laptop sleeve by byrd and belle
Hope you all had a great long weekend! I'chiliad Brenda from Phydeaux and Phydelle, here to talk with you lot about the management and marketing of your indie business organization. My daytime job and degree are in business concern management, which have proven invaluable for my own indie business concern. Concluding calendar week, we talked near basing your marketing program on your natural skills and talents. For instance, if yous love spending time on Facebook and Twitter, and then social media marketing may be the plan for you! If yous can't stand the idea of spending your time on Twitter … don't use that every bit a means for marketing! This week, I want to talk about marketing that works for you, rather than you doing all the piece of work!

A common theme I notice in the seller forums for online marketplaces is, "I promote all the time – why aren't I selling annihilation?"If you experience the aforementioned way, never fear! I'm going to advise you lot try something radically dissimilar than constant, while ineffective, promotion. Instead, utilize marketing and promotion that works for yous, rather than you working for it!

Quick refresher:  what'southward the divergence betwixt marketing and promotion? Most simply stated, marketing is everything you lot do to bring value to your real and potential customer, with return to your business organization (e.g., sales!). Promotion is 1 aspect of marketing:  keeping your business fresh in the public'south center, via advertising and public relations.

Let'due south say that your shop looks fantastic, descriptions are engagingly well-written, shop announcements and other documentation consummate, and photos out of this earth. You lot're ready to outset marketing! Y'all've besides identified some marketing and promotion ideas that are natural fits for you. Splendid! However … are these ideas that require you to piece of work yourself to burnout, or will these ideas practice the work for you?

If you're spending your day in the forums and conversation rooms in order to drum upward business organisation, you're doing all the piece of work. That's time you lot could exist spending creating new things, coming upward with new marketing ideas, having fun with family unit and friends, etc.

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piece of work for you, while doing the work for yous?

If yous spend a petty chip of fourth dimension in the forums while your ads or blog features draw in potential customers, that's letting your marketing practice the work for you. A well placed ad on a web log with moderate to high volume traffic that matches your marketing target works for you 24/seven! Blog features also piece of work for you 24/7, and may even generate interest to be picked upward past other blogs! piece of work for yous, while doing the work for y'all?

How do you annunciate on a blog? Read blogs! Read them to see if the perspective and involvement matches your own and offers sponsorships. Will your items be a good fit for that blog? If you think and then, look  for a link to sponsorship or advertising data. Does that information include daily and monthly site company/traffic data? Number of unique visitors? Alternately, blogs using "blogspot" may have a "follower" widget – is the number of followers sufficiently high to warrant your difficult earned advert money? When you discover your weblog, you may need to email your banner ad (we'll talk more about this in future columns!) and link URL to the weblog editor or you might just need to submit that information online. Exist sure that you lot have some means to rail shop visitors from that blog, either via Google analytics or a special discount code for buyers or some blogs provide those details to yous.

How do you get featured on a weblog? If your shop is looking incredible and you're effectively using tags, there's a good risk that blogs will find you! Yet, you tin can contact most blogs directly, with a professional person, polite and engaging email, without attachments to get stopped past spam filters or clutter upward inboxes. Work on an electronic mail template that you tin can revise for apply over and over once again, exist certain to address your e-mail to the correct web log and to the blog owner's name (you lot're not probable to get a response by addressing your email to "to whom information technology may concern"), and in just a few sentences, introduce yourself, what it is that you'd like to be featured, and why it'due south of interest to that web log possessor. And be sure to include links to that item and your shop!

These are just two marketing and promotion ideas that do (nigh of) the work for you lot! What other ideas take you lot found work for you, while doing the work for you?

Image credit:  1. Laptop sleeve past byrd and belle; 2. USB stick by woodtec