The best home business professionals have one thing in common and that is that they know how to promote their business. No matter what product or service you sell, if you learn a few simple steps, you will also have great success.
It all starts with how to promote your small business from home – it only takes three simple steps. You need to send the correct message to the correct market using the correct medium.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can loosen up on any of these three steps, even if you work part-time trying to earn extra money from home. You might have the best message in the world, but if you didn’t get it delivered to the right market with the right means, you are sunk!
Think about it: if you had a great copy for a product that would allow any golfer to drive 300 yards, if you were to publish it in a junk booking magazine, it would probably only reach a VERY small portion of your audience, if any! This is a classic example of targeting the wrong market (a small potential audience for your local business work) and the media (again, a small potential audience).
The first step is to understand your market. Who are they, what do they want out of life, what are their hopes, dreams and fears? Where do they buy, what kind of car do they drive, what sports do they play, what is their socio-economic situation? The more information you can imagine and research about your market, the more likely it is that you can create a copy that sparks your desire to buy what you are selling.
Second, you need to create a message.. Your message should address what you KNOW the market wants, but right now they don’t have it. If your golfer wants to hit his drive 300 yards at a time, at this point he probably hooks it or cuts it 200 yards and is embarrassed to end up on the wrong fairway. You’re tired of looking for lost balls and you want to “drive like a” macho “man! Your message should uncover your current” pain “and then show a way that your product will provide the solution. Ultimately, your message should provide the assurance of some kind of guarantee.
Third, you need the right means. You probably don’t want to use Ladies House Diary as the media to get the message across to your “manly” golfer. Probably read Golf digest and I wouldn’t be caught dead staring Ladies House Diary. You probably read the sports pages of the newspaper. You probably watch golf on ESPN. Yes, some of the media I just mentioned would be expensive, but there are great ways to use social media and blogging to reach people only in that target market.
Whatever your main home based business you are trying to sell, you would use the same three step method each time. Home business professionals take the time to really work on their promotions because if you have weak promotions, your sales are probably not doing anything close to what you projected. But if your home-based small business has Ferocious Promotions, you’ll be fine.
There you have it: market, media, message. Get them right and you’ll hit a home run … or a 300-yard drive!
