Profit Zing » Home Business

Running Your Home Based Business – Marketing Your Business

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:32:57 +0000

John Coates asked:

Marketing is critical to the success of any business, whether it is a one-person operation, a medium sized company or a multinational corporation. When running your home based business, it is even more important that marketing your business is done right, as you cannot afford to get it wrong. Remember that everything you do, and the way that you do it, is all marketing. Doing something well is usually as easy as doing it badly, but wins you a good reputation.

The UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing definition of marketing is, “The management process that identifies, anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably.” So we can see that marketing is not just about advertising and selling products or services. It is about: finding out what potential customers want; creating the products and services that satisfy those needs; selling those products and services at the right price; making those products and services available in the right place.

To check if you are doing all of these we can look at the four elements of marketing that are known as the four Ps – Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Let us look closer at the first, your product.

Does your product meet the needs of your customers? If it is not perfectly suited to customers then you may want to make some changes. Ideally, your response to this question should be that no changes are required. How do your products compare with your competitors? If they are better or compare reasonably well, then you pass this criteria. But if they do not compare very well or you do not know, you need to urgently review this particular aspect.

Every product or service can be said to have a four-stage life cycle. Birth is when a new product is launched and introduced to prospective customers. Growth occurs when the product becomes popular and starts to sell well. Maturity is when the product is selling so well that you are unable to keep up with demand. The final stage is decline, when demand and sales fall. Customers have turned their attention elsewhere. Take a good look at your product or service and decide which of these stages are applicable.

The second element of the four Ps is price. The price should be thought to be fair by the customer. It does not necessarily have to be the cheapest, but value for money. It should be competitive so that when your customers compare your prices to those of your competitors, they think yours are within the price range they would expect to pay. The price you set for your product or service must be profitable. If you are not trading at a profit you will not be running your home based business for very long. Remember that the price you set has to cover the cost of your overheads: light, heating, telephone, advertising, etc, and still provide a profit. When costing you product, you should also include your time.

The third element of marketing is that of promotion. Promotion is how a product or service is brought to the attention of your potential customers. This can be done in a number of ways and can be paid promotion or free. The former includes advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio or television. Depending on your budget you may want to consider what could be classed as “free” promotion. This could include competitions, e.g. create a winning slogan and win a holiday for two. (Remember that competitions do not have to cost you anything if you consider joint ventures!). You may want to make special offers such as: buy one get one free; buy now and pay next year; 0% interest, etc.

The final element to marketing your business is place. This covers where the goods or services are offered for sale and then the way these goods or services are distributed and delivered to the customer. In running your business from home, you need to look at how you distribute and deliver to your customer. Running your home based business does not mean you can forget this element of marketing your business.

Marketing your business well, you must get the four Ps right; product, price, promotion and place. Analyze these areas, monitor your results and be prepared to change your marketing strategy. Be willing to ask your customers or clients what they think, and be prepared to act on the results.

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Home Business Marketing: How Advertising Tactics Can Broaden Your MLM Network

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:16:17 +0000

Michael Laleye asked:

For those who wish to broaden their MLM network but don’t have the time, money, and energy to do so, a quick and dirty solution is to simply step up your advertising efforts. Take note that advertising does not necessarily mean putting up billboards or placing ads on the TV or radio. It also means doing a number of little things to help your clients recognize and remember you.

If you have advertised in any type of medium before, then you must aware that advertising costs can quickly pile up. If the advertising is done as part of a home business marketing campaign, you simply cannot afford to spend too much. If you did, the cost of building your MLM network will simply outweigh the potential benefits.

You may not have the resources to advertise to a national audience, but you certainly have the means to make people aware of what you are doing. There are many relatively inexpensive ways you can advertise. This article lists some of the alternatives that you can take to improve your visibility.

First, try printing out some flyers or stickers. Then, of course, you give them away. Flyers and stickers are very cost-effective, as you will only practically spend cents on each one. The real challenge will be to get people to notice them. If you now someone who is in advertising, ask them for advice regarding the templates of your mini-ads. If you don’t know anyone in the business, you can do it yourself – try to think of the ads that have stuck by you, and imitate the concepts behind them. Remember, the goal is to make you and your company interesting and unforgettable. You don’t want them to pick up a flyer or a sticker and instantly forget what it says – that defeats the purpose.

Second, advertise in the local paper. You might even start in your town’s local paper. Your MLM network’s foundation should include you, your loved ones, friends, and neighbors. Unless you have all the time in the world, it would be foolish to make the rounds one by one. Better to post an ad and have the people who are interested come to you. Again: make sure the ad is eye-catching and will make an impression on its readers.

Third, provide something for free. Obviously, when you give people something, they will sit up and pay attention. Whatever product you are offering in your MLM network program, experiment with giving away samples with potential clients. Chances are you’ll soon be showered with more attention than you usually would care to have. In the MLM network marketing business though, attention is what you want.

By using these three simple advertising ideas in your home business marketing campaign, you will boost the number of people who will become interested in joining your MLM network.

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Home Based Business Marketing – 4 Easy Steps To Building A Mailing List

admin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:31:40 +0000

David Ogden asked:

In your home based business marketing efforts, one of the most valuable pieces of real estate an Internet marketer can own is a mailing list. Whether you have your own products, or not, you can still build a mailing list fairly easily on the Internet today. Here are four easy steps to building a mailing list that anyone can do with a little bit of effort.

1. Use your own autoresponder to store names and email addresses. Your autoresponder should also be used to send follow up messages to the people who are subscribed to it.

The autoresponder is the key to developing a mailing list into a valuable piece of real estate. How you use your autoresponder will be of the utmost importance to the future success of your home based business marketing efforts.

2. Develop a pre-sell page with an opt-in form on it. Many affiliate marketers fall into the trap of sending their traffic directly to their affiliate sales page. Even people who are marketing their own products online make the same mistake.

You are much better to use a pre-sell page where you warm your prospect up. You can even put an opt-in form on your pre-sell page and ask your visitors to fill out their name and email address before you send them on to your sales page.

This is a good way to build your list while warming your prospects up at the same time. The key is to make this pre sell page as targeted as possible without causing your website visitor to lose interest and leave before they fill out your opt in form.

3. Your sales page is where you sell your products or affiliate products. This is where your prospects will be sent after they go to your presale page. If you’re utilizing your opt in form correctly then once they fill the form out you will redirect them to the sales page where they now have a chance to purchase a product from you.

Obviously your home based business marketing goal is to sell products to make money on the Internet. You do this on your sales page, but if your visitor chooses not to make a purchase on the first visit, you still have their name and email address that you can follow up with your autoresponder.

Since many people take several exposures to a product before they make a purchase this gives you an excellent chance to still make a sale in the future if they don’t buy from your sales page right away.

4. Market your pre sell page like crazy all over the internet. You need to learn how to promote your pre sell page to get traffic to it. The only way the previous three steps will work is if you are getting visitors to this page.

These are four home based business marketing tips you can use today to start building your own list. If you’re serious about making money in your business, then list building needs to be on the top of your daily priority list… every day.

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Home Business Marketing Secrets

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:44:47 +0000

Tom McMULLEN asked:

If you want to make sales you need to do some home business marketing unless you are lucky enough to get all of your customers from word of mouth. Most businesses, no matter how large are not that lucky.

People from kids to 80 year olds now buy things on the internet. It is becoming second nature to compare product prices, and look at various merchants online before they actually make a purchase.

This is good news for business owners who are using the internet to make money. You can sell more, and make more money if you are being found online. So how do you do that.

First of all, if you do not have a website or blog of your own, you need to get one. Part of your home business advertising efforts will revolve around sending traffic to your site and you can not do that effectively using any old replicated or affiliate website.

When you set up your site make it easy to get around in. One mistake many business owners make is they clutter their site with useless junk that actually detracts from their main products. Solicit some outside opinions on your site as it is easy to fall in love with your work and be blinded to any problems it may have.

Another important factor to keep in mind is how fast does your site load. Slow loading sites lose visitors who will not wait around. They will leave and go somewhere else like your competitors.

If you are unsure about how to lay your site out look at what the top websites in your industry are doing. This should give you some ideas for your own website.

One more point to keep in mind is that everyone who visits your site will leave. It is to your benefit to have an opt in form where they can join your newsletter, or access a free report.

You will greatly enhance your home business marketing efforts if you capture information for future follow up. Imagine that you have thousands of visitors coming to your site everyday and only a small percentage will buy anything from you.

The best thing you can do is get as many names and email addresses to follow up with and turn some of those into future customers. You can not do that if you let everyone leave to never hear from you again.

So how do you get visitors to your website? You do that 2 ways.

1. Offline marketing

2. Online marketing

If your business has a strong offline presence already you can add to that by adding your website to any newspaper ads, yellow pages, radio, flyers, direct mail, your business cards, and so on.

It is amazing how many small businesses and home businesses do not have a website. You can use this to your benefit when you get one.

Online marketing can come in many different ways as well. Much of this will depend on your budget. Here are a few ideas.

1.Pay per click advertising with Google, Yahoo, MSN, 7Search and other pay per click search engine programs.

2. Article marketing where you either write, or hire a writer to write, articles about the niche your business is in. Include a bio box for your readers to find your website in.

3. Ezine advertising is a great way to cheaply reach thousands of readers who are on someone else’s list. This is great when you do not have a list of your own to email to.

There are many directions your home business marketing efforts can go. Always remember that the more eyeballs you have viewing your website the more potential business you can have.

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5 Ways To Improve Your At Home Business Marketing And Attract More Prospects

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:48:51 +0000

Dean Caporella asked:

One of the vital aspects of growing a home business is marketing. Too many overlook this and the truth is, if you are not promoting, you’re dead in the water.

Network marketers need a steady flow of prospects to survive and finding an at home business marketing solution is key to their survival. It doesn’t need to be complicated. The best and most cost effective way of promoting is article marketing.

Articles are priceless as a promotion tool for your business. Did you know unlike a paid campaign which ends once you stop paying articles continue marketing for you long after you’ve written them. We call them our own team of salesmen which keep flying the banner for us years after being published.

If you think you cannot write then think again. In this article, we outline some writing tips to help boost your at home business marketing efforts.

1. Create a steady and consistent schedule. Unless you are producing a consistent stream of content promoting your business then you’ll get haphazard results. We suggest you produce at least ten articles a month for your network marketing business.

2. Make a commitment to write on one or two particular days a week. Writing ten articles a month is not a massive task. It’s just over two per week. Make one day a week your writing day. If you produce ten pieces a month then that will give you 120 articles for the year all doing one thing, promoting you and your MLM business.

3. Set yourself a challenge each time you sit down to write. That is, to create some urgency, give yourself a set amount of time to write the article. For example, if you think you can produce it in 30 minutes then challenge yourself to create it in that time. It’s amazing how efficient your brain becomes when it is given a time and end goal to meet.

4. Create a list of topics ahead of time you’re going to write about. That is, produce a list of keywords around your business. When you’ve done this, then come up with at least two secondary keywords for each main word. Knowing what you’re going to write about ahead of time simply cuts out any chance of wasting time and procrastination.

5. Organize someone to become you’re accountability mentor. This is a great process and will have a big impact on your at home business marketing efforts. It works simply by stating your goals for any given day or month to someone and then checking in with them to declare your work. Your accountability partner needs to be someone you don’t like letting down; even someone you fear a little as this can really kick your urgency mode into high gear.

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Home Business Marketing – 5 Ways to Get More from Your Ezine Newsletter

admin — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:01:14 +0000

David Ogden asked:

In your home business marketing efforts, is your ezine newsletter providing you a steady stream of income? There are people on the Internet today who are earning a full time income just publishing their own ezine newsletter! Let’s take a look at five ways you can get more out of your ezine than you may currently be getting.

1. First of all if you are not currently selling advertising you should offer it. There are Internet marketers who currently do not have a list of their own to mail to and are willing to pay ezine publishers to get their products in front of people in a legitimate way. Selling ezine advertising is one way that you can make money while providing a valuable service.

2. Do not over mail your ezine newsletter, but do be consistent in how you do it. Some of the most successful ezine newsletters are published on a consistent basis without over mailing.

For example you may set a goal to send your newsletter out every week. One thing you can do is send it on the same day so that people get used to receiving it. You might even go so far as to send it at the same time of every day once a week.

3. Offering useful information and valuable content and you will be rewarded for it. People will stay subscribed to ezine newsletters if they feel there is a value to them. These subscribers become loyal readers which in turn can become customers for products you sell.

4. Your ezine is an excellent home business marketing tool for you to promote products that you make money selling. A recommendation from you can be like money in the bank as people begin to trust what you have to say. You do this by only recommending quality products and ones that you have first hand knowledge of.

5. The final way we want to talk about getting more from your e-zine newsletter is turning it into a viral home business marketing machine. An easy way to do that is to ask for referrals right up front on every issue.

You might even turn it into a contest and offer prizes for people who refer the most number of new subscribers to it. People love contests and this is an actual way for you to build a large subscriber base without doing all the work yourself.

These are a few of our home business marketing tips to get more from your ezine newsletter. If you follow our suggestions, it will help increase your income and number of subscribers as well!

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Home Business – Market Your Products and Services in the Comfort of Your Abode

admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:18:55 +0000

Jeff Casmer asked:

There are many job opportunities inside big cities and even in towns with high rise buildings and plush offices, but you need certain qualifications for high corporate positions. You always have to meet the needs of your company boss no matter where you work.

Now the question is how about those busy mothers that are doing their daily household chores and those who do not have the capability to work outside their home.

Would they be able to work and earn some extra money?

Absolutely, yes, but it always depends on what kind of home business you will have, how to start the business, and who would be the target market.

There are always the basic issues that almost everyone encounters in starting a new home business. Like deciding on what kind of business you can start up. For instance you can be the best writer, tax accountant, or web designer in the market. And the other issue is if you don’t know how to get connected to the word market or even local markets, how could you market your product or service?

You have to list these important steps to help avoid the barriers that may occur while you are creating your home business. Here are five important steps to follow to get started with internet marketing and for you to market your products or services from your own home.

You must decide who your main customers are before you start a home business. As a group, how old are they? Where do they live? How much money do they make? What kinds of jobs do they have and what are their interests? The better you can sketch a detailed profile of the kinds of people, who will be your main customers, the better you’ll fare in the next four steps.

What kinds of media do your main customers use?

Each type of media has its own target audience. Each radio station, newspaper, magazine, or TV program tries to interest a specific segment of the population. The trick is to match your main customers with the kinds of media they use. And remember that media is not just TV and newspapers. Effective media can be anything that conveys your message. Media choices range from million dollar commercials in the Super Bowl to a few free pens with your name on them. Along that line, the internet is now the most powerful media you can use at a relatively low cost for your home business.

Limit the media to what you can afford to use consistently to promote your home business.

The key to effective home business marketing is consistency. You have to hit the audience with your message again, and again.

Marketers use the Rule of Seven. Prospects must see or hear your message seven times before they consider buying. Don’t blow your entire marketing budget on a one-shot media blitz. Choose a less expensive type of media that you can afford to use week after week. Google may be a good place to start your home business advertising. Just be sure to get a free eCourse to educate yourself on how to effectively use this type of advertising from someone with experience.

Sell the main benefit of your product or service of your home business.

Focus on what is unique about your home business products or services. How does your product or service improve your customer’s life? Talk to your customer from their own perspective. Does your product or service save them time? Make them richer? Make them more attractive?

Your home business marketing should drive home this most important benefit as clearly and directly as possible. Customers buy benefits! When you advertise the features of your product or service, connect those features to the benefits they will bring the customer.

Last, but certainly not least, remember to promote your business with the latest on-line marketing tactics. Articles are very effective to get the word out.

The Internet is wide open to everyone. It’s the only “big” media that allows the small home business person to get their message out at very low cost. Bulletin boards and newsgroups may appreciate helpful information that you provide. Most won’t mind if you sign your name along with four to six lines about your business in your bio.

These are the five essential steps to effective marketing of a home business. Keep them in mind as you decide how to market your new home business. They are the single most important reasons why some marketing aspects fail while other types of marketing brings massive amounts of new customers and profits.

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