John Warwicker - Co-Founder of Tomato Design Company
John Warwicker - Co-Founder of Tomato Design Company
Joint Venture Marketing can be an effective way to grow your revenue. But too often, marketers approach joint ventures from a transactional perspective, rather than an emotional one. This might sound like a minor difference; however it can have profound implications for the success of your campaign.
In this blog post I want to show you how we discovered that the triggers we used when approaching joint venture partners had profound implications on whether or not they would respond to our offer. In other words, there were certain marketing techniques and strategies that worked better than others at generating interest in potential partners and increasing the chance they would actually agree to work with us on a project.
In our case, the offer we wished to promote was a three-day training course on how to sell products using joint venture marketing. We had built a sizeable list of opt-in subscribers and since we didn't have a lot of extra cash to spend on advertising, building that list was going to be critical in making this joint venture campaign successful.
When you decide to approach people with a Joint Venture Marketing offer, your goal is typically going to be two-fold. First you want them to respond by opting in; that way you can start building your list of potential customers. Second, you want them respond by taking action, and perhaps even purchasing something from your partner or offering resources of their own.
So how do you approach people and get them to respond? To answer this question we decided to try a number of different marketing techniques and strategies. We used the following three techniques to approach our joint venture partners:
1. The Utilitarian Approach (The Call to Action)
This was the first technique we used when approaching our potential joint venture partners. We created a landing page that contained an opt-in form and an ad for our training course with one main call-to-action: "Sign Up Here!". The advantage of this approach is that it is simple, clear and concise.
The potential disadvantage is that it might seem too direct; you might come across as demanding instead of helpful and friendly. However, we decided to take our chances on this one since it was the most efficient and easiest to create. After all, "Sign Up Here" seems pretty straightforward!
2. The Integrative (Integrity) Approach
This was the second technique we used when approaching our potential joint venture partners. We used a landing page that contained an opt-in form and an ad for our training course with two main call-to-actions: "Sign Up Here!" plus "Get the Complete Blueprint:". The advantage of this approach is that it draws the potential partner's attention to the value of the complete package you are offering.
The disadvantage is that it might seem a bit more confusing than the first option. However, we decided to take our chances on this one as well since it also seemed like an effective way to draw people in by implying there was more value if they opted-in and gave us their contact information. In fact, though, all we promised was to let them know when we opened up enrollment for this upcoming course. We never promised to send them the complete "Blueprint".
3. The Creative Approach
This was the third technique we used when approaching our potential joint venture partners. We created a landing page that contained an opt-in form and an ad for our training course with three call-to-actions: "Sign Up Here!", "Get the Complete Blueprint" and "Download this limited offer now!". The advantage of this approach is that we were able to leverage the creative appeal of design to get people's attention. The disadvantage is that it might seem too creative for some people and it might also take them longer to click on it than the other two options.
What We Learned
Now that we had our three different landing pages and a way to track which one was most effective, all we had to do was start approaching people. So we started by reaching out to our existing contacts, as well as some industry leaders we admired. Here is what happened:
The Results Don't Lie!
The utilitarian call-to-action didn't yield much response at all when it came to getting responses from our potential joint venture partners. The integrative approach did slightly better; however the creative approach was by far the most effective of the three! And what's more, the results actually matched up with what we expected prior to running this test.
This was particularly true considering that the more "creative" approach had attracted more interest from our target audience. After all, we knew that these people were interested in design and call-to-action marketing; two of the three images were designed for maximum appeal. Who wouldn't be interested in a "No Junk" landing page? Not only did the creative approach get us more opt-ins and sign ups, it also got us more offers from joint venture partners!
How Can You Use This to Improve Your Joint Venture Marketing Campaigns?
Take a look at your current joint venture marketing campaigns and identify what you're currently doing, whether it be your landing pages or other parts of your campaign. You may be surprised by what you find! Does all of your existing marketing speak to the needs of your joint venture partners in the same way? Do you have any landing pages that generate more opt-ins or sign ups than others? Do you have any campaigns with significantly better results than others?
Once you've asked yourself these questions, review the results we shared above. What do they tell you about your current joint venture marketing campaigns? Are there any landing pages or ad approaches that are working exceptionally well for you, while those that aren't generating as much interest are doing nothing at all? It's easy to turn a blind eye to these things when they don't work in your favor.
Conclusion
Have you ever tried landing pages to get people to opt in for your joint venture marketing campaigns? What were the results? Did different approaches perform better than others for you? Let us know in the comments.
Interested in more on landing pages and how they can help drive customers to your joint venture marketing campaigns? Check out this post from us on how we use creative design, storytelling and call-to-action marketing to transform new and old prospects into customers.