When you’re working from home, advertising can be as simple as letting someone know who you are and what you do.
When you let a neighbor or friend know that you are working from home and doing thus-and-so, you are, in effect, advertising.
But while word of mouth is powerful, it can only go so far.
Often, it will only generate limited awareness.
If you find that you are generating enough business merely by telling your friends and family, who then inform others, wonderful!
(Please, introduce me to your network.)
If this is not the case, though, you might find that choosing a few cost-effective advertising methods will aid your business growth in a big way.
In short, you don’t have to advertise, but here are seven reasons why advertising can be good for your work-from-home enterprise.
1. Advertising Generates Attention
Advertising equals awareness.
This is the case whether you work from home or operate an outside business.
If you do nothing to advertise, you will gain no awareness about who you are or what product or service you offer.
If you advertise a little bit, you will create a marginal level of awareness.
In other words, what you put into advertising will be what you receive from it.
It is a fact that potential clients or customers will be more mindful of businesses or companies that are putting themselves “out there.”
It is just the way it goes.
You might have a wonderful and unique product to sell, but if no one knows about it, it will sit on your shelf (or in a box in your garage) for infinity (and beyond).
Advertising is a way for you to connect with potential customers and clients and build awareness.
If you have taken the time and effort to build an at-home business with a service you offer or create a product, you want people to know it is available.
Especially when you are just starting to work from home, advertising helps people know you exist.
2. Advertising Establishes Your Identity
Not only does advertising get you or your business “out there,” but it helps people know who you are.
Advertising strengthens your identity.
It can aid in developing your credibility, and thereby the reliability of your product or service.
You know that you have a unique or valuable product or service; advertising lets other people know this as well.
When people see that you are investing time or money into effective advertising, they will assume that you are not some “fly by night” company ready to run off with their cash.
They will likely believe that you have a business that is running well and even growing, and this increases the chance that they will approach you for business.
3. Advertising Keeps You in the Market
The market is constantly changing.
Companies that were in business yesterday are gone today or will be gone tomorrow. New businesses and companies pop up like mushrooms the morning after a rain, and many are gone just as quickly.
When you advertise, you convey to people that you are part of the active, growing market and you don’t plan to fade away the next day.
4. Advertising Puts You on Par with Competition
Whatever it is that you are trying to sell clients or customers on, you have competition. Somebody else is looking for that “sell” or that client.
What is more, they are likely advertising and letting people know they’re ready for business.
Potential customers need to have options. If they don’t know you are there, they will get their needs met by someone else.
Advertising will also give you an edge when it comes to competitors who are not advertising their products or service.
5. Advertising Brings Returns
Let’s face it.
The bottom line reason you chose to work from home is likely because you need income.
Ideally, you are choosing a work-from-home career that you enjoy, but enjoying yourself is not the endgame.
Selling your product or gaining clients for your service is your goal.
Advertising is the aspect of your business that actively seeks to bring you revenue. It serves to either inspire current customers to buy more of your product or attract new customers or clients.
If it is effective advertising, this is exactly what will happen.
6. Advertising Helps Define Your Image
You can probably spend a year or two studying branding and image, and still not know everything there is to know about the topic.
Suffice it to say that branding is an important aspect of building a business and effectively marketing it.
A brand that is easily recognizable, or even unmistakable, is a brand that will sell.
Whether you are marketing a unique product or tailor-made services, creating a brand around it in some form can help define and improve your image.
Advertising allows you to determine how others see your business. It gives you the benefit of building your identity and brand, then conveying that to the public.
If you go about it in the right way, your advertising can situate you or your business to where you are defined as knowledgeable, professional, and the best option available.
7. Advertising Generates Traffic
Regardless of your place of business, advertising will drive traffic in your direction — whether it is a website, eBay, or your home.
Certain methods of advertising are more useful in “driving traffic,” but once a potential client is at your doorstep (figuratively speaking), you can utilize a variety of promotional offers or sales to encourage them to choose you over a competitor, or to purchase more than they had originally intended.
My husband spent some time working as a cashier in a “dollar” store.
He told me that nearly every day, he would hear customers stating that they did not intend to make such-and-such a purchase, but because it was there and for such a good price, they went ahead and bought it.
Advertising can bring people your way, and once they’re there, you can then attempt to upsell them on other great deals or offers that you have.
Thanks for reading!
This month, I’m posting articles on Medium about working from home, borne from 11+ years of experience as a freelance writer and editor.
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Bonita Jewel 