Building Your Business Online Or Offline

Building Your Business Online Or Offline
By Bryon Zirker

So you have a great business idea. You have the plan in place to get it set up and ready to sell your products. You buy or build your location. (In the case of an online business you construct your website). You fill it with equipment, supplies and products. What ever it is you are now ready to sell.

Paying for and setting up your business is the easy part. Getting customers to come and buy your goods or services is the permanent on-going challenge of all businesses.

Marketing 101

When you get into business the most important aspect of running the business is marketing. Getting the word out. Making it visible. Establishing a following.

Marketing takes on many various forms, all geared toward one goal, getting your prospective customer to buy your service or product. But that is not the end. You also want your new customer to return and buy again and again.

Lets say you buy and set up a subway shop. It has four walls a door and is fully stocked and ready for business. There are no windows, no signs, no advertising to speak of. How many sales do you think you might make your first day? I would guess zero sales.

Now what if we put some large windows in the walls and door? Windows that make it possible to see that this is obviously a sandwich shop. Now people who wander by may stop in and buy a sandwich from you. Some sales coming in. Now lets say you put a few signs up or paint the windows with some special of the day. It would be great to celebrating your grand opening.

Now we call the local newspaper and run some ads. You submit an editorial detailing your grand opening and you as the owner. You could put a professional looking sign on your vehicle advertising your business. The ideas go on and on.

So you see if there is no marketing going on there is no business to speak of.

I am making these points because so many people do not put enough weight on the marketing side of their business. Especially people who start an online business. With a traditional business a marketing budget is put in place and grows with the sales growth of the business.

People who start an online business are led to believe that they can start the business buy signing up either for free or a small fee, get a and a few instructions on how to proceed, and then sit and wait for the money to roll in. Well it never just rolls in.

Passive income does not mean a person can be passive with their business.

Some fact to consider. 80% of offline businesses fail within the first year. 95% of online businesses fail the first few months.

Marketing your business is not only necessary it is mandatory if you want to succeed. For those who start online businesses, I have found in the beginning using whatever free marketing avenues you can find is a wise way to go.

I personally have found great success in marketing with article submissions. I create an articlelike this one and then submit it to hundreds of article sites. It has links to my website(s) which will help drive my websiteup in the search engines and drive traffic to my website.

I also use blogging to get the word out. There are other ways such as free ads sites, traffic sites, and email lists. Also do not forget that marketing offline is a great way to supplement your marketing efforts. What ever you decide to put together as your marketing plan do it in massive quantity.

Now you have to throw in the final ingredient which is time. With an offline business it may take months to years to become profitable. Usually this lag time is compensated for by an existing operating cash fund for a certain amount of time.

An online business could start making money the first day. Chances are though that it will take a few months to start making money and longer to get into profit. All the while you must keep marketing. Set budget and stick to it. Use free marketing when ever possible.

The rewards of an online business can far out weigh the rewards of an offline business. You can literally get an online business on autopilot and then move on and build another one. You can accomplish things much faster online.

To summarize. Marketing your business is the most important activity once you have put out the open for business sign. Remember if you are not marketing your business you have no business.

To Learn More Home Business Tactics Visit

http://home-business-tactics.blogspot.com

Business Ideas

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