The Gateway Creates A Win-Win-Win Situation

With the Chamber Business Gateway, everyone benefits!

Chambers have a great way to maintain and increase their membership by providing a powerful marketing and business development tool. Additionally, they are able to realize a brand new revenue stream. Members get instant access to thousands of targeted potential customers coming to the Chamber web site, have an easy and quick way to provide and manage the information they want to offer about their business, and have access to many useful and powerful tools that they can use to develop their business online. Visitors have a great no-hassle location where they can find a wealth of information about Chamber members and do business with them directly on the Chamber's site.

It's a win-win-win situation for everyone!

How The Gateway Benefits Chambers

There are many benefits that this CBG has for Chambers. Below is an initial list of benefits, and the Gateway is flexible enough that a Chamber may find uses for it that are not even listed here.

1. The CBG program PAYS a Chamber to participate. Because of our innovative revenue sharing model, the Chamber actually makes money from the CBG! Each month, Trivekta writes participating Chambers a check for a percentage of every subscription fee processed the previous month. In exchange, the Chamber agrees to promote the CBG as its sole online business member network and allows Trivekta to act as designated representatives of the Chamber in marketing the CBG to its members. The money will ideally be used by the Chamber to market their web site both online and offline, but can be used by the Chamber as it sees fit. This revenue model makes the service completely self-sustainable by spreading the promotional cost across all of the participating members, and rewards the Chamber for participating in the program.
2. The CBG requires no extra work from the Chamber. The Chamber's only technical responsibility is to allow Trivekta to access its web site in order to put in our system hooks so that visitors can find business gateways and members can sign up on the system. Once the CBG is installed, Trivekta maintains, supports, markets, sells and promotes the Gateway to the Chamber members and the local community. The only thing that Trivekta requires is an occasional authorization from the Chamber for the marketing and educational materials we send out. CLICK HERE to learn more about Trivekta and our role as your partner.
3. The CBG gives Chambers a tangible way to benefit their members. Many of the accomplishments achieved by Chambers go unnoticed because they happen over time and/or they are not tangible. The CBG gives Chambers the ability to give their members a visible business development tool that they can manage. The CBG also gives Chambers the ability to mine rich statistics on their member Gateways to see what Internet visitors are looking for, how to help their members improve their visibility, how to better promote areas of the business community that aren’t getting as much exposure, and so on.
4. The CBG increases Chamber membership. One major goal of every Chamber is growing its membership and retaining current members. As the participation in the CBG grows, the Chamber web site gets more exposure and more visitors, and members will see real results from their participation. This means the Chamber has powerful and persuasive data to be able to sell new memberships and increase member participation. The CBG comes with detailed statistics that easily allow Chambers to present compelling data to potential members on why they should become members and take advantage of the CBG. The CBG is an exclusive benefit available ONLY to Chamber members.
5. The CBG improves member retention. You must to be a Chamber member to have a Gateway. If members lapse on their dues their Gateway will eventually expire. This provides strong incentive for members getting benefits from the CBG to maintain their membership dues.
6. The CBG increases the value and exposure of the Chamber web site, as well as the member Gateways. Using the CBG, the Chamber site becomes a valuable source of information about the local community and a great place for visitors to do business. The CBG is optimized for Google and other search engines to index individual Gateways. This results in more traffic to the main Chamber web site. And best of all, the Chamber does not have to maintain all this rich information and exposure by hiring additional staff or increasing its web budget because the participating members maintain all the information themselves!
7. The CBG is a powerful cross-promotion, revenue generation and up-selling tool. Once members have entered their information in the CBG and are actively maintaining it, the CBG becomes an invaluable way to tie in with other events, programs, marketing and promotions that the Chamber is doing. Here are a few examples:
   • Bundling. The CBG allows Chambers to create a membership bundle that pays for a yearly membership as well as the initial subscription to the CBG.
   • Highlighting important local industries. Chambers can create special pages on their web site for such things as real estate, merchants, dining, lodging, activities, etc. that aggregate information from related Gateways and offer the opportunity for associated businesses to purchase additional ad space and sponsorships, generating more revenue for the Chamber.
   • Increase promotional effectiveness. Chambers can take out ad space in national magazines promoting certain types of recreation in their area and pointing readers to a special page on their site that aggregates Gateways from recreational companies in their area.
   • And more! The possibilities are truly endless, and can be customized to a Chamber's particular needs.
8. The CBG benefits the entire community. The revenue that the members put into the Gateway flows back into their Chamber and their community as visitors are able to directly and conveniently spend money in the community. The additional exposure online also means that communities that may be struggling to attract tourism dollars or business relocation have a way to tell a more compelling story about what’s available in their business community.

How The Gateway Benefits Chamber Members

There are also numerous benefits for Chamber members, some of which have been covered above. Here is a quick list of benefits that members get from the CBG:

1. Members get exposure to thousands of potential customers. Any business owner knows that exposure to the right kind of customers is vital. Many Chamber web sites, even small ones, have thousands of visits to their sites each month. These visitors are hot leads because they are specifically searching for local information, products and services. The CBG makes it easy for them to find what they seek. Members can use the CBG to promote their own valuable web site properties, or get their feet wet on the Internet for the first time by setting up a Gateway in a place where they are much more likely to get customer inquiries.
2. Members get a lot of exposure and functionality for a very low cost. For less than a dollar per day – much less than most traditional advertising – a business can have 24x7 access to a worldwide market of customers looking for local information. The return on investment is extremely high for members who use the CBG.
3. Members have full and instantaneous control over their business information. Any member can modify their Gateway without contacting the Chamber. They can make edits from anywhere in the world where they have access to a web browser connected to the Internet. The changes are instantly available for any web site visitor to see.
4. Members get access to sophisticated business tools for one low subscription price. The CBG is infinitely extensible with all kind of tools for businesses to use – from an online coupon builder to photo slideshows to shopping carts to blogs and so on. For instance, real estate agents can optionally subscribe to the Real Estate Edition* that allows their Gateways to have their MLS listings directly available from the main search tool on the Chamber site, mortgage and loan calculators, listing notification tools and much more.

*Some real estate related services are only available in certain locations.

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