Why Should You Advertise?

“Why should I advertise?” This is a question many business owners find themselves asking. Advertising is essential for any business because it reminds your customers about your brand name and serves as a constant reminder. If people don’t know your company name, then how are they going to enter your door?

Being consistent with your advertising efforts is the key – you’re setting your business up for both short and long term success. The following 8 tips are powerful reasons why advertising is a must.

You Have To Advertise To Reach Your New Customers

The market is constantly changing. New families moving into the area potentially mean a new customer base for your business – or even your competitions. Consumers’ income levels are always changing, which results in changes in needs, lifestyles, and buying habits.

You Must Advertise Continuously

Customers do not convey the same store loyalty they once had. Cars have allowed shoppers with more freedom and flexibility. Brick-and-mortar stores suffer from this the most. A quote that sums this all up; “mobility and non-loyalty are rampant. Stores must promote to get former customers to return and to attract new ones.”

Advertising Influences Shoppers Throughout The Buying Cycle

People often compare prices, service, and quality from store-to-store. They want the best deal and are looking for value. By advertising, you reach them consistently through the entire decision-making process. Take this example; the average new car purchase is a 13-week cycle. You must keep your name fresh in the consumers’ mind and constantly remind them that you are there. Consistency is key.

Advertising Pays Off In The Long Run

By advertising today, you are essentially planting a seed in the mind of customers whose buying decision may be weeks or months away. Advertising gives you a long-term advantage over your competitors who scale down or stop their advertising efforts.

Advertising Generates More Store Traffic

What would be the point if nobody had a reason to come into your store? Continuous store traffic is the first step to increase in sales and expanding your customer base. A general rule of thumb is that for every 100 items shoppers plan to buy, they make at least 30 unanticipated “in-store” purchases. This is where point of purchase displays are extremely powerful.

You Have To Advertise To Generate More Sales

Advertising does work. Successful businesses are almost always persistent, strong advertisers. Look around – you will find the most aggressive and persistent advertisers are almost always the most successful.

There Is Always Business To Generate

As long as you are in business, you have overhead costs to meet and new clients to target. Advertising generates customers now, and for the future. You are essentially planting a seed. Even the slowest days produce some kind of sales.

Free Home Based Business Leads – Are You Getting Them?

Free home based business leads. Every online marketer knows you gotta have them, particularly when you’re just getting started and especially if you don’t have an endless supply of money for marketing your home based business. But what’s the best way to find them? Ah…that’s the question every online affiliate or mlm business owner desires the answer to. Do you have the answer to that question? If not, or you just want to pick up some extra tips, than this article is for you.

In reality, there are quite a few effective methods for generating free home based business leads at the time of this writing, so I’m going to share a few with you here. But keep in mind, when it comes to attracting home based business leads on the internet, the rules of the mlm lead generation game are always changing, and sometimes they change fast. That’s just the nature of the internet…constantly new and better methods being developed all the time.

That leads me to your mlm lead generation system that you are currently using. You are using one, right? Your best bet for being able to stay in the game until you create that incredible mlm income is to use a system that instructs you on how to consistently generate free home based business leads that come to you, how to turn those targeted leads into prospects, how to monetize those prospects with your system’s funded proposals, and then lastly, how to get a percentage of those prospects to ask you about your online mlm business.

As I previously mentioned, things change quickly on the internet, so mlm lead generation strategies that work really well today may not be as effective a few months from now because so many people are using them. That’s why it’s so very critical that the mlm lead generation system you use constantly provides you with training on the newest cutting edge strategies to keep your free home based business leads coming in on an ever increasing basis.

Keeping that in mind, here are some of those strategies to begin generating home based business leads right away. You’re most likely familiar with some, if not all of these techniques, because a lot of folks are successfully using them. However, there are “tricks” and techniques you can use that will provide you with an advantage, but I’m afraid that would involve a lot more room than we have here right now. So here are the basics of a few of those strategies.

Blogging. Blogging has been around for quite a while now, but done right, it is a great way to develop your reputation as an authority on your niche so that people will be drawn to you. The system you use should provide you with step by step instructions on how to get started with your own blog, how to incorporate your system’s funded proposals into it, and how to effectively promote it. This is not the fastest way to start generating free home based business leads, but using it with and promoting it with additional lead generating techniques is a great way to brand yourself as a leader (which people are attracted to) and is great for the long haul too. Google loves good content blogs! Just make sure you are providing lots of valuable niche specific, keyword optimized info on your blog and not creating a huge blatant sales page.
Article Marketing. Article marketing is a terrific way to generate lots of free highly targeted leads. The more keyword optimized articles you write on your best niche topics, the more exposure you will enjoy. If you create articles that provide valuable content for your readers and use the author bio to point them back to your content-rich blog, you can generate lots of free home based business leads for years to come.
Social Media Sites. Social media sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook provide a fabulous way to connect with millions of people online. However, there is a correct way and an incorrect way to use them. The mlm lead generation system you use should provide training on how to effectively use these sites to build relationships and network with other like minded people. This is an excellent free resource for generating home based business leads that everyone should be using.
Video Marketing. Video marketing is an extremely valuable asset to add to your mlm lead generation arsenal. It’s simple and yet highly effective, and is a method that can generate free home based business leads very rapidly. Your system should provide training on the most effective ways to use video marketing to promote your blog, your articles, and well, simply put, You. If you’re not making use of video in your marketing, you may be losing out on the 6 out of every 10 people online that are watching video!
Pay-Per Click Advertising. PPC is probably one of the most effective mlm lead generation strategies on the entire internet at present, but I left it for last because you must have a marketing budget that will last several months to truly use this effectively. Most people starting out in internet marketing don’t have the money for this. However, once your funded proposals start generating some consistent income, I would highly endorse utilizing this method. Your system should provide training on how to use PPC the right way, and when you do, it can literally begin generating free home based business leads in a matter of hours of writing your ads!
Now this is in no way a comprehensive list for generating home based business leads, but it offers an excellent place to start. Forum posting, niche-related blog posting, etc. are a couple more ways you can get backlinks to your blog and increase your search engine ranking. The list goes on…

Bottom line, there are several effective mlm lead generation strategies you can make use of to attract targeted free home based business leads to your site or lead capture page and put you on the fast track to the mlm income you’re dreaming of. Of course, how you process your leads after you get them is a whole different story that we’ll have to save for another time. Until then, keep it real, and keep taking action!

Small Business Ideas – Phases and Basics

Most small business ideas are born out of inspiration, frustration, circumstances or almost any reason other than well thought-out logic and plenty of pre-planning. How about your small home based business idea?As a result, the ever cycling phases of plan, finance, start, run, grow, sell are random and chaotic. Each phase is dealt with, if at all, in a reactive mode rather than a responsive mode. This pattern seems to work as long as you see your small home based business as a source of wages versus a business entity responsible for making a profit with your “wages” being paid as part of the business’s employee overheadA few small business owners eventually break out of this mode and into a true business ownership role where they begin to, as Michael Geber described in his classic book “The E-Myth”, work on their business rather than in their business. This transition can be difficult for many because it requires some forward thinking and functional discipline. In other words, you’ve got to think about the future not just react to it. You need to focus on the basic business functions and how to apply them to your business at every phase of the business cycle.A simple way to begin your move into the role of true small business owner is to become familiar with six phases of the small business cycle and the eight business basics you’ll need to apply in different ways at each of the six phases.Small Business PhasesThe six business phases are plan, finance, start, run, grow and sell. Typically, small home based business owners attack the phases of business development in order of their own strengthens or the greatest source of pressure. It takes a strong sense of discipline to move through each phase in logical order. It’s not a matter of slowing your small business down, but, rather, accelerating its success and profitability by not skipping a step and moving from one to the next.Small Business BasicsIn different ways in each of the phases you always be dealing with each of the eight business basics of objectives, management, finance, personnel, marketing, operations, production and resources. Each small business basic is a point of education and implementation for new small home based business owners. Think of each basic as a function to learn about and a section in your business plan. Learn about each basic and then take your own current or projected data and move it into your small business plan.It takes time and discipline to cycle through each of the business phases and master all of the business basics but the rewards for most small business owners are success and profitability. Your small business idea is too important to penalize yourself by not earning those rewards. Start right now by assessing what phase your small home based business is in and what basic needs your immediate attention.