marketing tips

Build Buzz for Your Online Business Through Offline Marketing

by Work at Home Magazine

Build Buzz for Your Online Business Through Offline Marketing

Marketing your online business shouldn’t be dependent on online marketing alone. Online businesses owners often forget that potential clients come mostly from the non-virtual world. Here are a few offline marketing ideas you could integrate with your online marketing strategies:

1. Business Networking Ideas

• Networking could never be underestimated. Often, your network provides the leads and information necessary to send the word out about your business and to expand your clientele.

• Join business meetings, forums, and conventions. These are where most local business owners gather together to discuss business ideas. These are also where the latest strategies and technologies are discussed to help online businessmen and business owners learn more about their trades.

• Network yourself with local business professionals. Join business associations and activities like Chamber of Commerce, industry events, networking organizations, and trade shows to expand your network.

• Know who you are networking with and be selective with whom you are networking with. Select only the best networks.

• Establish good, strong relationships with your network business partners.

• Talk with people about your business. You’ll be surprised how many people are actually interested in building up their own businesses. You’ll also get to gather new business ideas this way.

2. Relationship Marketing Ideas

• Fortify your base market. Maintain and continue to improve your relationship with current and past customers. Don’t waste your initial marketing efforts by not sustaining your current base market. Continue marketing to your existing clients.

• There are a few things you could do to keep your base market loyal to your business. You can keep in touch with them on a personal level by sending out holiday cards. Some online business owners go so far as sending their clients handwritten letters that update them regarding industry news.

• Create a newsletter. Never allow your base market to forget about your business. Keep it foremost in their minds by giving away things, newsletter for example, that may directly or indirectly remind them of your business or your services.

• Form relationships with new market. Don’t be content with your current market base. Expand as much as your resources would allow.

• Participate in local trade shows. You can either be behind the booth reaching new customers or outside doing the talking to potential business partners.

• When introducing yourself to potential new customers, never complicate business terms. If you’re trying to build new business relationships, keep your information simple. Customers don’t have all day to figure out what you’re trying to sell.

• Throw special events or parties for your customers. Such events could help brand your products or services as well as expand your network connections.

3. Print Marketing Ideas

• Use effective business cards that contain everything your clients need to know about contacting you or availing your products or your services. Hand out your business cards to anyone either to expand your client base or to expand your network.

• Use brochures and flyers. So long as these are strategically placed, these could bring in potential customers. Never leave out your previous customers as well.

• Advertise on print media. Newspapers and magazines still rank high among the most effective offline marketing tools. Use these tools effectively.

Help Your Startup Home Business With Creative Marketing Strategies

by Work at Home Magazine

Help Your Startup Home Business With Creative Marketing Strategies

Your low startup home business may not have as much resources as your bigger competitors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t earn as much profit as they do. Use the creative marketing strategies below to make your business generate gigantic returns.

1. Take advantage of the holidays.
Holidays give people a valid reason to spend more than usual and it’s a reason that most grasp eagerly with both hands. You need to take advantage of this by offering special products, services, or promos.

Christmas, for instance, is the season of giving and as such, if your home business can offer products that make perfect Christmas gifts, your business is sure to enjoy fantastic sales during the holidays.

Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, is a time for romance so you need to focus on pleasing customers not as individuals but as couples. Your strategies will be even more effective if your low startup home business can offer products with distinctive offers for boyfriends and girlfriends, engaged couples, and married couples. Consider as well those who are still in the dating stage as well as those who are planning to get back together.

2. Interact with your customers.
You need to strengthen and deepen the relationship between your business and its customers.

Many businesses use blogs to interact with their customers, but you can make your blog more effective by giving it a creative layout. Creativity can also be seen in the purposes it serves. Instead of merely posting entries and encouraging readers to post comments how about including polls in your entries?

Blogs are an avenue for you and your customers to bond. Scour the news for relevant reports that will be of interest to your target market. Post them on your blog then ask them the usual if-you’re-in-their-shoes questions.

3. Hold contests.
Don’t be lazy and make do with raffles and the usual question-and-answer contests. Make things more creative and your readers will be excited to join them not just for the prizes alone but also for the entertainment value.

Storytelling contests are fun and wildly entertaining. If you have an online jewelry shop, for instance, you can ask your readers to create the most romantic or adventurous legend for famous gems like diamonds, rubies, and sapphires.

Design contests are just as popular. Going back to the online jewelry sample, you can ask customers to contribute their own jewelry designs.

Prizes for the competition don’t have to be exceptionally expensive. In most cases, anything would do as long as it’s free and attractive to your customers.

4. Make a program.
There are two ways for you to create a program for your low startup home business: firstly, you can create a show by regularly uploading videos on YouTube. Secondly, you can have your own “radio” show by regularly uploading podcasts online.

Uploading videos in YouTube is for free. Video marketing is extremely effective for all kinds of businesses because customers can see, read, and listen to your message. You must, however, make sure that your content takes advantage of the extensive AV effects offered by videos. As for podcasts, you simply need to prioritize both content and sound quality.

Talk show format is the most popular reporting style used for marketing videos and podcasts. You don’t need to invite famous personalities as guests. You just need to discuss the most interesting and popular topics and your shows can help make your low startup home business profit!

WAHM Marketing Tips: Which Newsletter Format Should You Use?

by Work at Home Magazine

For your WAHM business, a regular newsletter can be one of your most valuable marketing tools. Your newsletter gives you a way to keep in touch with people who are interested in your services or products, but are not yet ready to become a customer. And for current customers or clients, your newsletter gives you an easy and affordable way to keep them updated with your business news and sell them even more products or services.

For my own WAHM websites, regular newsletters have been invaluable for educating my members, building relationships with potential clients, and even making sales from affiliate products.

When you’re first setting up your newsletter, there are basically three newsletter formats you can choose from. Here’s a brief summary.

Your WAHM Newsletter – 3 Ways You Can Go

1. An HTML newsletter. These are the pretty newsletters you get that are nicely formatted and include pictures or graphics. They are created in HTML code, but you don’t necessarily need to be a coder to create them. If you want to send out HTML newsletters you can use a newsletter service that offers HTML templates you can customize, like Constant Contact or AWeber. Or you can hire another WAHM to create a template for you to customize for each issue.

2. A text newsletter. These are the newsletters you get that don’t really look like newsletters; they look like regular emails. These are easy to create… all you have to do is type in the text. While text newsletters aren’t as pretty as HTML newsletters, they are easier to read for some people, depending on how they pick up their email. Plus, these look like messages from friends, which could mean more people actually read them.

3. A PDF newsletter. These are created in a Portable Document Format (PDF) and uploaded to your website. Then you send out a link to the newsletter. You will need a program that creates PDF documents to send out your newsletter this way. If you’re graphically inclined, or work with another WAHM who is, you can do a lot of nice formatting with these. Also, it’s one way to send a print newsletter without the cost of printing. Your subscribers can just print it out for themselves.

One thing to remember with PDF newsletters is that it’s nice to include a friendly note in the email you send out to announce your newsletter is ready. An email with just a link saying, “Hi, here’s your newsletter,” could easily be ignored by your subscribers on a busy email day.

Which Newsletter Format is Right for Your WAHM Biz?

For one thing, it depends on which you’re most comfortable using. If you don’t know any HTML and you’re not prepared to hire someone for help, you might not want to start out with an HTML newsletter.

Do a little digging and see what other businesses are sending out to your target market. That will give you some insight into what your subscribers like to get and what they’re used to receiving.

Finally, choose a format you’ll be willing to work with on a regular basis. Can’t stand the monotony of a black and white text email? You probably won’t look forward to putting your newsletter together each month or each week if you don’t like looking at it. Choose a format you will send out regularly so you can stay in touch with your valued subscribers.

Whatever format you choose, remember it’s not set in stone. As your WAHM business grows and your skills develop, it’s natural that your newsletter will evolve too. If you start out with a text newsletter, you can redesign and change to an HTML format when you’re more skilled. Or if you start out with a PDF version and want to simplify later on, you can always revamp and move to a text newsletter.

The most important thing is that you actually do start a newsletter – it’s one of the best business building tools there is. The rest will fall into place over time.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Want more subscribers for your WAHM newsletter? Submit your articles at www.WAHM-Articles.com and get free traffic for your work-at-home-mom-website. Subscribe to our newsletter WAHM Tips and get weekly work at home tips from work-at-home-moms who have been there and done that. Denise Willms is a work-at-home-mom of two teens and owner of WAHM-Articles.com.