by Sid Hale

No matter how big or small our opt-in lists, after we promote an offer to the same list a few times, the click-thrus and conversion rate will drop off dramatically.  

This problem is shared by all.  Whether rookie affiliate marketer, first-time product creator, or internet guru - the list you worked so hard to collect is only responsive to any given offer for a short period of time.  

Recognizing this, and understanding that the list is only one of your "sales channels" is key to your ultimate success as an internet marketer.  You can't just beat your list over the head with the same offer over and over, and expect them to eventually come to their senses and buy your product!  You have to use other means to advertise your offer.

The next, most obvious sales channels (and the ones used by most) are advertising in newsletters, traffic exchanges, etc.  They're probably the next choice by so many, because they are the easiest to use. 

Unfortunately, these are just not as effective in terms of converting eyeballs to sales.

Think about this...

I know an internet marketer with a good list of around 150,000 - and for several hundred dollars, I can advertise in his newsletter.  

Feel free to substitute your own numbers, but let's do a little math...

If I can write an ad for his newsletter that gets a 2% click thru to my sales page, I'll get 3,000 new viewers.  Now let's say that my sales page is good enough to convert 2% of those into sales.  That's 60 sales, so if my normal profit margin is $20 per sale - the first 30 or so sales will cover the cost of the ad, and I'll wind up with maybe $600 in profit.  

But what if my little 5 line ad doesn't pull that well?  If I advertised to my own list first, I have had a chance to observe, first hand, how well my sales page converts, but the click-thru to that sales page was the result of a pre-sales solo mailing to my own list.  Just not the same thing.

Even if I get the same conversion rate on my sales page, any reduction in the click thru rate from the ad will result in that many fewer sales.  In other words, a 1% click thru is only 1500 new viewers and the same 2% conversion rate results in only 30 sales - maybe not even covering the ad costs.

Of course, the free advertising sources eliminate the risk, but they are typically much less productive in terms of both click-thrus and conversion rate (the reasons are the subject of some other article, but for now - just trust me).

Well, from the above, you can guess that I am only going to use paid ads for high margin product, and then only after I have tested my ad using the free advertising sources.

That all takes time

Ideally, I want a sales channel that eliminates the risk of a paid ad and still gets comparable click-thrus and conversion rates to those that I first experienced when advertising to my own lists.

Suppose I could coerce someone else, with a responsive list, to endorse my product to their list.  I'm not talking about a simple 5-line ad in a newsletter, but a true endorsement of my product.  Something like:

• a paragraph in the context of an article, where my product solves some problem addressed by the article, or
• a solo mailing to their list with no other distracting information.  Just a sincere recommendation - a testimonial - sent to their list.

In other words, what if I could get this same internet marketer, with his responsive list of 150,000 or so, who trust him because he has always made good recommendations to them in the past - to give a solid endorsement to my product (expressing the same belief in it as he would his own product)?  His endorsement may even carry more weight with his list, than my endorsement does with my own.  Once his endorsement delivers the click-thrus to my sales page, however, I could expect a comparable rate conversion to sales.

That's exactly what I want, but...

How do I get him to give me something much more valuable than the simple 5-line ad for nothing???

Basically, I need to make it worth his while.  

If my product fills a need for his target niche, and I am willing to give him a significant percentage of the profit, from any sales that result... he stands to make much more in commissions from an endorsement, than from selling me a 5-line ad.  

I might even offer him 100% of the profit for the first x number of sales (calculated to guarantee that he receives at least the price of an ad), with a lesser, but still substantial percentage for all subsequent sales.

By now, you realize that what I have been describing is a classic Product Endorsement Joint Venture.  Joint Ventures have received a lot of attention in internet marketing circles recently.  And for good reason.

A Joint Venture of this nature effectively allows you to extend your reach to other marketers opt-in lists, and not only increase the immediate sales of your product, but also to add those new customers to your own customer list to market other products to in the future.

Ideally, we will approach multiple marketers (therefore more list members) with a similar "deal", but finding and negotiating these partnerships require time and effort.

First, we will have to identify our potential Joint Venture partners, and that means you have to do a lot of research.  

Joint Ventures have become so popular as a marketing strategy, that a number of tools have recently become available to make the research much (understatement) easier.  These query multiple search engines, rank results by search engine ranking, traffic volumes, and link popularity to help you identify the sites that are most likely to fit your market and produce the most exposure for your product.

One of the first of these to hit the market was Neil Shearings' Internet Success Spider.  This is a super tool, and delivers the best value for the money, of any of the products in this category.  Anyway, Internet Success Spider creates links to the web sites that are returned, and contact info for the web site owner.  This is a desktop tool that run on Windows™ systems, but an internet connection is required during the search processes. 

Neil cautions that requesting an excessive number of "hits" will take a fair amount of time, but even a 15 minute search is preferable to trying to do all of this manually.  This is a great time-saver!

Of course, Internet Success Spider can only identify the most  likely "candidates" for you.  You still need to research each candidate individually, once they have been identified.  This is because you need to know as much as possible about your potential partner before you approach them with your offer.  

You need to craft a unique offer for each of your potential partners.   One that will appeal to their needs, convince them that your product is a great fit for their list, and one that will entice them to discuss the opportunity with you.  Unlike the sales page for your product, you are not aiming your proposal at a huge niche market.  This sales letter is aimed at a niche of ONE - your potential partner.  

You definitely do NOT want to send a form letter to 50 different candidates.  Certain details of each offer will be unique, but there are common elements of information that absolutely have to be included in every offer letter.  Get it wrong, and your offer goes to the junk mail folder almost immediately.

Just as there are a number of sales letter generators on the market, there are now a number of tools for creating your Joint Venture proposal.  The best-known of these (and I think it was the first to market) has the "flash" appeal.  It is a software product that allows you to enter the variable information, and generates a "Joint Venture Letter" by inserting your variable information into the right places in a template letter.  

But remember I said, "You definitely do NOT want to send a form letter to 50 different candidates"?  How recognizable do you think your "unique offer" will be, now that a number of people are using these generated letters?  

It is very important to recognize that the end result is still just a template.  You'll really be shooting yourself in the foot if you use the unmodified results of this sort of tool. 

Now, for my money (since you just wind up with a template anyway), I'd rather bypass the "pizazz", and pay $30 less for a complete set of templates in the first place.  Steve Tanner's Instant JV Letters doesn't pretend to be a generator.  I got a preview copy of Instant JV Letters, and Steve represents his product for what it is... 10 different letter templates, intended to be modified to fit any Joint Venture proposal need. 

In summary, if you haven't used Joint Ventures as a marketing strategy yet, take the time to understand the impact they can have on your sales, what makes them work, and how to create successful Joint Venture proposals.  They allow you to extend your reach (to some potentially huge lists), without jockeying for search engine placement, buying questionable leads, etc.  Your own lists will grow as a result of gaining new customers from this strategy, and you will probably forge some life-long relationships with whom you can repeat the process for other products.