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.
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