I'm starting an IT business from home clueless about marketing anyone help..?

I bascially need to work from home sick wife and two kids to look after. Won%26#039;t bore you with sob stories too much..





Anyway the local paper is a complete rip off to advertise in I have a website I manage myself so that parts ok.. But what else can I do.. I have thought about leaflets but personally I don%26#039;t even read them they just go straight in the recycling bin for me...





I will basically be doing the basic level stuff for home users... repairing... building installing PC%26#039;s etc.. However i%26#039;d really like to push business services asap installing networks etc. I have the skills its just getting the clients thats an issue for me. I despise telesales and hate the image it gives out so i%26#039;d rather avoid doing that.
I%26#039;m starting an IT business from home clueless about marketing anyone help..?
Because you are starting small and I guess not having a huge budget to spend.





You basically need to attract two types of customers:


cash cows: Little money received in everyday but adds up


stars: Generally companies that take long to pay or the work takes long to do, but money is alot!





To get the cash cows, you%26#039;ll have to go the flyer route, but make it interesting! Dress in some funny suit. Strap computer parts to your body if you must! Something to get peoples attention, that will make them read the flyer! Have something like bring in the flyer and get 20% off or something like that. It will allow you to track how effective the flyer was!





Your stars dont want some fly by night company so you have to get the appropraite branding, do research, make a list of companies you want to approach, find the person whom makes the buying decision (you dont want to go there, pitch your idea and find out later it was only the Tealady).





Dress professionally, do a company profile or design a flash presentation and give them a cd they can look at in there own time!





My advice is get some cash cows, build some money and go for the stars!
I%26#039;m starting an IT business from home clueless about marketing anyone help..?
Lets look at this way





You hav a service which you think you are good at.





We will try and simply things here. Lets go back to 4 basics of marketing, the 4Ps and the 4Cs.





The four Ps of marketing are


Product, Price, Place, Promotion





The our Cs of marketing are - Customer, cost, convenience and communication





Who are your target consumers - Homeusers and Organizations. Easy to identify them but diffcult to cater to both of them.





The 1st C - First task is to identify these 2 as separate consumer segments. Next identify needs of each of these segments. You could look at


- Who is the consumer you are going to catering to (map them in as detail as you can - for home users : by age, by profession, by family type, by income, by places which the consumers frequent, by the kind of entertainment these consumers use, by the kind of media they get influenced by, For organization: by type, by size, industry which the organization operates in, the type of IT services which the org is using or needs to use, who takes the decisions abt choosing the service providers, who influences these decisions, how are these decisions taken).....essence to go into as many details as you can, so that you know who are you going to talk to





Now comes the 1st P of marketing - your product


After understanding the kind of requirements your consumers have....look at what is being currently offered to these guys. How are they currently satisfying their needs will tell you where are the gaps which u cud enter into. After you have identified all the need gaps - try and quantify these gaps. quantification is simple arithmatic - luk at how many consumers are there in each need gap and what is kind of price these consumers will pay for that ex there cud be many Home users who want only repairs of PC and repairs might not pay you a lot individually but collectively they might be add to a gud number.....so on and so forth you quantify each need gap. After that according to the big value segments and according to your skill set match select the need gaps which you wanna cater to. Hey dont forget to decide the geographic boundaries of your business, bcoz right now you are a one man army, but if u choose to hav a team at your disposal later then u might easily increase your business.....





Price of your services must be decided according to the value the consumers are willing to pay and the price which the competition (if any) is charging.





Now for the most important part for you Communication


- by now you must have realised that if u know you consumers right to the down to their habits, yo would be able to know where to to communicate to them without ending up irritating them.





Ok let me be more focused





There are various ways in which one cud communicate.....but for a start up like yours you need to rely on word of mouth at the begining, start a referral programme for home users ( thats f u choose to cater them).





Pamphleting is a commonly used phenomenon which yield good results





Have a call me number and leave catchy messages like - Call xxxxxx (ur telephone number) for quick fix on computer issues etc, leave these kind of messages on the collars of the newspapers......or maybe stamp the news papers before they are delivered





Use your home has a store, create a signage.....glow sign outside your home, please shud know a service provider exists in the vicinity......





Local Radio interviews might be a cool idea....most local stations wud include a small spheal abt you business for a paltry amount in return......





Try local cafes, pubs and hangouts.....let people know tht there is smthg which is existing.....





For organization - an online downloadable brochure wud be great. But i wud suggest you stay away from orgs for now....build the scale and then move to them......





Brand the no parking signages, beware of dogs signages or anything which can be brandable....dont forget to leava contact number......take prior permission to do so though from the local authorities.....





Hopefully as u go along you wil figure out better ways of communication.....





Hope this helps
Reply:I can recommend Yell.com.





I%26#039;ve also been self-employed, sole trader, and have worked from home and commercial property (not dissimilar line of work - I%26#039;m into printer and copier repair at the moment).





Anyway, I%26#039;ve used the Yellow Pages paper directory for years, and to be honest, it%26#039;s getting pretty useless these days.





However, about a year ago, I started advertising on Yell.com.





As a first time Yell.com user, I got a decent discount, and an extended ad period (17 months for the price of 12). It%26#039;s customisable (unlike a paper ad which is fixed from the date of printing).





You can log in and change your ad when you feel like etc.





And - I have to say - the responses I%26#039;ve been getting from it have been much better than any other marketing I%26#039;ve tried (and I%26#039;ve done the lot - including radio ads). It basically paid for itself withing the first few calls.





This year, I%26#039;ve downsized the paper ad, and increased the Yell.com ad. I%26#039;ve also been given a unique local number by Yell, which means they can actually track useage of the ad (because thats the only place this particular number appears). At the end of the ad period, they will tell me how many people called, and how many times I actually answered (I%26#039;m not always in but the machine will pick up).





Definately try Yell.com, its coming along really nicely at the moment.





Which ever line you decide to take for marketing, make sure you ask your callers where they got your number. I know its a pain, but its really invaluable information to have.





Incidentally, I hope you have submitted your website to Google and Yahoo etc. Make sure it has all the right keywords, such as your town, business name, and services you offer.





Then - check the site in a meta tag analyser, such as this one:





http://www.hypergurl.com/form.html





Enter your site address (dont use a free hosting site, or domestic domain such as mycompany.talktalk.com etc as its very unprofessional), in the space provided at the bottom of that page, and see what results you get. Highly recommended.





And - GOOD LUCK - it%26#039;s hard work but worth it.





:-)
Reply:Hi, I have several no-cost and low-cost ideas to add to the mix:





1) Make sure EVERYBODY you know is aware that you are in this situation and that you are starting a business to support you and your family. Ask them to pass along to everyone THEY know. Put that website URL in your electronic signature at the bottom of every email you send, as a subtle reminder to everybody you know.





2) Get some business cards, and consider offering something like a $25 referral fee for any customer who refers a new customer to you (you can say it%26#039;s only for when that new customer purchases $100 or more of your services).





3) Do this yourself or ask a journalism-type friend to do it for you: write and submit a human interest story to your local newspaper editor, with a photo of you in your workroom/office. The story doesn%26#039;t have to be about the issues going on at home if you don%26#039;t want it to be - - it can be %26quot;local man launches new business%26quot; oriented. Be sure to include the URL of your website in the article.





4) Ask your customers to spread the word about your services!





Hope that helps...
Reply:Everything is about sales, and if you hate sales, you have doomed yourself.





All that marketing BS is standard textbook Acronym nightmares. Good old fashioned hoofing it works well for low cost start up.





You can get 1000 to 5000 quarter size ad cards for about $120. Punch holes with rubber bands to go around doorknobs and drop them off in targeted neighborhoods, office complexes for small businesses...





Pay some homeless people a shower, meal, change of clothes and some beer to deliver for you. Low cost labor there. Also, have some willing to stand on a busy corner with a hand held sign for the day(with biz cards). Females work better for this spot. Mondays and Saturdays are best.





I know someone doing the same thing, and most of his business comes from those magnetic signs that stick on cars. Have your friends put one on when they are driving around, back of trucks are best, and make sure none of them are in the habit of flipping people off when they drive :)





Hope this gives some ideas for you. Better start liking sales, though.
Reply:Assuming your capital is very limited, I would suggest you take a look at the web site below for free advertising. Yes, it does work, I have tried it.





This is a good web site and you should be able to save loads of money there. Food, working from home, debt, motoring - everything is included.





Wishing you the best of luck. It is hard work and I hope you succeed.
Reply:I would leave the home user to word of mouth and referral, and concentrate on service to business. Get business cards, highlighting the fact that you%26#039;re a business IT tech. Go to every business networking event you can find, socialize and give cards to everyone. When you take the kids to school, talk to the other parents, and give them a card (most people work at a company, some own the company). And to catch the attention of those looking online for network installation, etc., make sure your site is optimized for the search engines.





http://www.link360seo.com/
Reply:Hi,





There are many ways to market a small business on the web. You can buy banner ads, text links, or use PPC. However, the best way is to get listed in a bunch of portals. Portals and directories are like phone books, and they often provide a lot of traffic because they tend to rank high on Google.





This portal is giving away a free business card holder for lising your business (I got mine a few days ago in the mail). If you want to know about some other portals, just let me know.








http://www.your-i-business-directory.inf...





Best of Luck
Reply:Stay clear of Yell.com unless you have money to waste. Sign up for a Google Adwords account and you only pay every time someone goes from Google to your website. http://adwords.google.com/select/Login





When your business grows you may want to then outsource your PPC to us at www.4psmarketing.com but until then it will work a treat with you managing it. I am an advocate of all marketing channels but when you are start up all you will be interested is getting targeted leads and Google can get you these.





飪? 81% of consumers on the Internet find products and services using search engines (Forrester)


飪?98% of searchers do not look past the first 3 pages of search results


飪?The average web site gets 73% more total traffic within six months of optimisation (Marketing Sherpa)


飪?It takes 12 attempts to reach a decision maker by phone (Wendover, 2006)


飪?46% in the buying process say they never respond to tele tactics (Sirius, 2007)