Starting a home based business can be one of the best ways to increase your income and start moving closer towards achieving your financial goals. However to be successful it is important that you focus on doing the things that need to be done in order to make your business a success.This means that you must focus the majority of your daily efforts on doing the things that will lead to not only making sales but also to earning you a good profit. The good news is that when you plan and prepare a realistic budget and stick to it, this is much easier to accomplish.The mistake that many first time home based business owners make is that they do not take a structured approach to building their business. This causes them to be easily distracted, jumping from one thing to another and as a result they may end up over spending, accomplishing very little and soon just quitting.However by following a few simple tips you can significantly increase your chances of achieving online success and reaching your income goals.Here are 5 Home based business marketing tips that can help you:1.) Set clear, specific, realistic and achievable goals. Many people start off with hopes of striking it rich within their first few weeks of being online. This rarely if ever happens, especially if you have no prior business experience, training or additional guidance.It is much better to start with small achievable goals like getting a certain amount of traffic per day and then increasing that number until you are starting to see results.2) Identify your target market – This is an important step that a lot of new business owners skip but it is important that you identify A.) who is your idea customer and B.) What is the best way to reach them. This can save you a lot of time with your marketing budget and efforts.3.) Have a strategy that you can use to develop your plan of action. This strategy could and should include more than one approach for marketing your home based business.For example your strategy could revolve around using search engine optimization and this could include article marketing, bookmarking at different social media sites as well as using other forms of social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.4.) Create a plan of action and systems for doing things. This should include ongoing tasks management systems which allow for things to be done on a regular basis. You should not rely on how you feel each day to determine what will get done that day.By creating a plan of action or a work flow system you can set up daily action items to be done each day that will move your projects forward and allow you to achieve your income goals and objectives.5.) Manage your time well. Having daily achievement goals is a great start to achieving success with your home based business however unless you are maximizing your time usage, you may not be getting as much done as needed. This can prevent you from realizing even more success even faster.By following these 5 tips you will be able to stay focused on doing what needs to be done to make daily progress and achieve your income goals.
6 Advantages of Pay Per Click Advertising
What are the main advantages to be had from marketing your business online via pay per click advertising?
1. Anything from a local to global audience at the touch of a button
The first top advantage of pay per click advertising is that worth nothing is the fact that you can easily select the focus and scale of your target audience at the click of a button in your account.
If you want to focus your online advertising on a small, localized area, within a few square miles of your business or store, you can choose to do so. If you want to advertise your products or services across more than one continent, you can choose to do so thanks to the technical advantages of PPC.
Being able to geographically target your audience is a huge pay per click advertising advantage, particularly because the boundaries that you set can be changed at any time. There are also lots of other ways to continue targeting your audience, such as their social or cultural preferences which can be gleaned from your audience’s social networking activities for example.
When using print advertising or other forms of online advertising, it is very difficult to get this kind of control over your target audience. The advantage is in the control and freedom that you have regarding geographical targeting.
2. Online advertising that is financially accessible to all
The second main advantage is the fact that you can advertise via pay per click regardless of your budget.
PPC is an effective form of online advertising that can be run on anything from a few dollars a month to millions of dollars a month. Regardless of the amount of money that you spend on your pay per click advertising, it can also still be highly successful, which is another advantage to bear in mind.
It is not how much money you spend that counts. It is how that money which you invest is spent which will start to bring in new clients and new customers to your business.
The advantage of paid search advertising as opposed to other kinds of online advertising or print advertising is the fact that you can achieve fantastic results from that advertising on any budget whatsoever.
3. Making changes is quick and easy
If you use print advertising to market your business, it is very difficult, expensive and time-consuming when you want to make changes to that advertising campaign. When you advertise, the third advantage is the fact that making changes to your campaign costs nothing (unless you are changing how much you are spending) and can be done at the click of a mouse.
You can make changes to the advertisement text within your advertisements, you can make changes to the times of day when your advertisements are shown, you can make changes to the landing pages on your website that your advertisements lead to. All of these changes can be made within a few minutes. It is that simple.
The list of what you can change is endless and therefore the advantage lies in the ease and speed at which you can market your business via this medium.
4. Development and improvement using advertising tools is never ending
The fourth advantage comes in the form of ppc tools which are under constant development and designed to make your pay per click advertising campaigns even more successful every time.
For example, if you need help optimizing your campaigns, you can use Google Analytics to make sure that you make informed decisions. You can also use other pay per click advertising tools to run a second campaign in secret for a period of time. In this way you can test out theories for that campaign to see what kind of results you might get from that campaign. All of this can be done as a test run without actually running the campaign for real and having to invest money into it.
Paid search experts are developing and improving these tools every day. These developments are never ending. The constant development behind the scenes is another clear advantage for all the advertisers who market their businesses using this medium.
Feeling constantly supported is nothing but a clear advantage to be had from marketing via this kind of advertising.
5. Online advertising that can be managed by advertising experts
In addition to all the advantages outlined above, one of the most important advantages is that you can outsource your needs to experts in the field. This then frees up your time to concentrate fully on running your business and you can also be safe in the knowledge that the best of the best are in control of your campaign from the very beginning.
People choose to outsource their pay per click advertising needs to our firm because they know that with our help their advertising is going to be more successful. We are trained, experienced and knowledgeable so that you don’t have to be.
6. Google AdWords campaigns and Google AdWords marketing
It is highly recommended that you choose to advertise your business via Google AdWords for the following reasons.
One of the advantages of Google AdWords relates to the fact that Google is the largest search engine in the world. Therefore if you want to make sure that your advertising is seen by your target audience, you have the best possible chance of doing so via Google.
Through AdWords the advantage is that you can either market your business via text-based advertisements or advertisements too. The Google Display Network is huge and full of effective image advertisements run by a whole host of advertisers all over the world.
Five Tips for Selling at Live Auctions
Ah, the old-fashioned country auction! The idea of a country auction conjures up certain images for people. The image of a fast-talking auctioneer offering up an antique table or chair is a popular example.
People who are buying household goods or collectibles are looking to get their items at the lowest price possible. However, the people who are selling their items at auction are hoping for the highest price!
Unless a person is in the business of buying and selling antiques or other items, not a lot of thought goes into how goods are prepared for sale via the auction process. However, if you are one of the growing number of people using auction venues to sell your collectibles or other inventory, there are a few things to learn first about how to sell at auction before you bring a truckload of stuff over to the next event.
Tip 1: Make sure the things you want to sell are a good “fit” for the auction house you’ll be using.
Never bring a load to an auction house without actually having been to one of the previous auctions. It’s important to get a feel for the type of goods that the house sells. For example, at one very rural country auction it was common for the owners to sell live chickens, pots and pans, car parts, and farm equipment.
After close investigation, this would not be the right venue for selling your daughter’s “Hello Kitty” collection. On the other hand, the spare John Deere parts that you bought at last week’s yard sale might be just the right thing for the buying crowd at this auction.
Tip 2: Be sure you clearly understand the terms and policies of the auction house.
Visit with the auctioneer ahead of time. Call to find out what the best days and times are to visit. One of the worst possible times to drop in for an informational visit with an auctioneer is the day of the auction. Call ahead and ask. While you’re at it, find out what are the best days and times to drop your stuff off.
Once you have a little time with the auctioneer, you’ll be able to find out what type of commission he or she takes from consigners (which is you), and what type of paperwork might be needed. Some auction houses send out Form 1099 tax forms at the end of the year. An auctioneer may need to see your identification and have you fill out a W-9. Be prepared.
Find out what happens to your items if they don’t sell. For example, some auctioneers may have a minimum starting bid. If, for some reason, one of your items does not sell, it may be grouped with another one of your pieces. Know the auctioneer’s strategy beforehand so that you aren’t surprised on pay day.
Tip 3: Make sure the auctioneer knows what you’re selling.
It might be perfectly obvious to you that the signed print you are consigning is a rare and valuable piece of art. However, the auctioneer may not know this particular artist. Make a note of anything particularly special about your items, and leave the note with the piece. Be sure to tell the auctioneer about it as well. He or she might determine that this is something to highlight on the company website or in the newspaper listing.
Tip 4: Present your items neatly.
No one likes to have to dig through a box full of grimy and greasy car parts to see what treasures might be in there. Separate the parts and lay them out on a flat, or use more than one box to de-clutter the lot.
There is no need to buy fancy display boxes. It’s easy enough to go to the local convenience store or supermarket and ask if you can have the emptied boxes or flats that they are discarding.
While it’s good to present clean items, take care not to ruin the value of anything by over cleaning. For example, if you find some old cast iron cookware, clean the obvious dirt and grime, but don’t scrub it to its original finish. For many people, this ruins the value of the item. So, clean and tidy and organized is the key here.
Tip 5: Don’t complain to the auctioneer if your stuff doesn’t sell for as much as you’d like.
The phrase to remember here is, “You win some; you lose some.” That’s just the way it is. There are some days where an auction house is loaded with people who all seem to want what you’re selling. There will be other days where the crowd is sparse, and the bidding is simply not competitive.
Remember that it’s in the auctioneer’s best interest to sell your things for the highest possible hammer price. But sometimes, it’s just not going to be a stellar sale. The auctioneer is only human, and is also disappointed if a sale doesn’t go as well as planned.
If you notice that every time you bring a bunch of goods to sell that you’re not realizing as much as you think you honestly should, try another auction venue and compare apples to apples. That is, bring the same types of items to the new auctioneer and compare the results.
Unless the auctioneer is particularly disagreeable or inconsiderate to you or buyers, there is no reason to confront him or her about a sale. If you find you just don’t care for an auctioneer’s style or methods, find another one. Believe me, there are plenty of them out there!
The primary thing to remember as you learn how to sell at auction is that the business is unpredictable at best. You will have good days, some not-so-good days, some great days. The more you sell, the more experience you will gain, and the more enjoyable the business will be.