Revamp your Home-Based Business
2008 is fast approaching. As each New Year approaches, most certainly on all of our minds is making money! And not just making money for the sake of making money either. Making money to support what we all know and love - working from home. Whether it be for personal reasons, for family reasons, or for financial reasons - working from home can be a win-win situation for just about anyone.
But the questions commonly asked by those who run - or want to run - their own home-based business are how to get started, how to succeed, and how to stay afloat. So in today’s blog, I’ll cover the first six most important tips for marketing yourself and your home-based business. After all, poor or badly chosen marketing is quite often a contributing factor to a home business’ lack of success.
1. Write a marketing plan. Sounds generic, but it’s really not. One can simply not market his or her business smartly and effectively if he or she is making spur of the moment marketing decisions. In regards to marketing, home-based businesses do not differ at all from regular businesses. Include in this marketing plan a workable budget that allows you to use your funds efficiently and to the maximum limit.
2. Know that marketing is not just advertising. When many people think about marketing, they think, oh I need to place an ad in the Yellow Pages or maybe get a spot on TV. Advertising, while important, is just a SMALL facet of marketing - a tool that you can use in CONJUNCTION with other marketing efforts (think word of mouth marketing, press releases, networking, etc.) And another important note - advertising is often the most expensive facet of marketing. There are many other marketing efforts that are significantly cheaper than advertising. (We’ll discuss this in a later post, so stay tuned!)
3. Figure out who your target market is. What kinds of customers are you trying to reach? Where and how can you reach them? While you most definitely cannot expect to meet everyone’s expectations, you can at least be specific to the particular client base you are looking for in all of your marketing efforts.
4. Track your success! Devise a plan that will both measure and record your results. After all, don’t you want to know where that increase (or decrease) in sales came from? By devising a plan, you can assess which marketing efforts are working for you, and which ones are not.
5. Stay within your budget, no matter how small it is. On Friday’s post, we’ll touch more on this with information on how to advertise/market on small budgets.
6. Take your business seriously. Believe in what you do. Work hard to achieve the results you desire. After all, a business does not make serious money unless the operator him or herself is serious in regards to everything about it.
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LOVE these “more about home business” entries. It’s definitely giving old/new readers some “meat” to having a work at home situation. Fabulous job Karissa!
My neighbor doesn’t have a home business but she had an interesting way to network. She had a booth at one of the city’s holiday events. She gave away candy to the kids & business cards to the parents. She also held a raffle for a gift basket (that had a couple frames/a small lamp/candles in it) that helped advertise her new boutique home furnishings store. She put her face out there and had direct contact with potential customers. Simple/easy and a good way to get her name/store out there.
I hope everyone really takes Karissa’s advise to heart. Having a targeted marketing plan is really key for those at home businesses that perform services and products. Much success to all!
Thanks so much for your comments and praise, Grace! And thank you for the great tip in regards to your neighbor’s business too - networking is always an excellent idea for all kinds of businesses, as well as putting your business out there in creative and unique ways.
Thanks again, and have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!
I echo Grace, this is a great post. My boss recommends my website to some of our clients who have money problems, which is a lot of them as family law is his main practice and divorces usually leave people in a bind. I get a little traffic that way, I do need to print cards and set them out on my desk since I’m in the front of the office and the first contact.
My best friend is a real estate agent, with the proceeds of the sale of the first house she sells, she’s buying a billboard in her target market area. I think it’s a fantastic idea, she is majoring in marketing at a local university and has a bit of an edge.
She is also the person that will soon be cowriting my blog since I’ll be going back to school in a few weeks.