i) Straight forward strategy
A good business strategy and planning instantly distinguish between your own business with the competitors, and give your potential or existing clients no reason for not to do business with you. A good home based business strategy should have considering the targeted market needs, the competitors and the strength and weakness.

Many home based business owner try to provide all services or all type of products to all peoples during the business start up, which i can say this is having no proper strategy set at all! The business owner must have to concentrate and develop the business start from a small niche market and slowly expand to provide an one stop solution.

ii) Follow the plan and set your budget
Develop a business plan before you start the business, and update it from time to time during the business goes on. A proper planning and proper budgeting would help the business to attain higher goals that if you just plugged always at your business one day at a time. The plan, if properly developed, it can even help the business owner to get back on track if something gone wrong.

iii) Protect your cash!
Running a small home based business, you are going to constantly battle to hold on the cash. Overruns in start up cost, lower anticipated profit margin and sales grow slower than expected are among the most common cash drains in business. As the business owner, you have to learn to guard your cash in the sense of rejecting to many different demands on your business. Learn to project the business cash flow in fair degree accuracy is the most important aspect in a home based business. No discipline in controlling the cash would easily cause the business falls into failure.

iv) Watch the profit margin
Many business focus too much on the sales but overlook the profit margin, even some of them are under pricing the service or product provided. Even increase the selling price might be crucial, but consistently work on lower down the cost may be more effective. A small change in the cost structure would lead to a big change on your profit margin.

v) Have fun with the business
Make sure you are running a business that falls into your own interest otherwise you will feel boring just because you have treat the business as a daily routine job that doesn’t means for anything.

Scope of product
Creating more product lines is one of the strategy to provide the client an one stop shopping service.

State of art product
Create an technically advance product or service can form a powerful strategy if the business has the capability to offer state of art product, and usually this type of product will cost more than a normal one.

Brand name product
Generally a product established with strong brand name would command at higher price and create a memorable brand would usually cost the business expensive in term of advertising.

Niche market
Offering the product or service to a target niche market is one of the common strategy for small business. Usually smaller volume of product would cost higher operating cost, but the business would face lesser competition in the market.

Service
Offering a world class customer service can be used to differentiate a business from the competitor who offer low class of service quality or totally not at all.

1. Setup joint promotions
Identify the characteristics and activities of your most profitable customers. Look for other non-competing businesses already reaching them. Then devise a way to set up some joint promotions. This proven strategy produces dramatic results — for very little expense.

For example, I once saw a clever joint promotion by a health club and a gourmet restaurant. Both catered to young professionals and business executives in the same town.

The restaurant’s menu included several special dishes recommended by the health club’s nutritionist. It also distributed discount membership coupons for the club. Even their advertising mentioned the affiliation — to attract health conscious customers who often avoid food prepared in gourmet restaurants.

The health club’s monthly newsletters included a reprint of the restaurant’s healthy new menu items recommended by the club’s nutritionist. They also distributed the restaurant’s discount coupons to their members.

2. Uncover new niche markets
Continually look for new niche markets you can serve, then develop customized versions of your advertising appealing to the special concerns of prospects in each niche. Offer specific solutions to their unique needs and you’ll uncover new groups of customers eager to buy from you.

For example, I recently bought a new computer system for my business from a company because they catered to my specific needs. An ad in a business publication listed their special web site for small businesses customers. There I was able to order the exact configuration of hardware and software I wanted at the price I was ready to pay. They won the sale by catering to my niche.

TIP: One way to find a new niche market is to evaluate your existing customers.

Look for groups of customers with similar characteristics you don’t currently cater to in your advertising. Then create new versions of your advertising appealing to their specific needs. You’ll attract a lot more customers just like them.

3. Exploit emerging trends
Pay attention to changes you notice in your business and your markets. Try to spot trends you can turn into new sales opportunities — before your competitors. The first company to identify an emerging trend and take action often becomes the market leader in their industry.

For example, many small businesses took advantage of the Internet early in its development. They used it to attract new customers they weren’t reaching off-line and to capture customers from competitors who didn’t yet recognize the business potential of a web site.

TIP: Don’t make sudden major changes in your business to exploit a new emerging trend. Instead, add something to your business to accommodate it. You don’t want to alienate customers who aren’t ready to adapt to the new trend.

Start using these 3 marketing strategies to create permanent growth for your business. Use them repeatedly to continue adding new layers of permanent income without inviting competition.

i) Competitive factor
We do not have control over what our business competitors setting the price for their product or service, they may sell cheaper than you with the same quantity, more expensive than you or even same price as you can provide.

In most of the industries, the price range are usually falls in a certain range among the market players, it is hard for the companies to undercut each other significantly. As a home based business owner, you could probably charge lower than your competitors just because you have a lower overhead cost.

ii) Demand factor
If the product or service that you provide is with high demand, you probably could save much of your marketing and advertising bucks, you can charge your customer at premium price and you can probably do not need to give a discount. On the other hand, if you are selling a low demand product or service, you might have to lower the price to capture more market share. However, no matter how low is the price you can set, there is a bottom line where you meet the breakeven, so know your price before you start selling.

iii) Economic factor
If the economy is strong, then the consumer has more cash on hand to spend which could keep the product’s price stable. If the economy is down, the product’s price is usually lower where the business owner have to capture as much sell as possible from the customer with limited cash on hand. If it is foreseen that the economy is going downturn, do not ever try to launch a luxury product or service, because the consumer will rather keep the cash on hand or to spend it on the basic needs than to purchase a high end luxury product.

To grow your home based business you need to attract the attention of your prospects, advertising can help you to do so if used correctly. Unfortunately, many small businesses owners waste thousands of dollars on advertising efforts that only achieve minimal results.

If you want to get the most from the money you spend to promote your products and services, make sure to avoid these common mistakes.

Focusing on Your Products and services
If you want to get the attention of your business prospects, speak to their needs and wants. Your prospects’ primary concern isn’t that you’ve been in business for 25 years; it is do you know the problem they want to solve. Use your ad to identify at least one common problem of your prospects and the benefit of using your product or service.

Having a Weak Marketing Message
All to often you hear ads and it takes some thought to figure out what they are even promoting. Make sure your advertisement includes a 7-10 word description of whom you serve and the problems you solve so people who read or hear your ad know how you can help them.

Using the Wrong Words
A word here, a phrase there can change your response rate by hundreds of percent. When you spend money on advertising, first test a number of versions of your copy to identify the one that works best. Just by revising the ad copy so it was client and problem centered, I helped one small business owner achieve her best month in sales ever.

Missing Motivation
Most ads miss the mark in moving prospects to action. If you want to prompt prospects to visit your web site or your store or to contact you, include an offer that motivates them to do so.

Lacking in Frequency
Some people make spur of the moment buying decisions, but most need to become familiar with your services and products, and this takes time. If you want your advertising to work, you need to ensure that your prospects see or hear it regularly.

Web Sites that Don’t Move Prospects to Action
Many small business owners direct prospects to a web site where they have more extensive content covering available services and products. I constantly get calls from people who have been successful at attracting prospects to their web site, but generate few sales. Once prospects get to your web site make sure the content and visual organization moves them to take the action you want them to. Whether it is providing them with ample opportunities to fill in your service inquiry form, or including a subset of your product catalog in your web page navigation bars, help prospects move to client and customer status.

Lack of Follow Up
Sometimes making a sale requires sending a note or picking up the phone and calling your prospects. If you have an effective lead generation strategy, prospects will provide you with their contact information and the problem they want solved. Use the web, email, and the phone to follow up and close the sale.

Lack of Tracking
If you are making more from your advertising than you are spending, you’re ahead. Frequently small business owners can’t tell you which of their efforts helped bring in the business. Track each of your ad campaigns and you’ll know where to spend your money in the future, what to modify and what to eliminate.

Put your marketing house in order. Fix your strategy and your materials. If you don’t know what to change or how to change it, use experts to help you with strategy, copyrighting, design, PR, and media placement.

Avoid these common marketing mistakes and you’ll find ore people contacting you about your products and services and that your making more than your spending on your advertising.