Although the economy still presents a challenge to many big businesses, smaller, home based businesses are still thriving. Have you been impacted by today’s economy and are now considering starting your own home business? You’re not alone. Being able to set your own hours, working from the comfort of home and growing your business at your own pace are just a few reasons many choose to start their home business. Based on my review, below are some great ideas for a home based business that almost anyone can start.FoodAre you comfortable around the oven? Can you bake up some tasty, yet healthy brownies, muffins, or other treats? Take them to the local health food store and see if they will carry them for you. Specialty foods or special occasion treats could be the beginning of a great home based business.MusicMany who play an instrument may not think of themselves as teachers. The truth is, if you know the basics, then you can teach beginning music to children or adults who are just starting out. There are lesson plans available at most music stores for nearly any instrument and with a little patience you can have a rewarding home business teaching music lessons.TutoringAre you skilled at writing, math, or science? No parent wants their children to fall behind or struggle with these subjects yet may not have the time or skills to provide help themselves. You can put up some flyers at the local grocery stores and schools to get started and build up from there. As your reputation grows, so will your business.CraftsIf you have an artistic or creative side, you can probably sell your items at online sites like eBay or etsy. There are also many local craft shows that you could display your crafts at. There is a cost for the table or spot and you may have to provide your own canopy, but knowing people enjoy the unique crafts you create is a wonderful feeling.JewelryJust go to any art fair or crafts show and you’ll see at least one person selling jewelry. Wire jewelry is very popular today because nearly anyone can make it. You don’t need to solder or work with a torch to create beautiful wire jewelry. There are several starter kits available at the craft stores and with some practice I think you’ll be surprised with the beautiful jewelry you can create.Freelance onlineThere are quite a few online ideas for a home based business that allow you to simply work from your computer. Some of these will appeal to many people as they don’t require a special skill as do the ideas mentioned above. These will be covered below. Some online jobs that do require skill include freelance work and web design where you will need programming or graphic design experience.Internet MarketingOnline work that doesn’t require a special skill to start would be Internet Marketing. Internet Marketing is simply learning some tricks of the internet that allow you to get a website or service you provide in front of potential customers, instead of being lost among thousands of competitors. There are several programs available that provide good training. Be sure however, to look for those that provide a product or service you would feel comfortable selling, as well as mentoring to keep you on the right track.

If you recently lost your job or find the need to quit your job and start your own company, it’s important to brainstorm for home based business ideas first. There are several advantages that come with starting your own business, such as controlling your time, being your own boss and earning limitless income. Take a piece of paper and pen and start writing down the things you’re passionate about and talented in. You will last longer in the industry by investing in a business that you truly care for.Some people have become very successful in the buy and sell business. With so many home based business ideas to choose from, you will most likely find trading very easy and hassle-free. There are online marketplaces and trading forums where you can post products for free. The idea is always to buy low and sell high. You can watch your money grow quickly by establishing your reputation as a trader and offering good quality products. Talk to other marketers online and ask for tips on how to start. Reputable ones will be more than willing to share you some information if you’re still new.If you have a skill or talent, you can start a company based on these home based business ideas. Some people offer graphic designing, article writing, computer repair, software installation, computer programming, system fixes, etc. You can also sell products you made yourself, such as baked goods, furniture, clothes or art. Look for discussion boards and websites that house many of your potential clients and present your products.Some of the best home based ideas are not entirely original. Some people created a way to improve or make some adjustments to ideas that are already popular and working. Others also develop cheaper and more effective ways to appeal to customers who might not be avid online shoppers. The important thing is to appeal to the customers and create a need for your product or service. For example, some people offer services looking for repossessed cars, complete with all the checks and documentation to guide potential buyers.You might be fortunate enough to come across a multilevel marketing company that will provide the home based business idea for you. With hundreds of groups to choose from, it is very likely that you will find one or two products that will interest you well. MLM companies offer different items like soaps, cosmetic products, computer software, books, exercise programs, herbal supplements, etc. Find the right company that suits your lifestyle best. Also read more about the company and how their goals will possibly relate well with your own.Multilevel marketing or MLM companies have been around for many years. Being part of an MLM company is one of the best home based business ideas you can invest in. Make sure that you join a group that has a solid reputation, with real people and products. You can earn money through recruitment and by retailing the available products. For starters, you can earn as much as a few hundred dollars each week for the first quarter.

So before we get started, do you know what the leading top 7 techniques being taught are? The most common of them all is to build a list of family and friends. Then pass out business cards, brochures, audio’s and DVD’s. Once you have established a few new associates you’re invited to 3-way calls, hotel meetings, product promotions, and launch your own MLM affiliate website to share with potential prospects. Last is inviting people to your home party.Now I am not saying you will can all these techniques when given perspective, it’s just over the course of experience most MLM home based business owners find these strategies out dated, costly, with a minimal return, why? These techniques are primarily benefiting the company and secondary the builder.Let’s start with building a list of family and friends. On a whole you start with a list of about 50 to 100 potential buyers, that you are trying to sell. They are not truly looking, yet some will get excited about the product, service, or the opportunity. For every 10 that register, 2 will want to build their own MLM business. Reality is the average consumer will only buy products for about 3 to 6 months and new associates need to profit within the first 1 to 3 months before throwing in the towel. As for your MLM company if they have over 100,000 associates and everyone builds a list, the company is growing.Next, passing out business cards, brochures, DVD’s, etc. Let’s be honest the average American watches DVD’s for pleasure, brochures for the pictures, and business cards land in the trash. Yet your MLM companies still promote these techniques due to high volume return. We buy their promotional products and even at a 1% conversion rate they’re still making money.The 3-way call is one of the most counter active methods to grow a business existing. Simply said, you are telling your audience that you are not an expert, but your leader is. Who would you prefer to do business with?Who does not like the concept of “home based business”? Yet, where does hotel meetings, driving all over town, and picking up meal tabs fit into this picture?This defies the reason for starting a home based business? Your goal was to earn money while working in your PJ’s and not leave home.The myth behind the product. If the product sold itself your MLM companies would not even think twice about advertising expenditures. The truth remains it is not cost worthy and that is where you and I come in, word of mouth.Websites are necessary in today’s business building arena, yet most MLM websites base the construction for the masses, they sell. They are not designed to target your leading audience through proven marketing techniques. Yet MLM companies offer this promotional product knowing you will pay the monthly fee to have a fabricated website with the ability to attach that site information to your business card.Last, but not least is the traditional home parties. These has given MLM home based businesses a bad taste for many audiences. Your friends and family are expecting to have a nice social hour accompanied with some food, idle chit chat, not a sales pitch. It’s pretty black and white.I hope these 7 “Do Not” business building techniques leave you dismayed or nor discouraged. Each MLM home based business builder must find the coordinating techniques that work for their perspective market.

Marketing is the lifeline of your business and you need a dynamic marketing program for your business to grow. As a business advisor, the constant complaint I get from clients is that they just can’t afford the marketing they need.

To help your marketing be more effective and get a higher return on investment, I’d like you to remember Edgar Allan Poe with my little parody of The Raven:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over so many ways to help my business grow.

Marketing ideas I was creating, but my budget’s so berating,

Media exposures are begetting expenses as my constant foe.

Finding ways to spread my story with finances low

Big ideas, so little money, then I discovered POE.”

Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite authors, but POE is also an acronym for the 3 categories of media marketing. Though a common practice in large enterprises, POE is often overlooked by smaller businesses. The term media marketing is most often thought of in the context of mass media but, in reality, media marketing is simply communicating your story, whether to a mass market or to one individual. Recognizing and understanding the many forms of media and utilizing each category of POE will increase the overall effectiveness of your marketing.

• Paid media marketing. OK, this one is obvious; it’s when you pay third party marketing companies to get your message out through media such as print, TV, radio, and online advertising. No other type of media can guarantee the immediacy and scale of paid media. Paid media is usually what we think of as mass media marketing but it also includes trade shows, sponsorships, organization memberships, and sales expenses. The pros of paid marketing is that you have control of the content and the target audience. You can start and stop it when you wish. The cons are the high expenses and the fact that advertising is not as effective as it was once was. You are paying for everything, and smaller companies with tight budgets find it difficult to get effective results for the costs incurred.

• Owned media marketing is when you leverage a channel you create and control. From a digital standpoint, this is your company website, email announcements or newsletters, LinkedIn, blog, twitter, YouTube channel, and your Facebook page. Each allows you to project your brand and personality as you chose and when you chose.

Don’t overlook the importance of emails. Though thought of as “old tech” by many, a surprising new survey by the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company states that email is nearly 40 times more of an effective way to acquire customers than all that tweeting and posting and “liking” you’re doing on social media Facebook and Twitter combined.

But owned media marketing is not just in the digital world, it can also be your hard assets such as your bricks and mortar facility, your delivery trucks as well as your employees’ uniforms, as each of these helps create an image and brand that promotes your business. A simple example of owned media is my local tree service company who has their phone number in 3 foot numbers on the sides of their large trucks. Their trucks are now mobile billboards that can be seen from 100 feet away. They enjoyed more than a 100% increase in calls after they did this.

• Earned media marketing has been around forever. It’s an old PR term that essentially means getting your brand message noticed for free rather than having to pay for it through advertising. Public relations (PR) and word-of-mouth are examples of earned media marketing. With Earned, the press and the public share your content, speak about your brand via social media or word-of-mouth, and otherwise discuss your brand. In other words, the mentions are “earned,” meaning they are voluntarily given by others, such as testimonials.

There’s an old adage in marketing: “When we say something about ourselves, people tend to disbelieve it but when others say something about us, people tend to believe it.” Positive earned media is a result of brand behavior. Many consumers don’t trust advertising, but they do trust peer recommendations. This is why earned media is so important to your success. One positive testimonial can have more value than an expensive advertisement.

When you have done something so well or interesting that people want to use their own media to tell others about it, you’re earning media. More importantly, earning media is about engaging with consumers on their terms and gaining trust based on genuine understanding of what interests them. Building relationships through strong networking is also earned marketing. Build your networks by joining groups, attend events, do public speaking, write articles or an eBook, and meet people one-on-one.

Here’s an example of how one small business combines paid, owned and earned marketing to expand their exposure using POE: The small family-owned business where I take my cars for service does a great job of combining all three areas of POE. They spend money on a professional direct mail piece that goes out regularly to area homes and businesses (paid). They have a user-friendly website where you can set an appointment and get tips on caring for your car (owned) and they send regular emails with service tips and specials (owned). They have an attractive clean facility with a family-friendly waiting area (owned).

Great customer service is one of the best forms of owned/earned marketing, and they do a terrific job of following up every service job with a personal phone call and a thank you letter (owned). This sets them apart and gains them valuable testimonials (earned), some of which are posted on their website (owned).

No marketing is free. Remember there’s a cost to each category of marketing – time, money or both. Many small business owners underestimate the cost of their precious time invested in the marketing they do in-house. Owned and earned marketing takes effort and creativity to develop and leverage at any scale but it’s worth it. If you want your content to spread through social media and for social discussions to spring up around your products or services, you have to put effort into developing your social media channels. You must build your social media profiles, engage with customers and create interesting content. You must also do it consistently, week in and week out. Paying attention to your Twitter account once every 5 months will not accomplish much.

Everything you do is marketing. Regardless of the size of your business or budget, the strength of POE comes from the constant realization and reminder that nearly everything you do in your business creates a form of media marketing that falls into one or combined categories of POE. From an expensive TV ad to how you answer your phone, you are creating your brand that will affect the growth and success of your business.

The aerial advertising companies think that airplane messages are incredibly worthwhile. Advertisers might be enchanted with the novelty of having their ad flown over a busy beach or festival.

But what do consumers think? It would seem a waste for advertisers to spend a good deal of money on advertising that won’t be worthwhile, that consumers won’t respond to, that won’t bring customers and money to the door.

Advertisers will be happy to know, then, that consumers think highly of aerial advertising. They enjoy watching the banner ads, and they remember the ads long after they are gone.

In 2004, a Miami Beach survey of 2,194 beachgoers backed this up. After seeing airplane messages in the sky, they were asked some questions about the advertising. The results were interesting and useful to potential aerial advertisers.

Other forms of advertising might be remembered for a short period of time, especially if the message is unique, but most consumers don’t recall the information for very long.

So what’s enlightening is that in the survey of beachgoers a stunning majority of people not only remembered the banner ads they saw, they remembered them for a long period of time.

Beachgoers were asked if they remembered the banner that passed over in the past 30 minutes. The response? 88% of them had. It’s hard to imagine another advertising medium that could boast of 88% of the people remembering it 30 minutes later.

In fact, most people pay little attention to advertising, unless the message is unique or the way of communicating the message is unique (as in a duck, cavemen, or something similar). But sometimes how you present that message is what’s unique (as in aerial advertising) and that’s what people pay attention to. Once you have that attention, you can get your message across in a clearer way than you might think.

The advantage of airplane advertising is that it is unique. It’s not like all the advertising that we see on any given day – billboards, radio ads, and newspaper and television ads. When that plane flies over, towing a banner and a message, we all look up. We pay attention. We remember.

And this statistic bears that out – 79% of the people questioned remembered what was being advertised on the airplane banner. This is 30 minutes after the banner passed over. This backs up what aerial advertising companies already know – airplane messages work. The medium is unique enough that people notice it and they remember it. An advertiser can ask for little more than that.

Finally, the best news for advertisers – 67% of those beachgoers surveyed said they remembered at least half of the message of the airplane advertising. When people remember the message, they remember the advertiser. They seek out the product or service being advertised.

The bottom line is, consumers respond to aerial advertising. They enjoy looking at it, they pay careful attention to it and (best of all) they remember it. Whether alone or combined with other forms of advertising, an advertiser’s dollar goes far when used for plane advertising.