Profit Zing » number

Small Business Marketing and the US Census: Economic Trends, Market Research and More

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:51:42 +0000

Michele DeKinder-Smith asked:

What would you say if I told you there were an online tool that could provide detailed information about the size of your market including trends in your industry and other important information concerning the economy as a whole?

What if I told you that this tool could help take the hit-and-miss out of small business marketing?

And what if I told you it was free?

The US Census site—www.census.gov—is all that and more. That’s why it’s such an essential data destination for market researchers, entrepreneurs, government agencies and anyone who needs accurate information about social and economic trends in the US. The economic portion of the site offers a wide variety of reports—usually in the form of a downloadable .pdf document—covering topics ranging from basic economic indicators to employment statistics and more.

There is, of course, one major drawback to US census data, and that’s how often it’s collected. There are areas of the website’s economic data still based on the 2002 Economic Census, and even the economic indicators updated on a monthly basis do so based on information obtained two months previous.

Even so, there are numerous ways that US Census economic data can be essential to making informed small business marketing decisions, and having a sense of the scope of resources available will get you started in putting that data to work for you.

Does the number of households with children in your county, region or state make a difference in terms of the size of your potential market? How about the number of retirees, or individuals representing a certain minority group? If so, you’ll want to check out the People & Households section of the website which also contains important information concerning household incomes.

These numbers could help to influence how much of your marketing budget you dedicate to reaching certain sectors of your target demographic, and where, geographically, you choose to concentrate your advertising dollars. It may also help you determine baselines for products and pricing.

If your target market is tied to a certain business or industry—the housing market, for example, or the entertainment industry—you’ll want to explore the Business & Industry section of the US Census website. This is where you’ll find general economic indicators for major areas of the economy, as well as more specific information through the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS.) This type of industry-specific info is also good for surveying exactly how your own business is doing relative to your industry as whole.

There are a number of different ways to use the information available through the Business & Industry section. If you’re wondering, for example, what types of online businesses and e-commerce websites are making the most money—and what areas of online sales appear to be growing the quickest—you might go to the E-Stats section. If your market includes small business owners, you might gain some useful information from the Survey of Business Owners. And, if the local economy is important to the growth and development of your business, the section marked County Business Patterns, under the heading of Economic Indicators, is a great place to start.

By taking US Census information into account, you’ll be able to “look before you leap” when it comes to major business decisions, and develop key strategies to keep pace in a changing world.

For more information about how to put US Census data to work for your business, visit

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.

Creating Online Business Marketing

admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:34:30 +0000

Jason Swanson asked:

Throughout these sets of articles we have looked at many different ways that one can create online business ideas. This is very important but it is equally important that you know how to market your business ideas so that people know what you have to offer. Within this article today we are going to look at what you can do in creating online business marketing that will sell your product. We will look at two different methods that you can use but, to truly become successful at online marketing, you are going to have to make sure to learn about the subject as much as possible. Without a certain number of hits to your website every day, you can be guaranteed that you will not have great sales figures. The only way to get the hits that you want is through marketing and this is where this article comes in.

The first thing they can do in creating online business marketing is to make sure that your website is properly created. This article isn’t long enough to go into everything that you need for your website but you should make sure that your site is properly indexed by all of the major search engines so that you’re getting the maximum amount of natural search engine traffic you can. If you need more information about this, look in your library for books on search engine optimization. This can help you redesign some pages on your website to make sure that you are getting maximum exposure. If you want to get more people to your website, you may also want to look into Adwords. Where this can benefit you is that you can bid on certain keywords so when people search on these keywords, your ads will come up. You will paya certain amount per click that you receive from your ads being displayed. This is very good for you because you can target the audience that you want to bring to your website. By bidding on this, you are able to control your marketing costs and still receive leads.

Another way to get traffic coming to your site and help in creating online business marketing is to offer some free giveaways. There are a great deal of free forums out there where you can post about free giveaways at your website and this is an additional way to bring traffic to your website. The word free is one of the major hot buttons for most people so by offering something for free if they visit your website, you will be guaranteed to get a great deal of traffic. The way to run giveaways would be to have someone sign up for your newsletter in exchange for the free gift. This will help build your newsletter and create more online business marketing because you have a larger responsive list who is potentially interested in the products that you sell. The way to do this in a newsletter is to make sure you do not push products but rather soft sell them while pushing information your target audience can use.

Hopefully these two different methods of creating online business marketing can help you out. What we have told you about today only scratches the surface of the possible things you can do but these are two of the more popular methods and they are very low-cost methods so that you do not have to use a great deal of money that you may need to run the business.

5 Small Business Marketing Ideas

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:08:22 +0000

Alvin Jay asked:

Small businesses are the mainstay of the global economy and their presence helps to drive the fiscal year forward. Their presence alone contributed to over 60% of the economic international pie in developed and developing countries, a number that runs into several trillions of dollars. Starting a small business gives you an added advantage over the larger corporations in a sense that you are much more mobile, you don’t have to micro manage so much, you are not bound by international laws and business processes are don’t much easier internally. While this takes care of the mechanism of your company, we now have to look at the marketing ideas that small business have to churn out to ensure the floating point of the company remains above water. A small business is limited in a sense that it has a smaller budget and a much smaller share of the market, so it needs differing strategies. A small business cannot spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on large advertising campaigns or massive scale PR events, they have to be smarter in the way they market themselves and here are some of the best 5 small business marketing ideas there are.

You are limited by costs and thus the first thing you have to do is to make use of the cheap and the free. All your marketing strategies should have the word internet, virtual and cyberspace in them because with more than 6 million people logged in at any one time, you are missing out on the largest, cheapest marketing pie in the world. Using forums, websites, affiliate marketing (online), digital fax and email marketing, these are the prime real estates online that you should twist to your own ends. As long as your marketing efforts are above board then you have the best platform that has levelled the playing field for companies who are pumping huge amounts to get to a lot of people very fast. Word of mouth is also very important – however the methods behind getting that machinery to work is varied and can be quite vague. Also, using below the line forms of marketing like flyers and brochures are also a great way to market yourself – they cost a fraction of above the line collaterals and can be just as effective, depending on where you place your distribution choke points. Get a plan up and going and make sure that its budget closely matches what your small business can afford. Using alternative forms of advertising (in Japan, advertisers even sell the back ends of tissue wrappers) and guerrilla marketing as well as viral online campaigns. Look into having small scale events to get the word out.

Having a small business means you need to be smart when thinking of the appropriate strategy to use when formulating your marketing plan. Budget, budget and then budget some more, you would be surprised how effective some of these low cost methods are in getting your product known in the market place.