Business Instrument

Speak To Me! Educating Customers With Articles

For a small business owner trying to market online it’s important to remember that the Internet is essentially a vast multimedia learning tool. It’s like countless libraries movie theaters record stores classifieds sections and art museums all rolled into a single dynamic entity instantly accessible to everyone everywhere.

Think about it why do you surf the Internet? Sure entertainment and commerce are major reasons but even these are closely associated with learning. People who access the Internet for entertainment generally don’t seek out the same material they viewed the day before; no they look for new material that is they want to learn something.

Meanwhile most people who access the Internet to purchase products or to do business are not at the outset certain how they’re going to spend their money.

For example a customer who wants to purchase a good novel uses the Internet to inform her decision; before making a purchase she’ll surf through a variety of bookrelated websites reading reviews author biographies and interviews. Only after comparing a variety of choices and then comparing prices will she decide what to buy. So if you’re a contemporary novelist or publisher it’s essential to use the Internet to spread the word about your work.

Whatever your business the same principles apply. To succeed in online business you must spread the word about your goods and services. You can’t rely upon search engines to bring customers to you you’ve probably already noticed that search engines tend to favor larger companies in their results and most customers are repelled by the usual forms of Web advertising.

In the above example the customer choosing a novel doesn’t make her decision based on advertisements or sales pitches. Instead she educates herself and then makes a decision from a position of knowledge.

In this light the small business owner who finds ways to actively contribute to the vast structure of online educational content will be at an advantage. By writing educational articles about topics in your field you’ll not only teach your potential customers things they need to know but you’ll also earn their respect and thus lead them to your business.

It’s easy to distribute your original content throughout the Web. You simply need to sign up for an online article marketing service which you can locate through Google and submit articles. Then the service will make your voice available to thousands of Web publishers in your field.

If your content is unique and educational you’ll instantly earn the respect of your readers who will then want to do business with you. In the “About the Author” section attached to your articles they’ll find a description of what you do and a link to your website. Soon after your article marketing service begins to work for you you’ll find that you’re dramatically building site traffic.

For more information on how best to write format and structure your content you’ll find resources on your article marketing service’s website. What’s important to remember is that your articles are only to be advertisements insofar as they draw customers to your website. Beyond that you should tone down your marketing voice and refrain from mentioning the name of your business. Instead focus on making your articles as educational as possible. Forget the old advertising paradigms. Today it’s simple: If you educate customers will come.

As a side note there is one more important benefit of this type of article marketing. As your articles are distributed throughout the Web you’ll find your website rising in search engine results. This is because search engines rely upon “backlinking” which is what happens when a website is accessed through an external link. So thanks to article marketing search engines will finally become relevant to your small business online marketing strategy.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Nancy Amada helps small businesses become more successful and offers more ideas at Chapter Two. She is a frequent contributor to Article Marketer a highly popular article distribution service. Reach new customers the smart way!http://www.articlemarketer.com

Scaling Up Your Business: How NOT To Paint Yourself Into A Corner

You must plan ahead for growth that is scalable. If it’s too late and you’ve created a monster that can only grow by eating you alive at least you have the comfort of knowing you did it yourself.

Chances are however that there’s a way to move the time consuming chores of your business off of your desk and onto someone else’s. Better still is creating a business model that is scalable in the first place: designed to grow larger without requiring more input from the owner.

Imagine a selfcontained automated business that takes very little time every month to maintain. Now imagine creating a village of these businesses which can grow indefinitely large. The key here is making the day to day operations run on autopilot without demanding attention from the owner.

The force behind the autopilot can be employees remote assistants or computer automation. Automation is probably the best choice scripts and programs don’t take vacations or take off from work because their cat is having an existential crisis.

The type and method of doing business will determine how much input it will require from you. A “vanity” site that contains frequent blog entries by you and you alone will not scale well.

A membership site that gets its content from the members themselves can be infinitely scalable. By creating multiple sites that pay recurring fees and have selfgenerated valuable resources and information you can grow as big as you can stand or imagine. All it takes is finding the right model and duplicating it.

There are lowprofile Web sites doing this right now very profitably in a few small niches. The total number of possible niches is so large that there is literally no competition for the rest of the marketplace.

By offering free classified advertising to sellers and charging a monthly fee to buyers just about any niche market can be “monetized” effectively. The trick is to locate motivated buyers who need direct contact with the principals who are doing the selling.

Another model that scales up well is brokering or arbitrage of products or services. Very inexpensive sources of writing scripts programming graphics and the like are entering the market from Third World countries.

Because of a lack of credibility and bad word of mouth many excellent but inexpensive sources of these assets are ignored or underused. If you have a flair for locating the best of these suppliers and represent them to the IM community you can make substantial revenue with very little follow up effort.

The idea with all of these methods is to create a selfcontained “hub” that has many spokes radiating out from it. Each one can be a modest source of revenue. Taken together they can amount to millions of dollars a year for the owner that controls them. Control is the key. You don’t need to be personally managing every step chore and duty of these operations. Instead you make them run automatically by designing them rightly from the start.

McDonald’s restaurants appear to be a fast food business. In reality McDonald’s is an example of scalable real estate investment selffunded by the sale of fast food. As long as each branch sells enough food to cover its operating costs and mortgage payments it’s profitable to the corporation.

Learn to think like this outside of the box when you begin planning your Virtual Real Estate Empire. You could find a business model that actually loses money on the front end but makes you ridiculously rich from back end recurring or residual revenue! It’s all in how you set it up.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Jo Han Mok is the author of the 1 international business bestseller The ECode.He shares his amazing blueprint for creating million dollar internet businessesat: http://www.InternetMillionaireBlueprints.com

Running Your Home Based Business Marketing Your Business

Marketing is critical to the success of any business whether it is a oneperson operation a medium sized company or a multinational corporation. When running your home based business it is even more important that marketing your business is done right as you cannot afford to get it wrong. Remember that everything you do and the way that you do it is all marketing. Doing something well is usually as easy as doing it badly but wins you a good reputation.

The UKs Chartered Institute of Marketing definition of marketing is The management process that identifies anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably. So we can see that marketing is not just about advertising and selling products or services. It is about: finding out what potential customers want; creating the products and services that satisfy those needs; selling those products and services at the right price; making those products and services available in the right place.

To check if you are doing all of these we can look at the four elements of marketing that are known as the four Ps Product Price Promotion and Place. Let us look closer at the first your product.

Does your product meet the needs of your customers? If it is not perfectly suited to customers then you may want to make some changes. Ideally your response to this question should be that no changes are required. How do your products compare with your competitors? If they are better or compare reasonably well then you pass this criteria. But if they do not compare very well or you do not know you need to urgently review this particular aspect.

Every product or service can be said to have a fourstage life cycle. Birth is when a new product is launched and introduced to prospective customers. Growth occurs when the product becomes popular and starts to sell well. Maturity is when the product is selling so well that you are unable to keep up with demand. The final stage is decline when demand and sales fall. Customers have turned their attention elsewhere. Take a good look at your product or service and decide which of these stages are applicable.

The second element of the four Ps is price. The price should be thought to be fair by the customer. It does not necessarily have to be the cheapest but value for money. It should be competitive so that when your customers compare your prices to those of your competitors they think yours are within the price range they would expect to pay. The price you set for your product or service must be profitable. If you are not trading at a profit you will not be running your home based business for very long. Remember that the price you set has to cover the cost of your overheads: light heating telephone advertising etc and still provide a profit. When costing you product you should also include your time.

The third element of marketing is that of promotion. Promotion is how a product or service is brought to the attention of your potential customers. This can be done in a number of ways and can be paid promotion or free. The former includes advertising in newspapers magazines radio or television. Depending on your budget you may want to consider what could be classed as free promotion. This could include competitions e.g. create a winning slogan and win a holiday for two. Remember that competitions do not have to cost you anything if you consider joint ventures!. You may want to make special offers such as: buy one get one free; buy now and pay next year; 0 interest etc.

The final element to marketing your business is place. This covers where the goods or services are offered for sale and then the way these goods or services are distributed and delivered to the customer. In running your business from home you need to look at how you distribute and deliver to your customer. Running your home based business does not mean you can forget this element of marketing your business.

Marketing your business well you must get the four Ps right; product price promotion and place. Analyze these areas monitor your results and be prepared to change your marketing strategy. Be willing to ask your customers or clients what they think and be prepared to act on the results.

About the writer:  John Coates lives in Barcelona and is the owner of Top Home Based Businesses and Top Home Based Businesses Article Directory.