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All that you need to know about making your small business BIG for FREE This free e-book guides you on how to make a small business owned by you, enter the BIG LEAGUE with a few simple steps that would not cost you more than your lunch. Neha Chauhan

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Foreword

Ever since I entered the world of business and marketing,

I have mostly been hearing about BIG names which spend

BIG money on making their logos visible and their jingles

ring in your ears.

As a small business owner it becomes literally impossible

to even think about such BIG investments. You would

rather spend the money on improving your infrastructure

and buying a few good assets. But, in a world where

marketing makes or breaks a product/service, how can a

small business owner get all that he needs at the cost of a

lunch. In this book I would be sharing some ideas that

helped me gain some expertise and use it for my own

business. Hope you will find them useful. CHEERS...!!

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Table of Contents

Get a website

Get a blog

Enter the world of social media

Participate in local trade fairs

Float your business cards through a business network

Make contacts, keep them

Get to distribute samples/free stuff

Organize a competition/event

Keep a check on competition

Don’t forget your old friends

Be a part of online communities

Join a social cause

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All the steps and the chapters mentioned below can be

used in an integrated manner or individually, as the user

desires. The effect would anyways be awesome. It would

really depend on the amount of time you can devote

online and the kind of business that you do.

Get a Website

The first thing that you have to do is get a website. The

virtual world is really big and accommodating. Anything

and everything becomes possible once you learn how to

master the online world.

The best thing about owning a website is that you can

upload text, images and videos. You can provide links

and badges to your other online web pages like a

Facebook fan page or a Twitter account. We will discuss

about these later.

A website can be the best way in which you can make an

audience relate to you and know about you. Now, as a

small business one of the most important questions in

view is that though owning a website gives you immense

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benefits, should you really go for it? Is it really

worthwhile to register a domain name and upload a world

of content on your website? As a small business owner,

how would you be able to track your visitors and

quantitatively analyze if the website is really bringing in

any benefits to you?

In the precursor of this book, All You Need To Know as a

Small Business Owner, we talked about the benefits of

sticking to a budget. Yes, it will always work. No matter

how much capital you put into your business, unless you

have control over your finances, you are giving it all

reasons to fall flat on its face.

For example: it is useless for a local grocery store to set

up a full fledged website on the internet, however, if you

want to open an online shopping business of grocery

items that provides home delivery facilities, this is the

primary and possibly the only big thing that you need to

do on the internet.

Therefore it is always advisable to first check whether

making a website will really be helpful or not. You are

spending a part of your hard earned money here.

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On a second note, if you find that it is really good to have

a website and directing some online traffic there without

spending all the money involved in the process, the

internet will give you this solution as well.

There are a number of websites that provide you free

hosting of your website. You just have to type ‘free

website hosting’ in your search window and you get to a

number of websites that allow you to create a free website

for you, often with limited pages and content restrictions.

You will get free templates, and a few premium ones on

the payment of a minimal fee. Then there is a plethora of

colors, themes and designs to choose from. Your very

own customized website is ready, within a few minutes

and without any charge.

One thing however should be kept in mind that you don’t

get a simple website name like www.abc.com. If you are

hosting your website through one of the free sites (for

example ‘xyz.com’), your URL would be

www.abc.xyz.com.

However, this must not really matter if you are a small

business and don’t have everyday updates, a huge number

of employees and a wide range of products and services

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that are to be displayed. It is not a matter of concern

whether it is big or small, what is more important is that

you are getting it all for FREE.

Get a Blog

For those who want their voices to be heard in a different

way, blogging can give you the right tools to manage your

views. A blog can be about anything. It can be about you,

about your poems, your essays on current issues, your

research, your company, your product, almost anything

you can think about.

So why do you need to create a blog?

I would personally recommend a blog only to people who

can post regularly or who have a product/service that can

be regularly blogged about. A blog is a very dynamic

structure. It is not something that can be made once and

left static or untouched thereafter.

Blogging is about posting your thoughts/views on a

particular subject at a time. For example, you are a

software engineer who has created a certain app for an

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android phone. You can blog about this and blog about

every single creation after this. This is how blogging

normally goes.

Blogs are free to make and to use. A good traffic on your

blog can even help you earn some money.

Some popular blogging sites are:

www.wordpress.com

www.blogger.com

So if you have a writer hidden inside you, go start

blogging.

Enter the world of social media

Believe it or not, but social media networking is the new

marketing tool of the internet and the best thing is that it

is FREE.

The best of the best are Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

1. You can create a Facebook page. You can create a

page and start connecting with the people. You don’t

really need to have a separate personal account on

Facebook. Though if you have one, you will have

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some added advantage as you will be able to directly

recommend people to like your page. The best thing

about running a Facebook page is that you get to

know the demographical data of the people who like

your page. You get to know their age, gender and

location so that you can modify your page and status

messages according to your audience. You may also

want to create a group on Facebook and add people

whom you know and start sharing your ideas and

discount schemes etc there. Trust me, it really gets

this easy.

2. Having a Twitter account is another way to connect

directly to your target audience. Twitter is a very

popular micro blogging site where you condense you

thoughts to 140 characters and share them with the

world. If you create a twitter account and start

following a few people who lie in your circle of

interest, you are sure to find some other people who

like your thoughts and views and might want to

connect with you. There are various ways through

one can master twitter for internet marketing.

However, you should also bear in mind to regularly

keep posting here as well. If you lag behind or leave

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your account untouched for quite some time, you may

make it stale and leave out on chances to meet like-

minded people, marketing gurus and even potential

consumers.

3. If you own a Google account, you can easily switch

to using Google’s very own social network Google+.

Even if you don’t own a Google account, all you

have to do is simple sign up for one, and you

automatically get a Google+ profile. This service

provides you with circles. It is more like subscribing

to the posts of other people. You can manage your

friends, professional contacts etc in different circles.

Moreover, the more G+ you get, the more popular

you become, so don’t forget to sync up with this

service.

Participate in local trade fairs

The government and business community now are

giving much attention to coming together. A local

trade fair may give you the best opportunity to show

off what you got. This gives you targeted audience

gathered at one place, so you know that the people

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who are coming there are the people who are

interested in knowing about you, your service and

probably buying it.

Moreover, you get to meet a lot many people in the

same business. This helps you build your network

and also get some reputation for you in the market.

This is the most sure shot way to get some real time

marketing for your business. Even more beneficial

thing is that you get to analyze your strengths and

weaknesses as compared to your competitors in the

market and also some good motivation to improve.

However, these benefits do not come absolutely free,

as you may have to pay a certain fee to book a stall.

Still, the cost incurred is a mere nothing as compared

to receivables.

Float your business card through a

business network

The oldest method to let anyone know about you and

your business is giving them a business card. This

small piece of paper will tell the person enough

information of who you are and conveys just the right

information about you.

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A business card typically includes your business

name, a tag line (if you have any), your name, your

telephone number(s), e-mail addresses, website URL

and your location.

Remember, a business card should not be loaded with

unnecessary information. You don’t have to write

everything about you. A business card is a short

introduction not an essay of your work.

Always prefer a card which is plain and simple. Do

not go for a fancy design or contrasting colors. Prefer

to keep it to the point.

What all can you do with your business cards?

Simple, just float these cards around to your friends,

relatives and people you know. Often people keep a

bunch of cards to get some reference when they need.

Your friends and relatives might come across

someone who may need your professional help. Also,

don’t forget to float these cards to people who you

meet in trade fairs I mentioned above and also to

your clients so they may come back to you whenever

they need you again.

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Make contacts, keep them

The one very important and useful thing that you

need to know as a small business owner is that

contacts are your golden coins. You need to

understand that the more contacts you will make, the

more chances are that you will meet people in your

area of interest and potential consumers as well.

You will get to meet people everywhere. This does

not mean that you have to establish contact with

every other person you meet. Here, you have to

create a filter and decide which people are really

important and who are actually going to help you

further. For example, if you are a local grocery shop

owner, you won’t really be benefitted by giving your

business card to a cousin who lives in another

country and who works in an MNC.

Also never forget to follow up with your contacts. If

you have their phone numbers and e-mail addresses,

you can regularly keep in touch by sending season

greetings and wishing them important days. This

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helps in maintaining the relations and also builds

your credibility.

Get to distribute samples, free stuff

You must have heard about ‘leading by example’.

Now it is time to do the same, with a little twist. Let

people know about your product/service by sampling.

For example, if you are in the publishing business,

you may distribute a free sample to a few selected

people.

This would get you valuable feedback. And if your

product is good enough, a good feedback will be very

helpful for you to market the whole batch in real

time.

Like in our example of book publishing, you do not

really need to send the whole book out. You can send

a few chapters. However, in cases where the product

cannot be distributed in small portions, like a

medicine or something similar, it is better to send the

whole product.

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Organize a competition/event

This is something that will cost you less and can

make you immensely popular in a single step.

However, it is not free nor will it cost you just one

lunch, yet the cost can be lower than other methods

of promotion. All you have to do is organize an event

or a competition.

For example, you run a small restaurant and want to

increase the footfall of people in your eatery. Just

advertise in a local newspaper or rather but a small

handmade banner outside your premises that you are

organizing a cooking competition in your restaurant

the coming Sunday. The theme is ‘xyz’ and the

winning dish will get to feature in the menu of the

restaurant along with the name of the cook.

All set. Now you will definitely be spending a little

amount if you advertize, but even putting up a banner

outside the shop will do the trick. People will come,

the dish is chosen and as the competition is being

organized in your restaurant itself, you will earn

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some instant money and will make customers for the

future.

In our example we saw exactly how simple it is to get

BIG. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get

thousands of people waiting outside to get a look at

what you are doing. If you can continue the event on

a regular basis, you will certainly draw some crowd.

Remember again, it is about quality and not quantity.

Keep a check on competition

You need to know what other people in the same

trade are doing. Though it is not something that you

should put all your effort in, but still it matters.

In the next example, Mr. A is the owner of a bakery.

There are 5 other bakeries in town. On Christmas, the

rest of the bakeries are offering 20% discount on the

latest series of cakes that they have come up with.

These new cakes are of innovative flavors and are

decorated in an all Christmas fashion. Will you lag

behind in sales?

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The answer is yes. Your competitors are offering

something new and on a discounted price. Given a

choice why would your customers choose your old

cake designs and higher prices as compared to what

they are getting by your competitors?

Therefore, you have to be really alert in this case.

Your prices have to be competitive, reasonable and

your product should always be made and modified

according to the taste and interest of the customers.

Don’t forget your old friends

Your old friends and relatives are your best bet. They

are really the people who will help you in bad times

and in business times as well. It is really important

that you let your friends know what you are doing

and your motto behind it.

As I told you earlier as well, floating your business

cards and making business network is something that

can be easily done with the help of your old friends.

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Maybe you are a software developer who quit his job

to set up an IT company. Don’t forget to be in touch

with some trustworthy friends who will help you in

setting up the company and will also help you to get

some business. And if your friends cannot provide

you with all these material benefits, they are always

there for the moral support. That is what they are for,

that is what your family is for.

A business will put a lot of pressure on your brain.

The people around you play a very important role

here, as they help you cope with the stress and move

ahead.

Be a part of online communities

It is always great to join people. Being a part of

online communities gives you an added edge to get

the right information about your area of interest. The

best thing about these communities is that they attract

consumers, experts, sellers and other interested

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parties alike and are more likely to discuss the right

thing with you. You can not only ask questions, but

you may also answer them and in turn increase your

credibility. The more people know about you, the

more are the chances of the recognition of your

business.

Now the question is how will you find such

communities? It is very simple, you can check a

website dedicated to such discussions, or can join

various groups, pages and communities dedicated to

the topic of your interest. For example, if you are a

member of LinkedIn and run an IT firm, you can join

any of the huge number of groups there and get

valuable information. There you can also connect

with like-minded people and may also be able to

catch a good fish. It is all about communication.

Join a social cause

Now it is something really vague prima facie. Why

do I need to join a social cause if I am an educational

consultant? What has social work got to do with

business?

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Joining a social cause associates your business to a

wide range of options that were otherwise

inaccessible had you focused entirely on commercial

purposes.

In an example, if I am an educational consultant

providing help to students for studying abroad and

preparing them clear the IELTS, I would generally

not think of some social service and would rather

focus on my advertising and marketing chain during

the peak time.

In this situation I come across a friend who tells me

that there must be many students who do not happen

to read my advertisements. There must still be many

who are willing to join the institute but would lack

adequate financial resources. Again there must be

students who want to go abroad and join the institute

but do not have the right information of the procedure

as a whole.

In this case, I can either waste my money on heavy

advertising, most of which goes a waste. Or I can opt

to organize a merit scholarship test for all those who

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want to go abroad and study. The first five students

get a scholarship worth 30000 rupees and so on.

This way I stand a greater chance to be noticed, to be

talked about and also enhance my credibility amongst

my target audience.

Famous Last Words

In the end it is apt to say that the more you open up, the

more chances of you being recognized. The world is no

more a simple economy. There are thousands of buyers

and sellers, with products slightly different from each

other. Therefore, it is really important to make your

product and service stand out amongst them all.

The question is how? Money makes the world go around.

But when it comes to marketing, you have to be really

economical. The first difference I read between

advertising and publicity in school was that publicity

comes free of cost and advertising needs to be paid for. So

if you can use the publicity tool for free, why spend

thousands on advertising. A carefully planned and

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economical advertising plan combined with a well

planned and rather aggressive form of publicity.

You can apply these steps in real life. They will surely

help.

If you want to know further kindly send us a mail at

mycontentlab@gmail.com

You can follow me on twitter @mycontentlab and

@nehajoychauhan or like our page

facebook.com/MyContentLab

Have a great time networking your business!!!