Sales and Promotion? In this day and age?

We're all looking for a means to promote our product, our idea, or our services. Some of these may be 146% original, but the rest are likely to be just an implementation and re-marketing of an existing product, idea, or service.

For example, web design. We've all done it, and we've all seen it. We know that there are people who are still pushing Frontpage-developed sites for $80 per page of static HTML, and that there are people who are still eagerly paying for it. Let's throw something else into the mix: Management and maintenance fees. These same developers/designers are charging up to $150 per hour just to fire up Frontpage and make a couple quick changes...and they're getting paid for it!

Now let's compare with the DevShed crowd. Yes, that's right, the group of brilliant and talented minds who are looking to market this same service, at a rate much lower than the "other guy", and who can provide the client with a top-notch product. Furthermore, the result of this will be purely dynamic and will contain a web-based administrative interface where the client can make the changes and updates on their own, without paying extra. Sure, the "market rate" for such a thing is going to be well above the total cost of a Frontpage-developed site from the previous paragraph, but how many of us here are able to flex the credentials and say, "I charge market price." I think most of us would gladly settle for a lot less than the market price, just to get that client and extra cash.

So here's the real problem. Marketing. How do you go about marketing your business in a market that's already saturated? How can you push that 5GB/500GB/$5 hosting plan, where this other guy charges $50 for half the specs? What approach do you take to ensure that you make that sale?

I'm really curious to hear your ideas and suggestions, and I'm sure others are as well.

Some easy rules of marketing:

If you can't think about why your product/service is special compared to every other competitor in the market, either hang it up or take a few minutes to figure it out before you find out that you're not special and no one wants what you have to offer.

If you compete on price only, you better be more efficient or do lots more volume than the next guy, because he'll certainly figure out a way to cut his price as soon as he figures out a way to be more efficient. Or a new competitor will show up with a lower price because they don't have an installed base to support.

90% of making the sale is just making sure the customer can find you when needed. Don't be invisible. Make sure you can be found where the customer is looking.

The initial sale to a customer is the hardest and most expensive one. Awesome customer service will keep them coming back for more at a lower cost. If all you do is jump from client to client and project to project with no long-term commitment, expect your sales and marketing costs to remain high (or to sit a while between gigs).

* * *

The "don't be invisible" rule is the most important of all of them, really. The customer has to find you to buy from/hire you. Most customers won't find you if you're on the second page of search results. Most of my customers found my consulting service because I paid to be in the first three listings for the keywords that matter for my service.

If you provide personal services, then make sure local customers know about you, because clients want to hire someone from the community and want to be able to meet face-to-face with them if needed. If you provide technical services in the USA, sites like FreelanceLocalTech.com help with that.

If you provide web hosting, make sure you're either on the first page of search results for web hosting or PAY FOR IT. If your business model is being the low-priced leader, paying for it is going to screw with your business model unless you're convinced you can do the necessary volume to ensure a profit.

Wow... maybe I should have done this as a blog post instead . I'll stop now. Did this help?

MORE MORE MORE!

it definitely helped alot!

i have an ip launch this month and i've been asking around some things that you answered here.

*how to market in an already saturated market*

*methods of getting your product into the stores*

*getting repeat customers*

anymore info on any of these would be great!

the invisible one really hit home.

GREAT STUFF!

Did I answer about getting products into stores? That one's outside my area of expertise. I'm better at services than products.

But I can tell you how to turn a client into a repeat client: make your client seem like a hero for hiring you in the first place. That means: do a great job in less time than you estimated for a price no more than you originally estimated and make sure you communicate clearly and often with the customer during the process so that they feel that working with you is easy.

For products, a repeat customer means you have a product that either wears out or requires refills. Gillette practically gives away their razors compared to price of their blades and that model is clearly designed to get and keep repeat customers.

I really should do this for my blog at FLT...

Wow, this is some really great quality advice.

I am glad to have found it.

One possibility that I can offer is if you have another service you would like to start that would match up with the same target audience, it might be good to create a hybrid with one service or product acting as a gimmick supplement supporting the other.

There's still room to get creative, even with hosting.

It would probably be easier to come up with a new successful fast food chain, though.

Great advice amf definitely thumbs up