There is a difference between public relations and “visibility” when it comes to your business marketing and promotions. Visibility refers to how visible your business is—how “out in public” it is and how aware your public or market is of your business and what you do. Visibility can be a real problem for home-based businesses since many of us don’t have a physical location or “store” where we can draw attention to our operations.
This reality doesn’t have to mean that we toil away in obscurity, however. In this day and age, we can create visibility for our businesses without having a physical retail or office location. If you have a web site, then you’ve got a place to direct people to find out more about your business. As you create an “image” or a brand for your business, you can direct people to your web site and reinforce what your business is all about.
The thing about visibility with a small business is that most of us don’t have huge marketing budgets to saturate the market with our promotions. We have to be strategic and make sure that we aren’t squandering our resources and our marketing efforts. Get to know your market well and direct your promotional efforts to the places they will most likely see and respond. This way, even if your marketing isn’t everywhere, your customers and prospects will feel like it is because it is everywhere that the go or that they are likely to see it. This boosts your business’ visibility.
Decide what you want your message to be, what your business image is (Is it you? Your product? A value of your products or services?) and get that message out consistently and persistently. Give people someplace to go to make a connection with your business (your web site or you personally) and you can still grow your visibility even if you are a small, home-based business.
Also: Should You Use Promotional Products?
Focusing on Performance for Your Home Business