Tried and True Home Business Marketing Techniques
Tried and True Marketing Techniques
The following sections describe some traditional and low-cost marketing techniques available to home businesses. You probably won’t want to use all of them, but almost any business can benefit from some variation of these types of marketing.
Display Advertising This is advertising that is displayed, usually in a newspaper, magazine, phone book, and so on. (Website ads are discussed in the next section.) If you are a retail organization, display advertising needs to be part of your marketing plan. If you are not a retail business, however, display advertising might just be an expensive exercise in frustration and expense. So, before you hire a graphic artist and start calling for ad kits,
• Do your homework, and do it well. Display advertising really needs to be researched thoroughly if you are going to do it at all. Which venue? Your local newspaper or the national magazine? (There’s a huge difference in price, believe me.) Can you handle the response if the ad works as projected? Will you get inappropriate calls? What is your break-even point? How many clients or how much business will you need in order to make more than the cost of the ad? Can you handle that much work?
• Understand why you want the ad. Display ads might be a prudent move for other reasons than a direct line to potential customers. If it is important that you or your company be well-established (for example, a building contractor), it might be a good idea to invest in display ads. The impression that your company can spend the money for a large display ad, repeatedly, can make a customer choose to do business with you because he knows that you didn’t just arrive in the community yesterday. Also, many of these ads appear in nonprofit venues, such as theater programs and school sports calendars. So, you might be placing the advertisement more as a way to show community support. It’s a great way to build what’s known as “goodwill,” but you might not see a direct return in dollars and cents in the near future.
• For a service business, display ads might backfire. Let’s say that you need a good mechanic. Which would you rather use: Your friend’s recommendation or someone from an ad? That’s right; you’re going to go with your friend’s recommendation if at all possible. So if you’re the mechanic, and you’ve placed a display ad, who is going to call? People who can’t reach their friends in time, are new to the community, or don’t like their friends’ answers. In other words, clients who are more likely to be both desperate and a bit picky (or downright difficult). It’s a great way to reach people new to the community (or perhaps new to having the need you’re addressing, such as folks who just purchased a used car). But you will also have to screen prospective clients more closely, and the percentage of callers who just aren’t a good fit will be higher. (You can mitigate this by choosing your venue carefully – perhaps a display ad in the Welcome Wagon package targets the newcomers you want, while avoiding less desirable customers.)
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