Ideal
Marketing Methods for Home-Based Businesses
© 2003 Vishal P. Rao
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:
1. Marketing keeps you ahead of the competition
2. Marketing brings you a steady stream of revenue
3. Marketing provides leads for future sales
4. 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.
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: http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com
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