Home Business Tips

Guerilla Marketing

Marketing is vital to any business, particularly the new home business. It can be viewed as the method of getting nourishment. Without marketing the business will most likely become stagnant. Sales will go down and new customers are few and far between.

Marketing may be done in many ways. Some ways are demand exorbitant costs, while others charge minimal expenses. For most home businesses, there are “starter kits” provided. A typical starter kit will be composed of audio cassettes, CDs, and several forms of literature. The literature will be brochures about the product, flyers for advertising, newsletters, and even stickers and bookmarks.

For some entrepreneurs, the starter kit is quite sufficient. For others, they feel the need of additional marketing. But additional marketing may mean additional expenses. For example, posting a TV add is very expensive. A TV commercial is charged by the second. A cheaper way is to have a presence in the Internet. Getting a domain name will cost $7 to $10 and connecting to a host entails a monthly payment of about $5. If an entrepreneur can afford these, then he should utilize this line of marketing.

If, however, the new home business entrepreneur is operating on a shoe string budget, he can still employ several marketing strategies in the Internet at practically no cost. These strategies are described as “guerilla marketing”. Of course, the entrepreneur has to spend more effort and time to get his marketing strategies going.

Here are some of them.

• E-zines – refer to electronic magazines; send information about the home business to these e-zines
• Free classifieds – advertise the products of the home business in these sites
• Free mailing lists – place information about the home business and make its presence felt in cyberspace
• Message and bulletin boards – post information regarding the home business and its range of products
• News groups – join a newsgroup where the nature of the home business can be shared to many people
• Niche directories – submit a link that will take net surfers to the website of the home business

To find the above, a resourceful entrepreneur may sign-up for free newsletters which will give him some inside information. He may also utilize popular free search engines.

With guerilla marketing, the process of advertising and finding new clients need not chip off a big block of the budget. All the home business entrepreneur had to do is to utilize ever free marketing resource offered in the Internet. This means that he must not wait for a financial windfall before he can start marketing. An expensive marketing does not necessarily mean an effective one. And free marketing may just be what the home business needed to boost the sales.

Small/Home Business Tips, Marketing & Advertising 2006-05-02 Home Business Tips