Entries Tagged 'How-To-Do Tips' ↓

7  Tips How Service Providers  Can Benefit from Joint Ventures and Grow their Business

Many business owners assume that joint ventures only work for those selling products.  The truth is that many online service providers can also benefit and profit from joint venture partnerships.
 
Here’s 7 tips that can help service providers create joint ventures:

1.  Ad swaps.  Most online service providers - whether they are virtual assistants, copywriters, designers, professional or personal coaches, bookkeepers, transcriptionist etc…have a website.  Chances are they have an ezine too.  One potential partnership might include the swapping of advertising space with a relevant business.  This can be particularly helpful if you’re on a budget and looking for new clients. 

For example, a business coach could swap ad space on a website or in an ezine with a virtual assistant.  Many people using a business coach are often looking for ways to optimize their time, and a virtual assistant may be exactly what they’re looking for.  Likewise, people using a virtual assistant might be able to benefit from the services of a business coach, particularly if they’re looking for ways to grow their business.
 
2.  Email and promotions.  If you have an opt in list, or at least a list of customers, you can promote the services of a relevant business in your communications, or even as part of your next business promotions.  Likewise, your partner can do the same for you.  One idea to consider is not merely swapping, but placing an ad in your regular email communications with the agreement that you receive a small percentage of the profits.  You were going to send out the email anyway - now you can make a little bit of money with it.

3.  Guest bloggers.  Blogging on your own site connects you with your customers.  Blogging on another site connects you with their customers – who may become your customers.  Blogging is an excellent way to establish not only a rapport with prospects; you can also demonstrate your skills and knowledge, thereby increasing your credibility as a service provider.  You can swap guest blogs or you can share any profits that come your way by virtue of the blog, or you can make some other arrangement that works well for the both of you. 

4.  Ezine content exchange.  Like blogs, swapping ezine content is something that will help build your exposure and credibility.  Additionally, ezines are easily shared with others and archived for lasting stickiness. 

5.  Product creation.  Many service providers also offer information products like ebooks to give away with a newsletter subscription, or even books or audios to sell.  Partnering with another business owner to create a product can be a tremendous opportunity.  Create a promotional product to give away for free (OR sell the ebook), distribute it to both of your lists, and include advertisements and offers in the book for both of your businesses. 

6.  Swap services.  What tasks have you considered outsourcing?  Administrative tasks?  Copywriting?  Bookkeeping?  Graphic design?  As a service provider you can offer your services in exchange for a partner’s services.  For example, a copywriter may be excellent at writing copy but horrible at designing a website.  Trade a comparable amount of copywriting projects for a complete website overhaul and you’ve both benefited tremendously from the deal. 

7.  Cross-sell.  This is a fun one that many service businesses forget about.  Consider cross-selling.  For example, as a virtual assistant you could promote and offer copywriting services to your clients as a partnership.  Your copywriting partner could advertise that they also provide transcription, web updating and other tasks the virtual assistant handles.  This way you’re bringing in business for each other. 

As you can see, opportunities for service providers to benefit from online joint venture partnerships is tremendous.  Can you add any ideas for joint ventures to this list?

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6 Quick Tips to Making Attention-Grabbing Photos on eBay

Since customers can’t see your items first-hand, it is essential to provide them with quality pictures.  Doing so lends credibility to your listing that words alone can’t come close to.

Pictures of your items should show as much detail as possible.  But it’s also important to make the pictures stand out.  This can be accomplished in a number of ways.

* Make your photos look professional.  With a little practice and the right equipment, you can take pictures that are almost as good as professional ones.  You don’t need thousands of dollars worth of camera accessories and lighting.  You can do a reasonably good job with just a run-of-the-mill digital camera and good natural light.  Simply using a solid-colored background and making sure the lighting is right can go a long way toward making your photos look more polished.

* Clarify the size of your items.  If the size of your item is an important consideration, include another item in one of the photos for easy comparison .  Common items of standard sizes, such as coins, are good for smaller items.  You could also use a ruler to show the size.

* Crop your photos so that the item takes up most of the picture space.  This makes the item more prominent, and it eliminates any distractions from the background.

* Make sure that your photos are large enough to show detail.  eBay’s standard picture service limits the size of your photos, but you can have them Supersized for an additional fee.  You could also host your photos elsewhere and make them as large as you like.  This has the added benefit of eliminating the extra cost for additional pictures.  Flickr is a great source for free photo hosting, and it’s easy to resize your photos.  They also provide copy and paste code that you can use on your eBay pages.

* Add attractive borders to your pictures.  This will make them more pleasing to look at and draw the eye to them.  Just make sure that the border isn’t too overwhelming, so that it doesn’t detract from the photo itself.

* Pay the small fee for a gallery photo.  This will put a thumbnail of your main photo with your item’s description in the search results.  Items with gallery photos get more views and bids than those without.

Your product photo can make a big difference in your auction’s outcome.  Listings with high-quality, attractive, and detailed pictures often bring in higher bids compared to the same item listed with blurry pictures with poor lighting.  You don’t have to hire a professional to take your eBay photos to make them effective.  A little attention to detail can make them everything they need to be.

7  Tips to  Make your Direct Sales Website Search Engine Friendly

1.  Submit your direct sales website to web directories.  Concentrate on the Yahoo! and Open Project Directory directories.  You want to submit to quality directories with good pagerank and perferrably ones that do not require a link back.  A good list of  “FREE directory submissions” to start out with is at http://directoryrate.com/free-directory-list.php – Or, if you’re pressed for time, you can use the directory submission service that I use for submitting to directories at http://mommyrevenue.com/directorymaximizer which is very low cost.  

2.  Submit just the main page of your website, not each individual page.  The other pages will be found by following the links from the main page.  Creating a “site map” might help the search engines find all of your links, but there’s no guarantee.

3.  Choose keywords that are as specific as possible.  If your direct sales company sells educational toys, you’ll do better by using specific keywords like “educational toys” than you would using general keywords (which are highly competitive) such as “toys and games.”

4.  To improve your ranking in the search engines, get more links to your site.  Consider a “link exchange” campaign, but be picky.  Find other quality websites (offering great content) in your same niche and ask them if they would exchange links with you.   Article marketing can also get you some great links back to your site.   Be sure to write articles that will target your specific market so that when you receive visits from those that read your articles, they will be those that are truly interested in what you have to offer.

5.  Your title page tag is the first thing a search engine displays, so research and choose the best suitable description for your site.  Take your time to come up with something that will explain exactly what your website offers.   Another seo tips is to be sure to name your website’s graphics with keywords that relate specifically to your business.

6.  Draw more traffic to your site using other internet marketing methods available.  (a.) Consider adding a signature line to your outgoing email that includes your business name and website address.  (b.) Submit articles to various free article sites; make sure to include a bio box with your URL at the bottom.  (One such place that I recommend work at home moms to submit their articles to is Wahm-Articles.com )  (c.) Find related forums to get involved with, posting your link in your signature line, if it is allowed.  For this to truly be beneficial,  you need to focus on getting to know the members there and chat with them.  Just posting ads (never do so, unless it’s permitted) will bring very little, if any results.

7.  Don’t forget about offline marketing.  Have pens, business cards, and flyers printed with your direct sales business email and website.  Bumper stickers might be another good bet, as well as magnets.  Shelly Hill posted “10 Quick Ways to Advertise Your Business” at our Wahm Forum.   (If you’re still needing some affordable business cards and flyers, then I recommend trying http://mommyrevenue.com/recommendedbizcards )

 Final note: Creating a website isn’t that hard to do.  Take some time, think things through, make a plan, and then follow it through!

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