When you want to build a customer base, the obvious solution would be to reach as many potential customers as possible, right? However, what if your business is scrapbooking supplies and your advertising is reaching middle-aged males who have no interest in the hobby? What if you are selling gardening tools to people who primarily live in high-rises in the middle of the city?

It is clear that not all traffic is created equal. If you marketing approach is not geared to targeted traffic, you may end up spending a lot of marketing dollars for very little return. The best way to get a good value from your advertising dollar is to gear your ads to the people who are most interested in your products or services. One of the most effective ways to achieve this goal is through JV marketing. This article will explain why.

Finding Related Businesses

Let's go back to the owner of the scrapbooking business. If this business owner decides to form a JV partnership, her best prospects will be those in a field related to, but not exactly like, her own. For example, she might partner with a company that sells cameras and offers photography classes. Since moms are often the scrap bookers of the family, she might look for businesses that cater to products for young children or pregnancy-related supplies. By looking for businesses related to her own, she is more likely to find potential customers that would be interested in the products she is selling.

Time and Money Savings

The business owner in our example has automatically put her efforts into marketing to a targeted audience, without the need for market research or other costly methods to find the people who would be more likely to purchase her scrapbooking supplies. Instead, she simply hunted out the businesses related to her own that would already have a targeted customer base. By adding her business name to this established company, she directly reaches targeted traffic for a fraction of the time and money it would cost for her to fish out potential customers on her own.

Many business owners fail to see the value of joint venture partnerships in locating targeted traffic. Instead, they put their money into companies that provide mailing lists of potential, targeted customers for a fee. While there is nothing wrong with purchasing mailing lists per se, the cost of these lists can be rather exorbitant for the new business owner with a limited marketing budget. Instead, a JV partnership can provide the same benefits, with little or no cost up front.

The hardest part of an effective joint venture partnership is often finding businesses in related industries to your own. The secret is finding a company that is closely related to your business in order to narrow your targeted traffic to potential customers most likely to buy from you. However, if your businesses are too similar, you may find your companies in competition with one another and the JV partnership will not flourish for either one of you. Choose your prospective partners carefully, with targeted traffic in mind, and your JV marketing campaign will provide the best value for the cost.