Start a Side Business

The first edition of the Carnival of Home Business was a resounding success. We had a lot of great articles submitted.

And today, I’m excited to publish the second edition of the Carnival of Home Business. This month theme is: marketing strategies you use to market your business.

Before getting started with the Carnival itself, 2 bits of administrivia. - You’ll find more information about the next edition at the end of this post - Even though I make every effort to include all submissions, if a submission is too far off topic, it may be left out. Feel free to resubmit for an upcoming Carnival where your article may be more on topic. Ultimately, the host of each edition will decide whether a submission is included or not, so to ensure your submission gets included, keep your submission on topic!

Ok, enough digression, and it is now time to get into what you have been waiting for, so here goes!

To market your business, you need find ways to stand out, to be remarkable, and for this, a sure way to success is to get your creativity flowing. Christine Kane gives us 21 Ways to Be More Creative. Still not convinced? Then how about you Have an adventure day?

In Before Your Idea Can Take Off, Tim King is pondering whether there is a difference between marketing, advertising, and sales, especially when you are doing all 3! His argument: you can try to be all 3, but you really don’t need to. Find out which role you should focus on.

When you get started, cash is not something you can spend left and right. Wendy, from eMons at home explains how she does Mindful Marketing on a Shoestring Budget. She has some very interesting ideas you can implement yourself!

Part of Marketing yourself and your business is having happy customers. A happy customers can in turn spread your message and send people your way. Don’t neglect your customer after you’ve received their money. In Communication is Key, Nick Tritt relates how he applies this to selling on EBay.

Even though this was not a submission for this carnival, My Mycro-ISV has a link to a Marketing Sherpa Study which is a summary of a study they made with 1,900 high tech marketing executives about what works for them, and I’m willing to bet a lot of this can apply to any business, large or small. Their top five? Free trials, webcasts, white papers, blogs, podcasts.

What’s marketing your business if it is not marketing yourself? Most likely if you have a home business, you are the business, or a big chunk of it! Dave Lorenzo, already part of the first edition, thinks that you need to Develop a great elevator pitch.

Thank you to everyone that submitted an article!

The next edition of the Home Business Carnival will be hosted by Wendy of eMons at Home. The theme will be “balancing work and home life”, a theme near and dear to everyone trying to maintain a healthy balance between their home life and their business. Send your submissions by email to home.business.carnival -at- gmail -dot- com, or use the submission form at Blog Carnival.

If you’d like to host an upcoming edition of the Carnival,or if there is a theme you’d like to see covered, let me know.

Till next time!

Related Articles:

• Home Business Carnival, 3rd edition is up
• Carnival of Home Business, first edition
• Announcing a new Home Business Carnival