By Vishal P. Rao (c) 2003
What is the difference between a small business that makes it and one
that does not? Most likely, the one that was successful engaged in
some effective marketing. Wise marketing is critical for owners of
home-based businesses for a number of reasons:
- Marketing keeps you ahead of the competition
- Marketing brings you a steady stream of
revenue
- Marketing provides leads for future sales
- Marketing helps increase awareness about
your business
Marketing is not something you just jump into, however. It requires
careful examination and evaluation. Not every method, after all, will
lead to the benefits mentioned above.
When it comes to selecting the methods you use with your business,
remember to keep in mind your target audience and your budget, then
start narrowing the list of possibilities. You may also want to try a
few of these marketing methods which have been proven effective for
other home-based businesses:
Affiliate Programs
Almost all home-based businesses can work with an affiliate program.
With this type of program, you recruit other people to sell your
products/services and reward them with a percentage of the revenue
(usually 3 to 10%).
The mechanics of these programs works like a restaurant franchise.
Because your recruits are now associated with your company's name, you
want to be sure that they are maintaining your standards of quality
and professionalism, so many affiliate programs include ready-made web
sites, sales materials, and more.
These recruits then attempt to make sales on your behalf. The benefit
is that all of their marketing efforts (beyond what you provide) are
not part of your business's expenses, and they have the potential to
reach new segments of potential clients and customers.
Giveaways
This type of marketing is one of the most popular with all businesses
and can be handled in at least two ways: free gifts with a purchase
and/or contests.
You have probably come across ads or web sites that sell e-books or
other products and offer a number of free gifts with the purchase of
the product. The lure of freebies helps people make the decision to
purchase. You can do the same thing with your product or service. Keep
in mind that whatever you offer as a free gift should be inexpensive
to produce so that you don't lose money on the deal.
Contests can also be quite effective if done creatively. For example,
if your business was selling e-books, you could hold a contest with
the grand prize being a free copy of one of your top-selling e-books.
But what about second place? Many people don't realize that there's no
rule or law against giving a prize to every person who enters your
contest so why not reward all of the other people who entered with a
significant discount on the price of that same e-book? Many of those
second place winners will take the discount and make a purchase.
Search Engine Optimization
If you do any business online, an important part of your marketing
efforts should be search engine optimization or SEO. SEO essentially
means that you tweak your site so that it appears near the top of
search engine results for certain keywords.
Generally this involves repeating those keywords frequently and
placing keywords in headlines, meta tags, and introductory paragraphs.
While it may sound easy, most businesses turn their SEO efforts over
to professionals. If bringing an expert in fits your marketing budget,
you may want to enlist their assistance.
Referral Reward Programs
Another type of program aimed at bringing people to your site is a
type of referral reward program. During the Internet boom, many sites
had these type of programs which paid a few cents for each person who
visited a site from a link listed at your site or through some other
means.
Now, however, they simply are not as popular, but they can still be
beneficial. Instead of offering a cash reward, allow your customers to
earn your products/services by referring new business to you.
For example, you may want to offer a free e-book to customers who
refer five new customers to your site. These new customers may have to
make a purchase, join the referral reward program, become a member, or
sign up for the newsletter. People will do a great deal if the reward
is right.
Whether you elect to use one of these marketing methods or choose one
of your own, the key is to test its effectiveness. Try it out for
awhile and see if the results are satisfactory. If not, return to the
drawing board. If so, then implement it on a larger scale. With
careful planning and testing, your business will experience the
benefits of marketing firsthand.
About The Author
Vishal P. Rao is the editor of Home Based Business Opportunities - A
website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources to make money
from home. Visit him at:
Home-Based-Business-Opportunities.com
The opinions expressed in this column are those of
the author. All answers are intended to be general in nature, without
regard to specific geographical areas or circumstances, and should
only be relied upon after consulting an appropriate expert, such as an
attorney or accountant.
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