Keep Marketing Costs Down
And Keep The Strategy Simple
By: Topher John
It May Be Best To Spend Less
on Marketing When Starting
Your Home Based Business.
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 help you market
your product 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.
About the Author:
Topher John is a webmaster
for
http://www.mybenefitsavings.com
,
http://beinbusiness.net
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
