Keep Costs Down and Keep the Marketing Strategy Simple
One of the biggest mistakes we could make as business owners is spending too much money on marketing our service or product without knowing how to market it correctly. I've seen plenty of money wasted on marketing that did not produce any sales and most home based business don't have too much money to waste when ramping up. Failed efforts can make businesses run out of money too quick and eventually close shop. The reason for this is there is a learning curve with marketing your product.
Product knowledge must increase to a point where you know who you must sell that product to and how to sell it. In my opinion you have two choices when it comes to marketing:
1. Hire a marketing firm that can advertise your product for a fee or?.
2. Take the time to learn about your product and try different marketing methods without spending all of your money.
If you are on a tight budget then Option 2 may be the choice to make.
One lesson I learned when trying to sell my product is actually telling the customer you have what they are looking for in an ad. I realized this when I started marketing my product on the internet. I never knew keywords meant so many different things to so many different people and I really had to put my money management skills to work for me so I can live to market another day and get closer to my target market.
In my perfect world a prospect would become a buyer in the following manner:
1. Prospect sees your ad and visits your web site wanting more information.
2. Prospect loves what you are saying and is ready to buy.
3. Prospect purchases your product becomes a customer.
In order for a prospective buyer to visit your web site to start the sales process, the shopper must react positively (meaning have interest) to your advertisement. The bottom line is: Your ad must be good enough to attract many prospects because you are paying hard earned money to have that ad presented to the world. So how do you know if your ad is good enough? In my opinion it's trial and error. You need to run different types of ads showing different combinations of features and benefits of your product and choose the best producers. Then you must track that ad and see if they are converting into sales.
Taking the approach of creating a smaller advertising budget and try 2 or 3 different advertising methods I found works well when marketing on a shoe string budget. You'll have less pressure on yourself to determine which ad worked best for your business to use again. It takes time to create a meaningful ad to attract many shoppers to visit your site. You will need to budget accordingly to sustain business until you have the right combination of ad's convert to enough sales for you to use the same method again. An approach like this could allow you to sustain your business. The approach works great when advertising with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) sites because you have the option to set your budget in some capacity and some PPC firms have the technology to help you track the ads.
One thing I learned is that working hard and smart is required make money on your own and profitability doesn't happen over night. Also, it takes a well funded business to sustain it. Marketing is the only way to get your name out there and sell your product. If you are wearing many hats with your home based business it may be best to keep it simple and most of all don't over spend. Failure with small amount of money can provide success if you keep learning and trying new marketing methods.
Topher John is a webmaster for http://beinbusiness.net, http://mybenefitsavings.com, and http://vision-plan.net. He specializes in building internet small businesses. His interests are the healthcare industry, specifically how it relates to the family and physical fitness.
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