First Steps to Picking the Perfect Marketing Method For Your
Home-Based Business
By Vishal P. Rao
Part of running a successful business is making it grow. Home-based
businesses are no exception. In fact, it can be even more important if
you are just starting out or lack a potential client base. The key to
growing a business is marketing.
Marketing is how you connect with individuals who may become
customers or clients and includes methods such as affiliate programs,
newsletters, trade shows, web sites, brochures, advertising, and more.
The potential marketing methods available are almost limitless in
scope and deciding on an approach may seem daunting, but a little
preliminary effort can help you narrow down the field of options and
help you make the best choices for your business.
Determine Targeted Audience
No matter what marketing method you choose, you first need to
decide to whom you plan to market. Mass marketing to a general
audience simply is not cost-effective for most businesses so you must
decide early on which segments of society are most likely to purchase
your products or services. Begin by asking yourself some simply
questions:
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What needs does my product/service fulfill?
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Will businesses or consumers be more likely to need what I
offer?
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Who are the clients I already have?
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Who does my competition market to?
With the answers to these questions, you can begin to decide on
your targeted audience. However, you can refine it further by
contacting sample populations of that audience and getting feedback
from them on whether or not they would be interested in your
product/service. You can use surveys, chat rooms, email
questionnaires, or telephone polls to generate that feedback.
Set a Budget
Many inexperienced business owners make a major mistake when they
begin their marketing efforts: they do not set a budget. Without a
budget, these business owners can easily find all of their profits
being funneled into marketing efforts.
Before you make a decision about what types of marketing methods to
choose, you need to first establish how much you can spend in order to
receive the desired results. Most businesses use the 10% rule.
According to this rule, if you decided to implement a marketing
program that would generate $5000 in monthly sales, then you should
spend only $500 a month on marketing.
Applying the 10% rule prevents businesses from spending more on the
marketing efforts than is generated by those efforts. You must also
remember to be realistic. If you currently generate $200 a week in
sales, do not anticipate marketing results of $10,000 a month and use
that number as the basis for your marketing budget. Instead, start
small at first and build on successful marketing attempts.
Evaluate Marketing Methods
There are a wide array of marketing methods available, but not all
of them are appropriate for every business, audience, or
product/service. Before deciding on a method, you need to carefully
evaluate what will work best for your situation.
For example, if you run an online business, you may want to focus
most of your marketing efforts on the Internet medium instead of
mailing brochures to people who may not even own computers.
Also take into account your audience. If you are marketing to
businesses, your methods will be different than if you are marketing
to consumers. If you sell to parents, your methods are different than
if you sell to college students. You may even need to develop more
than one method in order
to meet the needs of all of your potential audiences.
Finally, remember your budget. A television commercial may be more
effective than an ad in the yellow pages but it may also use your
entire marketing budget. To make the most of your budget, you want to
start small and test your efforts before plunging into a major
investment. After all, if the
commercial flops, you won't have anything left in your budget for
alternative marketing.
Once you complete these preliminary efforts, you can begin to
explore marketing methods more effectively which will allow you to
pick the methods which should provide the best results for your
particular business.
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Vishal P. Rao is the owner of
Home Based Business Opportunities - One of Internet's leading
website dedicated to starting, managing and marketing a home based
business.
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