When you include a joint venture in your book marketing campaign, you add value to the customer’s order without asking them to pay more for your book.
Everyone loves bonuses; the word "free" is magical. It can imply specialness--WE buyers are getting a special deal. Why? Because we're here at the right time and place. And why are we special? Because we chose to buy your book.
Subconsciously, the feeling of obtaining anything "free"--no strings attached--may also give us permission to do or be something or someone more than we ordinarily would be willing to commit to or believe in.
"Free" allows us to take risks. We take off the mufflers of inhibition and blast the world as loudly as we can: "FREE! FREE! FREE! Count me in! Don’t leave me behind!"
Joint ventures have a carnival air about them. Lots of fun and excitement, big crowds and everyone spreading the word ABOUT YOUR BOOK.
For you, the author/entrepreneur/therapist, all this high energy floats upward and outward. Expansion broadens your playing field by adding potential optin email subscribers to your list. Several of those lists can total in the tens of thousands and deliver many more sales than anticipated.
Joint ventures build a community of colleagues supporting each other’s endeavors. I can’t recall which of the well-known internet marketing gurus also points out that "free" also conjures up feelings of guilt. If someone gives you something, you feel obliged to pay back the favor.
Likewise, if one of your colleagues adds a bonus item to your campaign, you may feel obliged to do the same for them. Even though all this goodwill may be linked to an agenda, I prefer to call it team spirit—people helping people.
How it works
Let’s say Sally, a marriage and family counselor, has an ebook on time management for working parents with young children. You are a hypnotherapist and your book is about releasing stress. Your two books are a wonderful match. You suggest to Sally that she offer a free excerpt of her ebook as part of your list of buying incentives.
In your sales sheet or squeeze page, you will include a brief promotion paragraph for Sally’s book, a photo of Sally and a hyperlink for downloading her ebook excerpt.
Sally’s autoresponder page where your buyers will download her free bonus can contain promotional material about her consulting services. It may also promote her new DVD on parenting, or other books and products she’s developed.
Sally will support your joint venture by sending out a promotional email to her optin emailing list. The hidden message is: if these optin email subscribers respect Sally, they will trust her judgment in recommending the products and services of her colleagues.
This message is often right on target, and that’s the beauty of joint ventures. Several people on Sally’s list will join your subscription list and possibly buy your book.
Every time you add other bonus or joint venture partners to your sales campaign, you multiply your potential for shoppers (and buyers).
You agree to support each other’s sales campaigns by offering a free item to each of your squeeze pages. Joint ventures have joint benefits. In addition to boosting the campaign by offering buying incentives, joint ventures also provide free publicity for the generous donor.
Whenever the buyer accepts a joint venture partner's free gift (after making the purchase, of course), they will land on that partner's autoresponder downloading or shopping cart page.
Behind the scenes, you or your webmaster will have worked out the logistics of offering a commission to each of these joint venture partners whenever a sale comes in through one of their optin subscribers.
If you need help creating a joint venture, contact one or more of your favorite internet marketing gurus and they’ll be happy to refer you to the company they use. Or if they’ve developed their own joint venture software, you may be able to purchase it (after you subscribe to their optin email list!).
Check out the websites of some of the most successful internet marketers. If you join their email subscription list and copy their procedures, you will know exactly how to include a joint venture in your book marketing campaign.
Membership Sites
You already have a membership site once people have subscribed to your optin email. Your site would be considered a public one or open to everyone.
A different type of membership site may charge an entry fee and block off a special section “for members only.” The goal is to create an online “home” for the paying subscribers and to encourage these members to “come home” to this website daily or at least several times a week.
To maintain a private website, the owner makes a commitment to post new articles, blog entries, responses to members’ feedback commentary, and other fresh material almost daily.
Attrition rate tends to be high for sites of this nature; people will join and participate for awhile. Then at a certain point, if the material starts to repeat itself or if it doesn't hold their interest, they'll unsubscribe and look elsewhere.
In some ways, this type of membership site is similar to a group therapy session. It works exceptionally well for people who like to air their problems publicly, and also for those who are looking for online companionship. Free social networking sites often work just as well for these people.
On a much higher level are private member sites run by competent professionals. A typical model is a blog run by a well-known journalist on the Beltway (Washington, D.C. area). He manages to get scoops almost daily, so his material is always “juicy.” Members are only too happy to pay a fee to read it. This type of blog is also perfect for selling books.
Some private membership sites do not charge a fee. For security or other proprietary reasons, the owners do not wish to welcome the public. Obviously these sites exist for information only, and would be categorized non-commercial.
You now have all the tools you need to write, publish and market your articles and books on the internet. For additional information, I know of no better reference website than the one on which I am posting these articles: SelfGrowth.com.
Check out SelfGrowth's many outstanding coaches, mentors and entrepreneurs, especially in the Success Skills and Money & Management departments. Read their articles and other postings to learn more about them. I’m sure these high achievers will be happy to assist you.
For further help, please feel free to contact me by phone or email. I look forward to reading your books and learning about your successes!
Carol Adler, MFA’s first ghost-written book listing her name as co-editor, Why Am I Still Addicted? A Holistic Approach to Recovery, was endorsed by Deepak Chopra, M.D., and published by McGraw-Hill. Other publications include three novels, four books of poetry, and well over 200 poems in literary journals. She has ghostwritten over 40 non-fiction and fiction works for a number of professionals in the education, health care and human potential industries.
Carol is President of Dandelion Books, LLC of Tempe, Arizona; a full service publishing company. She is also President and CEO of Dandelion Enterprises, Inc., Write to Publish for Profit and President of the International Arts & Media Foundation, a non-profit subsidiary of Dandelion Enterprises, Inc.
Her business experience includes co-ownership of a Palm Beach, FL public relations company and executive management positions in two U.S. rejuvenation and mind/body wellness corporations, for which she founded publishing divisions.
Carol has served as editor of several poetry and literary magazines. Her career experience includes extensive teaching of college-level creative and business writing, and conducting of writing workshops in prisons, libraries, elementary, junior and high schools, and senior citizen centers.
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