Thursday, July 3, 2008

How To Market Your Business-Advertise Online and Profit Faster

By Billy Anderson III

Ok. It took you long enough but you decided to go for it and start your own business. That's great. But what do you do next?

In days gone by folks went about marketing their business a little differently. If you liked having to get the phone surgically removed from your ear, maybe you liked cold calling. Or, if you liked having doors slammed in your face, maybe you tried visiting places of business or homes unannounced to peddle your wares. My all-time personal favorite is the guy who borrowed a lot of money to spend on creating a snazzy advertising campaign for his business that never worked.

I've got good news for you. You don't have to wear out your ears cold calling or wear out your shoes pounding the pavement any longer. And, best of all, you don't have to spend a fortune on your advertising budget. Marketing on the internet is the key. The internet is the great equalizer. Now a small business can utilize proven internet marketing methods to cut expenses and dramatically improve profits in a hurry.

An essential component of your own business is putting up your own website, which is nowhere near as expensive as it used to be. If cost is a concern, there are a lot of businesses available today which have their own website and would love for you to join them. Caveat: Even if you join a business with a website, you want to be able to control your own customer lists so create either your own website or your own lead capture page which links to the site.

Lucky for you there are a lot of different marketing methods available over the internet. Yes, a lot of them cost absolutely nothing. Banner ads is one such method although it is not my favorite. You can now write and post numerous free ads on certain sites and research them before getting started.

It is always a good idea to give away free content to entice visitors to your site. The content must be interesting and useful to the reader. There are several ways to do this. Giving away free e-books that are short, simple and easy to read yet provide valuable content is a great way to attract customers tp your site. Who doesn't like getting something useful and interesting for free? Another method which may work even better is to begin writing a regular free e-newsletter. Submitting periodic free newsletters onlink wth a link to either your capture page or website will certainly bring more traffic to your site. And more traffic translates into more sales.

How can you guarantee to increase your profits in the start-up phase of your business as well as when your business has matured? You can try affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves signing up as an affiliate on other people's sites. An affiliate is one who agrees to offer or recommend someone else's product or service to their own website visitors and/or customers in order to generate referral commission income. This can be done to even out cash flow when your business is young and to add to the bottom line even after your own business is a roaring success.

No longer do you have to sell your house or your car to fund an advertising budget for your new business. No longer do you have to spend hours on sales calls to people who are not even pre-qualified. The internet, with its global reach, can do your marketing for you. Even if you join a business with its own website, I recommend that you create your own website or at least your own lead capture page. And whether you write free ads for your business online or place free banner ads you are not spending money to advertise. Don't be shy about giving away quality content for free. E-books and e-newsletters will be worth it in the long run by attracting more people to your site. Please don't forget about affiliate marketing. This can be a tremendous boost to your profits at any stage of your business cycle. What are you waiing for? You can get started and begin making money today!

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