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Running a business from the comfort of your own home is a dream. You have the shortest commute in the world, you can switch off for a nap whenever you want, and you don’t have to deal with any annoying colleagues in an office.

Of course, such a business is not without its challenges. There’s no one to fill in for you if you fall unwell, not to mention the feeling that you never truly leave work because the office is also the space you relax. For the most part, it’s worth it, but the experience of running a business from home is full of plenty of valleys to go along with the peaks.

One of the biggest problems that running a home business can bring is that it’s easier to drop the ball. There’s no one else who can tell you you’ve forgotten something or draw attention to an oversight; it’s all on you. While most of the oversights you might make can be rectified, there are a few that can do real damage. If you want to know what to avoid, then you need to ensure that you’re keeping an eye on avoiding the following…

OVERSIGHT: Not Being Thorough With Fine Print

If you have a home insurance policy, it’s natural to expect that the tech and other items you use for your business are covered. After all, they’re in your home, so if something goes wrong then you can just claim on that insurance. Not a problem. Right…?

Wrong. Check the fine print of your home insurance policy. There will almost certainly be a clause regarding a home business. That clause will usually exclude any business items from your home insurance coverage. If you find this is the case, then spend an afternoon tracking down the best small business insurance you can find to ensure the equipment you need to run your business is protected.

OVERSIGHT: Time Management

Anyone who has ever worked from home will understand the perils of distraction. The same is true if you’re the boss; you might be running a company, but you can still find yourself distracted. You take a break from work for lunch, head to the kitchen, and decide to get a start on dinner for the evening. By the time you return to your desk, your half-hour break has become a two-hour cooking and cleaning sessions.

Even when you’re the boss, it’s best to stick to a regular business schedule. You can start and finish at any time you want, but try and separate your day into “working” and “non-working” compartments. When you’re in a “working” schedule, anything non-work related has got to wait. No excuses.

OVERSIGHT: Becoming Too Insular

If you work from home and run a business by yourself, it’s very easy to become insular and introspective – in a bad way. Humans are sociable creatures, and if you’re alone until the evenings when your partner or children return, it might begin to have an impact on your mental health.

Try, once a week, to take your laptop outside and work from a coffee shop or attend a business meetup. You’ll feel far better for it, which in turn will help to benefit your business too.

With these oversights guarded against, you can run a business from home and ensure it’s working for you!

As more and more of our lives are exporting to an online world, many of the things we are exposed to, as well as many of the people we talk to in a day, are in some way facilitated through an internet connection, be that your home wifi, public terminal or internet data plan. It’s truly astounding to reflect on how the internet informs every aspect of our lives, from purchasing decisions to organizing events and even helping us establish startups with a fraction of the cash a small business might have taken to get off the ground in decades past.

However, as so much content is continually being placed online through all corners of the web, it’s important to realize how to truly expose your content, and not just have it become washed away in the online tide of information. There are ways to do this, but it will take a refined and well thought out strategy if you’re to have any success whatsoever. Companies worldwide will use different methods of gaining exposure depending on the product or service they are trying to gain exposure to. What they are and the benefits/detriments they provide are listed in the following article. If you’re dipping your toe into your first online marketing experience, this information could prove vital in giving you that desired exposure you truly need.

The Humorous Strategy

More than ever, in the content marketing which is popular today, an increasing number of businesses are using humorous advertising to try and heighten the ‘shareability’ of the posts they craft. These posts could either be through their website, their search engine optimization strategies, or most likely, through their social media profiles. Businesses which strike well in their humor will attract exposure through people ‘liking’ the post on the platform, and that will immediately mean that liking activity is shared among the entire friends list of the person in question. To that end, there’s plenty of benefit in getting a humorous campaign right.

However, it’s almost impossible to do it right without a skilled team of copywriters who can keep the entire marketing campaign consistently written. One humorous post is simply not enough. You need to continue this trend to make sure that your marketing approach isn’t seen as out of character for your firm in any way. Looking online for the right visit page in order to hire the best copywriters for your project can mean that you strike the gold you need to. People worldwide have different sensibilities when it comes to humour, so relying on yourself to come up with an attractive marketing package might not be the best idea, especially if you’re not sure your writing will come off as abrasive or difficult to understand. In these circumstances, it’s always worth starting out on the right path with the professionals, because first impressions truly matter when you’re hoping to grow a small audience from nothing at all.

A humorous strategy well developed can help your firm seem more in tune with the audience, and more approachable. While it’s not an exact science, being told a name of a company will probably bring you an instinctual feeling that has largely been implanted by what you know of the firm vs the marketing that they have successfully managed to communicate to you. For example, while everyone know’s that McDonald’s food used to be intrinsically unhealthy and somewhat unethical, it has successfully rebranded itself using astute marketing and solid copywriting prowess to now seem like a firm worthy of bringing your children to, and that was without the online article-led, social media-infused extravaganza we find ourselves in nowadays. Just think of what a team of skilled copywriters adept in perceptive humor could do to market your brand and make it seem approachable.

The Informative Strategy

The informative strategy is so named because of it’s dislike of the overbearing sales hype that surrounds many objects today. Consumers are absolutely used to hearing why the product they are being sold is the best thing ever and will improve their lives tenfold. They understand when they are being marketing to, and sometimes it can come across as being dishonest or deceptive, even if you’re not breaking any laws regarded fair representation. For this reason, more and more firms are starting to give solely accurate descriptions about what they are selling to a clinical degree. They hype up the strengths of the product while also making sure that the customer feels like they haven’t been overly marketed to.

For this reason, the consumer feels as though their time is being respected. It’s the equivalent of being approached by a good and respectful salesman who knows what you want, and a bad salesman who forcefully tries to make you believe that they have the answers to all your issues. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with making sure the benefits of your product or service are marketed well (and in fact, they must be,) balancing this with a little temperance in your marketing strategy can be worth its weight in gold.

The Forceful Strategy

Some business leaders feel as though a full and explosive marketing campaign is the best way for a product to be remember by the people who come across the marketing campaign. Sometimes, this is true. Utilizing standard formats of advertising such as radio and television ads, targeted social media and video distribution platforms like YouTube and Twitch delivering the product, as well as conjoined promotions with other businesses can be a great way to keep the audience engaged and exposed to your product through pure exposure alone.

While this can help you get seen by the most amount of eyes, including those initially interested in your type of product or not, this can get costly. However, in the world of constant online marketing, this can truly be the best way to build familiarity with your potential audience. It all depends on your initial sale predictions and how well you believe your marketing campaign can be received. This is a risky strategy because it follows the ‘all or nothing’ mindset which can either suffocate or truly give you a huge benefit to your business proceedings.

No matter which you choose, these tips are sure to get you exposed in the best way you deem fit. Hopefully, your future marketing efforts will be emboldened by the strategy you take. There’s also no reason as to why you should limit yourself to just one of these, so use your best judgement and press onward in the direction you see fit.