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Marketing an Online Business
By Abdi Mohammed

Marketing an online business needn't be a boring task. Do you know what message you want to send about yourself, your product and your business? If you do not then how can your potential customers know? Broadly speaking therefore, marketing is all about getting your message across. All businesses, however small, need to market their product and should be focused on generating direct responses, on building communications with your target group of customers rather than worrying too much about image generation.

As described above, you should have a clearly defined message - predominately about your product; this bodes well for both online and offline businesses, as the underlying principles are the same. The following should therefore be considered:

1. Who is the message to? By this we mean your target market. Who are your potential customers? You need this information at your fingertips from a very early stage of planning your business and hence a key concept.

2. What is your message? The two main components of your message are the long-term reputation you want to build for your product or online business. Secondly, the specific message you want to get across now. This could simply be a description of your online business.

3. How to send the message? There are numerous methods of trying to get across your message to your target audience; the trick is to select the most cost-effective way of reaching your group. Marketing an online business is not a whole lot different from the marketing of an offline business. The core principles are the same, but the methodologies differ slightly. For example, instead of writing an advert in a newspaper you might put one up on a classified ads site or put up an online press release.

Marketing and advertising are synonymous and go hand in hand. Advertising tackles the problem of 'How to send the message'. Advertising can create attention, inform, remind, prompt sales and improve the image of your product. But the return from advertising is uncertain. Do not, therefore, rely on one form of advertising to achieve your objectives; if you can afford it use a mixture. The beauty of online marketing is that it is relatively easy to track the performance of your advertising, e.g. use a unique URL for each advertising method and track individual hits.

The above is some general information on marketing an online business but I would now like to give my top 3 tips specific to online businesses:

• Think LONG and HARD about your target market. Find out where they congregate online (forums?).
• Draw up a MARKETING PLAN according to your target market and budget. This doesn't have to be anything elaborate; a simple piece of paper with the right information would suffice. If you have little experience, or are having troubles, then don't be afraid to ask someone
• TEST and TRACK your marketing efforts and update your marketing plan as you go along. There is nothing wrong with changing the plan!

Abdi Mohammed is an online entrepreneur who has discovered the wonderful opportunities the Internet offers. A university graduate living in the UK, Abdi, has been involved in a number of online and offline businesses. After much hard work and testing, Abdi now only involves himself with businesses that are automated and have a proven system. His expertise cover Economics, Business and Wealth Creation. Proven Online Business

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Abdi_Mohammed
http://EzineArticles.com/?Marketing-an-Online-Business&id=1845599

Top 5 Business New Year Resolutions For 2009
By Isla Campbell

When a new year arrives, often what come with it are new opportunities. Therefore, grasp those opportunities with both hands by following these top 5 business New Year's resolutions, which may help drive your company further forward in 2009.

1. Open your eyes wider - be active not idle. Encourage lateral thinking across your business and think about your customers, services and product ranges. Consider whether there are new opportunities that can be exploited within the market by keeping an eye on competitors and trends in the market; as well as other unrelated industries and if required, make the bold decision to change. But don't let this focus be a one off quick fix; make the practise of research, evaluation and testing a regular activity that injects life into the business again and again.

2. Think smarter - make your business into a lean mean revenue driving machine. Therefore, use your time within the office wisely and try to streamline certain actions so they perform more efficiently. This is can be of great benefit to the business, whilst also helping to reduce those late nights at the office.

Being able to turn work around quickly can also free up your time and allow you to work on other projects that you otherwise might not have been able to start. But, to work smarter you may need to invest money and resources to create this opportunity. By doing some time/cost assessments you can highlight the quick, low cost wins against the bigger, more costly, but ultimately rewarding investments.

3. Learn something new - make this an ethos across the business so individuals can develop as well as being able to spot new opportunities. Learning is a great motivator and can reinstall drive into a work force that may appear demotivated; this is especially true with the cloud of recession looming overhead in recent times. Therefore, what people learn should then be distilled and spread around to all concerned as it can spark other ideas too. Share the knowledge to release the power across your business.

4. Take that extra green step - think global, act local. Going green doesn't always have to be on a global scale. Try and see what good you can do in your local community, such as holding a charity event to fix up a local play area or simply making a conscious and visible effort to tidy up your surrounding neighbourhood. These types of actions are a great way of attracting the press, differentiating yourself from your competitors, great motivator and a potential retainer of staff.

5. Set your goals - it is important to have focus. Even this act of giving yourself resolutions is goal setting. Set your plans, know your ideal destination, have a path to follow and check progress weekly, not quarterly. Reflect upon the previous year and carry forward any success stories and learning into the New Year.

In fact, making a note of your progress on a couple of highly visible notice boards or large sheets of paper can be a motivator to all those involved in achieving the goals. As with any business, expect change and ensure you are moving forward; this will then help you get closer to your goals.

These business New Year's resolutions are just a few examples of what you could be doing to drive your company forward in 2009. The five ideas above may not be applicable to every business; however, if you do not make a conscious effort to adapt in the New Year, then you might not have the chance to apply any resolutions at all next year.

Isla Campbell writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Isla_Campbell
http://EzineArticles.com/?Top-5-Business-New-Year-Resolutions-For-2009&id=1863295