i) Free gifts
Always accompany the product or service with a small gift, people just like free gift and there is no question about it. But make sure the free gift is related to what you are selling and it can be used together with the product or service. For example, a free DVD game is come with a purchase of a PS3 console, a free headphone is come with a mini HiFi.

ii) Distribute coupons
Distribute coupon to the public and encourage them to buy from you, you don’t have to distribute it through an advertising campaign but you can distribute it in the entrance of shopping center, distribute through the local book store, or distribute it through the first purchase from the customer. Design your coupon as attractive as possible, you stand a chance to close a deal.

iii) Organize contest
Organize free entrance contest for the public, develop an interesting contest and attract the public, make sure you make it with fun and you will attract the media coverage to publish the event, yet another free advertising for your business.

iv) Organize and participate in event
Organize and participate in any public event to gain public exposure for your home based business, because you don’t have a sales outlet where you will not gain much public appearance, actively participate is these events and get people to know your business.

v) New customer offers
Attracting new customer to purchase something from you is the most difficult challenge for your home based business, try to give offer for new customer during their first purchase, if no offer in price is possible, at least give out some freebies or second purchase offer, this will build the customer stronger first impression to your business.

i) Product – There are several aspect that the business owner should take into consideration for the product or service provided in relation to the marketing strategy. The business owner have to consider the benefit for the consumer or customer if they purchase the product or service and detail research in this area is a must. The business owner have to think of creating a outstanding packaging that it could be separated from the competitors’ packaging. The business owner also have to consider the warranty use of the product and how to make the customer feel that they are staying in the comfortable zone after they buy your product.

ii) Price – The next important P is the pricing strategy, if you set the price for a product high you will be facing a great resistance in pursuing people to purchase your product, if you set the price for a product low you will generate a perception of low quality for the product. The business owner have to do some home works to find out what is the best price to charge in order to convince the customer that they have a perception that they are not buying an expensive product with the same product quality which the competitors are able to provide.

iii) Promotion – The business owner have to think on how to promote the product or service provided in order to generate great sales projection. The activities that the business owner would go through includes identify the type of advertising medium that is to be used, the marketing effort that is to be carried out, discuss about public relation, describe the promotional and the plan for using advertising specialties or premium items such as pencil, flower and so on.

iv) Place – The word place means by itself indicate that where your product should be sell at and where your customer can purchase your products. Most of the home based business or small business are selling their product through website, auction or direct mail order. For example, if you own a SEO company and where you sell your SEO product should be through online marketplace like forum, online classifieds, webcart and so on. Place is not determined as where the product originated but is best determined as where you should sell your product.

i) The customer – You must understand the market needs, be focus on a niche market as well as how often the prospect will buy your product or services. You must also know exactly what those customers are doing even you have to know in which sector they are belong to. Understand the customer well is important to your home based business, because they play an important role in rating your products or services and how well you have done on the customer service and follow up. As a business owner, it is also important to know what question would your prospect ask before they raise it to you.

ii) The products – Before you launch the product into the market, you as the business owner (sometimes the product designer as well) have to know in detail what your product is. You have to do your homework on research, training and as well as feedback from customer to get the full knowledge about the product. The better you know about the product, you will be able to identify the potential problem or question that your customer would face, thus you are able to provide a prompt solution to the customer in case they raise. With this, the image for your business in terms of customer service also increase.

iii) The tool – The tool that i mentioned it here is not the tool that you use to create the product or the tool you use to repair the product. The tool that i am talking about here is strategy that you use to sale your product, this includes product sample, customer testimonial and etc. I would say every type of home based business would have a different set of sales tools.

iv) The competitors – Know your competitors well is very important in fighting for the sales in a niche market, you have to know what your competitors doing, how long they have been in the market, the price they charge, their key person in business operation, the customer service level and whatever thing that they are doing in they sales strategy. By knowing your competitors well, you are basically able to plan the sales for now, tomorrow and the far futures.

A good marketing plan should include the analysis of the potential targeted market include the customer’s behavior, the competitors and the strength and weakness of the business compare to the competitors. A marketing plan is not as simple as just a list of advertising or promotional activities. The conclusion to a marketing plan is to predict competitive reaction and a brief consideration of possible longer product term options.

Creating a serious and well planned marketing study take into consideration of each individual product or service group will definately create analysis overlaps between other product or company-wide strategies. It is strongly advised that each product line or service are look into detail separately. Doing a research for each product may reveal the individual product characteristic that may not be considered by other businesses.

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.

You can’t put up a beautiful (or any) web site and hope that people will just arrive. You have to let them know in every possible way, that your business web site is there. This has to be part of any internet marketing strategy you develop. This is actually a basic marketing principle. Customers are not going to look for you, you have to look for them.

Promoting your web site online and building traffic is the subject of thousands of web sites, e-zines, books, courses and seminars. Using the web to promote your site, however, assumes that your customers are surfers. But there is a large percentage of our population that is not as savvy with the internet as we would like them to be.

So, what about the large percentages of the population who are not? They will only find out about you through traditional marketing and public relations media. This is particularly true if you serve a fairly local market. Fortunately these are the easiest and cheapest prospects for you to reach off-line.

Here are some of the ways to make your web site known:

i) TV, print and other advertising

ii) Stationary and business cards

iii) Catalogs, fliers, billboards, blimps, etc.

iv) Direct mail (prominently on every document)

v) Telemarketing (make it part of the script)

vi) News releases to targeted media.

Unless you have a high budget, the TV, radio, classified ad route is not recommended but if you do run ads, be sure to mention your web site everywhere. Make it part of your Internet Marketing Strategy.

Another guiding principle is that your off-line internet marketing activities should make it easy for your prospect to go straight to your web site. One of the best ways to market your website off-line is direct mail postcards.

If your prospect sees your website on a billboard as she’s driving home, she probably won’t look you up when she gets to the office the next day. This is not the only medium that has problems like this. Newspapers are bulky, radio has to spell it out and like before most people are driving at the time. On the other hand, if your prospect is sitting at her computer and a post card comes in the mail announcing your web site, she can just turn around and type in your URL and she’s at your web site.

Now if someone is in the office reading a trade journal and comes across an article about you in the magazine, it’s not difficult for him to copy your URL into his browser and pay your site a visit.

I don’t mean to say that those other avenues won’t drive traffic to your site, but it will take numerous impressions and repetition to get them to remember your address.

On the other hand, direct mail postcards are generally received at the home or office where a computer is present, and if received somewhere else they are small enough to keep with you until you can get to a computer. This way, your prospective customer will be able to take the take right over to their desk top computer, type in your address and go right to your site. Brilliant!

I have seen the greatest success in off-line web site promotion with direct mail, and specifically direct mail postcards.

There are basically two types of telemarketing, the inbound telemarketing and outbound telemarketing. With telemarketing, the telemarketer(usually will be the business owner) have to send out a flyer or newsletter to a group of targeted potential customer and invite them to make a phone call to your company to ask any information for the product or service your business provide.

When the customer call, the telemarketer will explain in detail about the product or service provided and at the same time pursue the customer to purchase your product or service. Where outbound telemarketing is the other way round, the telemarketer have to take the initiative to call the targeted potential customer and sell them your service or product.

When you are making outbound call, the first 10 to 15 seconds is the most critical time frame, you must try your best to attract your potential customer’s interest for your service or product in this period. You should also approach your customer politely to build trust and establish good first impression for your customer. During the conversation, you should speak slowly and clearly to tell the customer the objective or intention on your call to them, once you have successfully grab their attention, you could start using your selling script to promote your product or service to them.

Telemarketing can be an expensive solution or can be a cheap solution for your home based business, it is merely depends on how many phone lines you need and how many telemarketers you want to hire. If you are going to act as the telemarketer for your own home based business, i would say one phone line is more than enough.