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Internet Marketing: The Buyer and Sellers Dream

To perk up your business activities, you have posted your ads in print media such as various glossy magazines, newspapers and colourful shopping catalogues; you have tried expensive television airtime complete with smiling blonde models and dashing corporate hunks. These are all too expensive and exposure is limited, lay-outs are outdated as fast as you can blink and you have to do a lot of things over and over again without much return on sales, so that next time you look at the audit sheet you learn you’ve spent more on useless ads than the amount your company earned.
The worldwide web is the new marketing paradise. At the onset, only a few of the corporate giants dared to advertise online. Now, even the newest and smallest of business ventures can participate in e-commerce and pocket a few sales, if the ad lay-out is good and the marketing strategy is efficient – and it may even get more sales than in a real showroom. One can begin selling products as merchandisers on online shopping sites or comparative shopping sites, if your product line is in that category. You may later upgrade by setting up your own shopping website as your inventory list increases. For businesses that sell products and services that are not department store items, space may be available at various shopping and classified advertising websites and you may even find some offering free, but limited, space. Placing small ad banners or promotional widgets on social networking sites or search engine ad pages, may be the most rewarding of all, if you cannot afford to maintain your own website. If you have tested internet marketing through the simple ride-on method and had a few sales to speak of, then it is time to dream of bigger things and maximize the pleasures of the real internet marketing paradise.
Setting up your own internet marketing website begins with planning your promotional techniques and lining up an array of interesting advertising blurbs for your click-able banners that would link your website to the major social networks and search engine browsers. Create a homepage lay-out which is interesting enough to make a visitor want to stay and read more, or surf all your pages. Include a forum page where users may leave feedback and comments, this will give you ideas on how to improve your site, or get requests from prospective clients. Offer bonus coupons to frequent visitors and referrals and run constant product promotions or contests. Offer spaces to affiliates or item sellers related to, but not a competitor, of your product line. This will make your website appear more attractive and increase your marketing network. Your product photos should be shown in the best color resolutions to make them appear better looking than the actual piece if possible. Moving videos of items are the best, but eat up a lot of disk space. Never display an item without a nice caption and complete product description and specification. Price or price range is a must as, without this information, your product is just one more item to admire but does not sell. Get reliable e-commerce software for sales conversion – a shopping cart that drops the sold item ready for payment by credit card linked to your site. With internet marketing, it is easy to close a sale right away. You don’t even have to be there to seal the deal, as the web host does it for you online while you work on your business offline.
The surge of internet marketing benefits both seller and shopper. The sale is consummated by just a few clicks of the mouse and your keyboard and the virtual cash register keeps clocking up sales at an amazing speed. For the shopper, it saves the trouble of road traffic and an exhausting day of walking square miles of shopping malls. The internet marketing boom is attributable to the increasing need of people to conserve time and resources, so shopping on the web provides convenience for busy individuals and may be done at any time of day, which is both beneficial to the buyer and seller. The worldwide web is in its finest hours, providing opportunities from the biggest to the smallest businesses.

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5 Steps to Taking Your Home Business Idea From a Dream to a Reality

Do you have a great home business idea? If so congratulations! However, the process of taking your idea from just an idea to a reality can be complicated and confusing if you do not understand the process. Here are five steps you can follow that will help ensure that your home business idea becomes an actual home business.
1. Determine what steps you need to take in order to avoid any legal or other hassles. This includes obtaining a patent on anything that you have invented, making sure that what you are doing is legal in your area and finding out if there are any licenses or permits that are required for you to do your home business in your area and city. If you need some help with this you can contact your local chapter of SCORE or the Small Business Administration.
2. Develop a complete business plan. This is not only a good idea, but before you can get a bank or anyone else to loan you any money, it will be required. Even if you do not need to borrow any money in order to make your idea a reality, having a business plan will only serve to your advantage in the long run.
3. Create a budget and include in that budget everything that you will need to make your products, market them and anything else. If you are not sure exactly what you will need then do some research to find out.
4. If you are going to be making something, finalize the details as to who will make what, and determine where you will get each part or item made, and how much each item will cost to make. You want to be sure that you can get the items cheaply enough that you will make a big enough profit.
5. Arrange to either have made, make yourself or otherwise obtain a sample of whatever you will be selling. If you are doing a service business then make a price list with details of what each service will include. Once you have these then you should show your samples to as many people as possible before continuing with your home business idea in order to get feedback and make sure that there is enough interest to make your idea profitable.
Do these steps and you will soon be on your way to making your home business [] idea a reality instead of just a dream.