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Are you trying to start a new business or attempting to grow your existing business? If you are having trouble coming up with ideas on how to establish or develop your business, here are five ideas to get you started! These ideas are easy and highly accurate methods when used correctly that will help to market and promote your company:
1. Have a Plan. This may sound like a “no brainier” to you, but many business owners jump into action with no plan in place and find out they have no idea what they are supposed to be doing and end up having to backtrack. To save time and stress, figure out the two basic principles right from the beginning:
a. Figure out who your best target audience is for your product line.
b. After you figure out who your best target audience is, you will then need to determine the best way to reach them. Is it by advertising in the paper, or finding them on online sites such as Twitter or LinkedIn?
2. Set up a business profile/page on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. According to a recent article about LinkedIn, there are approximately 175 million active members using this site. That is a lot of prospects that you could be reaching out too. Make sure you do the following when you set up your accounts:
a. Include a good description of your company and a link to your website.
b. Join groups or conversations that talk about the type of products or services you are trying to promote. Also, participate in the conversations.
3. Stationery. If you are just starting out and don’t have business cards or business stationery, place your order for them—immediately. Business cards, letterhead paper and envelopes tell prospective customers you are a professional company that takes their business seriously. When it comes to designing your business cards, the design can be simple or elaborate, but make sure to include:
a. Your full name
b. Name of the business
c. Address
d. Phone number(s)
e. Email address
f. Your website address
g. Job title
h. Logo or a tagline
Be consistent and have the same information on your letterhead paper and any handouts you create. If you already have stationery and any of this information is not on there or you have any information that is not up-to-date, make sure you correct it and change everything to be consistent.
4. Set up a free listing for your company on search engines’ local directories. You can do this on all major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Be sure to include your website link and a description of your business.
5. Website. If you don’t have a website, set one up. You can pay for someone to do this for you, you just have to tell them what design you are looking to achieve. If you can’t afford to have someone custom-design a website for your company, there are free sites such as wordpress.com that you can use to put your own site together. WordPress and other blog sites provide you with the templates and tools that make it easy to create a basic website.
In order to effectively start and grow your company, you will need to attract and then work to retain a large base of satisfied customers. These items will help make it easier on you to effectively market your company so you can take your business to the next level.
