The 10 Commandments of Online Business

Written by Mike Nalbone


There are (at least) 10 absolute musts for anyone who desires to run a successful online home-based business.

1. Thou Shalt Not Pursue A Free Lunch:

Chances are, you will not get rich quick. Deal with it. Don't waste your time convincing yourself or listening to others who tell you differently. Hard work and perseverance will not fail you.

2. Thine Products Must Solve A Prospect's Problem:

We humans are greedy creatures most times. We want comfort, ease, peace of mind, and a plethora of other self indulgencies. Put yourself inrepparttar customer's shoes and ask "What's in it for me?". If your ads or products do not clearly spell this out, and tellrepparttar 100444 customer how you will give him what he desires, most times you will not makerepparttar 100445 sale.

3. Thou Shalt Educate Thyself:

Read, Read, Read. Observe other successful people in your field. What are they doing? Read some more.

4. Thou Shalt Budget For Advertising:

Free advertising is an oxymoron. The only people reading free ads arerepparttar 100446 ones who are placing them there, and all they're looking for is their own ad, not yours. Instead, learn all you can about your target audience, and find them. Whether it is through pay-per-click advertising using highly targeted keywords, eZine ads, banners on related sites, etc. Don't go afterrepparttar 100447 general public. Go after people who are looking for your type of product or service. Allow a certain monthly expense for advertising and stick to it.

5. Thou Shalt Track Thine Advertising:

You made a sale! Congrats! How didrepparttar 100448 customer find you? If you have 10 different ads on 10 different sites, how on earth will you know which one(s) are working? View your server logs to see whererepparttar 100449 users came from. Create unique URLs to use in each ad. For example: http://www.yourdomain.com?ad1 http://www.yourdomain.com?ad2 etc. Just addrepparttar 100450 ?ad# torepparttar 100451 end ofrepparttar 100452 URL you post along with each ad. Changerepparttar 100453 # for each one & for goodness sake, write them down somewhere! StatCounter.com offers a great free service that will assist you in tracking your visitors.

Quick & Easy Tools for You to Effectively Market Your Home Business

Written by Daegan Smith


A home business is a paradise for those who have spent years working 50-hours a week in a cubicle, dealing with terrible bosses and pesky co-workers, and yes, you guessed it- a daily dose of ulcers trying to make it to work on time! It is no wonder more and more people are turning into home business entrepreneurs, making itrepparttar most rapidly growing segment inrepparttar 100443 economy.

Forrepparttar 100444 home business owner who has just put most of his eggs in this basket, you'd think it would be twice as tough to market his products and services. Well, think again! It does not have to cost an arm and a leg to put your business onrepparttar 100445 high road; all you need is some basic rules, some sound thinking and a lot of imagination.

Give these low cost strategies and marketing tools a try and you will be amazed atrepparttar 100446 results:

1.Network: a cardinal rule of marketing is to Network, Network, Network! You never know from where a good business lead will come your way. The question is, with whom do you network? That's easy…Use your contacts! Even before you started your business you knew at least a couple of hundred people. They in turn would know a couple of hundreds themselves and so on and so forth. That's a good database to begin with. Spend time developing relationships withrepparttar 100447 people you already know. Ask them to refer business your way and educate them aboutrepparttar 100448 products and services you sell.

2.Userepparttar 100449 Internet: One ofrepparttar 100450 most cost- effective and easily accessible marketing tools available torepparttar 100451 home business owner isrepparttar 100452 Internet. Marketing throughrepparttar 100453 Internet cuts across geographical boundaries and creates a high impact in a much lesser time. So, it would do you a world of good to employ email as a key marketing tool. Spend some time in crafting out a business letter that clearly spells outrepparttar 100454 Why, Where, How, What and When of your business. Flesh out a mailing list of your current and prospective buyers and start hittingrepparttar 100455 send button.

3.Publicity: Userepparttar 100456 power ofrepparttar 100457 written word to your advantage. Advertising costs a lot of money & time, PR is more cost effective, gets you recognition and lends instant credibility to you business. Focus on local dailies, relevant magazines and trade magazines. It would not be a bad idea to also target web- based publications and ezines. You don't need to hire an expensive PR firm to do this job for you. You could writerepparttar 100458 article yourself or enlistrepparttar 100459 help of a friend or family member who has some experience at newspaper writing. Two keys to a good press release are a succinct headline and making sure it doesn't read like ad copy.

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