Taking Your Home Based Business Opportunity and Making It Grow

A Home Business Article Contributed by Cassandra L. Keller

Taking Your Home Based Business Opportunity and Making It Grow

You have done your research and found the home based business opportunity that is right for you, now it is time to make it grow.

How to Market Now That You Have Decided on a Home Based Business Opportunity

In order to make a business successful, you must first make it grow. This is true in all cases, but probably more so when it comes to home based businesses.

To connect with customers or clients, you must learn to market. Marketing methods include but are not limited to newsletters, Web sites, advertising, brochures and trade shows. There are, of course, seemingly hundreds of other ways to market, so deciding on what will work best for you can be challenging. With a some preliminary effort, however, the list of tools can be shortened down to a select few that will be best for your business. Before you can determine an ideal marketing approach, you must first review some key components of your business.

The Target Audience of Your Home Based Business Opportunity

Before you can market, you have to know who you are marketing. In general, you want to reach the audience that is most likely to purchase your service or product. To determine who makes up this audience, ask yourself the following questions:

1) Who are my current clients?

2) Who needs what I have to offer, consumers or other businesses?

3) What does my businesses venture fulfill?

4) What groups does the competition market?

By answering these questions, you can then determine who makes up your targeted audience.

Setting a Budget for Marketing Your Home Based Business Opportunity

Two of the most common mistakes business owners make are failing to budget for their marketing or under-budgeting for their marketing.

Prior to establishing your marketing methods, you must first determine how much you can spend. A good rule of thumb is the 10 percent rule. According to the 10 percent rule, you budget 10 percent of you monthly revenue for your marketing program. So if a company makes $10, 000 in sales for the month, it would budget $1, 000 for its marketing program. This rule keeps the business from over spending on its marketing efforts.

If you have not started your business, be realistic when it comes to figuring your monthly revenue and thus your spending allowance for marketing. Start you budget small and allow it to grow as your business does.

Last but not least, spend your budget wisely. There are certain modes of marketing that may be more effective, take a commercial for example. But that commercial might also eat up your budget in one big gulp. It is a good idea to kick off your marketing efforts small (like your budget) and improve upon it.

Evaluating Marketing Methods for Your Home Based Business Opportunity

Once you know who your targeted market is, you need to determine the methods or methods that will work for you and your audience. Obviously, you would market to college students differently than to business professionals. The same goes with marketing to businesses versus marketing to consumers. Keep in mind you may need to use more than one way to market your target audience.