A Joint Venture (JV) is a great way to promote and sell your product. Its reach can go really viral and messages can get across conveniently, because with the help of Joint Ventures, you reach the people who you initially couldn’t reach.
When you are launching your product, it is fine to have a smaller list to start with. However, once you’ve successfully launched a few products, you would want to grow your business.
A Joint Venture is the most effective way to do this. With Joint Ventures, you can make great impressions in the market and grow your list easily. JVs are the affiliates that help a product vendor, which is you in this case, to promote the launch.
In return of the favor of the affiliates promoting the launch, the vendor will pay the affiliates in terms of commission.
You may be wondering what exactly the differences between JVs and affiliates are. Actually, they are pretty much the same, but JVs usually have a closer relationship with you. That is basically the only difference between a JV and affiliate.
After some time of networking in the Internet business, you usually will have a closer relationship with the affiliates that help you to promote your launch. Especially for those who always work with you.
There may be a chance for you to launch a product together with your affiliates. After some time of knowing each other, you’ll not call them just an affiliate anymore. They become your Joint Venture partners.
With the help of the JVs, you can easily boost the sales in your launch. Because a JV’s commission is based on their results, they work hard to earn their pay. This ensures a wider reach. Really, it’s a great way to expand your Internet business.
Like I said, you will get instant result with JVs. How? Well, say if you have 10 JV partners, with thousands of subscribers in each of their list. It makes up tens of thousands of subscribers collectively.
Once you give them the promotional tools, your offer will be mailed out to that amount of subscribers in their list! Isn’t this amazing? You get to reach out to the people that you initially couldn’t. The best part is that you will get in touch with them soon, too.
This works especially if you work with JVs who have a mammoth of subscribers list. They can bring in massive traffic to your website in no time.
Speaking of JVs with massive lists, this is also a plus for you. JVs with massive list are often credible and trusted, which is why they have that much reach. While their subscribers already know that your JVs can be trusted, they will know that you are a trusted source as well!.
The request for them to opt-in to your mailing list would be easier. Meaning, you get to add more e-mail addresses to your own list as well.
The advantages of getting JVs into your launch will not stop here. When you are getting them to your launch, believe it or not, it will not cost you a single cent – the expense is $0.
You do not have a take out any money to form a joint venture with them. As mentioned, your payment for them will be the commission, which means, you are paying them based off their performance.
When a front-end product is sold, 100% of the money will go to them. You do not really need to worry about the risks because you are not taking any risk at all.
If you’ve convinced an influential affiliate to be part of your launch, your promotion has the potential to reach to a massive group of people. Hence, you will have the chance of converting a very, very high number of sales.
This is possible with only one affiliate. Think about what if you have approached 10 others of this caliber? Don’t be afraid to ask for joint venture. After all, you don’t have to pay for their service.
Joint Venture Commission Rates
What are the commission rates that JVs usually receive? The commission rates are up to the vendors to decide so you will have the full control on the rate.
Bear in mind that the rate of the commission will affect the decision of affiliates on whether to promote your product or not. This being said, if the vendors set a rate that is not really intriguing, it’s less likely that they will get any affiliates to participate in the affiliate program.
When affiliates arrive in the affiliate invitation page, the first thing an affiliate will be looking for is ‘What’s in it for me’. This is an important point that I must stress on, because this can be applied to almost all situations.
When you are writing the affiliate invitation page or sales page, always remember what people want to know. They will stay longer for the pages that can tell them what they want to know.
Back to the affiliate commission rates – you want to set the best rates that are agreeable by the affiliates. Here are the commission rates, which are commonly used by Internet marketers:
- Front-end: 100%
- Upsell:
- $297 – 50%
- $497 – 40%
- $997 – 30%
For the front-end product, you can afford to pay them a 100% commission. Really, give out the full payment of your front-end to the JVs. Do not worry about giving it all out, because the main stream of revenue doesn’t comes from the front-end anyway.
When a customer makes a purchase, they will be directed through a sales funnel, as you already know that by now. The revenue comes from the upsells and backend in the sales funnel.
As for higher ticket products, however, it varies. There is no hard and fast rule here so you can always change the rates accordingly. What I am going to show you is just a reference.
You will not want to give 100% commissions for this. So, if you are selling a $297 product, give out 50% of it; $497 product for 40%; and lastly $997 product for 30%. In the end, the commission rate is still up to you.
However, keep in mind the ‘What’s in it for me’ concept. It is best that you always set an agreeable commission rate. The affiliates deserve what they work for.
How to Find Joint Venture Partners
Now that you know that JVs can be a powerful arsenal to make sales, but the next thing you may be wondering is where do you go to find them? There are many ways. And if it works, it’s not wrong. There are always places where you can find all the JVs. Here, I’ll show you the best places to find JVs.
Social Media Platforms
The first place to go for is, without doubt, the social media platforms. It is the easiest way to find people, because most people are more active on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter than checking their emails.
For Facebook, you can start by requesting to join Internet marketers’ groups. Some of the groups may be a closed group, where you may need to wait for the approval from the admin. But good things deserve your time investment.
Once you’ve gotten the approval, join their group discussions to build up a relationship with them. Ask questions, answer questions, give feedback – all that jazz.
Most importantly, you do all these to make yourself visible in the group. If you are to build a long term relationship with them, start with offering to promote their launch first. This way, it is easier to ask for a favor to promote your launch in the future.
In addition, when you make the first move to approach them, they are more likely to have a better impression towards you.
Joint Venture Broker
Another way to find JVs is to go to a JV broker. JV brokers usually already have the connection to other Internet marketers in the business. They serve the role as the bridge among Internet marketers and, sometimes, they are Internet marketers themselves.
For a fee, they will help you to find JVs. This will make your job much easier, as they already have a list of Internet marketers. You have to give them the criteria such as the niche, size of mailing list, and so on.
And then, they will match the criteria to the Internet marketers they have on hand. If you are a newbie in this business, this is the easier way to get you connected with other marketers.
This not only makes your job easier, but it will also make your promotion stronger. However, there’s still a fee to be paid as mentioned. But with the results that good JVs bring, it’s an investment worth making.
Live Events
If there is live networking event around your area, do not hesitate to attend the event. If it is convenient for you, go ahead for the networking session, because this is a great way to find JVs.
If you ever want to take your online business up a level or two, you should always be ready to network. No one in the Internet business goes alone. Always remember that networking is of the utmost importance to grow your Internet business and the results that networking brings are definitely worth your time.
You must be active in networking events, because when you meet the affiliates face-to-face, instead of communicating through emails or Skype, they are more likely to be excited by the prospect of your business.
Chances will be higher to convince them to form a joint venture with you. If there is opportunity for you to join live events, don’t hesitate and march right on.
Subscribe to New List
Lastly, you can find affiliates by actually subscribing to their mailing list first. When you join the list, you can see how they do their promotions, what kind of tone they use to sell, and what kind of products do they sell and promote.
This would be a great opportunity to evaluate their approach. If the approach and niche suit your culture, you can then consider approaching them.
How to Pull Off a Successful Joint Venture Invitation
After you’ve found the JVs you want to approach, how do you pull off a successful JV invite? It’s no walk in the park, but it’s not that difficult, either.
JVs will be interested in your business if you have a really good product and affiliate offers for them. You also have to play your cards right.
Quite a number of factors that will attract an affiliate to join your program, and it’s all up to them. But, in the core of it all, is the ‘What’s in it for me’, which I’ve mentioned a few times before this.
In order to pull off a successful JV invite, you must provide a solution that leads to a win-win situation. Most importantly, provide a high commission rate for them. This is usually the first thing a JV is looking for in the affiliate page.
Sometimes, they look at the product. If you can give complimentary access to your product, it will be a plus for them. When they have the access to your product, they will have an opportunity to evaluate your product before they promote your launch.
This way, they can ensure the quality of the product that they are going to promote and make sure what they’re promoting is a product good enough for their subscribers. If you are confident in your product, the affiliates will be confident, too.
But essentially, the numbers are important too! To win them, provide a high commission rate. After all, there are no fast and hard rules in setting up the commission rate.
Next, affiliates are also often attracted to a contest. There are quite a number of affiliate contests you can find in the marketplaces. Whichever affiliate generates the most sales, wins.
The winner usually gets reward in monetary form. This would be an extra incentive for them. What is so great about an affiliate contest is that on top of having paid in commissions, they stand a chance to win a bonus.
As mentioned, to get affiliates, you must first be an affiliate. Demonstrate your value by promote their launch first. You will establish a business relationship with the affiliate before asking them to do a joint venture.
When you offer a favor first, it is easier to ask for a favor from them! You can’t be blunt here so show them your value first. They will appreciate the gesture of you doing a favor for them first.
Joint Venture Page for Affiliates
Once the affiliates have agreed to join your affiliate program, the next thing you need is a JV page for the affiliates. This is where the affiliates go to register their affiliation with you.
In this page, you should provide an opt-in box to collect their name, email and marketplace IC such as from JVZoo or ClickBank. This is to ensure they have applied to your affiliate program.
They will need to opt-in in order to get their affiliate link from you. And your job as the vendor is to approve their request to be your affiliate. However, if you already have some trusted JVs, you can put them under the auto-approve list.
For your information, when you are in the Internet business long enough, you may be getting affiliate requests every now and then. You get to choose the status for that particular affiliate, which are deny, delayed, instant and auto-approve.
A small guide for you in choosing the status for your affiliate:
- 0-50: Delayed
- 50 and above: Instant
Like I said, the auto-approve applies to the trusted JVs. Denies seldom happen, unless there is special case where you already know that affiliate request is a scam.
In this page also, you must provide the promotional tools for the JVs. This is necessary, as the JVs would need some tools to promote your product.
Such as graphics, swipe emails, and so on. Here, you can include any other promotional tool that you think is fitting like a video, for example. It’s best that you provide them sufficiently.
