So you want to start a business on your own. You want to sell a product that you think is on par with others in the same category or maybe it’s better than the others. The only hitch is, that you don’t know how to market the product simply because you are starting your venture on a shoestring budget and therefore, you have very little or no money for marketing. In a case like this, how would you promote and advertise your product so that it builds equity in the market?

As a common practice, the marketing budget should be about 2% to 5% of the overall gross sales, but this is not the same for all markets and products. So the first thing you need to do when you start a business is to figure out what your marketing budget would be for the first six months.

You could use the following promotional activities to begin with – events, aggressive advertising, internet marketing, word of mouth, strategic partnerships, public relations and direct marketing. For a low budget start-up unit, the following marketing tools can be useful:

Newspaper write-ups – You can get articles that talk about your product in a broader perspective, published in a newspaper. For example, if you are selling a sauna belt, the article can be about the effects of sauna treatment for weight loss. The article can also have a word or two from a famous personality who religiously believes in the sauna treatment.

Direct marketing – Instead of going for expensive marketing techniques when you start a business, go for direct marketing. Keep your target audience limited and specific to reach them in the most effective and the cheapest way. For example, fliers inserted in newspapers and informative emails are two inexpensive direct marketing tools.

Word- of- mouth publicity – Get your friends and colleagues to spread the word about your product. This is the most effective and economical way to advertise. Get your friends and colleagues together for a small gathering and introduce your product to them. Keep in mind not to sell it too aggressively!

Internet marketing – Get people familiar with your product through internet write-ups and blogs. Most enterprises depend upon blogs to garner awareness for their products. This is again an extremely cheap and hassle free exercise. Similarly, market your product via social networking sites. Keep people intimated about new schemes, discounts, product enhancements and other new developments.

Make a website of your product – This is a relatively inexpensive option. Making a website of your product gives you a better chance to display your product and explain its features to millions of eyeballs everyday.

While all these could be effective marketing techniques that you can use when you start a business, you would eventually need to have a more consolidated and planned marketing strategy to promote your product and services. Therefore, keep putting aside a small part of your profits every month for your marketing budget. Use your marketing budget judiciously and keep a track of the results on each front. A marketing tactic that does not give you the desired numbers should be dropped.

All in all, make sure that every penny of your marketing budget is used to effectively project and promote your product. Follow a strategy that convinces your target audience to follow the lead and lets your business grow.

For more information and to learn how to work with Maryjean.

Starting a home business or any kind of business can be a difficult task.  Having little or no marketing budget can make it that much more difficult.  To find out more about starting a business without a marketing budget or other internet marketing strategies, contact Maryjean Howe.
Maryjean Howe is a professional internet marketer and business coach based out of Oceanside, CA. She works with people to help them start a business and continues to help them use training materials to effectively run a successful business. Maryjean has worked with people from all different backgrounds to help them start a business without any experience. For more information, contact Maryjean.
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Make Money Easily With A Home Party Business!

Here’s How Easy It Can Be:

#1: Find a woman you know to host the party, and have her invite 20 girls to her house for a fun filled party where various types of gift items will be available for sale!

#2: Get there a few minutes before the guests arrive so you can set up a table with a dozen or more different items that you purchased (with some of your previous profits) at a 25% discount from the catalog prices.

#3: While she serves chips, dips and sodas, or coffee and cake, you give everyone a catalog, a sheet of paper and a pen to use. Play a game or two, show a few products that you have with you, and encourage them to order some of these cool items!

#4: After the items you brought have served their purpose of being samples that the girls could see up close, you can then sell these for the normal price right off the table! Also try to convince a few party guests to date a party with you within the upcoming two weeks! This is a very important step…keep booking parties and fill up your appointment book!

#5: Have them all make a list of what they want to buy, you total their lists, and they give you cash or write you a check for their totals. You explain that the party hostess will have their merchandise within a couple of weeks and she will drop it off to them or call them when they can stop by and pick it up from her!

#6: After the guests leave, you total up the party sales total, then take that grand total, and figure out what 10% would be, and tell the hostess that she can select that amount worth of FREE items for hosting the party.

#7: When you get home, you go online, to our website where you will have a special code for 25% off, and you will input the order of all the things which are going to be shipped via UPS to the house of the hostess, including her free items, which you pay for out of your profits! You submit payment with PayPal or a credit card, and we ship the items via UPS to you or to your hostess!

#8: You keep the remainder of the money as your commission! It’s that simple! Then you do more parties in the same way, over and over…

Please Click Here To See These Wonderful Money Making Catalogs! They are really nice and there are several different ones to choose from! You can even skip the party plan, if you feel it is not for you, and make money by showing these to people, one on one, and taking orders!

Back to the party scenario for a minute, please…let’s imagine that you offered her ten percent (knowing that you make 25%) and her party sales total $800 (which can easily happen) then you tell her she gets to select $80 worth of merchandise! Of the $800, you are sending in 75% or $600 for that merchandise, and the $80 worth that you are giving her as a thank you gift, will cost you $60, so your total cost would be $660, and there would not be a shipping charge for an order of that size. You would net $140 for yourself…Not Bad for a two hour party!?

This is why so many people sell Tupperware, and that’s why others host or hostess the parties!

All of our catalogs are ideal for these types of home parties! Imagine what your income would be like if you had four or five parties each week? It is all up to you! We are willing to sell the items at a 25% discount to ordinary people who really want to earn some money for themselves! 

Or just get a few catalogs, show them around, and take some orders! We’ve had customers who began with one single catalog, showed it around, took orders, made money, and then put that money back into their business. They ordered a few more catalogs so that they could have extras to loan out to people for a few days! The word would spread, and they would gain more customers, through word of mouth advertising! Always be sure to get these catalogs back and don’t ever be afraid to ask the people if they want to order anything!

Maybe you will also go to GoDaddy.com and set up your own simple little website, where you can sell items, which you buy at wholesale from us, use a PayPal account to collect the funds from your customers online, PayPal us the 75% (your cost) then we can ship the items to you, or to them if you would rather, and you can mail them a catalog and hopefully get more orders from them in the future! Learn More About PayPal By Clicking Here!

There are so many ways to make money from home…YOU just have to get started and do it! Don’t let anyone’s negativity tell YOU that you cannot do it, because you can if you really want to!

I also have an eBook about making money from home and it features over 101 great ideas!

Many Blessings!

Father Time has been a published writer for over thirty two years and particularly focuses on motivational and self-help writing and speaking! He also has many years of sales experience and writes sales & marketing training and materials. He has a fabulous new eBook out that features over 111 Ideas How YOU Can Make Money From Home With Your Very Own Home Based Business!

Father Time currently does a lot of writing for hire, especially article marketing pieces for folks who have their own websites to promote. IF you have a website, you should contact him for some good writing to promote your site; right away! You will be glad that you did!

Father Time also deals in wholesale merchandise of a wide variety, and is especially interested in helping ordinary people who need to earn extra cash, by allowing them to buy a small quantity of wholesale items for the purposes of reselling these items for a cash profit. This is a very simple way to earn an immediate cash income! It would be just like the folks who sell those well-known vitamins, cleaning supplies, or cosmetics, but you won’t be selling something that a million others are selling!

His website is: www.FatherTimePublishing.com If YOU are simply purchasing merchandise at retail, YOU can save an extra 15% off. (Sorry, discount does not apply to writing, readings by e-mail, eBooks, or on wholesale packages) The coupon code is: SaveNow

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/make-money-by-doing-home-parties-and-selling-gift-items-from-catalogs-1637835.html

Managing a business requires a very different set of skills to those needed for planning a business. This can be seen most clearly within franchise businesses whereby—with a good “blueprint”— franchise owners, who do not necessarily posses an in-depth history of business development, can manage very successful, ongoing enterprises.

The blueprint—essentially a definition of the business goals, strategies, tactics and procedures—is developed by subject-matter experts, will have withstood the test of time, and enables a franchise owner to concentrate on leading and managing an enterprise within, and supported by, a proven framework. This is reflected by the significantly-higher success rate of new franchise operations compared to non-franchise businesses start-ups. Planning, then, is a key ingredient in any successful business.

Indeed, the US entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens has a favourite saying that: “A fool with a plan can outsmart a genius with no plan!”

Planning isn’t the only ingredient to business success – but it is certainly the most critical! And of all aspects of business planning, none is more important than in planning the marketing, whose primary purpose is to generate revenue. 

The marketing function

Contrary to popular belief, ‘marketing’ is not synonymous with sales or advertising. (Of course, this isn’t helped by the many salespeople who call themselves marketers!) Marketing isn’t advertising – it actually concentrates on strategic growth. That is, it’s concerned with the growth of revenue or, in other words, increasing the income that flows from customers.

As a business owner or business manager you have three basic ways to increase your company’s sales revenue. You can:

•  increase the number of customers,

•  increase the sales amount generated by each customer, or

•  increase the frequency of each customer’s transactions with your company.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Admittedly, there will always be additional factors that influence the ultimately-realised profit, such as the cost of serving additional customers or in increased distribution expenses. However, recognising how these three basic concepts affect your company will help in understanding the importance of constantly reviewing and analysing your customers’ needs to increase your value to those customers.

Being customer-centric

The main tools available to achieve one or all of the three customer revenue growth concepts include optimising the product and service mix, correctly identifying and understanding current and future customers, and creating effective communications between the company and its clients. How successful you will be is dependent upon:

•  how clearly you understand the motivations of the customers,

•  the internal and external constraints within which your company operates,

•  ensuring that your customers’ needs are met by your company’s business strategies and business tactics, and

•  communicating this to customers as effectively as possible.

Clearly, customer service is a central element in marketing – that is, in meeting customer needs and expectations. This is indeed an essential component of any successful marketing effort and represents the majority of the five key elements of the marketing phases:

1. Identifying who your current and future customers are;

2. Understanding your customers’ needs;

3. Developing or adapting your products or services to meet your customers’ needs;

4. Developing and implementing marketing communication strategies; and

5. Monitoring the effectiveness of each marketing communication strategy, and either improving or removing those underperforming efforts.

Strategic planning

Costly errors often occur because time is not initially spent on the critical tasks of researching and understanding the customers. Too many people waste time by jumping straight into the fray and creating advertising campaigns because traditional wisdom says that this is what’s needed to “market” their products or services. Although a traditional advertising campaign might be a valid tool in your endeavour, it should actually be the last step in your marketing process.

Marketing plans are a very effective place to start, and don’t necessarily have to be large or complex documents, although they should address the following key seven issues:

1. What is your company identity? Who are you, and what customer needs do you satisfy? Who is your target market? What is an ideal customer profile?

2. What are the objectives of your marketing efforts? What is your current market position and where do you plan to take the company. How do you intend to get to this position from here? What is the timeframe? What will it cost, and what do you need to do to ensure this growth? What is the size of your market, and what percentage of this market do you intend to capture?

3. How will you achieve these objectives? What marketing tactics will you employ? Why those tactics? Which tactics are likely to provide the highest return-on-investment? How will you monitor the performance and effectiveness of these tactics? Who will monitor, control and, if necessary, adjust those tactics? What historical tactics have you employed? What did they cost and what revenue did they generate?

4. Perform a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis on your company. You could concentrate on comparing your pricing, placement (or distribution), product, promotion, processes, perception, and people with your competitors. Consider what your customers love about you? What do they dislike about you?

5. Who are these competitors, and what are their strengths and weaknesses? What do customers love about them? What do they dislike about them?

6. What is your niche or unique selling proposition? This can also be defined in terms of pricing, placement (or distribution), product, promotion, processes, perception, and people.

7. What is your marketing budget? Is this budget realistic and sufficient to achieve your strategic goals? How does it compare to industry norms?

Marketing communications

When creating your main marketing messages, there is always the temptation to focus on yourself, on your internal processes, or on your products. This should be resisted! Instead, ask yourself these customer-centric questions:

•  How much do I know about my customers? For example, are there clearly-discernable customer groups who account for major portions of my sales? Are there some groups of customers who are easier or cheaper to deal with than others? Do I have undesirable customers and am I wasting time and money trying to gain their business?

•  Why do customers buy from me, and who else are they buying from? Why do they buy from these competitors and not me?

•  What benefits do my products or services provide?

•  How do my customers find out about my company’s products or services? For example, if you use on-line promotions, where do my customers land after clicking on banner links or on Google Adword campaigns? Do they land on a targeted landing page that gives immediate and relevant information concerning the promotion, or on a generic home page?

•  What are my customers dissatisfied with? What can I do to increase my customers’ satisfaction with my company?

•  Are there other products or services that I can offer my customers to satisfy their needs? Or, can I optimise what I offer by reducing the number of products and services I sell but still meet my customers’ needs?

Return-on-investments (ROI)

Metrics! The wise marketing manager understands the basics of each distinct marketing communications campaign that is used, including the cost and the return (or effectiveness) from each of those channels. For example, do you know which of your advertising streams is generating the highest returns, which are below industry average and, if they aren’t performing, which should be targeted for improvement or removal? Are they providing you with feedback on how your product or service mix should be adjusted?

Don’t allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security based upon historical performance. All markets are dynamic, and marketing tactics that worked last year or last month may be underperforming today. Testing, measuring and analysing your marketing efforts should be regular, on-going tasks that allow you to continually validate the effectiveness of each marketing tactic.

The changing face of advertising

Advertising is currently undergoing a revolution. Indeed, the viability of the business model supporting newspapers is becoming increasingly uncertain due to the shrinking revenue base from traditional print advertisement. This has been caused by consumer empowerment resulting from the widespread use of the world wide web, whereby people no longer rely solely on untargeted and mass-appeal advertising to gain product awareness.

Consumer purchasing behaviour is generally becoming more sophisticated—people are increasingly performing their own online market research and comparative product analysis. This has resulted in the decreased influence of mass-market advertising (such as from newspapers) and interruption advertising (such as TV or radio advertisements), and the evolution of surgically-targeted messages containing individually-relevant information which are now at the forefront in marketing communication tactics.

Need help?

Marketing is a different game to what it was in the “old” days—i.e., pre 1996, before the widespread adoption of the internet! A decade ago, it can be argued that marketing and advertising were essentially the same beast, it was primarily a creative effort, and it was generally true that:

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half!
- John Wanamaker

Today, savvy business owners and managers insist—quite properly—on measureable returns and results from their marketing budget. You may wish to consider revisiting your marketing strategies and tactics, or seek help from experienced marketing professionals, if you have trouble answering any of these statements:

1.  I know where my business is positioned and where I plan to take it. For example, I know the size of my available markets, how much market-share I currently enjoy, and how much of it I plan to own.

2.  I have a plan to achieve this growth, and this plan is current and relevant.

3.  I know which of my products or services generate the majority of my business, and by how much.

4.  I run a number of marketing campaigns and I know which ones are giving me my best returns on investment and how much each adds to my top line.

5.   My website does not resemble an online brochure. It is a hard-working marketing tool that provides me with relevant data on consumer behaviour.

6.   My customers know what sets me apart from my competitors, and I enjoy customer loyalty and high rates of repeat business.

7.  I have asked my customers why they purchase from me and how I can continue to improve my levels of performance.

8.  The records of my existing customer are accurate, useful, and generate an important part of my business revenue.

9.  My sales-conversion rates are excellent and above industry averages.

It is unfortunate that many marketing efforts are misdirected, unfocused, unmeasured—and wasted. Although marketing mistakes are invariably costly, creating the right marketing plan, strategies and tactics will build your business and increase revenue.

Carl Mocnik is a director of Plenty Systems, an Australian marketing and training services business that assists companies to increase their revenue through strategic goal setting, marketing action plans and by providing the manpower to make it happen. Carl has more than 20 years of experience in project management, commercial management and business development. For additional marketing resources, including his monthly newsletter Plenty News, visit his website at www.plentysystems.com.au

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/avoiding-marketing-disasters-1413505.html