I recently found some great ideas for promoting your home based business offline.
Even with the outstanding potential for making connections and promoting your products and services online, there are still many advantages to offline promotion.
Some of these ideas will work best for traditional direct selling opportunities, others are excellent for network marketing businesses as well.
I have a lot of these, so I’ll spread them out among 3-4 posts rather than creating one huge article. Pick your favorites and comment below to share you experiences!
1. Take a snack sized sandwich bag and make a little packet that you can hand out to people you run into everywhere – include your business card, opportunity flyer, current specials if that applies, samples if you have them, etc.
2. Make up some flyers with your contact information (phone, email, website) and include details about any specials you’re offering. Contact local apartments, mobile home parks, housing developments, etc. and see if you can leave brochures in their office or distribute them by placing on residents’ doors. Offer the people in the office a gift or discount on products they order from you.
3. Get in touch with bridal supply stores, catering services, formal wear rental centers, etc. See if they will let you leave your business cards & brochures about the wonderful (Your Company’s Name) Bridal Gift Registry that they can give to customers. Offer them a free gift or discounts for helping you out.
4. Look for local daycare centers and leave a few cards, brochures, and perhaps discount offers there. Excellent place to find potential work at home moms.
5. Many churches hold a Spring and Fall Festival! Contact them and see what it costs to get a booth or table. The cost is often very reasonable and you can meet a lot of people. It’s a good idea to do a contest type drawing at these events. You can capture contact information and follow up with them later!
6. Join your local chamber of commerce and get involved! They frequently have events and functions that you can participate in.
7. Do you have a local college or university? Many students are looking for ways to make extra money, and a business they can work around their challenging schedule is very appealing. Most campuses have bulletin boards and other areas where you can post ads and leave brochures.
8. See if you have a local area “Welcome to the Neighborhood” type group. They often hand out packets with local business promotions and even samples. Include yours!
9. Contact the human resources department at local hospitals. Many hand out packets filled with goodies for new moms!
10. Check with local radio stations, they have contests and promotions and are always looking for sponsors and freebies.
11. Do you have a bingo hall in your area? They are always looking for people to donate prizes, and this is a big deal in some areas.
12. Get in touch with your local Chamber of Commerce and inquire about job fairs held in your local area. Rent a booth or table and tell people about your business opportunity.
13. Call local colleges and universities and see when their next job or employment fair is. A booth is often cheap at these events and you can get a lot of prospects this way.
14. Target your local gyms and health clubs! You can get a table for $30 or less in most cases. Make sure you have several products out, plenty of catalogs, business cards and brochures.
15. Find others in your area who are in a home business and network. Find out what events and promotional opportunities they participate in. They can often tell you about strategies and venues that would otherwise be difficult to find.
More to come!
Did you get some value from this post? If you did, I would really appreciate you sharing it with others! And, your comments are welcome below!
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About Eldon Beard
Hi Elton,
You have given some great tips for promoting a home business. I would also stress it is very important to get full contact details from contacts when you are at business events. I was at a business event last night and today I was contacted by people I met at the event through social media. Take care Rosemary
Eldon,
These are all great ways to promote one’s home business. Social media is also a great way to promote one’s business at a low cost.
Eldon,
Those are great ideas and many can be super helpful even if you don’t have a multi-level marketing business. Thanks for sharing those