I read this great article about the top 3 things from allbusiness.com written by Tom Drake and had to share it. Thank you Tom for backing up what I have been saying, but sometimes not doing, for years. Please enjoy… Chrissy. (we all need a boost sometimes)
Top 3 Things You Need to Know to Prosper in a Home Business
By | In: Content Marketing, Home-Based Business, Marketing, Sales & Marketing, Social Media
Τo run a successful home-based business, you need to operate on the web and learn three essential top 3 things. First, you must learn how to be good at online marketing. Second, you must learn how to successfully leverage social media. Third, you must become proficient at rolling out email marketing campaigns.
Besides running your business, you also should invest in work-life balance. While not essential for success, balancing work and family keeps everything running smoothly.
Become Good at Online Marketing
The first of the top 3 things is the purpose of online marketing. It is to attract visitors to your website to see your offering–you may be selling your own products or earning a commission for another merchant’s products. For your business to prosper, you will need lots of visitors to see your offering. Without a steady stream of traffic, you are like a small store sitting in a remote area with very few customers.
In the good old days, ranking high in search engine results was as simple as keyword stuffing. But these days, to make search queries more relevant, the search engines have outlawed this technique. Now webmasters are no longer certain what it takes to drive traffic. There are plenty of theories, but little consensus about what works.
But one thing that does appear to work well is interactive content. Interactive content is fresh content. The best way to provide it is through blogging. Blog posts provide fresh data and allow visitors to interact through comments.
There are several reasons why content marketing works as well as it does:
- It gets attention.
- It is easy to consume the information.
- It encourages more interactions, which, in turn, increases views.
- It creates a loyal following.
- It connects with social media.
- It offers data about what visitors like.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is one of the best free ways to announce your new posts. It also gives you a chance to interact with your audience and build relationships.
In a Forbes article, “Is Social Media Worth It For Small Businesses,” contributor Michael Fertik summarizes how to do it well:
“It’s common for small businesses to quickly jump into multiple social media streams. In fact, social platforms strategically make it very simple and quick to join the ranks. While that ease of adoption is great for small businesses, especially those with limited social media acumen, it’s actually something of a double-edged sword. You can create accounts and start sharing without ever really considering your audience. It’s much better to slow down and look at the data before you invest too much in one channel or spread yourself across too many. What type of customer is purchasing your products? What social channels do they frequent? What kind of content gets shared, liked or retweeted? If the data say that your average customer is a city-dwelling mother in her early 40s who likes Facebook, then there is no reason to spend your time and energy on Twitter at least initially”.
Roll Out Email Marketing Campaigns
Content converts visitors into buyers. Social media drives traffic to your website. And email marketing builds long-lasting relationships with visitors. It’s an excellent way to keep a good thing going.
The mechanics of email marketing are straightforward:
- You capture email addresses when people arrive at your website. Make an irresistible offer that persuades people to subscribe to your newsletter. Use either an opt-in form or a light box that pops up when people scroll through your blog.
- Next, you send visitors an email series; this is a digital newsletter. The most convenient way is to load prewritten emails into an autoresponder. You can also make special announcements communicated through broadcast emails.
- ***From Me …..(This is exactly what our lead manager does. It has a great series of autoresponders) But it is not cold sending. It is set up to communicate with already qualified enquirers.
Work-Life Balance
Content marketing, social media, and email marketing are the nuts-and-bolts of running a home-based business.
But if you are running a home-based business, it is unlikely that you are using only a dedicated computer; your family may be using your computer, as well. In addition, you may be running your business on many devices, or utilizing a desktop, laptop, a tablet, or smartphone.
If you are a parent, you can use software such as WebSafety to help you monitor and control the use of mobile devices by your children. Although this is not a business application, it allows you to maintain a work-life balance.
These top 3 things, A very good read indeed. Very simple but enormously valuable information.
Thanks again to Tom and the team at allbusiness.com
Any questions you may have, I’d love to help.
pls contact me through this blog or chrissygreig@hotmail.com
Cheers… Chrissy.
Contact me today to start your new life. It’s easier than you think.
Go to my other blogs with various other topics and subscribe as to not miss out on my ravings…..
Prosperity of Life (Best Ever Home Business)
My thanks also go to my good friends, Rachel and Shane Krider for being instrumental in me going down this yellow brick road.
p.s. one of my first videos
