6) Testimonials support your credibility. It’s good practice to ask clients for regular feedback either verbally or in a quick customer satisfaction survey. When you have a happy customer – ask whether you could get a quote from them. Be clear as to how you will use testimonial – on your website, in your newsletter or letterhead etc. Make sure you accredit quote explicitly with name of client – anonymous testimonials don’t hold much punch. After all, testimonials can also give your clients good publicity.

7) Cold calling can send shivers down your spine! However, it is a highly targeted way to promote your business. Don’t expect to close a deal over phone – again this is about finding out information as much as selling. Use phone calls as first step to getting to know your prospective clients better. Don’t make a full pitch but arrange an appointment or ask permission to send on further materials about your business. And remember to speak s-l-o-w-l-y! For a Cold Calling Crash course to get you over your fears and anxieties, take a look at Do Your Own PR.

8) Referrals are a valuable and inexpensive way to find new clients. It’s not about being pushy, it’s about building long term business relationships based on trust. Start by asking each of your clients or suppliers for three contacts of other people who might like to find out more about your business. You could offer to reciprocate and provide three useful contacts in return. Make it a regular habit to give referrals as well as ask for them. For an effective referral marketing system, visit 1quickreferral

9) Press releases must be targeted. There is little point sending round a generic press release to hundreds of newspapers. Start by focusing on five publications ideal for your target market. Read back editions thoroughly – understand what kind of stories they like to publish and style of language they use. Find a relevant news hook and tailor your press release specifically for each publication. The first paragraph is key and must provide who, what, where, when and why of your story. For excellent tips on writing press releases visit Bizhelp24 .

10) Patience and persistence are most important tools to promote your small businesses! If you try each of strategies above and build them into a regular marketing plan, you will certainly boost your profile, without a doubt!

During this time I was approached by a number of companies who were offering to get my website found on Google and Yahoo. They would ask me for £200 to £500 and I would have to pay this up front before they would do anything for me. I did however have enough knowledge of search engines to know that these sorts of companies would not get me return on investment that I was looking for. Then sure enough 2 weeks later my website was listed on position 1 of Yahoo and Msn and Lycos. This is when things started to get out of control.

I had villa owners on phone wanting to place adverts; I had enquiries from customers wanting to book villas. My small business adventure had turned into a second full time job. I new when I started this venture that I wanted to give my customers best possible service in return for their custom which is exactly what I did. I gave up my day job as it were and went full time with website. The thing that I did not fully realise when I started out with this venture was amount of work that was involved in sustaining website.

I have to add villas to site which is very time consuming I have customers on phone and emailing me to enquire about villas. You would think this however would be straight forward but there is never a enquiry saying “ I seen that villa on your site I would like to book it please” that is only what dreams are made of. A website is just like a Bricks and Mortar company you do have to work hard to get rewards you are looking for.

The reason I am writing this article I suppose is to be of some benefit of those people thinking on starting an online business. Just to make them aware of exactly what they are letting themselves in for. My advice to them would be simply this. With a lot of hard work and a good business sense will help far more than any quick fixes. Always be aware that if something is too good to be true...It usually is.

Hope you had as much fun reading this article as I had writing it.

Good Luck with any business ventures you get involved in.

By way if you want to rent a villa have a look at our website.

Peter Hartley MD

www.lastminutevillaholiday.co.uk

info@lastminutevillaholiday.co.uk