When it comes to marketing, offline
businesses could do a lot worse than following in the
footsteps of online businesses, especially their use
of Joint Venture (JV) Marketing. That's when you market
your product or service to the customers of another
business, usually complimentary to your own.
For example, say you own a pool service
and you know of a good landscaper who also services your
community. Usually people with pools also have a yard
that needs to be maintained. Why not team up and
recommend each other's services? The landscaper
would certainly notice which yards have pools,
and you can probably tell which of your customers
need help with their gardens. Here is a joint
venture waiting to happen. But will it?
Not from what I've seen. So many
small business owners are paranoid about collaborating,
as if a dollar into your pocket means one less for them.
They act as if their customers won't pay for both a
gardener AND a pool man. Nothing could be farther
from the truth!
Online marketers are hip to this. It's
routine for a product to hit the Net on Monday and have
thousands of sales by Friday. The truth is, most of those
sales are through JVs. All of the online marketers know
each other and they routinely endorse each others'
products. Although they're selling to the same crowd,
there's no fear of competition. They know that people
like to collect information, and no matter how many
books or tapes they have on a subject, they'll always
buy another.
How is this different from the offline
world? Real life people need a variety of products and
services to make their lives easier. People need electricians,
plumbers, and the like, and most folks would rather get a
referral than pick a name out of the phone book. But I
can count on one hand the number of referrals I've
gotten for any of those services from another business.
With more businesses joining their Chamber
of Commerce or networking groups like Business Networking
International (www.bni.com), this is slowly changing. But
you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars to make it
happen. Joint venture opportunities are all around you.
You just have to open your eyes and SEE them.
Off the top of my head, here are a
few ideas:
If you own a skin care salon, you
could team up with a massage therapist. Set up a
massage room in your salon and get a percentage of
every massage your customers purchase. If you teach
piano lessons, connect with someone in piano sales. Are
you a caterer looking to build your clientele? Find
someone who helps to organize events that need catering,
such as a special events coordinator or wedding planner.
Do you create silk floral arrangements? Ask small
furniture stores to sell them on consignment. The
plants add to the decor and helps to stage the
furniture and give it the "homey" touch. Customers
might buy a table and the arrangement sitting on
top of it because they look so good together. Are
you into arts and crafts? Offer to put on mini-workshops
at local arts and craft stores. Participants will
buy the materials from the store and you get
exposure and referrals. Are you a pet photographer?
Get to know your local veterinarians, pet store
owners, pet groomers and pet sitters. Fitness
Trainer/Health & Nutrition Supplements Auto
Repair/Paint & Body Shop Gardener/Landscaper
The possibilities are endless.
And we won't even go into what you could do with
websites and opt-in mailing lists. This is plain
old "dirt-world" marketing, no-tech stuff that
anybody can do. Add in some endorsed email
promotions and reciprocal linking and ... well,
don't get me started.
So ... put on your thinking cap
and come up with a list of NON-COMPETING local
businesses whose customers are in your target
market. Then develop a special offer that results
in a win-win for both of you.
Sharon Fling is the author of
"How To Promote Your Local Business On the
Internet", and creator of GeoLocal.com, the
web's largest resource for using the Internet to
promote small local business online. Visit
http://www.geolocal.com and subscribe to GeoLocal's
free Tip of the Week.
