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7 December 2004
Ideal Marketing Methods for Home Based Businesses
This article is meant for home based businesses (or internet based businesses), but in Jazztures’s opinion, any company can use the methods described. In fact, companies are using them. The article highlights 4 methods.
Affiliate Programs
You basically reward people a portion of the revenue they bring in for you.
Giveaways (Contests)
You run related contests or give some gifts in exchange for a desired action from your target audience.
Search Engine Optimisation
For the online world. You increase your chances of being located by a search engine and hence can get more online traffic, and sales.
Referral Reward Programs
You basically reward people for referring people to you.
We want to discuss the options to use Affiliate Programs and Referral Reward Programs in the offline world.
Referral Reward Programs are actually very similar to Affiliate Programs, the difference being only in the word involvement. If you are dealing with people who have a higher amount of involvement with your business, you can consider inviting them onto an affiliate program. These people know your business well enough to make representations for your business. On the other hand, if you are dealing with customers who are not that involved, and accordingly cannot make representations for your business, you are better off getting them involved in a Referral Reward Program.
Going by this logic, loyal customers and heavy existing users of your product/service are highly involved in your business, and will be great people to invite into your Affiliate Program. They will be your best salesmen, roving around and reaching into channels previously untapped. In addition, people who love your product and are highly committed to learning more about your product will be good Affiliate Program invitees.
The issue then with Affiliate Programs is finding enough people with high involvement. Referral Reward Programs on the other hand are easier to implement, because people do not need to know enough, or even do not need to know of your product/service. They can be driven simply by the reward. The key success factor of a well implemented Referral Reward Program then is ease of reward and referral. If you make it easy for people to do you the favour of referring you and claiming a reward, and provided the reward appeals to that target audience, the program will fly.
So if you own a restaurant, instead of printing more and more brochures that has less and less use, why not consider a Referral Reward Program that rewards your customer for bringing in 5 other name cards?
Or if you are a travel agency selling hotel rooms, why not consider appointing free and easy travelers as your roving Affiliates?
Word of mouth marketing do not just happen. They happen because you have something special. Run an Affiliate program or a Referral Reward Program to help people perceive you as special, and they will sell you naturally.
Source : http://www.home-based-business.../ideal.shtml
Ian Choo, 7 December 2004
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December 2004
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