The Many Faces of Marketing
There are many facets to marketing even for a home based business. The immediate community in which you live can benefit from your goods and services but so potentially can thousands of others globally through the internet. Before we start getting delusions of grandeur, let’s get the ball rolling with the basics.
If money is an object (and it sometimes is) when you start your business, each advertising dollar needs to be used wisely. Begin with free options both online and offline and then move to other forms that may require an outlay of cash.
Here are some ideas to get you started.
- Build a blog – If you use WordPress, you can get started for free and have access to some cool templates and extras. Using SEO techniques to optimize content, headlines and descriptions, learn to draw traffic to your little piece of the internet real estate so they can learn about your business offering.
- List your business locally – Google Places can help you by creating a free listing for your business so that you show up in local mobile searches.
- Advertise at your place of worship and in other community places – Many churches have congregational newsletters where parishioners can list their businesses for free. Place your business here. Also post flyers on community notice boards all over town so everyone can find out about what you do.
- Create business products if you have a local business and do not want to use online marketing – With a stationery program, you can create professional looking business cards and brochures at home. If you don’t have the time, companies like Vistaprint can do it for you for an affordable price.
- Join social media sites – You are not just socializing personally now. Create free business pages that showcase your enterprise. Invite friends and family to “Like” your page and share it with others. Include links to your blog and/or website content to entice others to visit you.
- Create a professional website – Websites don’t have to be so hard to create these days. Get your own FREE Website builder here
- Email marketing – Create an opt-in page on your website that captures email addresses of your visitors in exchange for a free newsletter or some other product. Send targeted messages to your list when new products are launched and to stay in touch with customers. You may want to check out this video training about how to do email marketing.
There are many more ways to engage your audience through marketing strategies but these are a simple few you can begin with right away.
