Information Marketing: Structuring Joint Ventures

In the Information Marketing industry, you often hear of companies working together to generate new leads and new clientele. By providing a training program for a vendor in your market, you take a new approach to the traditional view of a joint venture agreement.

Here is a question from Jay in Boston, Massachusetts about structuring joint ventures where you are providing the training for a vendor who is also trying to reach members of an industry. Since this is a common question, I decided to prepare an article about this challenge to help you.

In a training joint venture, you’re kind of working together with the sponsor to generate a result. This can either be a relationship where the sponsor pays you, or the sponsor pays to fill the room and then you come and speak to the people. In the information marketing business there are a lot of people who are trying to gain access to these customers and it is your job to get them to come to you. What you would want to do to strike up this joint venture agreement is go to an event where you will meet sponsors that work within your chosen field or niche.

Try to meet as many of these potential sponsors as you can to find out what your pitch should be. Approach them saying, “Hey, if you are putting on any seminars for this industry and you want to have a speaker, I’ve got a program that is specially tailored for this industry that I think could really draw a large crowd. I’m willing to create the marketing for you, if you wanted to put on a program.”

The partner benefits from your offer because they are in the same situation as everyone else. They have to get the attention of their potential customers. For example, a man named Fred Burns was selling to interior designers and there were furniture distributors that were trying to get the attention of the interior designers. So, the furniture distributors could team up with Fred Burns and put on a seminar saying, “We have hired the best interior design marketing coach who can teach you how to get more customers, even in a declining market.” Instead of saying, “Come. We’re going to tell you all about the new line of products that everybody likes.”

You can think of yourself as Shamu at Sea World. “People go to Sea World so that they can toddle over to the Shamu theatre and watch the Shamu show. Well, you are like Shamu. You’re getting into them in the theater, so that the business can sell all the concessions and merchandise around you. You’re not just bringing in their clients either. You are also bringing in their prospects and in marketing, it’s all about getting the next sale.

There have never been greater, more diverse, more lucrative opportunities for everyone–experienced, successful entrepreneurs to rank beginners–in the field of information marketing. If you can name a topic, there is a market for providing information about it. People buy information about almost everything–from hobbyist topics like dog training, to business topics like how to sell over the telephone, to self-improvement topics like fitness walking. The key is to find a responsive market and then package information that customers want in convenient forms such as DVD’s, books, e-books, CD’s, magazines, websites, teleseminars, webinars, coaching programs, seminars, and conferences.