service. Signing up with a joint venture marketing specialist can help you get the leads you need to increase business.

• Affiliates – Do you have a product or service that can be sold through affiliates? Using other websites or Internet marketers with high traffic sites may be a great way to increase income. Generally, you don’t have to pay for advertising space with an affiliate. Using affiliates means you agree to split a sale generated from an ad on an affiliate’s website. You get increased revenue and marketing from your affiliate, and they also receive a nice income from sharing their traffic numbers.

A joint venture with an affiliate is also great for your business due to credibility. A web site with high traffic and subscriber lists carries a lot of weight with its readers. If your affiliate recommends your product to millions of readers, just think what kind of sales that could generate. 

Combine Talents, Products, or Services

Many home businesses are focused in a specific area of specialty. Bookkeeping, web design, or jewelry making are good examples. Why not join up with a partner and combine your talents to help create more business or make business easier? Trade your bookkeeping skills with a joint venture partner who can design an attractive and workable web site for your services. 

Many home business owners think that online joint ventures are difficult. On the contrary, every other Internet or home business is looking to increase their sales, generate more revenue streams, and gain more clients or customers. With the right approach and proposition, you can help ease your marketing needs with an Internet joint venture.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.

You’ve had that old website for far too long and it’s high time for a professional website design that is intelligently designed with your company’s future goals in mind.  The value of a professional, results-driven, customized website cannot be overemphasized, and must never be neglected in your marketing plans.

Today’s professional website design and internet professionals know far more than they did 10 years ago about how to create web sites that target your potential customers, how to grab their attention with an effective message, and how to turn them into buyers who come back to buy from you again and again. At Effect, our SEO consultants and custom website design experts also possess innovative tracking tools that allow us to undeniably prove to you the immense value ofour professional Website Consulting services. If only your radio, television, print, and other marketing projects could say that.

SEO provides a higher return on investment than any other line item in your current marketing budget. Guaranteed. If this were not true, our consultants would be working in another field. At Effect Web Media, we are very driven to achieve the results our clients demand. In order to measure the success of our website design company projects, we have developed award-winning, fully-customized tracking tools that show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we will deliver what others only promise, time and time again.

That’s why clients stick around, instead of trying “another something different”, over and over again, and never getting proof of the results they wanted originally. Even if your business is not involved in e-commerce, it’s important to note that online search engines have become the “Yellow Pages” of today. When people are out looking for a specific product or service, more than half will first go online to find potential suppliers, consultants, and dealers. You simply don’t have any more time and money to waste. You may not appreciate this until you’ve tried our services to see for yourself how quickly and affordably the right, professional SEO Company can improve your company’s bottom line.

As we value your time and budget, we work carefully and skilfully to maximize the effectiveness of every single aspect of your website – from how it looks, to how it operates, to how it reports continuous, positive results back to you. Simply put, if your business can’t be found on page one of search engines such as Google and Yahoo, you might as well be invisible. Winning the competition for new and repeat business is far more sophisticated a process than even the savviest marketers today are fully informed about. Because the working world of the affordable SEO changes daily, we make it our core business to stay ahead of the pack as we pass on our expertise, skill, knowledge and results to our loyal customers.

We have been stressing the potential overwhelming success of joint venture business. A successful JV is not one that is approached by all parties in a lazy fashion. Creativity and earnest work is essential in making a JV work for all parties. 

However, joint ventures can be such a foreign business process for so many business owners and entrepreneurs. What are some fundamental strategies that make a JV work?

Cross Promote

When taking on a JV partner, don’t forget that you are depending on the other party to promote your business. Do the same for them! Cross promoting services and products is one of the key elements of a successful JV partnership.

How can you cross promote? Here is just a sample of ideas:

• Signs – Of course, posters or post cards promoting each other’s business is a great way to get your respective business seen by each other’s customers.

• Reduced Price – Agree with your JV partner to offer a special to customers who make a purchase.  By bringing in a receipt or particular voucher, you and your JV partner might give reduced prices or a special promotion to that customer.

• Free Sample – Exchange with your JV partner a supply of samples to distribute to customers.  Everyone likes something for free, and by introducing your customers to your JV partner’s product and vice versa, they may feel compelled to buy from you in the future.

Bundle Your Products Together

Bundling products or services is a great way to offer mutual customers a bargain. You always want to be sure that your JV partner does not overshadow your product or service.  By using this type of strategy, you should recognize a complementary way that your products can be sold. For instance:

• Your nail business can offer a bundle with your JV partner’s hair styling shop.

• Your clothing boutique might offer a package deal for alterations at your JV partner’s store.

• Combine your JV partner’s balloons and flower business with your gift basket delivery operation.

Communicate and Cooperate

The most important successful JV strategy is to communicate with your partner and cooperate in a business-like manner. Too often joint venture attempts fail because one or both partners do not communicate their expectations to the other. When you and your potential JV partner start talking about a joint venture, discuss all the points in which you both want to succeed and what should be expected of each. 

Further communication strategies:

• Write it down – Always, ALWAYS, write your joint venture agreement down so both parties have a copy.  Whether you form a formal legal arrangement or just a simply list of expectations, having a written agreement helps dispel finger pointing if something goes wrong.

• Keep a positive attitude – In helping to make a successful joint venture partnership, it always helps to be cheerful and enthusiastic.  But things do go wrong, and when they do, remember to keep a business-like demeanor.  Avoid getting red-faced and angry.  Stay cool and pleasant and you’ll find cooperation much more amiable.

• Talk about results – As the joint venture progresses, take time every so often to chat with your JV partner about how things are working out.  Discuss how to make success even more successful.  Or perhaps talk about disbanding the joint venture partnership if it isn’t working for one or both partners.  Whatever the case may be, don’t be afraid to talk results with your partner.

Remember joint ventures are a two-way street between you and your JV partner.  Keep the communication lines open, stay enthusiastic about your combined efforts, and you will surely see results.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.

0845 numbers and 0800 numbers are useful for businesses of all sizes. Both number ranges allow firms to keep one telephone number for life and both convey a far more professional image.   Both are also a great incentive for customers to call more often, building lasting relationships, increasing business and developing customer loyalty.There are key differences between the two number ranges that businesses should consider. What do you want to use the number for?If you are looking for a telephone number to use in your marketing and advertising then 0800 numbers are probably best. 0800 numbers are totally free for your potential customers, meaning that you will receive more sales/enquiries to the number that you have promoted.
For companies looking for a main contact number, 0845 prefixes could be the ideal solution. 0800 numbers actively encourage customers to call because they are free, but 0845 numbers are not free.   You might think this would minimise their popularity, but they are in fact the UK’s most popular number range. When they were first introduced, 0845 numbers were known as ‘local rate’ numbers, though this is not strictly the case any more with the popularity of inclusive call packages offered by mobile and landline providers.  However, BT has recently made 0845 numbers free to call for its 16 million residential landline customers, so the cost barrier has been removed for many consumers.
0845 numbers and 0800 numbers are both great ways to improve business communications. Both number ranges give you more control over your phone systems and each has its own advantages.  0845 numbers and 0800 numbers are different tools for similar jobs and should be carefully selected to suit your business needs.0800 numbers will definitely encourage responses from ad campaigns, direct mail or above the line display ads.  0800 numbers also tend to convey  the impression that you really are committed to your customer far more effectively.

A good joint venture marketing partnership creates a type of synergy that benefits both parties in greater ways than going solo. One could say that the sum of a JV is greater than the individual parts. How is this so? Using the right marketing techniques together in a combined effort just makes sense if it saves money on the budget and generates more revenue.

JV Match Maker

Finding the right JV match can be time consuming. When you look for a potential JV partner, you should consider which type of people (direct, aggressive, or creative) you like working with. Sometimes a great JV partnership is gained from sharing different talents in a combined effort. For example, you may be a techno wiz and need a creative person who can help with marketing messages. Together your talents can benefit the other.

You also may want to look at the type of industry or business of your potential JV partner. Sometimes working with someone who does a similar business can create a synergetic partnership, and sometimes a company doing a completely different business can be beneficial. Look for what you want to gain.

Sending the Right Message

A synergetic JV partnership develops the right message to customers. Opening the right market channels through your message helps both parties gain more clients and customers, as well as other potential business partners.

More Money

Of course, one of the main goals of a joint partnership is earning more revenue. Through the synergetic efforts of both parties, a JV partnership can save money on marketing costs, possibly production costs, and generate more revenue with increased sales. 

Consider if you had a budget of $10,000 per year on marketing costs. Through a combined joint venture effort, including sharing marketing costs, you’ll find that you can save $2,000 a year on that portion of your budget. That’s $2,000 that could be spent on other efforts such as R & D, or perhaps hiring additional employees for all the extra products you need to produce.

Another way of forming cost savings with a JV partnership is by creating an economy scale. Perhaps by using your special container equipment combined with your JV partner’s ability to efficiently manufacture and package goods, your economies of scale synergy can result in saving of costs of goods sold and increased revenue.

Ultimately a successful JV will produce satisfying profits for both parties. Increased revenue with only half or a portion of the effort is successful synergetic business. With increased revenue, you can help take your company to another level of business. 

Your potential joint venture partner can help your business succeed. Consider the possibilities of working with another business owner to develop ways of making new business. It starts with choosing the right partner, and working your synergy to develop the right marketing message that results in extra money in your business account.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.

Is your small business making just enough to stay afloat and provide you with a livable salary? Perhaps you haven’t analyzed your product potential well enough. There may be a joint venture that can take your small company from a neighborhood business to national exposure with exponential profits.

Joint Ventures Turned Stickers into a Multi-Million Enterprise

How can you take a small business and turn it into a multi-million dollar enterprise? Consider a strategic joint venture with a big name company. Take a look at Mello Smello. Jon and Leah Miner, husband and wife, had a small sticker store they operated in Minnesota. They approached another Minnesota firm, 3M about combining their technologies to create a new line of stickers. The result was a process called micro-encapsulation, where odors and smells could be captured and coated onto paper stickers. 

Scratch n’ Sniff stickers were born, and Mello Smello suddenly went from a small, unknown business to a multi-million dollar a year company. Since then, Jon and Leah have partnered up with the likes of Disney, Nascar, and DC Comics to create Mello Smello stickers of popular characters. They have also developed other products such as glow-in-the-dark stickers, temporary tattoos, and children’s greeting cards.

The Benefits of Thinking Big

Jon and Leah have enjoyed over 20 years of tremendous success due to their original idea of forming a joint venture with a big partner. What can you do with your business by thinking big?

Reduce the Learning Curve – Strategic joint ventures with big partners reduce your learning curve for technology significantly. By agreeing to share revenues with 3M, Mello Smello gained access to new technology bases that otherwise may have taken years, even decades, to develop and market on their own. 3M’s revolutionary technology for sticky paper helped Mello Smello to manufacture their creative product. 

Build Credibility – By linking your business with nationally branded companies, you can increase your credibility as one who produces quality merchandise, products, or services. Would Mello Smello have been able to partner with Disney without the technological help and exposure from 3M? Probably not. But by teaming with a national player, the little business from Minnesota was able to start growing in exponential waves with new partnerships with other big businesses.

Create New and Bigger Revenue Streams – With a joint venture, new markets open up for your business that may not have been available before. With the licensing partnership with Disney, Mello Smello gained international markets for their products. 

Additionally, Mello Smello began additional product development that helped create new revenue streams. This can be another exponential revenue generator. With a successful product already in hand, new products can double, or even triple, revenue cycles.

Joint ventures can be the key for a small business to make a quantum leap from local business to national producer.  Take the time to take a look at possible strategic alliances that could position your business for the future.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free JV Wealth e-zine.

In a relationship marketing platform, creating long-term relationships with customers is an integral part of a successful marketing strategy. Building strong affiliations and contacts through superior customer service is the first step towards a successful marketing platform. Just as important as building strong customer relations, is developing new ways to give the customer more than other companies are providing and more than then the customer expects.

Giving Customers Something They Can’t Get Elsewhere

If you are operating in a niche market, chances are you are already offering a product or service that’s difficult for customers to find elsewhere. In a competitive marketplace, what can you do to distinguish your business from the competition? Give your customers something that they don’t typically get from other companies.

One idea that isn’t universally implemented is free samples and discount coupons with each order. Another good idea that’s only utilized by a handful of businesses is birthday recognition. You can send your customer a birthday greeting by email or by card, offering special discounts or free samples during their birthday month. People love to get something for free even though a high percentage of people who receive the coupon never actually redeem it. The feeling of goodwill and loyalty is still planted in your customer’s mind.

Giving Your Customer the Totally Unexpected

This is somewhat similar to the above suggestions, but with a slightly different twist. Doing something for your customers that is really unexpected and out of the ordinary will set you apart from your competition.

How about a follow up email after an order to be sure that the customer is happy with their products? Instead of a free birthday coupon that the customer can redeem, how about just sending a small sample with a birthday greeting? What about automatic re-order email reminders? Reminders are popular for products like contact lenses, but how about for coffee or skin care supplies?

Thanking Potential Customers Who Don’t Make a Purchase

How about a “thank you” to customers who don’t end up buying from your site? This may sound a bit odd, but if you’ve reached out to a new client, but they haven’t made a purchase, it’s still a good idea to thank this person for their time and consideration. This is not a widespread practice. Typically we only thank people who make a purchase. The idea here is that just because this person did not buy this time doesn’t mean they never will. If they are thanked regardless, this will distinguish you from the rest and cause them to think of your company when make future purchases.

All of these strategies are suggestions and ways to help you strengthen the relationship marketing platform you are building for your business.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Join his JV Wealth e-zine at http://www.christianfea.com/joint-venture-wealth-report/?a=2

If you’re doing business in the eCommerce universe, it’s vital to build a strong network of relationships with your clients.  From time to time, it’s necessary to gain new business, new clients and new customers to bring into the pool of focus for building this network of relationships. You may be doing all the “right” things, such as newsletters, email marketing campaigns and advertising on other websites, but you still feel that you’re not attracting as many new customers, or building as many new relationships as you’d like. Exploring social networks, as a way to form new or expand upon existing business relationships will be worth investigating, if your business has not yet done so.

Social Networking

Popular social networks like Facebook are thought of as a place to keep in touch with long distance friends, share photos and stories about your life. But these online social networks are also a great way to make new business contacts. Each network is structured differently so you may want to join several, or investigate the sites on your own before deciding which ones to utilize for business purposes. Implementing consistent social networking can be the next step in a relationship-marketing based strategy for your business. Below are a few of the most popular social networks and what they have to offer from a business perspective.

LinkedIn

When thinking of a social network, many adults assume they are juvenile or the domain of teenagers and twenty-somethings. If you have an aversion to the idea, LinkedIn is the best place for you to start, as it has a mature, professional audience with a combination of social and business networking. When you join LinkedIn, you can list your contacts, both social and professional, and invite them to join. Once your contacts have joined, you then have access to their social and professional contacts and they have access to yours. This is a great way to reach out to new people and make connections because of the mutual friend/associate you have in common.

Facebook

Facebook isn’t just for kids anymore, the demographic of this particular social network continues to broaden, and it’s a great resource for making contacts and potentially looking for people to hire if and when your business expands. Facebook has a number of useful features and advanced applications, along with a certain level of privacy that doesn’t exist in other networks. It also has the sheer volume of numbers on its side: with 600 million searches and more than 30 billion page views a month, there is a seemingly endless pool of resources to tap into.

MySpace

MySpace is perhaps the social network that is geared most towards a younger population. However, try not to let that deter you. The Internet is making it easier for younger, tech-savvy people to create their own online companies, which means there is large market of younger business owners and entrepreneurs, as well as potential customers that you can connect with on MySpace. Young people also have more disposable income than ever before, which means that subscribers to MySpace have money to spend, and they’re always looking for unique, niche market products.

Building strong customer relationships as part of a relationship-marketing platform is an important ingredient in the success of your business. Using these social networking sites has the potential to connect you with an extremely talented and professional cross-section of people previously untapped by your business. Part of any successful relationship-marketing platform involves reaching out and building relationships with people with whom you have something in common. These social networks are an excellent way to expand your network of business contacts.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Join his JV Wealth e-zine at http://www.christianfea.com/joint-venture-wealth-report/?a=2

Google, the search engine, has quickly become the world’s most popular search tool. Hitwise UK tells us that, in October 2008, 75.11% of UK searches used Google.co.uk, 14.33% used Google.com, 2.86% used UK.Search.Yahoo.com and 2.16% used www.uk.ask.com. Google currently has the biggest share of the search market.

But can you really trust the search results that Google provides? And how can a user verify that the search results provided by Google are accurate?

For businesses trading or promoting their services online Google is an important element in the chain that connects them with their prospective customers. If Google isn’t presenting a business in their search results then that business will not get any traffic from Google.

I've just been alerted to massive differences between the Google.com search results and the localised Google.co.uk results. On investigation I’ve come across numerous reports from others who have seen similar, strange results.

In my case I came across a UK based business that is ranking very well in Google.com for a range of search terms, many including specific UK city and town names. However, entering the same search queries into Google.co.uk the search results were far less favourable with a page that appeared at #6 in the results from Google.com appearing at around #400 in the results from Google.co.uk. I tried this comparison with a number of UK-city-specific terms and observed similar results for a variety of landing pages in this site.

At first I thought that there must be something wrong with the site or its hosting so I did a little investigation and found that the server is based in the UK, the site has been labelled as being in the UK in Google webmaster tools and they have a UK business address.

I carried out the same searches using the same queries entered into Yahoo for comparison. The results were the opposite of those received from Google with Yahoo UK ranking the various landing pages more highly than Yahoo global. So it would appear that Yahoo has correctly detected that the site is a UK based business with a market in the UK and would therefore be of interest to those searching from the UK. Google, however, appears to be under the impression that the site is focussed somewhere other than the UK (U.S.) even with the additional information provided via webmaster tools and Google maps.

So Google is getting it wrong, badly. If Google.co.uk were an employee or a consultant and they were found to have returned such inaccurate and misleading results they would potentially be sacked.

For businesses the implications of Google’s apparent inability to accurately determine the geographic location of their market (even when stated explicitly) is worrying. When I was investigating this apparent problem I came across other who report similar issues from other websites. In one case a business disappeared completely from the Google UK results, retained good positions in Google.com and somehow went to number 1 in the Google Russia results. Others have reported massive fluctuations in their Google.co.uk search results.

It would appear that there are currently some significant and worrying failings in the quality of the results delivered by Google.co.uk and I, for one, no longer have much faith in the accuracy of the search results provided by this tool.

I recommend Stansted Airport Parking for some massive savings on parking at the airport.

 

When you say bum, it naturally means someone who has no home, no work, no pay, no life but when it comes to Internet and making money on the Internet, it’s different and it’s really great to be a bum, to be in bum marketing, that is. So, what is Bum marketing? Bum marketing simply means that you sit on your computer, or in front of it, seriously, and type away all day and make money. So, what do you need to type? Any articles of a topic that has potential in the niche market. You write something, include in in Google search, for example, and when a buyer sees your article and clicks on the ads in there, you earn profit.

So, you want to learn more about Bum Marketing? Good or very good? A lot of people are now enjoying their time and money being a bum marketer and it's an excellent endeavor. The bum marketing method right now is very popular and very in-demand as lots of people today are laid off from their work. With nothing to do, some of them have discovered that there really is money on the Internet and you don’t have to be a great writer, you don’t have to have skills in web designing. You just need to be very passionate about what you write and you just go on writing based on what you think and that’s it.

Anybody can be in bum marketing? The only thing you need is your PC or laptop and you bang away on your computer writing anything under the sun. Just make sure your articles are currently interesting and timely as today’s headlines or whatever is the interest of people at the very moment. For example, if there is a huge sell-out for teddy bears, why not make an article on how to write a teddy bear and all that sort of thing? Then, when you post it on the Internet and someone reads your article and clicks the affiliate links included in your article, you make money. Okay, therea re affiliate links but where can you find them? Nice question.