Nowadays, there are many people running businesses from the privacy and comfort of their homes. This could be anything from making paintings, designing jewelry and creating ornamental pieces, to baking, offering cleaning services or teaching music. Once you have identified your target market, you should now find a way of getting word out about your business.

Here are some great ideas for promoting your home-based business:

1. Use word-of-mouth

This is one of the most effective ways of promoting a home based business. You could start by talking to your friends, neighbors and family members. With time, you could spread your network to reach ex-bosses, ex-colleagues, ex-college mates and ex-suppliers.

2. Place ads

Once you know who you are targeting, think of places where you could place ads to grab their attention. This could be placing flyers and posters on school notice boards, barber shops, supermarket ad boards, hospital notice boards or beauty clinics. You could also consider placing paid advertisements on newspapers and magazines related to your business. In addition, it would also be advisable to place an ad on online classified sites such as Craigslist.

3. Build a website

Launching a website is not as complicated as it sounds. Even if you have little or no knowledge of web design, you can easily create your own site. Before creating your site, you should first decide what you want to accomplish through it. Would you want it to be an online store? Or do you simply want to offer your customers the latest industry news? Once the goal of your site is clear, you can then decide if you can do the job by yourself or it will require a professional designer. If you are planning to design a simple site, you could use tools such as WordPress. However, a complex site will require the services of an expert who can also help with other details such as registering a domain name and web hosting. Remember to update the content on your site on a regular basis. This will keep your visitors coming back for more.

4. Run online campaigns

An online marketing campaign will help you reach a much wider audience with your products and services. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have groups covering almost every profession imaginable. Joining such groups will give you the chance of interacting with other like-minded individuals. In addition, there many online forums where you can network with others and create awareness about your business. In all your interactions, always remember to leave a link to your website.

5. Organize a home exhibition

You could consider organizing an open day at your house and exhibiting your handicrafts, books, paintings, food or clothe designs. You can use all the publicity ideas mentioned above to invite people to the exhibition. If possible, you could also invite TV, radio or print journalists. This could very well result in your business being featured in the media.

Conclusion

Running a home based business is not easy. However, with proper planning and promotion, it can turn out to be a very successful, thriving enterprise.

Image via iStockphoto, bonniej