Effective Marketing of Your Home Based Business

By: Tammy DePew Smith

I have worked from home since 1999. In that time I have met many wonderful people who have a dream of being home with their family while achieving success with a home business. One of the key elements in the success of a home business is the right marketing/promotion of that business.

There are two avenues of promotion for your business – offline and online. Online promotion can be more cost effective, and less time consuming, than offline advertising. They both can be very effective means of promoting your business, you just need to find the way that works best for you.

Here are a few marketing tricks and tips that I have learned over the past 6 years.

Offline Marketing:

• Invest in a vinyl sign for your vehicle. Why not take advantage of all of those trips to the grocery store, or your children’s school? Let your vehicle become a walking, uh, driving billboard for your business.

• Purchase business cards. There are many affordable online business card sites. Leave your cards everywhere you go. Make a goal to hand out at least 10 cards every day.

• Create bright, colorful flyers, take an afternoon and post your flyers all over town on community bulletin boards. Along the way, stop in to local businesses, briefly explain your business and leave a flyer and business card.

• Join your local Chamber of Commerce and attend network meetings. This can be great exposure for your business.

Online Marketing:

• Build a user friendly Web site, research which keywords would be best for your site by doing a search on Wordtracker.com Worktracker.com helps you find the keywords most relevant to your type of business and the words most likely to be used in a search engine inquiry.

• Advertise your site every chance you get. There are many free sites where you can place free classified ads. Or, you might choose to invest some money into advertising and purchase banner or text ads on other well-known sites. It’s best to do a little research before purchasing ads, however, as you want to make sure to advertise on sites that receive a lot of traffic.

• Network, network, network. Join every group you can find time for at Yahoo Groups and on Ryze. I have made some lucrative joint ventures with individuals I have met on Ryze. These are also excellent sources of free advertising, just be sure and observe each network and groups ad posting policy.

A successful home based business is within your reach. It just requires patience, and the willingness to learn all you can about marketing and promotion of your business.

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Tammy DePew Smith is the designer and owner of www.wahpromotion.com, a marketing resource site dedicated to promoting small businesses. Resources include marketing articles, marketing tips, a bi-monthly marketing newsletter, and weekly marketing chats.