Do you find blogging to be lonely?
After all, you are alone at your keyboard with no company but your own thoughts.
Do you intentionally make blogging a solitary activity?
Do you, like others, manipulate situations, so you are alone and can find time to blog?
What if you could have the best of both worlds– the solitude of blogging and a group of bloggers as well?
What if the members of this group were your partners?
Suppose they could help you meet your blogging goals even if their goals were different from yours?
There are such people. They actually have a special name.
They are your Joint Venture Partners (JV’s), and they exist to make your online experience a success.
Consider this comment from a blogger:
It’s quite hard to make contact with real people on the internet sometimes, so when I actually get talking to real people, I try to make sure I keep that going on…
Consider this comment from a reader:
I’ve been blogging for just over a year now and have found it to be very solitary. If I had known that collaboration was the key to traffic, perhaps I would have had a much wider readership by now.
Consider this comment from another blogger:
What I enjoy the most about blogging are the conversations and making new blog friends. Â It is connecting that makes blogging so incredible.
According to Lifehack,
When it comes to online activities [like blogging], there are fewer people to commiserate with, and you feel a slow isolation coming on as months go by.
Feeling isolated can eventually impact your mental well-being and productivity. It might even make you feel depressed and negative.
So, break out of it when you see the signs. We’re social creatures, and we crave connection. A few small changes can help you connect, recharge, and get your mojo back in no time.Â
You don’t have to go it alone. You can take other people on your path. They don’t even have to be bloggers, but they can still accompany you on your journey and help you.
Consider this post a follow-up to my popular blogging collaboration article. The article offered hypothetical ways bloggers can collaborate in joint ventures. This post offers real-life examples of bloggers who work with others to help them online. In return, their partners promote them online. Hence the term cross promotion.
What are joint venture partners?
Joint Venture partners actively promote each other. The person you help and the person who helps you is your cross-promotional partner. Since you have a joint venture, a common purpose, he or she is also called your joint venture partner or JV.
Small business direct response marketing consultant Mark Newsome has been blogging since 2010.
It is through cross promotion that Mark has experienced a wide readership, a reputation in the community as a knowledgeable marketer, and connections among bloggers and marketers that make blogging social and not solitary.
In just six months, he amassed over 6,719 Email subscribers. That is in addition to being a full-time marketer.
Many bloggers complain they are too busy (or tired) to do what it takes to blog successfully. There is no need to feel either!
Mark has had plenty of help!
How do I know? Easy! I am one of his Joint Venture partners!
How to be a More Effective Blogger Through Cross-Promotion
How Mark Promotes His Joint Venture Partners:
Mark and I help each other in many ways. The bottom line is service for service.
For example, I have taught Mark how to get blog traffic from Pinterest and how to use Google Docs.
Mark has taught me how to market my Blog Critique and Coaching Services. Mark is also teaching me how to annotate my YouTube videos.
In addition, Mark has introduced me and my blog critique service to his readers. In this post, and when my readers need a proven direct response, small business consultant, marketing expert, I promote Mark as well.
Mark has additional joint-venture partners besides me. He explained why he loves promoting people and being promoted in return:
One of the main reasons, that he always, initially tries to enter into, and or create some type of mutually beneficial, strategic joint venture (JV), and or create a cross promotion arrangement, with other non-competing entrepreneurs, and or vendors, is because over the long term, you simply can’t beat the potential marketing strategy!
Case in point: One of Mark’s JV/cross-promotional partners, features Mark in a promotional video, and Mark also features the video on his YouTube channel. Mark returns the favor by periodically creating blog posts that direct his audience to this particular partner’s services page.
Another one of Mark’s JV partners features a short promo video that they created to their audience inside one of their paid membership sites. By the same token, Mark returns the favor, by giving this particular JV partner, free cross-promotional exposure to his audience.
And as their new trial, and repeat paying, members utilize the site, Mark constantly gets free exposure.
According to Mark, he loves to point out the advantages to all of his potential, first-time, paying, consulting customers!
It is beneficial to take the time up front, to create, this type of  set and forget JV marketing arrangements, and it is simple to do it!
Mark uses two proven marketing strategies:
- First, he periodically creates a blog post that features either one of their videos designed for getting new subscribers. Mark explained that he and his JV made a banner designed to get new subscribers, and he places their banner on the homepage of his blog!
That way, as his unique monthly visitor stats continually grow, his JV partner also gets the benefit of that continued growth as well!
For example, this video sits in the middle of Mark’s post How and Why Extremely Savvy Entrepreneurs Know You Gotta Cross Promote.
Look who is in the video. Me! Mark has thousands of subscribers. This is free advertising for my Blog Critique service.
Many people recommend paying for advertising. Have you ever tried Pay Per Click Advertising? It gets more expensive with each click. There is no chance of that here.
Also, as Mark explained, once your ads stop, so does your paid traffic.
However, according to Mark, properly constructed cross-promotional strategies, keep on working, regardless!
And even if they don’t, it is free to try it.
Equally important, Mark also likes to point out, there is absolutely nothing to prevent either party from including the other’s links in any future products they may decide to create and sell!
Case Study Example #2 Michael Rios
Mark and I cross promote groups on our site. I promote his Reddit group, and he promotes my StumbleUpon group.
If you click his link and look in his left and right sidebars, you will see my photo. Michael is giving me free advertising for my StumbleUpon group which is a perk for my blog subscribers. I may not stand to gain money like I do with Mark, but with Michael’s help, I hope to gain new blog subscribers.
The first week Michael promoted my group, I received forty new subscribers within a three-day period.
Michael and I met on another blogger’s site, just like Mark and I did.
Case Study Example #3 Gail Gordon
Gail has been promoting a group of people she knows online, and they have been promoting her for seven years!
Gail and I met on Twitter.
Case Study Example #4 Barbara Radisavljevic
Barbara described the cross-promotional activities she is involved in:
I currently collaborate with other bloggers on sites we all contribute to. Each of us posts one day a week. Then we all comment on each other’s posts and share them.
Barbara and I met on Facebook.
Where Do You Find Potentially Helpful Joint Venture Partners?
I am not joint venture partners with the latter two. They cross promote other people. Â I included where I met them to show people who are cross-promotional partners can meet anywhere.
Mark actually found me in the Comment Section on a blog we both read.
Don’t feel you have to limit yourself to bloggers either. Blogging is my area of expertise while Mark’s is marketing. Therefore, we complement each other.
If you are strong in blogging, you could find a JV who is strong in writing or technology, for example.
Tools Can Help You with Cross Promotion
When Michael and I communicate, we Email each other.
When Mark and I collaborate, we work on the same document at the same time using Google Docs. Thanks to this tool, I show up as one color, and he shows up as another, so neither of us is confused.
When Gail communicates with her cross-promotion group, they use Trello.
All these tools are free.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you are even considering becoming a more serious blogger about getting traffic or money, consider these two things:
First, Mark has a free nine-page special report explaining his strategies.
Next, you definitely need to start putting together your own JV (Joint Venture), cross-promotional arrangements, with non-competing vendors and or entrepreneurs!
Important  note: Mark normally offers a free 15 minute one on one power consultation, which is a $62.50 Value!
I’ve also arranged for Mark to offer any of my subscribers a free 30 minute, (absolutely) no obligation, one on one power consultation, to help you discuss, how you might start fusing, both your on and offline marketing activities!
This is a $125 dollar value! The only condition is, in order to qualify for it, you first need to join Mark’s “Inner Circle” email list, then merely reach out to him, via the contact page on his blog, and mention “Janice Wald Special Offer” in your subject line. Mark will get back to you with details of when the two of you can talk, either by phone and or Skype.
In closing, according to blogger Danny Ray, human beings do not develop fully if isolated; we require interaction with other people.
If you use a cross-promotional partner, you save money on advertising, you get help blogging, and connect with another content creator in a joint venture.
Please share, so other bloggers know that they can get help from other online content creators and not have to go it alone.
Readers, what do you think? Did these examples provide any ideas for how you can collaborate with other bloggers? I look forward to your views.
Related Posts:
This is the Way to Quickly Increase Your Blog Traffic: Blogger Collaboration
