Not sure where to begin marketing your home business? Or, maybe you’ve been doing fine but would like a little “push” in the public relations department? Here are some ideas and suggestions for some relatively inexpensive marketing efforts that might help you promote your home business…
There are plenty of marketing activities you can do that really won’t cost you much at all–creating a promotional e-mail that you can send out to your contact list letting them know that you are in business and what sort of products and services you offer is one such activity. You might want to include a special discount, a link to your web site, an informational article or some other “freebies” to make the e-mail more valuable and memorable.
You can also create flyers, brochures or a postcard to mail and/or distribute with your business information on it. This is a fairly traditional marketing technique and it will cost you for materials and postage, but if you can put together a creative and attention-getting mailing piece, this could be well worth your efforts.
If you live in an area with a newspaper, consider submitting press releases, letters to the editor, or editorials to your paper. Some papers have a “business beat” section and they will print news items about local businesses–things like a new location, new businesses, hiring and staff changes, product and service changes, etc. Find out when you paper prints it’s business section and submit your information. If you can come up with an interesting feature story or news item that relates to your business, pitch it to the local media and see if you can get coverage. Don’t overlook specialty publications, weekly publications and newsletters. You might be able to publicize your business in your church or school newsletter, or even a neighborhood newsletter.
Promote your business every where you go–if you belong to any professional organizations, clubs, classes, or even a book club–you can use the gathering to put in a plug for your business. You’d be surprised how just starting to talk and share details about your home business will start to create buzz and interest in what you are doing. Of course, you don’t have to be obnoxious about things, but if you’re proud of what you do, it certainly doesn’t hurt to do a little public relations wherever you go.