The Internet has become the largest medium of communication; and has presented a lot of business opportunities.

Online home based business owners tend to limit themselves to online marketing methods. Nevertheless, there is a huge potential to promote your home based business through some cost effective offline marketing strategies.

So what are the most effective offline marketing strategies for your home based business?

1. Word of mouth in your circle of influence Word of mouth is one of the best free advertising channels. We all have people we interact with on a daily basis, and these are potential customers. Make a list of all the people you know or interact with and how can you best tell them about your internet business. Be passionate about your internet business and always be prepared to tell someone about it when an opportunity to do so presents itself!

2. Mail-out newsletters and flyers Mail-out newsletter or flyers can be effective if you target it to a specific ‘group’. You could create one to distribute to local day care centers just as an example – and in your newsletter or flyer, highlight the benefits of an online business to the targeted group, for example earning money at home for stay at home moms or dads. Posting your home based business URL on bulletin boards can also be effective.

3. Use and give away free branded ‘stuff’ You can promote your business by having your URL on all your stationery, all written communication and other items you can give away for free. If you want to get a lot of people to know about your home based business, you will need to come up with some creative ways of promoting your URL. You can be limited only by your imagination. Have your business cards with your home based business URL. Give them out to people you meet, leave them about where you can, such as in your local coffee shop.

4. Newspapers and magazines Local newspapers are good for advertising your online business. Most local papers have ‘home business opportunities’ section, so you run a regular classified advert. In addition, contact your local newspaper or business-oriented magazine and let the business editor know you have a new business and web site and what you offer. Local newspapers are frequently interested in featuring local business people and their accomplishments. This is free advertising and should always be used. You can also contact your local magazine and offer to write a monthly or weekly guest column for them, and include your ‘author bio’ and home based business URL.

5. Joint ventures with offline business You can get into a joint venture partnership with an offline business which sells a complementary product or service to your home based business. If you can identify a partner that best fit your business, this is an important offline marketing strategy that can help you succeed in your home based business by enabling you to reach potential customers that you could not reach before. As an example, if you have a website selling fitness/health products or tips, you could prepare a leaflet and make a deal with an offline local fitness/health shop where they giveaway your leaflet to their shoppers with each purchase. The offline marketing strategies strategies outlined above can help you grow your home based business.

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The internet has revolutionized the world just like how the industrial age changed the way people work and co-exist. The world has become a much smaller place where anyone from anywhere around the world that has access to the internet can communicate with each other, anytime.

So how does this affect the way we make money? The difference is like riding a bicycle to work and taking a cab there. Business can now have a global audience compared to how far word of mouth can take you. So let’s compare the differences.

Creating a network Offline Like I mentioned earlier, offline business is how far word of mouth can take you. That can mean through your personal network or through advertising (TV, radio, mass media). But let’s assume you’re a person who doesn’t want to invest so much in advertising through the mass media (it’s quite costly anyway) and want to create your own personal network. And let’s also assume that you want to create a huge business to bring in more money.

Through my networking experience, let me tell you how it’s going to be. You will have your own list (how many depends on how many contacts you still have on you) and the chances that someone is going to even take a second look at what you’re doing would be one out of every 5. I did say just take a second look. If you’re serious in what you’re doing, probably a handful of people would be as excited as you are doing what you’re doing out of every hundred people.

Let’s face it. The network marketing boom has come and gone a long time ago. People have heard of network marketing opportunities, both the good and the bad. But since the industry has been out there for so long, more of the bad has been heard. “It’s a pyramid” “they’ll just keep taking money from you” “it won’t work” “I don’t know many people” “I don’t have time” “I’m not interested”. Do any of them sound vaguely familiar? People out there are fearful of new opportunities especially ones they’ve heard many things about.

Now let’s talk about the calls you have to make and how often you have to make them. Basically, you need to pick up that phone and talk to EVERY SINGLE person on your list in order to get a few people into your organization. Hey don’t expect your family to be joining you in an instant. Fellow network marketers should understand what I’m saying, yes? Calls you make means extra numbers behind the dollar sign on your phone bill, especially if you are going to use your mobile phone.

So what happens when your list runs out? You will either have to get more referrals or you get out there and find more potential network marketers! That means you have to literally talk to strangers whether you like it or not. You can’t tell me that everyone out there would talk to complete strangers anytime and anywhere. I have met several people who absolutely WILL NOT talk to any strangers or make any cold calls. (At this point, I’d like to recommend a book written by Florence Litthauer entitled “Personality Plus”) So I guess network marketing is not for everyone.

Online To create a network online, it would need four VERY IMPORTANT things. A computer, an internet connection, an email account and you. As compared to offline network marketing, internet marketing needs a fraction of your time for commitment with minimal effort. Introducing people to your online business does not mean you have to be physically there all the time. Think about it. If you’re in Singapore and you have a prospect in the US, you would have to forgo your sleep in order to talk to this person. But with the internet by your side, the world can connect anytime, from anywhere.

Now lets talk about the effort you have to put in. But first let me ask you this question. Do you chat with your friends on messenger? Do you check your mail? Do you surf the net from time to time? If the answer is yes then that is how much effort you need to put in! Just as much as you’re doing now or maybe just a bit more. (It IS a business you’re doing by the way) The word is LEVERAGE. With the same amount of effort you put in doing your offline business, you can potentially get a hundred or even a thousand times the number of prospects you can get!

HOWEVER, the numbers game still applies. In an online business, for every 100 clicks that you get to your page, ONE will opt in. And out of 100 opt-ins, ONE will join the business that you’re doing and out of the 100 people who join, 24 will do it as seriously as you (that is if you’re doing it seriously). Don’t expect a huge sum of money to be falling on your lap with whatever business because if that happens, it probably is not a legitimate business.

But don’t forget that with an online business, you are leveraging your time and effort with almost the same amount of results. I was running a traditional offline business for about 8 months and the most I received was a couple of a hundred dollars. With an online business, I received five times the amount of money within a month! And it was all legitimate. I was always looking for ways to earn fast money and I guess I found the best that the internet can offer!