You would have to be living under a rock if you hadn’t noticed the present economic shift in energy. With that said, many of us are looking at developing our own businesses, and that usually guides us to the internet. Internet Marketing can get very expensive and for a newbie it is a trial and error sort of exercise, even when you know what your new business is going to be. This is where a good Virtual Assistant can come into play, and it is a good idea to think about that prior to spending a bunch of your advertising budget on trial and error.
Starting a new business on the internet is just like starting one in a store front only we can do it from the comfort of our home and not have that additional overhead of the store front rent. This means a large portion of our budget goes into letting people know about us and our product and/or service, and no longer does our old ways of Chamber of Commerce Mixers work; so how do we get our message out there?
• Pay Per Click, which can be very expensive, depending how aggressive you market.
• Article writing
• Write a Book
• Website
• Blog
• Social Media
• CraigsList and other community advertising websites
• And of course many others….
The items I am going to give you some information on today are the ways to advertise without any out of pocket expense. We will start with…
Article Writing: There is not cost for this as long as you do your own writing and posting of the article, and this is a great way for you to present yourself as an expert.
Social Media: Again there isn’t a cost for this, it is just simply deciding which media you want to be part of, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter , then join and build your page and start networking with others that will benefit you and/or you benefit them and even better you both need each other. Again this is a great way to present yourself as an expert.
Join Groups Online: Find groups online that fit into your niche and start gathering friends and people in the groups that would benefit from your product and/or service, start networking with them. Yes, I am going to say it again, this is a great way to present yourself as an expert.
I am sure you got my theme of presenting yourself as an expert, everyone wants to work with experts, no one wants to be the experiment and to pay their money for that to be done to them, so, showcase yourself out there as the expert.
Before you start any of these advertising methods be sure you have a blog and/or website in place and that it represents who you are and what you do, be sure that you have some no cost information that they can download and create something that they will want to keep coming back to see and/or find additional information.
All of these suggestions are no cost marketing ideas and they are definitely as the title of this article says, having more time than money; now if you like all of these ideas but say I am just not willing/able to put that kind of time into my advertising program, then there is the option to hire a Virtual Assistant to do these functions for you. If that is the plan you intend on putting into operation, of course then it isn’t a no cost proposition, but it will free you up to do other, more hands on functions of your new business.
Starting an online web business is an exciting adventure and can be very profitable and lucrative, and there is no time like the present to go forward with your ideas and to promote yourself and your business.
Darlene Siddons is the producer of Vision Map Videos and Vision Map Video Marketing, encouraging and teaching individuals how to market themselves for the 21st century. She hosts her own radio show Good Morning Inspiration on Blog Talk Radio Wednesday at 11:00 AM Pacific Time
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