B2B Marketing Promotions

You should consider using the Internet as well as ways to earn an income away from your computer when considering ideas to earn extra income from home. This article covers six ways you could achieve that.

1. Get involved with direct sales. With this business model you have a choice as it can be done totally online or you can opt to go out and meet with your customers face to face.

Many of the most successful people in direct sales utilize both off-line marketing and internet marketing. You have a choice from many large companies who would be more than happy to work with you.

2. Join a network marketing company. This involves selling products for a MLM company and building your own downline of distributors by sponsoring people and helping them start their own network marketing business.

If you enjoy working with people this is a great idea earn extra income from home. Also it allows you to make more money as you can leverage your time and get paid on the efforts of others.

3. Affiliate marketing is extremely popular. You can earn money in various ways as an affiliate marketer.

You can earn by selling products for an affiliate merchant. Again you have a choice between selling digital information products or physical products.

Getting leads for companies is another way to earn with affiliate marketing. This is the easiest way to earn money as your customers do not have to purchase anything. They just need to fill out a lead form from the link you provide.

Google is the largest affiliate merchant in the world. All you have to do is join their Adsense affiliate program and get paid when people click on ads you place on your own affiliate marketing website.

online marketing

4. Become a small business internet marketing specialist. There are plenty of small businesses that need assistance in marketing their own company on the internet.

Use your internet marketing knowledge and turn that into a full-time business. You can either do everything online or you can meet with the companies in person and then set up the marketing campaigns online.

5. Earn by taking online paid surveys. This is a very popular way to supplement your income in your spare time. Companies will pay you to offer your opinion because they will use your answers to formulate new product ideas.

Some of the survey programs will pay you for referring new members and you make money when they complete surveys as well.

6. Sell products on eBay. There are many millionaires that have created there fortune selling on eBay.

You can find products to sell online via drop shipping. Another idea is to go to garage sales and flea markets, or find discounted items in stores, and sell those online for a huge mark-up.

Nowadays there is no limit to the number of ways you can earn extra income from home. Hopefully these six home business ideas will get you started thinking about how you could do it.

Start your online business today by going to  b2bmarketingpromotions.com.

Related articles

• Affiliate Marketing is the comparison with other companies (thegrinchwhostoletv.com)
• Do-It-Yourself Affiliate Marketing – Tips for Advertisers (linkshare.co.uk)

By Jan Kearney

The internet is a great tool for marketing your small business and building your brand. Often known as e-marketing or internet marketing, online promotion can be effective on a small business budget too. Online promotion ideas for small businesses need not be expensive.

Online marketing resources often require minimal monetary investment. The term free is quite deceptive – you still need to pay with your time!

Statistics from the Office of National Statistics revealed that 75% of UK internet users research businesses, products and services online before deciding to make a purchase. People don’t only purchase online but they call and visit your business premises too.

Building up a broad web presence can directly impact your bottom line, even if you do not directly sell your products online.

First, define your perfect audience and then identify how to reach them online. In other words have an online marketing plan and promotion strategy.

15 Online Promotion Ideas for Small Businesses.

1. Have a website. Promoting your business online really begins with your website. Make your website easy on the eye, clean, simple and easy to navigate. The purpose of each page on your website should be clear, what do you expect your visitors to do? Tell them.

2. Have a blog and post regularly. Weblogs are not just about celebrity gossip. Regular blog posts increases the potential to be found on the search engines and builds your brand recognition. Don’t make the mistake of trying to promote your products and services with every blog post. Think about what your ideal client would want to read.

3. Distribute a press release online. Also more accurately known as a media release, a press release allows the use of video and images. Submitting a text only press release is still a great way to get the word about your business news to a much wider audience.

4. Use the power of popular blogs in your business sector by contributing articles. Writing articles for online journals and blogs in your business sector is an ideal way to build your brand recognition. Don’t forget to include your contact details and website address in your author bio, not only can this drive traffic back to your website but it can bring in new business too.

5. Make a promotional video. Many internet users would prefer to watch a video than read from the monitor. Capture this audience’s interest with a promotional video.

6. Have a podcast channel. Podcasting is slightly more technical but worth the effort if you produce a lot of audio or video content. Just like blogging, do not send sales messages all the time!

7. Add your business details to the internet directories and review sites. Back to basics. People use a whole range of directories and review sites to find business information online. Word of mouth happens online too, ensure your business is listed on the popular review sites.

8. Encourage visitors to sign up to your newsletter and publish it often. The most powerful online promotion technique is still email when used correctly. As with all the examples in this article, your focus must be firmly on your ideal audience.

9. Piggy back on the big names, have an eBay or Amazon store. Leverage the power of the internet giants, use their store facilities to sell your products.

10. Write an ebook. Everyone has a book in them somewhere! Use it to encourage your website visitors to sign up to your newsletter or even publish online through Amazon Kindle. It’s only one small step then to publishing a real book too.

11. Publish results of a survey or case study. Your research can increase your expert status. As your results are cited in other articles and publications, you will build your brand and reputation too.

12. Get involved in the social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (no you can’t ignore social media for much longer!) Social networks are not going to disappear. In fact they are becoming increasingly important to promote your small business online. Going social is a great opportunity to interact with current and potential clients, get involved with the conversations.

13. Visit blogs and forums for your industry sector and get involved. Forums are still very popular despite the meteoric rise in popularity of the social networks. Get involved with the conversation.

14. Make it easy for people to share your content and bookmark your web pages and blog posts often too

15. Share your images on websites such as Flickr and request attribution if they are used elsewhere. Perhaps an under used technique. Image sharing sites are used regularly by internet publishers looking for free graphic content. Request a link back if your images are used.

These are just a few online promotion ideas for small businesses to get you started. Using varied media and distribution outlets has the advantage of communicating with your ideal audience using their prefered channel.

Now discover how to put several of these affordable online promotion ideas for small businesses into action. Take part in the free 7 Days-7 Ways Online Promotion Challenge  on My Local Business Online’s FaceBook Page http://facebook.com/mylocalbusinessonline (in the notes and video tabs)

Facebook ads are one of the most popular and inexpensive ways to promote a small business online. According to research from BIA/Kelsey LCM, 48 percent of SMBs (small and medium businesses) are using Facebook for advertising or promoting their business. Forty percent said they have a Facebook page just for their business.

1. Know Your Goals and Plan Around Them

The first step is understanding what you want accomplish. Some goals could include looking to build awareness of your company or brand, and driving traffic to your web site. Promoting a specific event or generating sales are other common goals.

To build awareness and grow your fan base (getting people to “Like” your page), there are standard marketplace ads. The ads point to your Facebook Page and allow users to “like” your page, using the Like link right in the ad. You also could try a “Page Like” sponsored story, where the ad shows friends who have liked your Page.

You can even target people who are friends with people who already “like” your Page, which creates a social context, that makes people much more likely to remember the ad’s content.

When you want to promote a particular post from your page, such as a special offer or important news, you can also use “Page Post” sponsored stories to convert your post into a News Feed item.

Sponsored Stories is one of Facebook’s newest marketing tool which promotes word-of-mouth recommendations about your business that are happening in the News Feed. You can sponsor stories about people checking in to your business or “liking” your Page.

Measure success by social media metrics. Click-through rate (CTR) is an important metric to track, but since the average CTR for Facebook ads is only about 0.05%, which is half the industry standard of 0.1%. Instead set goals to increase in comments, Likes, impressions and active users. Facebook has hundreds of reports you can use to analyze results, make use of them for maximum results.

2. Targeting with Your Ads

When placing your Facebook ad, the form makes it very easy to select the demographic profile of your target audience. It has the added feature of the ability to target very specific audiences. Here, less is more.

Better results are achieved by having less very targeted people, rather than having large numbers of people who are not interested. Gaining smaller but very specific target audiences, even at the risk of reducing the size of your audience, can be more effective.

Let’s say you want to promote an event at your business. It would be more effective to target people who are already fans of your page, who may be more likely to respond to a a local offer. Besides targeting people by location, you may want to also use names of popular local businesses, colleges and clubs into the ad manager to find the people that don’t put their city and zip code in their profiles.

3. Choose Text and Images That Grab Attention

When designing your ad, you have up to 135 characters, but some of the most effective ads don’t use the whole character limit. Use small and concise ads that speaks directly to the audience you will reach. Special offers or unique features that differentiate you from the competition, are also effective. Facebook suggests using your company name in the ad title or somewhere in the body of the ad. A simple line can be the biggest draw. It can be in the form of asking a question or making a bold or odd statement. Remember to include something that encourages users to click on your ad and explains to the user exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page.

An image that will draw a person’s attention to your ad is recommended. Logos in this case, may not be the best way to go. Since the photos are small, use something unusual or a face shot of people. Smiling women tend to generate a high click rate. Experts recommend trying natural photos with colors that contrast with the blue color scheme of Facebook, such as red, yellow and orange.

4. Use and Measure Multiple Ads

Create multiple versions of your ad and test them to see which ad gets the best response. Once an ad has been created, you have the option to “Create a Similar Ad”, via the Facebook interface, and put in a new picture or text.

Experts recommend creating four different ads for the same campaign. Run each ad for a day or two and then check your ad statistics on Facebook to see which did best. You can then create a new ad that is similar to your ad that performed the best, with a few minor changes to see if it improves the ad’s performance. Since these ads rotate constantly, keep changing the ads so that your specific target audience doesn’t get disinterested.

Also, take top-performing ads and create new ad groups with related ad copy and pictures. This will lower your costs because your ad group has a higher CTR (Click Through Rate).

Facebook has hundreds of reports available, and it is wise to make use of them.

5. Be Ready To Get the Most Out of Your Traffic

Keep your Facebook Wall fresh and updated. Stale content, like the last Wall update was weeks or months ago, will make people lose interest. Give them a reward for visiting so they keep coming back.

Most people don’t click through to your Facebook page; they click ‘like’ right in the ad. Have fresh status updates or special offers or events available that follow up on the content in your ads, and get people to keep coming back.

The click you get is not the end result, it’s the beginning of presenting your campaign to your audience. When someone likes your page, you now have their consent to talk and update them over and over. Boundless opportunities can result by keeping them interested with fresh content, special offers, coupons and events, on an ongoing basis.

My journey along multiple income pathways has taken me on four quite different adventures. I have already written about the property pathway and Forex trading, so in this article I want to complete the picture by considering my small business venture and internet marketing.

1. Small business. I have a day job that keeps me very busy, but one of my ambitions has always been to have my own business. Many people have similar dreams, and some actually make the leap into an alternative career

One of the key things I have discovered is the importance of choosing a business in which one already has a certain amount of expertise. I have frequently heard about people stepping out of successful first careers, such as banking, into something completely different, perhaps wheelie bin cleaning or door-to-door selling.

Many franchise opportunities are available, and it may seem very tempting to pay a lump sum of money and walk into an existing business. However, without prior experience many mistakes can be made, and a significant number of franchise ventures end in failure.

My training is as a teacher, so I decided that whatever small business I would go into, it must involve education in some way. I therefore opened a tuition centre on a Saturday morning, and the business is now in its’ third year. I have an assistant from a local sixth-form college, and we rent a room in a local church hall.

So if you’re going to start your own business, stick with what you know and look for possible opportunities that will play to your strengths.

2. Internet Marketing. Most of my time and focus is now spent on internet marketing. The world wide web continues to expand at an incredible rate, and there are over 300 million websites out there. Nearly two billion people use the internet, and this represents 28.7% of the population. In some European countries, over 85% of the population are classified as internet users. The potential market is huge, and more and more marketing is going to take place over the internet.

However, competition is intense, and the days of uploading a website and sitting back and waiting for the traffic are long gone. To be effective means going out there and actively selling your site and product.

For a newcomer, as with any business there are many pitfalls and broken dreams on the way. Many people will offer advice and try to sell you the latest thing in internet marketing, but these ‘instant’ website packages are generally doomed to failure.

The old adage is that you get what you pay for. If you decide to cut corners and go with cheap offers, then you’re likely to get rubbish. Internet marketing is a business, and you wouldn’t expect to start up a profitable and long-lasting business of any sort for $100!

Be prepared to invest, but don’t jump at the first offer that comes along. Take your time and look for packages that are produced by well respected internet marketers who have been around for some time. Join forums and discussion groups and ask questions – who is actually making money, and what are they doing?

I have been involved with internet marketing for about five years, and I have made many mistakes. I have built websites that nobody visited, and I have wasted significant amounts of money on packages that promised much but delivered little.

I have now made my investment, and for the first time I really believe that I will be a successful marketer. There is money to be made on the internet, and with the right guidance and support internet marketing can be a very lucrative component of your multiple income pathways.

To summarise my experiences of multiple income pathways;

• Property. This must be seen as a long term investment, and be aware of the hidden costs.

• Forex trading. Find a system you like and stick with it, have sufficient money in your trading fund, and control the emotions!

• Small business. Play to your strengths and look for opportunities in areas that you are familiar with. Avoid jumping into the unknown.

• Internet marketing. Be prepared to invest in people and systems, and don’t expect to be an overnight success. My keywords for internet marketing are commitment, discipline and accountability!

Graham Bray is an enthusiastic internet marketer, and for nearly five years he has been developing websites as part of his Multiple Income Pathways. To learn more about internet marketing and how you can download a *free report* visit his blog at http://www.easierinternetmarketing.com

Implementing promotional marketing strategies for small businesses is one of the biggest hurdles most small business owners face in their business marketing.

The Internet is rife with all kinds of promotional marketing strategies and ideas: Write a company blog. Start a company Facebook fan page. Engage people on Twitter.

But actually implementing the promotional marketing tactics is tough for small business owners. “I’m already busy enough, and now I have to do more?”

We feel your pain. We’re in small business as well, so we’re constantly dealing with the same struggles. If you’re a single person operation, or a small partnership with big aspirations, you’re wearing a lot of hats. You’re in charge of sales and marketing, and then fulfilling whatever you sold. You manage the billing, accounts payable, and taxes. You make sure the office is running smoothly, and that you maintain your business network. And now you’re supposed to try some new promotional marketing strategies.

But don’t worry, we’re not asking for much. In fact, we may make your life easier. Here are a few ideas you can use to implement your promotional marketing strategies with a minimal amount of pain:

Track the performance of all your promotional marketing efforts.

This one is crucial. You need to know what’s working for you and what’s not. The mistake many small businesses make is they don’t keep track of the ROI of their promotional marketing. They’ll run Yellow Pages listings, newspaper ads, radio spots, and dabble in social media. But they don’t know what works and what doesn’t.

Do things like sticking unique discount codes on your promotional marketing campaigns. Use special phone numbers in your Yellow Pages listings. Put analytics tracking on your websites. Track the sources of your leads, and see which campaigns result in traffic to your location and your website.

Then count up all of that traffic, and see which leads turned into sales. Total up the sales from each promotional marketing campaign, and then subtract the money you spent on that campaign. The amount remaining is your ROI.

Drop the promotional marketing tactics that don’t work.

This part is easy. If the money you spent is bigger than the money you made, you lost money. If you made more than you spent, you have a positive ROI, and that promotional marketing effort was a success.

Drop all the campaigns that lost you money, including the ones you thought were doing you some good. (Note: this does not include youth team sponsorships. There are some things, like goodwill in the community, that you just don’t mess with!) Pour that reclaimed money back into the campaigns that worked the best. Or if they all made you money, drop the lowest performing ones.

Social media promotional marketing in minutes a day.

When you try something new, like blogging, Facebook, or Twitter, you shouldn’t jump into it with both feet, and spend hours a day on it. You’ll run out of time to do other things, and when you go to play catch-up, everything will be too overwhelming, and you’ll quit. Then, you’ll say it was a complete failure, when in actuality, you haven’t touched that promotional marketing tool in nine months.

Instead, just pace yourself. Work on it a little bit each day. If you’re blogging, just write one 300 word blog post per week. It should take you no more than an hour, and can take less time per day if you break it up. If you’re using Twitter, just spend 30 minutes a day on it, 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon. Eventually you’ll reach a point that you’re so good at it, you’ll find that you’re actually spending 20 minutes a day in 60 second intervals, throughout the day, and wondering if you’re doing too much, rather than not enough.

Promotional marketing for small business is going to be what keeps you in business, but only if you actually try out some of the tactics you read about. Don’t make the mistake of trying something for two weeks and then quitting when you don’t see any results. It takes time, patience, and some work. But if you can make the time to do these tactics, whatever ones you’ll choose, you’ll be rewarded.