Marketing has come a long way over the years, from people sitting in conference rooms deciding how healthy to pretend smoking was. It’s now entirely possible to set up and market your own business from the comfort of your own home. The level of success that you have will depend on a number of factors, for sure. It is essential to have a strategy in place.
Setting up a home business has many advantages, aside from the obvious one of not needing to commute. You set your own schedule and can have total flexibility in the systems you use. For many of us, however, there can be disadvantages to a home business. At least, there are pitfalls that we need to avoid. Marketing your home business has a lot to do with avoiding these pitfalls.
Home Business Marketing
1. Your Website Looks Unprofessional
Just because it is easier than ever to build your own website, that doesn’t mean everyone should. Certainly, as easy as it may be there is no excuse for putting up a site that looks unfinished or unprofessional. It may be cheap, but it can cost you heavily in terms of customers. What some people consider homely and folksy will give other people the jitters.
2. Message And Method Not Matching Up
There is a tendency for online marketing to be … let’s call it “enthusiastic”. A lot of guides you may read online will tell you about “Ten Things You Absolutely Must Do If You Don’t Want Your Business To Fail!”. What you absolutely have to do is make sure your target audience will not be put off by the way you’re marketing yourself. Aggressively pushing stock tips may well work, but the same approach won’t suit knitted baby clothes.
3. Getting Too Close To The Subject
Being self-made is important to a lot of people, to the point where they can feel that if they bring in outside help they’ve created. That said, does an author cheat because they didn’t make the paper their books were printed on? Don’t focus on details when it’s more important to demonstrate your own skills. There will be time to learn more about marketing later on, but hiring a digital marketing agency to grow your online profile is NOT cheating.
4. Losing Sight Of Local Marketing
If you’re in business online, then of course you can reach an audience from Kentucky to Kazakhstan. You should revel in this because globalization has given us a real way to make local businesses global. And yet even the biggest companies would be ill-advised to ignore their local base.
Civic pride and a desire to help the community make many people shop locally. Use local web portals and offline marketing to make the most of this.
Taking your business to the next level is exciting and there’s nothing at all wrong with a bit of enthusiasm. As long as you avoid getting caught up in moving too far, too soon, you’ve got every reason in the world to be optimistic about building a home business.
