In offline marketing terms such as sponsorships, partnerships and shared revenues were used to define what is now referred to in the online world as Affiliate Partnerships and Joint Venture Partnerships.

Both online and offline partnerships have incredible benefits and the potential for unbelievable market reach when done right. They can also have incredible pitfalls when they are not well thought out and can cause havoc to one’s market almost instantaneously if not properly planned.

Affiliate Partnership
In this type of partnership, someone else (the affiliate) helps to sell your product or service and receives a percentage of that sale based on performance. The affiliate markets to their customers and clients. Common items to sell would be software programs, eProducts, and seminar registrations. This type of partnership allows for increased revenue streams while providing added value to existing clients by offering products and/or services that would be beneficial to them.

One challenge with online affiliate partnerships is the inexperienced marketer who is encouraging people to buy something they have not tried, know nothing about and are basically trying to make a quick buck. For an affiliate partnership to be most effective, research what is being promoted and only offer items that are a good match for the market being targeted.

Considerations in choosing affiliate partnerships are:
. How credible is the product or service?
. How long has it been on the market?
. Is the market saturated with other people selling the item?
. Is there a large enough market?
. What is your percentage of the sale?
. How and when are payments made?
. What is the reputation of the person you will be selling the product or service for?

Joint Venture Partnership
The primary purpose of this partnership is cross promotion with the goal of one company selling a product/service while increasing market reach and database size for all partners. A Joint Venture partner (JV) agrees to send out a message to their market about the company or product that Company A is promoting. In return for promoting Company A’s product or service to their market, the JV is able to offer some type of incentive to Company A’s customer base. This incentive will drive anyone who purchases Company A’s product or service to the JV’s company. The incentive could be a free item or a discount on an item. Ideally, the incentive offer is free.

Assume you are spearheading just such a partnership. Let’s say you secure partnerships with ten JV’s who each have a market reach of 100,000 and you have a market reach of 100,000. With the right partners your market reach will have gone less than 10% of what you would have had to over 1,000,000.

An essential element of success in JV partnerships is that everyone involved does what they agree to do. With a well-organized partnership where everyone follows through on their part, you can reap incredible benefits. If not, you can have a huge headache to deal with, let alone what it could do to your company’s reputation.

In a perfect world these types of partnerships would be hassle-free. In reality, there are areas of consideration, such as:
. What is the reputation of your potential partners?
. Will they follow through?
. What is the quality of the incentives they are offering?
. Is the market you are targeting oversaturated with these types of partnerships?

Affiliate and Joint Venture campaigns may be one of the best business and marketing decisions you can make or they may not be a good fit at all. Make your decision based on the overall objectives of your organization. By doing your homework you will be able to determine if this is a good fit for your business model. In some cases it is a great match, in other cases you may decide to walk away.

Kathleen Gage is a bestselling author, keynote speaker and corporate trainer who works with organizations who want to increase their market position, sales and level of achievement by going beyond the obvious. Get Gage’s FREE report – Learn How I Made $100,000 from One Idea by visiting http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/100kreport.htm

There are countless methods to increase your visibility and revenues. Some are tremendously effective while others are a complete waste of time and money. Some require an extremely high financial investment while others require no money, just an investment of time. The goal of any company is to convert website visitors into buyers. Before you can do this, you must create a value for them.

The first method starts with becoming a resource before you are a vendor. This means creating credibility with your potential buyers before you ever ask for the sale. Hands down, one of the best ways to accomplish this is by offering something of high perceived value at no cost to visitors from your website. This could be a white paper, a content driven report, a how-to MP3 file, or an invitation to sign up for a seminar or business briefing.

In order to access the information or sign up for the seminar, have your visitors leave their contact information. It can be simply a name and email address or full contact information. The visitor will receive your free product and you will have gained a new contact.

The question then becomes, “How do I drive qualified visitors to my site?” It’s great to offer something from your site, but as with anything, you must know how to market your site to potential buyers.

One of the most cost-effective strategies to drive qualified traffic to your site(s) is through article writing and distribution to forums, discussion groups and Ezines that are specific to your market.

The articles must be content driven, not a blatant sales piece. With most online resources you can add what is referred to as a “resource box” at the end of the article. A resource box contains 2 – 4 sentences about you with a link back to your site.

A second effective method to drive traffic to websites is with solo ads in specific locations. Rather than trying to sell something in the solo ad, offer your free resources by giving a description of the item with a link back to where they can download or register.

Solo ads are very cost-effective and work well when placed in the right publications and sites. Again, it is based on knowing your market rather than randomly placing an ad and hoping for a result.

A third effective method in generating site traffic is to participate in Joint Venture (JV) Campaigns. In JV Campaigns, one person sells a product and dozens of other people offer a valuable bonus product with the purchase.

Basically, a bonus eProduct is offered as an incentive to buy another eProduct, book, product or service. With this type of campaign each JV Partner agrees to send a message to their readers about the campaign.

In order to have access to the bonus product, customers visit a landing page where there is a description of the bonus as well as a place to leave a name and email address in order to get the bonus.

The cost is minimal and yet the market reach is incredible, often exceeding millions. Only participate in JV campaigns with people who are reputable and their product fits with your market or message.

Regardless of which strategy you use to gain opt-in subscribers you must make sure your backend marketing systems are in place. Many businesses fail to utilize the power of Internet marketing to the fullest potential because they have no backend marketing systems. To not do this is a waste of time, money and energy.

By keeping in touch with current and potential customers you build trust and name recognition. You will be recognized as a resource before you are a vendor, putting you miles ahead of the competition.

Kathleen Gage is an award winning entrepreneur, keynote speaker and corporate trainer. Get Gage's F*R*E*E eBook STREET SMARTS EMARKETING Tips Guaranteed to Jump Start Your Internet Presence to Put You Miles Ahead of the Competition! Click http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/free-bookshelf.htm

In fact, the average person, at least, those who live in metropolitan areas, is exposed to more than 3,500 marketing messages a day. That's 24,500 messages a week and 1.2 million each year.

And to make online sales even more difficult, marketing studies have shown that it takes nine or more impressions for your business to be remembered by a potential customer. This means follow-up is essential. But in today’s world this type of relentless follow up for the average business owner is not often practical. Fortunately there is a solution that many online businesses are using every day – online marketing automation.

Imagine being able to capture new leads on your website, build customer confidence through automated sequential responses, deliver products digitally while you sleep and track all of your prospects and clients without lifting a finger. For thousands of online businesses this happens every day.

In today’s competitive environment, automation is not a luxury; it’s a requirement for keeping the competitive edge you need. In fact, the benefits of automation are so numerous you can’t afford to ignore them.

Five Keys to Online Success:

1. Capture Email Addresses. Your list is your goldmine. It is critical to all your marketing and is literally your most valuable asset. To build your mailing list it is essential that you make a compelling offer. “Sign up for my mailing list” is no longer enough. Try something like this: “Free Special Report: The 5 Keys to Dramatically Boosting Your Website Traffic in 30 Days”

Through online automation you can offer digitally downloaded special reports, e-newsletters, mini-educational courses, or free trials to entice visitors to share their name and email. When their data is entered, it is automatically placed in your database and can be programmed to trigger autoresponders which are one or multiple automated messages. Share your privacy policy below your opt-in box as well as assurance that they can unsubscribe at any time. And of course, never spam anyone.

2. Set Up Sequential Autoresponders. A very effective way to build trust with your prospects is to offer a mini-course which delivers content-rich, relevant information to your opt-in subscribers. These automatically-distributed email messages not only provide content, but also motivate prospects to revisit your site for the latest offers. And of course once they click through to your website you can offer more content delivered via audio, video and other multi-media options as well as offers for your products and services.

Since studies shows that 48% of sales people give up after the first contact and 25% after the second, this is a perfect way to make sure your follow-up stays consistent. Best of all, after you program the series it will perform flawlessly for you for years to come. There are many great automated systems on the web like: http:www.EasyWebAutomation.com.

3. Take Payments Online. It has never been easier or more affordable to set up online payment systems through PayPal or your own merchant account. And once you set up your payment account it very easy to sell products or services online by purchasing an online shopping cart. A shopping cart will allow you to capture email addresses, automate responses, track leads and then sell you product to customers around the world 24/7. These systems are surprisingly easy to setup, operate and maintain.

4. Track and Measure Your Marketing. Over the years I have trained and coached hundreds of business owners in marketing through my Guerrilla Marketing Coaching Program. Through a series of assessments it has become very clear that most businesses fall short in the area of measurement.

Here are some questions to consider:

1) How many unique visitors come to your website?

2) How many visitors opt-in to your mailing list or order your products?

3) When you send emails, how many are opened and how many people actually click through to your website?

The reason these metrics are so important is because if you don’t know these stats, you won’t know what to improve. It could be variables like the pulling power of your headlines, the copy or navigation on your website. You won’t know until you start measuring. Many of today’s automated systems include ad trackers which automatically calculate your click-throughs and conversion statistics.

5. Free Up Your Time to Work on the Most Important Parts of Your Business

When you automate daily tasks you gain more time to focus on priorities for the strategic growth of your company. This newfound discretionary time comes without your money-making activities coming to a halt, or hiring and training staff.

Also when your business becomes automated, your presence becomes optional leaving you time to actually take a vacation while making money at the same time. With most systems you can quickly and easily check your sales and orders from any web browser.

The Internet is a competitive, ever-changing marketplace. The right strategy combined with powerful and practical systems gives you an edge over your competitors. You’ll attract more customers and spend less time, money and energy winning them over. Automation services and software leverage the best technology available to make you money day and night, whether you’re there or not.

Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars (Dearborn Trade 2005) and three acclaimed psychology books. Get the #1 Multi-Media Mini-Course on the Internet at: MitchMeyerson.com Or to learn how to Automate Your Website visit www.EasyWebAutomation.com