9/6/07

Home Based Business - 7 Explosive Marketing Strategies to Ignite Your Sales

Here are seven of the most important marketing strategies you can put into practice that are proven to be successful for any home based business. The strategies can improve your life and your business if you really believe and trust in what you are doing.

*Explosive Strategy 1* Set your goals high

Get yourself a millionaire's attitude and aim high. All things were once impossible until someone figured out how to do it. The main thing is not to undersell yourself. Your future happiness and any success of your business enterprises rely on you thinking BIG.

'The great danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.'
Michelangelo

You must set yourself a really great challenge and don’t set yourself too low a target. Re-evaluate all of your business and marketing activities to ensure you have a plan for the next 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 5 years and even the next 10 years!

*Explosive Strategy 2* See the big picture

You must have a clear picture of where you are going and what you want to achieve. You may already have a business with marketing strategies in place, or you may be starting out, it doesn’t really matter because you should still be applying the same process.

You need to look at your ideas again and write down some new ones. How do you know when you’ve arrived at your destination if you don’t know where you are going?

When starting out on your next project, take time to write down what’s going on in your head. Ask yourself if you have every piece to the puzzle and if not, how you will overcome it?

*Explosive Strategy 3* Define your USP

You need a unique selling proposition. It is highly unlikely that you will be marketing a product or service that can’t be provided by a number of other competitors. If your visitor can easily do a search for a similar product, why should they buy it from you and what defines your USP?

Can you offer your product in a way that will make your visitor see amazing value for money and they won’t even need to go looking anywhere else to buy?

Can you:

a) Make a unique offer
b) Give an incredible guarantee
c) Offer an astounding level of service
d) Stand out from the crowd
e) Give away something for free

You can easily differentiate yourself by studying your competitors and then make your offer irresistibly better by using all of the above methods.

*Explosive Strategy 4* Give away something for free

Whatever type of business you run, or are considering starting there is nothing as powerful as FREE. Direct mail exploded with the tag line – 'Send no money now. You were basically told that you could try out the product free for 14 days. You would have it on appraisal and your credit card wouldn’t be billed until you were entirely satisfied.

Here are some tried and tested methods you could apply and they work great for almost any products, particularly to digital products:

a) Write an e-book and give it away
b) Make the e-book available to be resold and given away
c) Write an informative email course about your product or service
d) If you have a software product, let people have it on appraisal for 14 days before they buy.
e) Give away a ‘teaser’ sample to hook your visitors and get them coming back for more.

Once your free offer has been accepted your prospect is up to 50% more likely to buy from you. You’ll lose a big chunk of sales if you try and ask for people’s money the first time they visit your site.

*Explosive Strategy 5* Propel yourself to expert status

You should write articles and submit them to free content sites. When you write interesting articles about your chosen subject and have them published, you instantly elevate yourself to authority status.

The more you write the more internet real estate you can occupy. You can attain expert status within your area of business. This will build trust with your reader. Each article you have published will contain links back to your website and this will bring targeted visitors to see what you have to offer.

Targeted visitors mean more sales. Imagine writing at least one article each week and submitting it to two hundred publisher sites. After just five short weeks you would have over 1000 links pointing back to your website.

Anyone can write an article and with a little practice, a really good article. Even if you don’t want to write it yourself, you can outsource this task for very little cost.

*Explosive Strategy 6* Automate your online business

The number one reason to automate as much of your business as possible is to save time and reduce costs. Any process that can be automated will mean a faster response for your customers and more satisfied customers.

Here are some areas in any online business marketing strategy that you can automate and will help grow your business at the same time:

a) Capture email addresses
b) Automate delivery of digital products and free guides for interested visitors
c) Take credit card orders online
d) Use a smart ecommerce system that automates your sales process
e) Provide instant delivery of e-products
f) Use affiliates to market your products for you
g) Automate the payment of your affiliates
h) Track all of your online advertising and sales results

*Explosive Strategy 7* Create multiple streams of income

Having more than one source of income is vital if you intend to have a great business. You intend to be around for a long time don’t you? Here are five ways you could create additional income streams:

1. Find a strategic business partner. Look for someone who is in a similar line of business to yours. You could offer to exchange products and then it sell to your own 'hot' customer list.

2. Model other successful business or people. You don’t need to copy them exactly but practice some of the same habits that have made them successful.

3. Ask people online with a survey as to what exactly it is they need most to solve their problem. You could compile the results and then produce your next income stream to match exactly their wants or needs.

4. Combine a product and service together in a package deal. It could increase your sales. If you're selling a book, offer an hour of consulting with it.

5. Turn part of your web site into a members only web site. Instead of charging for access, use it as a free bonus for one of your new products to generate extra income.

In conclusion, maintain customer loyalty by looking after them well. Your home based business profits will go from average to spectacular. Customers will return to you time and time again and you will also get free recommendations resulting in additional traffic and more sales.

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