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Advertising Your Home Business on a Budget
When you are starting out in a new home business and no one knows who you are, one of the greatest challenges you will face is how to drum up new business.
If there were not people in your community or marketplace that you knew who needed your products or services, you probably would not have started your business to begin with. But, once you have talked to those who you personally knew who needed your what you offer, then your next task is to find others who will help keep your doors open.
Many people know that they must turn to advertising at some point in the future, but they hope that day will be long down the road. For some, this utopian concept will come to fruition.But for the rest of us in the real world, we must come up with creative solutions for meeting our home business advertising needs while working within our budget.
Most people have a misconception about having to spend lots of money in order to advertise their home business. When you start out, you honestly will not have much money available for advertising, and if you do, you should still spend it wisely.
Before you jump headfirst into the world of advertising, let me share some of the lessons I have learned concerning this most important topic.
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LESSON #1
It does not have to cost an arm and a leg to advertise your home business, unless you fail to plan and fail to test. As much as is possible, you should always test your advertising. If you jump in and start dumping tons of money in to advertising without first testing your advertising, you might find yourself broke and without sales at the end of the road. Most people who commit this error write off their failure on the home business they chose or the economy or any of a hundred other excuses. But, if they are unwilling to take responsibility for their mistake, they will never learn from their mistake. Don't let this be you.
LESSON #2
All testing should be done in blocks. If you begin to advertise simultaneously in newspapers, radio and television, how will you know which advertising is bringing people to your cash register? You won't. All you will know that something might be working, but you will not know what is actually doing the trick.
Even if you tell people in your advertising to tell you how they found you, my experience shows that fewer than 10% of the people ever will tell you anything --- and those people who do may noteven get the facts straight! You cannot rely on your customers to tell you what advertising is working for your home business. You must put in the extra effort to know for yourself.
LESSON #3
Only when you have a proven and solid advertising portfolio should you venture to drop big bucks in an advertising campaign. Even then, you should be careful to keep further measurements to determine how much the maximum advantage of an ad would be.Sometimes you might be able to reach ten times as many people, but depending on the kind of media and other factors, the additional exposure will only generate twice as many sales. Keep your eye attuned to situations like this to get the most from your advertising dollars.
LESSON #4
As Lesson #3 illustrates, sometimes your best advertising investment may actually cost you less money. When you are first starting out, whether you are running a home business or a business outside of your home, you need to be able to get people talking and thinking about your business.
If you are busy testing ads in media's such as the newspaper, magazines, radio, and television, you need to learn ways of promoting your business that do not require large cash expenditures. A few examples are:
· Word of Mouth · Business Cards · Press Releases · Non-Primetime Ads on Radio and Television
Here is more information about each type of low-cost advertising:
WORD OF MOUTH
This of course is the cheapest kind of advertising on the planet --- it does not cost you anything. Ask your customers if they know anyone who could also use your products or services. When they are happy with your offerings and service, they will be willing to tell you whom you can contact, and they will pass the word for you.
BUSINESS CARDS
You can usually pick up 500 business cards for about $20. When you do, hand them out. Do not give more than a couple of cards to each person. If they need more cards from you, they will ask.
Some people are known to network with others on a regular basis. Some of these people are also known to be always looking for an extra few bucks. With these people, you can suggest to them that if they write their name on the back of one of your business cards and the card is presented to you, then you will pay a referral fee to them. You do not have to offer much --- sometimes one dollar is enough. Look at your home business and your offerings and decide how much would be a good referral fee.
PRESS RELEASES
Press Releases are a good source for generating news about your home business. The business editor at your local newspaper is always on the lookout for a good business story to fill the business news section of the newspaper. Of course, the business editor understands the economics of running a paper and is more inclined to run your story if you buy advertising in his/her publication, but will still print stories for special events and openings.
The important thing to remember about Press Releases is that it must be constructed in the form of a news story. Even if you are a sole proprietorship, quotes from you should be written in a third person format: John Doe said, "Your quote here."
A Press Release should pack the most important information at the beginning of the copy, and leave extra details towards the end.
You should always provide the reporter who gets the task a simple and easy way for him/her to contact you directly. Often the reporter will want to contact you to get details that will enhance their take on your story.
NON-PRIMETIME ADS ON RADIO AND TELEVISION
Believe it or not, some of the best rates for radio and television are on the overnight and non-primetime venues. These target times are not a total waste as they can easily keep the infomercial people in business.These off-hours are just less populated than the primetime hours.
Don't be afraid to check your local radio and television rates for non-primetime hours to see what bargains may exist. With television, primetime is 7pm to 10pm. With radio, primetime is8am to 5pm. This sure leaves a whole lot of hours available to advertise your home business at discount rates!
IN CONCLUSION
When it comes down to it, there is a lot to understand about advertising, but when you have the basic knowledge down pat, everything will fall into place and bring more dollars to your bank account.
About the author:
Heidi Chartier has a great website that lists legitimate Home Business Opportunities. This years 2005 top pick can be found at http://www.makingmaximumwealth.com/pips.html and visit http://www.makingmaximumwealth.com for more listings. |
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Advertising Your Home Business With Pay Per Click Can Be Risky
An unfortunate byproduct of the pay per click advertising
business is click fraud. Many people with an online business
spend large amounts of money on pay per click advertising only to
discover that many of the people clicking on their ads weren't
really interested in their products or services.
Bogus "visitors" to a pay per click ad represent click fraud.
This is a serious scam that threatens the viability of the pay
per click advertising business which has become enormously
profitable for all of the major search engine operators, namely
Google, Yahoo/Overture, and MSN.
Click fraud has different twists, but the end result is generally
the same. Advertisers are billed for fruitless traffic
generated by someone who repeatedly clicks on an advertiser's ad
without any intention of ever buying anything.
The search engine advertising market is currently about $3.8
billion per year and estimates vary widely on how much click
fraud is actually going on. Clearly, the search engine operators
would like to downplay the extent of this problem. Some industry
experts claim that a little click fraud exists but that it is
overblown by advertiser paranoia, while others estimate that ten
to twenty percent of all clicks are false (made by someone with
no legitimate interest in the ad itself).
Virtually everyone involved with pay per click advertising sees
click fraud and knows it's there, but no one is quite sure what
to do about it.
Both Google and Yahoo/Overture acknowledge that the click fraud
problem exists, but claim improved internal controls will prevent
the problem from escalating. Their stated position seems to be
that they are concerned about click fraud, but that it is not a
material issue so far. Both of them are touting their increasing
internal actions aimed at detecting and combating click fraud.
Such reassurances from search engine companies certainly aren't
surprising, given how much they stand to lose if advertisers
cut back on advertising spending. The stakes are huge and the
search engine companies are actively involved in public relations
campaigns. Industry research firm eMarketer expects $7.4 billion
to be spent on search engine advertising by 2008, up from only
$108.5 million back in 2000.
The incentives for click fraud have increased along with the
money devoted to search engine advertising. Advertising on search
engines has turned into a fast-spreading craze as more and more
marketers have realized substantially higher returns on search
engine ads than on more traditional marketing campaigns conducted
through print media.
Most pay per click advertisers set a spending limit and once the
spending limit is reached, the ads cease to appear in the search
results. Click fraud is a very unethical competitive tactic
where someone repeatedly clicks on a competitor's ad until the
spending limit is reached and the ad then disappears from the
search results. It seems that it's only a matter of time before
some advertisers become so exasperated with click fraud that they
file a class-action lawsuit against a major search engine.
The success of search engine advertising has substantially
raised prices that advertisers pay for top spots. Unfortunately,
these higher prices have turned click fraud into a dark little
industry of its own. Some crooks have hired cheap overseas
contractors to just sit in front of computers and constantly
click on targeted ads and others are developing sophisticated
software to help automate and conceal click fraud.
If you use pay per click advertising it would be wise to
carefully monitor your traffic to determine if you are the victim
of click fraud. In any event, it's probably safe to say that
pay per click advertisers are going to have to accept a certain
level of click fraud as just a cost of doing business.
About the Author
Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business
and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based
business. For more information visit his website at Proven Work At
Home Business
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