Joint Ventures, often known simply as JV’s, can be an extremely effective way to generate new business.  This is probably why so many of you asked me for information on Joint Ventures, when I asked you for your marketing questions recently.

The following is a brief explanation of what JV’s are and how they work.

Joint Ventures explained

I’m sure there are a few different definitions of the term Joint Venture, but it’s actually pretty straight forward.  It’s simply a way for 2 or more parties to market their services more effectively.  This usually means reducing the cost of one’s marketing, increasing the reach of one’s marketing or both.  Here’s a common example:

2 or more companies can put a mail shot together, where a piece of marketing from each company is included in the envelope.  The cost of the mailing is usually shared between both companies.  This is most effective, when YOUR marketing piece is being sent to THEIR mailing list.  You should then reciprocate, by offering THEM the same opportunity with YOUR mailing list.  This form of cross marketing can be extremely powerful, if you pick the right JV partner.

Joint Ventures and potential hazards

There are a few things you need to consider, before investing in a Joint Venture.  These include:

• Never do a JV with someone you don’t know or have not thoroughly researched.  This week alone, I have seen someone on Twitter, openly recommending a well-known con artist to her clients and friends!  Whilst this was not a JV, it is an example of how easy it is to align one’s reputation, with someone that can seriously damage their own good name.
• Find a Joint Venture partner, who is in a complimentary but non-conflicting industry to your own.  For instance, an accountant could offer my marketing services to her contacts and I could offer the accountant’s services to my contacts.  That’s because neither of us offer a service, which might take business from the other.
• The most successful JV’s are mutually beneficial.  As with any deal, it’s really important that both parties benefit equally.  If you find that you’re the one getting all the new business and not the other person, there’s no incentive for them to continue.If this happens, consider offering the other person a commission or reward for anything you generate. Keep it balanced and everyone benefits!

Joint Ventures can be a useful way to reduce your marketing costs and get your message in front of a stack of new, prospective clients or customers. 

However, in my next post, I am going to show you something that’s more powerful than a JV and which can help you generate amazing results very, very quickly!

Until then, I would love to hear your thoughts or experiences on Joint Ventures. Please share your feedback with a comment below!

Photo: Freewine

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1. What’s your biggest marketing challenge?
2. How to set your marketing goals so they motivate you!
3. Want to massively improve your marketing? Then get specific!

Here is a simple marketing tip, to help you quickly improve your mail shot, email marketing and blogging response rates.

It’s all about – Timing.

Even if your marketing message is irresistible, you will only get the maximum return form it, if you get it in front of people at the right time.  This holds true, regardless of what form of marketing you use – though in this post I will focus on; mail shots, email marketing and blog posts.

Mail shot response rates

If you send a business to business mail shot out, which people receive first thing Monday morning, it will typically get a lower response rate than the same mailing would, if it arrived on a Tuesday – Friday morning.  Letters that arrive on Monday morning, have to fight for the reader’s attention, against all the other Monday mail PLUS all the mail that arrived on Saturday.  Equally, Monday morning is usually a particularly busy time for most businesses, meaning the reader often has less time to read their mail too.

In short, by arriving first thing Monday morning, your mailing could be reaching people who have less time to read it and it will have to compete for their attention, against a lot more mail.   Does avoiding the Monday morning post make a massive difference? No, but it will usually give you a better return.  Now, as it costs you the same to send a mail shot, regardless of what day you post it, it makes sense to avoid Monday’s and improve your response rates.

Whether you sell business to business or direct to the consumer, you need to find out when your target audience is most likely to have the time to read your message.  This is why testing and measuring your marketing feedback is so important.

Email marketing response rates

Timing is also important for email marketing.  In my experience, you should get business to business marketing emails out during office hours; again avoiding Monday mornings.

For example, the best time to send my marketing newsletter, is after 9:30am Tuesday – Friday.  I have tested and measured this for almost 4 years and the results are constant.  Think about it and it makes perfect sense.  If Sue gets into her office Monday morning and finds my newsletter in with 30 pieces of spam or junk email, that arrived since she left work on Friday evening, it’s way too easy for her to delete the newsletter by mistake.

It also makes it harder for her to actually see my newsletter, in with all that clutter and junk.

Blog post viewing numbers

I have spoken to many, many business bloggers who have all found that their weekend posts are usually read by far fewer people than their weekday posts. Clearly, a lot of people disconnect from their business or job between Friday evening and Monday morning.

However, a lot of bloggers write their blog posts during the weekend, because it’s the only time they have available to write – Then publish their posts immediately.  In my experience, this is not usually the best way to maximise your reach.

I find that when I publish a post on a Saturday, the post will usually get just 25% as many views as it would have got, if I published the same kind of post during the week.  On a Sunday the numbers are usually a lot higher, but still 50% lower than a midweek post.  So, if you only post once a week or less and you write a business to business blog, avoid publishing your content during the weekend.  It’s fine to write posts whenever you like, but businesspeople read in greater numbers during the working week.

Of course, if you blog 7 days a week like many professional bloggers, this is far less of an issue.

Your experiences?

I would love to know if YOU have noticed any time-related trends, when you send or publish marketing material. If you have anything to add, please share it below.

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I received a sales letter last week from Google. That’s right, one of the world’s leading email providers contacted me; not via an email, but via a letter.

Email marketing and Google

Google already has my email address, because I am a user of a number of their services – including Gmail. So, it would have been very easy for them to have sent me the same sales message in an email. However, Google know that they will get a higher response rate from a targeted letter than from a sales email.

If the owners of Gmail are writing letters with sales offers, rather than sending sales emails, there’s a BIG marketing lesson here!

People hate sales emails and spam

People have a VERY low tolerance for emails, which are just sales messages.  The letter from Google was exactly that – a sales message.  However, I did open the letter and read it.  Had Google sent me that same sales offer via email, it would have been deleted, unopened; as soon as I read the subject line (no matter how clever it was!)

The average person hates spam with a passion and many tend to consider all sales emails (no matter how well targeted) as spam. As a result, not only is a prospective customer or client unlikely to respond to a typical sales email, they are very likely to develop strong, negative feelings about the sender too.

Is email marketing dead

No, not at all! Email marketing, when handled correctly, is still extremely powerful and getting more powerful all the time.

If you re-read the above, you will see that I use the term ‘sales emails.’  Sales emails are extremely low leverage and increasingly ineffective.  These are emails that contain a sales message and are often sent to a ‘list’, which the sender has either bought, borrowed or built by harvesting email addresses from business cards / directories etc.

Unless the sender has a good relationship / rapport with the people on that list, the sales emails they send will be deleted before they are read.

Email marketing & sales emails

Email marketing could not be more different. For example, I write a very popular marketing newsletter, which contains a unique marketing article or some valuable marketing ideas / advice.  Most editions have zero advertising.  Occasionally, I will include a single, one paragraph piece to promote something I am involved in.  The response rates are fantastic, because my readers already know me and trust me.  Some of my readers even blog about how much they value my newsletter.

In fact, many of my readers tell me that they have ‘Jim Connolly’ marketing folders on their computers, where they file my newsletters, for future reading.  How many people keep spam email or sales emails on file? No one!

Mail shots, direct mail, marketing letters

The overuse of sales emails is creating a growing resistance to them within the marketplace.  Obviously, with so many businesses mass emailing sales offers to people, the amount of traditional marketing letters being sent has dropped enormously.  As a consequence, marketing professionals are seeing traditional marketing letters, (sometimes called direct mailings or mail shots,) achieve better and better results.

A well crafted marketing letter, with a hand written signature, sent to a small, targeted group, with a compelling offer and a ‘call to action,’ can be extremely effective right now.

Mail shots or email marketing?

This is a HUGE subject.  Here’s a very brief overview.

I suggest you try a professionally handled mail shot IF you provide a service, which is only offered to a relatively small geographical area.  Some examples might include; accountants, commercial lawyers, franchise operators, insurance brokers etc.  Let me be completely clear. I am not suggesting these types of service providers cease using email to market their services.  I am suggesting they STOP using sales emails, START using email marketing AND consider trying a professionally handled, direct mail campaign as an addition to their marketing mix.

Jim Connolly’s marketing

I offer a service, which is sold internationally.  As a direct result, 100% of my marketing is conducted online.  My marketing approach is all about giving away free marketing advice, information and tips, to as many small and medium sized business owners as possible.  Then, when they want someone to look after their marketing, they give me a call.

I don’t sell my services, people hire me instead.  For those of you who provide services or products across a big or unlimited geographical area, I suggest you do exactly the same.  Instead of sending sales emails; emails that just ‘push’ or attempt to sell your services – use email as a way to engage potential clients and provide massive value.  Also, make sure that every person you send your information to has proactively sign-up to receive it.  For example, don’t send newsletters or e-bulletins to people, just because you know them, are a member of the same network or you happen to have their business card.

Use email communication (and your website / blog / FaceBook / LinkedIn / Twitter) as a way to showcase your expertise and encourage potential clients to email you, call you, comment on your blog, follow your Twitter account etc, etc.

The results can be stunning!

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QUESTION: What does great marketing have in common with great comedy?

ANSWER: Timing!

Marketing & timing

I received an email earlier, announcing the launch, today, of a new website.  If you check the date of this post (20th January 2009) you will see that it’s the day that President Obama was inaugurated.

This international,  mass media event, has received blanket coverage across the news networks and even seen services like Twitter struggle to cope with the huge increase in activity.

In other words, it’s a terrible day to try and launch a new website!

If you are thinking of launching something for your business, make sure you check out what’s happening on that day.

Email marketing and mail shots

Of course, timing is important to many elements of marketing. For example, the day of the week your mail shot arrives, will have an impact on your response rate.  I advise B2B marketers not to have their mailings arrive on a Monday; because Monday’s are typically very busy for businesses AND your letter will also be with all the other mail that arrived over the weekend.

The day and time of day that your email marketing arrives in someone’s inbox, will also impact your results.  An email, which arrives at 7am on a Monday morning, will arrive in an inbox filled with a weekends worth of junk mail and spam.

That same email, arriving at 11am on a Tuesday morning, will arrive in an inbox, which has already had the spam / junk mail removed.  This makes it easier for your message to stand out and increases the chances of it being read and acted on!

Always check out what’s happening in your prospective client’s world before setting a time to take action.

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As we move into a brand new year, I would like to share one of the simplest, yet most valuable pieces of advice I know with you.

Don’t mistake movement for progress!

Progress is not the result of hard work. If hard work were the secret to success, our grandparents would have been millionaires! Progress only comes when we work hard doing the right things! However, if we keep rowing that boat in the wrong direction, no matter how hard we row; we will never get where we want to be.

Before you invest your time or money on any marketing activities in 2009, make sure you are doing the right kind of marketing for your business – before you worry about doing it correctly!

For example; you ‘might’ be doing a mail shot correctly – yet by using email marketing instead of paper-based mailings, you can see better, faster results for a fraction of the cost and time of a traditional mail shot.

You might be doing that mail shot correctly, but it’s possibly the wrong kind of marketing for you!

Making progress

I suggest you look at all the marketing activities you currently engage in and then, one by one, find out if there isn’t a better, higher-leverage alternative for you to use in 2009.  There’s a list of marketing ideas here, which are extremely effective, just to get you started.

Over to you!

What have you found to be the most effective forms of marketing for your business over the past year? Share your experiences and leave a comment below!

Finally, I hope you have a wonderful, prosperous 2009!

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Here’s a quick tip, which can help you MASSIVELY increase the effectiveness of your marketing!

It’s all about focus

Whenever you write any form of marketing material, it’s extremely important that your message is focussed 100% on your core prospective client base.

Many small businesses use a scatter-gun approach to their marketing messages and as a result, they write copy, which is vaguely relevant to everyone who reads it but directly relevant to no one!

By diluting your marketing message, you always reduce it’s effectiveness.

For example, let’s imagine that Bob provides a ‘Virtual Assistant’ service.  He is particularly keen to work with  web designers, software developers and SEO experts.  Bob will get a far, far better response from his marketing if he writes a tailored marketing letter/email for each individual group – rather than a vague, generic one, which is aimed at trying to be relevant to all three industry types.

Bottom line

Vague marketing messages will not motivate people to respond to you!  However, a marketing message that clearly shows how your service will solve the readers problem, is extremely attractive and will inspire far more people to respond to you!

There are 10 GREAT marketing tips for you here!

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There’s a lot of information on this blog about things you can do, which will help you dramatically increase your sales results and profits.  However, it’s ALSO really important to know some of the things you must avoid, if you want your business to succeed. That’s because some marketing mistakes can nullify all your hard work and actually set you and your business way, way back!

Common marketing mistakes 101

This post contains some of the most common and damaging mistakes I see people making with their marketing. I hope that through the comments section, you will share some of the common errors you see people making too! Here are a few, in no particular order, to get the process rolling:

1. Failing to differentiate their product or service

One of the hardest things to sell, is a product or service that looks to be ‘about the same’ as hundreds or thousands of alternatives.  It’s hard to stand out and grab peoples imagination, when you seem to offer ‘just the same’ as a stack of other providers.

For example, the Internet is filled with people offering coaching or consulting services that look identical to each other. They offer a service that sounds the same, to the same potential clients, with the same kind of promises and THEN market it in the same kind of way as each other! The net result is that EVERY PENNY they spend on marketing is being cancelled out, by the thousands of other people who are doing the same things.

The problem here, is that some of these services are outstanding and others are rubbish! However, because they all seem so similar and promise the same results, it’s impossible for a prospective client to tell one from the other.

If you want to make sales all day long, break away from the pack and BE YOURSELF!

Develop your own unique voice and use it to show the VSP (Valuable Selling Proposition) you bring to the marketplace. If you can answer the following question, and then communicate it effectively in your marketing, your sales will sky-rocket immediately;

“What genuinely compelling reasons are there, for someone to become a client of mine; rather than one of my competitors?”

For example, I answer this question by offering a marketing service to small businesses; which gives them unlimited access to me for a whole year, for a small, single, capped fee!  We have regular marketing meetings all the time, so my clients can plan ahead with total peace-of-mind; with me as their virtual Marketing Director and advisor.  Also, if they get a problem or they just want to kick some ideas around, they can call me whenever they want.

YOUR answer to the above question must be non-generic.  In other words, it’s not enough to promise great customer service or to promise to go the extra mile for your clients – everyone promises that – even those who don’t provide it!  Your answer has to be something that makes it super-attractive to become one of your clients.

2. Relying on pedestrian copy writing to sell their services

Most smaller businesses tend to write their own marketing copy – and the results are often shockingly poor.  For example, it’s not uncommon for a small business to pay a fortune for a great website, and then write the wording for that site themselves!  As a result, they find that people who visit the site don’t fill in contact forms, click links, email them or call them.

That’s because pedestrian copy writing simply INFORMS people - without inspiring or motivating them to take action!

If you want to dramatically increase the number of sales or leads you get from your; website, blog, advertising, mail shots or email marketing – get your marketing written by a professional!

3. Focusing on the size of their network, rather than it’s value

You have seen them, the people who attend EVERY local networking event and eagerly thrust business cards into as many people’s hands as possible.  They then ask the stranger; “So, tell me how I can help you” …. just like their 1980′s networking manual told them to!

OK – that’s one way to build a network.

Here’s another!

My former client, Susan, is a marketing consultant to small businesses.  She decided to do as I suggested and stopped attending every networking event in town.

I got Susan to shift her focus from the typical ‘numbers game’ approach to networking – To focusing on quality and influence instead.

I got Susan a list of the 10 main accountancy practices (or CPA’s) in her region; who between them, look after around 35,000 local businesses.  Susan then decided that these would be her ‘network’; as they had the potential to provide her with more high quality clients than she could ever need.

I suggested she attended some local lunchtime events sponsored by these people and to use the opportunity to set up meetings with the senior partners of each firm.  After attending just three events, Susan had meetings booked with each of the people who would become her new network.  She did her homework and focused on what she could do for them and their clients.

Six of the accountancy practices were just not interested.  But she DID manage to form a great relationship with the other four practices and she now has a client-base full of top quality clients.

The bottom line: A network of 30 well-connected, influential people is vastly more commercially valuable and easier to manage, than a network with 300 contacts who lack influence or reach!  As human beings we are obviously all of equal value, but in the marketplace, some people are massively more influential than others.

4. They don’t show everyone how brilliant they are!

The information most small businesses and entrepreneurs put on their websites, blogs and in their newsletters, is usually a watered-down version of what they are actually capable of.  They fear that if they give too much away for free, people won’t pay them for ‘the good stuff’.  This is a SERIOUS mistake!

Why?

Because if you don’t let people see how great you are until they become a client, how are they supposed to find out?  If you only have a diluted version of your work available for free, that’s what people will associate you with.  You have to let everyone see the value you are capable of providing. I know you are great, you know you are great – now let ‘them’ see how great you are!

I am not talking about giving it ALL away.  I’m simply suggesting that you make sure that there is real, genuine value in what you decide to put ‘out there.’

OK – What are the most common marketing mistakes YOU come across?

Here’s your chance to share the most common marketing mistakes you see small businesses making. If you can offer a solution too – please do!  I want to make this post as valuable as possible.

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If you want to improve your marketing, boost sales and increase the profitability of your business; you need to understand and use the power of questions!

In marketing – questions are like gold dust because…

The questions you ask determine the answers you get!
The answers you get determine the actions you take!
The actions you take generate either success or failure.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Bob is struggling to win new clients for his business.  The mailshots he has always relied on to generate his sales leads, have slowly become less and less effective.  With very few leads, Bob is now making very few sales. So, Bob asks himself this question;

“What can I do, to make my mailshots more effective, so they generate more leads?”

The kind of answers Bob can expect might include:
“I could make a more attractive offer in the letter.”
“I could get my letters written my a professional marketing copy writer.”
“I could use a better mailing list.”

These are not bad answers – but they are answers to the WRONG question!

Bob’s problem is not the success of his mailshots! His problem is the number of sales he is making!

Bob should have asked himself a question like;

“How can I achieve a massive increase in sales and profits?”

This kind of question would lead to far more valuable answers, like;
“I could stop mailing 500 companies a month using the post and mail 100,000 companies a month instead using email.  The savings will be massive – making the cost of each sale dramatically lower and my profits far higher!”

“I could advertise my widgets in ‘The Widget Gazette’ and get my sales message in front of 200,000 widget buyers next week!”

“I could start attracting leads using pay-per-click advertising on Google / Yahoo etc!”

“I could get my widget website fully Search Engine Optimised and use an SEO company that will work on a commission basis!”

“I could do an endorsed mailing with another company; where they recommend my widgets to their clients – the results can be stunning and the cost-per-sale is very low, increasing my profits!”

The marketing power of questions

There are an almost limitless number of GREAT answers to the second, more effective question!  Each answer has the potential to solve Bob’s sales dilemma and with so many great options, it’s far more likely that he will turn his sales figures around!

If you want to make more sales or increase your profits – make sure you are asking yourself the right questions.

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As any marketing professional worth their salt will confirm, successful marketing is based around a process, where you ‘test, measure, test measure’ everything you do, until it’s as effective as you can get it.

Here’s how testing & measuring works!

You test (or try) a new idea and then you measure the results you get. If your business uses mail shots, test a new headline and measure what feedback you get.

If, for example, your new headline generates a 10% increase in enquiries or sales – keep the new headline and dump the previous one.  Then, test a different offer or guarantee in the mailing.  If the new offer or guarantee increases your response rate by 20%, keep it.  If it reduces the number of positive responses you get, dump it and test another offer or guarantee.

Over a relatively small number of mailings, you can dramatically improve your results.

This constant tweaking, based on testing and measuring, is how you improve your marketing results. However, you never start off with perfect marketing.

Your aim is to leverage your marketing, so you get the best possible return you can. This means it is always a work-in-progress – never perfect!

Paralysis by analysis

I spoke with the owner of a small business last week, who had some really exciting ideas for marketing her services.  The problem is, she has had these great ideas for over a year and still done nothing with them!  When I asked her what was causing the delay, she replied; “I’m a perfectionist.  Everything has to be just right before I begin.”

Ironically, the perfect way to begin your marketing is to decide what you what to do and then JUST START! Once you know you have a good idea or you see a good marketing opportunity, get to work immediately!  One of the reasons many small businesses fail to achieve the sales success they want, is that they suffer from ‘paralysis by analysis.’ 

By  examining everything in too much detail and then waiting for every condition to be just perfect, they either do nothing at all or take so long that the opportunity has gone!

Only change one thing at a time

When you use the test / measure approach in your marketing, it’s really important that you only ever test one thing at a time.  If you change more than one element, it’s impossible to see what caused the change in your feedback.

So, if you currently run an advertisement in a magazine or website, only change one component of that advertisement then measure the difference in the response you get.  If you change the size of an advertisement and also the wording or design, you will not know what created the increase or decrease in your results.

Measure everything!

It’s extremely important to measure your feedback accurately and fully.  This means you need to measure the negative response as well as the positive.  An email marketing exercise that generates 10 replies, from people who do not become clients, is NOT a zero response rate!  It is proof that 10 people read your email and were motivated enough to call or email you.

If you sent that email to 5000 people, it’s also proof that 4990 people DIDN’T feel motivated enough to call or email you – and that’s just as valuable!

What they say in their response to your marketing is also really important. For example, if they say that they expected your fee or price to be lower than you quoted – they are telling you clearly that you need to pump more value into your marketing message! Measure everything and then, when you test the next time, use that feedback to improve your results.

Start now – Look at your existing marketing for an opportunity to test and measure.

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