Offline Marketing for Your Home-Based Business
If you have a home-based business or work-at-home in a job that requires you handle your own marketing and promotion, then you will want to investigate all the avenues available to you, both online and off. This article is devoted to the best offline venues for advertising, marketing, and promoting your home-based business.Even better than a basic, simple card, however, is a unique, eye-catching business card that makes an impression. A business card is a necessity, and that's why every businessperson has one, but precisely because everyone has one, many business cards simply find their way into the trash.
By making the small extra expense to design an attention-grabbing logo, use a colored background, adding a slogan or a catchy quote, maybe even adding a small photo of yourself so people who have your card can easily recall who gave it to them - are all great ways to maximize the benefits of having your own business card.
2. Giveaways - Everyone loves free stuff, especially when it's cool free stuff. And if you hadn’t noticed how nearly every big company utilizes this winning marketing strategy, then you must be walking around with blinders on. Giving away freebies to potential customers is actually a tried-and-true method of attracting new customers both online and off. Just make sure that whatever you give away has some obvious association with your company or product, even if it's nothing more than your company name engraved, embossed, or otherwise emblazoned on the giveaway item. Otherwise people are liable to forget who gave it to them, no matter how much they love it.
3. Events - Sponsor an event. An excellent way to get the word out about your business is to sponsor events happening in your market. Consider intramural activities, sporting events, charity fundraising drives, concerts, popular workshops and seminars - the list goes on and on. Find out what events people who fit your target market are attending, and offer to help sponsor it.
Often you will even get your business’s name printed on any advertising and promotional materials and souvenirs/memorabilia for said event - be they signs, t-shirts, hats, flyers, programs, etc. Associating yourself with an event that people attend for fun and enjoyment is a particularly effective (and unobtrusive) way to spread the word about your business.
4. Classifieds - Believe it or not, people still read the newspaper. And just as it always has been, the classifieds section is consistently one of the most frequently and popularly read. As a small home-based business-person, you probably don't have the money to put towards display ads in the rest of paper. Why even bother trying to afford that outrageous expense when the "big leaguers" already have that part of the market dominated?
But the classifieds is still the arena for the individual and small business. Just peruse your local classifieds and you will see what we mean. Verizon has a display ad in page 3 of National Section, but the local cable company has a 5 line text ad in the classifieds. Another example: Apple may have a colorful ad in the New York Times but to find the nearest Apple dealer or Apple technician, you would have better luck in the classifieds.
Display ads pump brand name recognition for large and established brands. Locals, however, turn to the classifieds to find a product or service provider in their own backyard. Find the newspapers that serve the geographical markets closest to you and if you a more global market (ie. An internet business) then also seek those papers that are considered local by readers most likely to visit your "establishment".
4. Fliers - Post fliers in supermarkets, sign posts, in parking lots under windshield wipers, anywhere that you have permission to do so. Make sure you are permitted, though. Nothing cuts into a budget like fines, and nothing spreads bad juju about a new business than angry fellow-businesspeople upset that you’ve sullied their place of business with unwanted advertising.
A particularly good way to use fliers to build business is to hand them out at large public events. The personal touch adds an extra kicker to the effect of the ad, especially if you are smiling when you hand it out.
5. Word-of-mouth - Lastly, we remind you to never underestimate the power of a personal recommendation. Nothing spreads word about a worthwhile business faster than simple word of mouth.
