The Role of Small Business
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Small Business
There are many more small businesses than big businesses, but big business gets all the press and publicity. Yet small businesses employ as many people as big businesses and account for most of the long-term job gains, according to government statistics. You don't have to be big to make a difference. Most sites on the Web are small. That doesn't make them unimportant or uninteresting.

In fact, small businesses -- whether they're called SOHO (small office, home office), Home business, or just Small Business -- provide about 70% of the jobs and economic activity in a healthy economy. Yet the training needs of this market segment are often overlooked. A good question is: Why?

Most small business owners will tell you they don't have time to worry about training. They're too busy running their business.

Let's start from the practical, and see what conclusions come to mind.

Here are five ways to market your work at home business that you may not have thought of before:

1) Enhanced Business Card - Get a business card with color, an eye catching background, and add your picture to it. Maybe you could also have a cool quote or a free offer on it, plus anything else you can think of to get peoples attention.

The point is you need to make it stand out among all the other business cards someone might see in a month. Make sure your website URL is on it in a highly noticable place. Then, leave it everywhere you can, and hand it out to everyone you meet.

2) Give away freebies - Underpromise and overdeliver! That is the best business marketing strategy ever thought up. Pretty much all the "big-dogs" use it in their marketing campaigns. You can too by giving away free stuff at your website, or in your newsletter, without telling anyone they will be receiving it.

Say someone visits your website from an ad you placed that didn't mentioned anything about getting a free ebook. They will be absolutely delighted to find the extra free gift.This is a great way to get people to not only return to your site, but tell their friends about it too.

3) Sponsor Events - A great way to spread the word about your business is to sponsor events in your area. There are many games, events, charity drives, intramurals, little leagues, etc... That are just waiting for people like you to give a little bit of your money to help out.

You will usually get your business name on a T-shirt, a sign, a flyer, or something else related to the event. A lot of people will be seeing these events and YOUR business name. It's a great way to drive local traffic to your online business website or offline business if you have one.

4) Blogs - Having your own business blog can be a great marketing tool. With a blog you can quickly and easily offer free business advice, information, fun stuff, resources, tips, or anything else you want.

If you have a very interesting and/or informative business blog people will keep returning for the great stuff that your blog offers. Update it every day or two with fresh info and you can build a strong following fairly quickly.

I have used this marketing technique successfully for the past few months. You can see one for yourself by visiting Trent Brownrigg's "home biz tips" blog.

5) Guestbooks - There are many people that have guest books on their websites that you can sign. Most of them allow you to put a link to your website when signing. This can be a good way to bring some traffic to your site and get a one-way inbound link that those search engines really love.

Make sure you don't just post a random comment or spam the guestbook. You should actually check out the website and leave a useful message. This will keep your reputation intact and provide the webmaster with usable information. A win-win situation!

Alright, now you are armed with five more work at home business marketing techniques to bring traffic to your website and customers to your business. Get going on them now so you can increase your profits this week!