If you’re just starting out, or if you want to take your business to a new level, a key growth strategy is to find new customers. Sounds easy, but where do you start? Taking out an expensive advertisement in the newspaper? Spending tens of thousands of dollars on a marketing campaign? No way!

Get creative and clever with how you grow your customer base by developing joint venture relationships with other businesses. Here’s how:

A joint venture does not have to mean a major deal involving lawyers! It can be as simple as sharing databases with other businesses. The aim is to grow your customer base by offering services to new potential clients.

Find a business that isn’t a direct competitor but has the same target market. When you’re starting out, it’s easier to seek businesses that are in the same food chain. For example, this could be a beautician and a hair dresser – they target the same market but they are not direct competitors. As you become more experienced, you’ll find opportunities for joint ventures in industries outside of your own.

See what value you can add to this business by offering your service at a special rate, or provide a special offer. You need to offer new customers a special deal they couldn’t otherwise access.

Pitch the idea as being a great benefit to your potential joint venture partner rather than focusing on what’s in it for you. It’s important to make it as easy as possible for the potential joint venture partner, and demonstrate what benefits you’ll be providing for them and their customers.

Offer the owner of the potential joint venture partner a complimentary trial of your service. This is your chance to really impress them, so much that they become a raving fan. Once you have them convinced that what you do is fantastic – they’ll happily refer you to their customers.

Come up with a creative way of sharing customer databases. For example, if you run a home-based beauty service, you could offer a discounted leg wax to the clients of someone who runs a home-based or retail hair dressing service. You could run a competition or promotion – anything that encourages customers to take action in a timely manner.

Implement the joint venture campaign and then review it. If it worked well for both parties then consider running it again (there’s no need to reinvent the wheel), perhaps with a different offer. If it didn’t work well – find out why and change your plan for next time.

There are many low-cost and no-cost ways to market your business. If you want to learn more, listen to the upcoming teleseminar "How to Create an Effective No-Sweat Marketing Plan" with Yesim Nicholson from My Marketing Mentor on March 26 (you’ll need to become a Home Biz Chicks member to access the call details).