A joint venture or strategic alliance is a form of partnership where businesses come together to share knowledge, markets, and profits. They can take on various forms. Small companies can band together to take on the goliaths of their industry. Big companies can form alliances with quicker and larger number of small businesses. And in turn small companies have the opportunity to forge strategic alliances with big name companies for expanded geographic reach.

Joint ventures and strategic alliances can be a positive outcome for all parties involved. Joint ventures are partnerships in which two or more businesses join forces to work together in promoting each other’s business. Both parties agree to endorse each others service or products on their website, in their newsletters or mailings.

The Golden Rewards of Joint Ventures

1) Shorten the Learning Curve: Building knowledge to expand into key markets, develop new products, and improve productivity, can be time-consuming and costly. Small businesses gain lead time, share expertise, and lower costs by forming joint ventures.

2) Enhance Company Credibility: All businesses especially start-ups struggle with building acceptance within their market and customer base. A key alliance with a larger known branded company can dramatically improve credibility in the eyes of customers.

3) Create New Profit Channels: Your business has limited resources and capital for growth. By formulating a joint venture with a solid partner, your company expands its sales force and distribution channel for low cost.

4) Build Competitor Barriers: A strategic alliance with several key players can erect impenetrable walls, keeping out competitors and maintaining high profit margins. Once these ties are in place, it is difficult for competitors to compete these relationships.

Webmasters that participate in joint ventures look for targeted markets (businesses that are in close relationship to theirs). The concept here is to create a business partnership with someone who has the same type of customer base as you have. This ensures that the other businesses audience will have an interest in your service or products.

Internet marketers participate in joint ventures to gain added exposure to their products or services. They recognize this marketing technique as an excellent way to grow their online business. In fact, there are some marketers who claim that this is the easiest and fastest way to make additional income.

Ways to form a joint venture:
1.) A good place to start is to try networking in discussion groups/forums. This is a great way to get your name recognized as a major player.
2.) Ezine (Newsletter) directories are another great resource to finding joint venture partnerships.
3.) Perform a search with the major search engines to find potential joint ventures.
4.) Search for sites that promote link exchanges, cross promotion forums and ezine exchanges.

4 Secrets of Successful Joint Ventures

Companies that build successful joint ventures follow the same systematic process. Although the costs of forming alliances is inexpensive, the cost of not planning out the partnership is far greater in lost profits and failed relations.

1. Set Clear Goals: Know from the beginning what you want to accomplish. Is it reduced product costs, expanded sales, or market credibility? Your partners' goals may be different but complementary to yours.

2. Find a Partner: The best partnership is based on a mutual win-win relationship. Take the time to locate a company with an honest interest in joint ventures and a similar corporate culture.

3. Plan the Venture: Map out your negotiation tactics and understand the legal aspects of the deal.

4. Manage the Relationship: Once a winning joint venture is formed the real work takes place.It is built on communication, trust and understanding.

Benefits for this type of cross promotion are:
• Easy to set up, most webmasters or publishers are very open to a joint venture partnership.
• This is a very targeted form of marketing, so you capture a selective audience.
• Increase your income potential and profit margins dramatically.
• People have a tendency to respond better to endorsements, rather than buying a product outright.
• Build credibility from other successful marketers and establish new business relationsips.