Tag: OFFLINE MARKETING

Guerilla Marketing to Grow Your Business

It’s about growing your own home business by using some offline tactics to do your marketing that are traditional but have been working for ever. So for those of you who have never tried to grow your home business, there are three point six billion people online. So remember to get your Web site up there like I mentioned on Thursday so that you connect with those people.

If you want at first start connecting with your local community. Believe it or not,  yes, Yellow Pages is a great way to start. Get your advertising info into Yellow Pages and that does cost money but that will last you a lifetime in order of “word of mouth.” Once people start to get to know that you’re in the Yellow Pages in the directory, they can look you up easily and get your phone number and your address also maybe depending on the Yellow Pages. And of course, it is put up in the Yellow Pages on the Internet. And once they have your web site, you have a Web site up and an address. You can put that Web site and your phone number and e-mail and your mobile phone on business cards. On your Web site, have a contact form to “contact us” form as they say on your Web site that they could fill in and contact you for more information about your business.

You can actually pay for the domain and pay for the hosting for a web site and it is certainly less than a hundred dollars You could easily learn WordPress. I know you don’t want to but obviously you could and that would be also free. Once you have that, you could put up a few blog posts and you have a Web site or you could hire someone to do that or get a free Web site as long as they allow you to attach a email auto-responder that will make a list of the people who contact you. Once they get onto your e-mail address list then you are in business with possible customers because that’s a very simple way for you to start your business growing is by getting on the Internet.

But anyway, for those of you who are local businesses, you have to do some marketing for your business. There are still direct mailers out there depending on your community they could be reasonable. Send out a press release saying that you’re in town and available or you could do some ads in your local paper.

You could also network out there in your community. There’s a lot of business networking groups. I’m not sure if they’re free to join in your community. The Chamber of Commerce in our community you pay a yearly fee but you have a lot of free networking by being in the chamber. Go out and volunteer in your community at a local food bank or any local business entrepreneurial type group. Go to a Meetup networking event. Meetups are free and create your own Meetup where you provide information and people can come and learn about your business or service depending on what you actually do and you could actually be there and meet up with others who are in business. Those are just a few of the ways that you have to be able to get out into the community so people get to know about you as you have to network.

You have to market your business. So obviously you could also do a press release send it to your local newspapers saying that you’re in business. They’re always interested in profiling new businesses this community. Those are some of the traditional ways that Jay Levinson of the Guerilla Marketing book series has for you and let me just get his Web site because of course everybody has a Web site now and you can go and get some more guerilla marketing hacks for your local business that you don’t have to cost too much money to spend to get them.

Gmarketing.com or his book “Guerrilla Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson.

But anyway , so guerrilla marketing is a great way to save money in order to grow your business when you’re offline. Obviously there is some cost to be an offline business in people finding you in your local community. Tell all your family and friends that’s an inexpensive way. Hand out cards to your family and friends note cards to anyone you know. So for our offline business it’s now of course you can get online and get more business from the Internet. That’s why you need a web site. So as I mentioned get your Web site up there. Then you’re going to have to go and participate in social media.It doesn’t cost money to get on to social media and just chat and add your social media pages.  So that’s another hack is to get your Web site up and then get connected on some of the social media that might be of interest to you.

So we’ll be talking about some of them that we’ve talked about in season one like Facebook and Instagram and Pinterest  and  Twitter .  Then you can see that it is possible even if you have a shipping company to be successful on his Instagram or even of course company like Ikea it can be very successful on Facebook. So hopefully you’ve got a few ideas today and I’ll give you some more when I get Guerrilla marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson out!

Home Based Business – Offline Marketing Strategies

The Internet has become the largest medium of communication; and has presented a lot of business opportunities. Online home based business owners tend to limit themselves to online marketing methods. Nevertheless, there is a huge potential to promote your home based business through some cost effective offline marketing strategies. So what are the most effective offline marketing strategies for your home based business?

1. Word of mouth in your circle of influence
Word of mouth is one of the best free advertising channels. We all have people we interact with on a daily basis, and these are potential customers. Make a list of all the people you know or interact with and how can you best tell them about your internet business. Be passionate about your internet business and always be prepared to tell someone about it when an opportunity to do so presents itself!

2. Mail-out newsletters and flyers
Mail-out newsletter or flyers can be effective if you target it to a specific ‘group’. You could create one to distribute to local day care centers just as an example – and in your newsletter or flyer, highlight the benefits of an online business to the targeted group, for example earning money at home for stay at home moms or dads. Posting your home based business URL on bulletin boards can also be effective.

3. Use and give away free branded ‘stuff’
You can promote your business by having your URL on all your stationery, all written communication and other items you can give away for free. If you want to get a lot of people to know about your home based business, you will need to come up with some creative ways of promoting your URL. You can be limited only by your imagination. Have your business cards with your home based business URL. Give them out to people you meet, leave them about where you can, such as in your local coffee shop.

4. Newspapers and magazines
Local newspapers are good for advertising your online business. Most local papers have ‘home business opportunities’ section, so you run a regular classified advert. In addition, contact your local newspaper or business-oriented magazine and let the business editor know you have a new business and web site and what you offer. Local newspapers are frequently interested in featuring local business people and their accomplishments. This is free advertising and should always be used. You can also contact your local magazine and offer to write a monthly or weekly guest column for them, and include your ‘author bio’ and home based business URL.

5. Joint ventures with offline business
You can get into a joint venture partnership with an offline business which sells a complementary product or service to your home based business. If you can identify a partner that best fit your business, this is an important offline marketing strategy that can help you succeed in your home based business by enabling you to reach potential customers that you could not reach before. As an example, if you have a website selling fitness/health products or tips, you could prepare a leaflet and make a deal with an offline local fitness/health shop where they giveaway your leaflet to their shoppers with each purchase.

The offline marketing strategies outlined above can help you grow your home based business. I have used these strategies alot and they work well. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and promote your business offline!!

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