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.
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: