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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:
* What needs does my product/service fulfill? * Will businesses or
consumers be more likely to need what I offer? * Who are the clients I
already have? * 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.
__________________________________________
Vishal P. Rao is the editor of Home Based Business Opportunities - A
website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources to make money
from home. Visit him at:
http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com
First Steps to Picking the Perfect Marketing Method For Your Home-Based
Business © 2002 Vishal P. Rao
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