Customers anyone?

Whether we are thinking about starting a home business or operating one for a period of time; we all confront the challenge of creating a customer base large enough to support our venture. All businesses are faced with burden of advertising in hope of luring the most precious of all commodities ..... "the customer". Independent of whether a business is home based or "brick and mortar" in nature, everyone needs to find, court and sell their goods or services to "customers" in order to thrive.

Different strokes for different ...... businesses.

It may appear that typical "brick and mortar" businesses have at least some advertising advantage if they are situated in a high traffic area where people who need their goods or services travel about during their daily routines. This advantage manifests itself when someone notices the business then stops in search of product. The ultimate in prospecting has just occurred since traffic is now coming to them as a qualified lead and hopefully becomes a customer. Those of us who operate a home business give up that advantage in exchange for others such as low overhead, short commutes, tax benefits of working from home, etc. Obviously, this leaves the home business owner somewhat "behind the eight ball" in creating and building their customer base. After pondering this dilemma for a time, eventually the light clicks on (at least hopefully it does); out come the pencil and eraser. The journey begins to create the customer development plan!

When starting to create the plan we need to consider different marketing strategies that may work for the business and therefore must identify the different avenues that can be used for advertising. Each method has its own purposes and drawbacks but many may play a role over the long term. Some of the options we might consider include:

Marketing and Advertising Options:

1. word of mouth (via warm market or other advertising);

2. direct contact with warm market;

3. leads purchase - cold calling;

4. direct mail;

5. business cards/handouts via canvasing;

6. presence at area public events (social clubs, bazaars, fairs, etc.);

7. hold informational/promotional event; print or broadcast media advertising; and

8. Internet network marketing.

These different methods each have their strengths and weaknesses as well as different times when they might be best applied. Obviously, some of these approaches fit into different types of businesses at discrete times and in different ways. Another important factor in selecting a method is the marketing and advertising budget a company has established. In the case of many home based businesses, especially in the early stages of development, money is tight and as a result the expenditure minimal.

So many choices .... Are any preferred?

In most instances, the first eight of the nine options listed above are typically associated with traditional network marketing and/or "brick and mortar" businesses though a growing number of them are moving toward Internet marketing as well. The home based business owner typically resorts to the least expensive of options and therefore often focuses on word of mouth marketing, warm market prospecting or any option where the expense is low. Home business owners are also readily drawn to the Internet (so long as their product/service is easily shipped) due to the countless surfers present 24/7/365. Add to that the great number of free portals that can be utilized to establish a web presence and the Internet's appeal is even greater for home business people. Even with an audience that appears to be limitless, most businesses still struggle in luring customers from the Web. This is primarily due to either a lack of knowledge in how to actually create that presence or the best marketing approach to use if they do manage to establish a web presence.

I know in my own experience, the thought of utilizing the Internet to prospect highly qualified leads that ultimately become customers or business associates dates back over a decade. The problem in making it happen? First, a lack of knowing exactly how to establish a presence without hiring an expensive website design professional. Second, not knowing exactly how to get those prospects to my site and past the myriad of websites offering similar products or services. As a matter of fact, these were exactly the problems I encountered when researching Internet marketing options for a product and service business during its launch. So here I am creating my customer development plan where I conclude that Internet marketing is my best prospecting avenue to identify customers only to be hanging over a cliff? Fortunately ..... No.

What the Internet taketh, it may also giveth ......

Actually the Internet never really took anything. Our obstacles really relate to a couple of inadequate skill factors: 1) not enough knowledge to create sites and establish an Internet presence and 2) uncertainty in how to effectively market our "WWW" presence. But this really isn't a problem, I mean this is the same system that delivered us Google, Yahoo, Ask, and a whole host of other search engines.

Gentle-people .... Start your search engines!

And that is exactly what I did. After entering search phrase after search phrase, I uncovered numerous resources to help educate me in both the technical aspects of optimal marketing strategies/philosophies and the technical side of establishing a web presence. Some focused on the marketing side, some on establishing a web presence via traditional websites; blogs and Web 2.0 social networking sites; while many more interwove the elements of each piece together. A plethora of information and tools exist on the Web. Anyone with the drive, patience and perseverance can learn the tricks of the Internet marketing puzzle and succeed at uncovering that most precious treasure sought by business owners ........ "the customer"!

To success in all your ventures,

Jim Hickey

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Jim was formerly an "old school" network marketer now helping home and small business owners to utilize attraction marketing and relationship building methods to grow their Internet presence. You can access additional information resources and tips to propel the growth of your business by visiting Jim's blog.