Tag Archives: public relations

Business Photos—Professional, Digital, or What?

I’ve written before about using photos in your home business promotions, but we haven’t really talked about what sort of photos work best and whether or not it is worth one’s while (and expense budget) to hire a professional photographer. Of course, it will all depend on exactly how you intend to use those photos and whether you are taking photos of people, places, or things… What do you need photos of, and how will they be used? If you need to take photos of merchandise for a Web site or catalog, you will want to make sure the images … Continue reading →

Finding Your Target Audience

You’ve likely heard the term “target audience” as it relates to marketing and public relations. But, have you given much thought to exactly who or what your target audience is? Do you know who wants and needs to purchase your products or services? Here is some information on how you can explore and evaluate your target audience: It can be incredibly productive for you to take the time to figure out who your target audience or target market is. Otherwise, you may do hit and miss marketing or broadcast marketing hoping to reach potential customers. By defining who you market … Continue reading →

How to Conduct Market Research

Are you interested in finding out if the market is ready for a product or service you’d like to offer? Are you even wondering where and who your target market should be? Market research is a way to do a study and evaluate a variety of things that can help you do a better job of running your business. Here is an outline of how to conduct Market Research: 1. Start by defining your objectives–decide what exactly it is that you’d like to find out or achieve by your efforts. Do you want to find out how well a new … Continue reading →

Do You Have an “Elevator Marketing Pitch?”

In my years spent working in fundraising and marketing for nonprofit organizations–both as employee and as a consultant–I encouraged those who worked with these organizations, whether they were employees or volunteers, to develop a speech or a way of explaining what the organization did in the time it took to take an elevator ride. Often we get started and we can talk and talk about our businesses and what we do–but we don’t always have that kind of time to make a first and lasting impression. We need something strong, brief, and inspirational that we can share with confidence and … Continue reading →

Finding New Markets

Marketing, advertising, and public relations are one of the necessary pieces to just about any businesses. Unfortunately, marketing doesn’t always come easily for many and it can be tough to take the focus off what we feel we do best in running our businesses and get out there and pound the pavement for clients and customers. But, in order to grow a business, we need to put some energy and effort into marketing and find ways to identify and pursue new markets for our products or services. There are several ways to go about finding new markets. You can start … Continue reading →

Do You Know What Your Customers Want?

As home business owners, we may get so caught up in daily operations and staying afloat that we forget to think of our “market”–we might not be training ourselves to think about what our clients and customers actually want. One of the bonuses of working on our own and with a small business is the closeness we have to our customers and the flexibility we have to make changes and adjustment to provide products and services exactly how and when our customers need them. But first, we have to know our customers and what they actually want. For some of … Continue reading →

Networking With Former Coworkers

Just because we’ve left the traditional work world behind (or at least we home business owners may have partially left it behind) doesn’t mean we should let our connections with old coworkers go. Former coworkers and colleagues can be an important group in our extended circle of connections (or sphere of influence) and it can be very worthwhile to keep those connections alive. I think I am a fairly common representation of the modern professional–many of my best friends (and even a few romantic interests) have come from work. We spend so much time focusing on our careers and work … Continue reading →

Getting Started With Marketing

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 … Continue reading →