Trying to find a market to make a profit is getting harder and harder as there is more competition on the internet. There is however one market that is relatively untouched and is massive.

Local Business

Local small businesses make up 63% of the US economy and the vast majority of them know nothing about internet marketing.

Now about 80% of people go to the internet first to get information before they buy, but most of these local businesses don’t even have a website, and if they do, it is so bad that it is not ranked and not getting them any results.

This is where we come in. Having the knowledge and understanding of how to run a business on the internet and drive high quality traffic to these local business websites can sometimes double and triple their profits. It can be the difference between going out of business and having their best year ever.

Small business owners know nothing about internet marketing and they are willing to pay handsomely for someone who does.

They have no time and no interest to learn the stuff that is needed to make a business rank in the local and organic searches, not to mention pay per click.

They also don’t know what they are missing until you present them with the facts and a plan that will help drive their business.

You can ask for a fee up front of $1,000-$5000 for set up and a monthly fee for ongoing maintenance. You can also make a contract for a percentage of the profits generated from your work. Depending on the client, this can be five figures a month or more from just one client.

Here are the things that you can offer to sell your clients that will make their mind boggle and get them to throw money at you.

Keyword research, Personal Branding, SEO Optimization, Online Domination in Local/Organic/Pay per click searches, Ranking with different search engines, Online Business Directories, High Quality Backlinks, Article Marketing, Blog, Video Marketing, Press Releases, Geo-Targeted PPC, Testing, Tracking and Optimizing, Craigslist and Classifieds, Discussion Forums, Audio Podcasting and List Building.

If you know how to do all, half or even a bit of that list, then local businesses need your services. You may know some small business owners personally that you might want to approach and practice your skills before going to some bigger clients, but the fact is, local small businesses need and are desperate for these services and will pay you well for doing it for them.

This is the time, especially coming up for Christmas and the mass increase in purchases that businesses are looking for that edge to get the sale over their competitor.

What is going to make the difference? Is it price? Yes, people want to find the best deal. But, you can keep your price higher than your competitors by raising the perceived value of your offer.

For example, big price items such as mattresses and furniture may have a big difference in price from store to store. Maybe one mattress is $500 at store A and the same mattress is $545 at store B. Who is going to get the sale? Store A of course. But, if store B offered an incentive with the purchase of the mattress of a $500 grocery voucher the perceived value is now greater and more attractive to the customer than store A.

Inside the customers head the conversation goes like this. “Well, I could buy from store A and save $45 now, or I could buy from store B and pay an extra $45, but get $500 back in groceries. Hey, that $500 will almost pay for the entire bed. That means I am almost getting the bed for free and groceries are definitely something I need and spend money on every month. Yes, it makes more sense to go with store B for it is greater value and a better deal overall”.

How much did the grocery coupon cost the business? Much less than the $45. So, store B is able to take business away from store A and even keep the price a little higher in order to keep their profits high.

Now, what do you think this is going to do for word of mouth advertising? The word will spread quickly that you can get a $500 grocery voucher when you purchase a mattress from store B. Now store B has twice the sales as the would usually have and still at a higher price than store A.

Business incentives like this work like a charm and are sometimes responsible for the complete success or failure of some businesses. What is going to be the incentive that will put you over the competition this season?

For a full list of business incentive products click here

High profit fundraising is key in this tight economy. It is getting harder to sell, so you need to try and sell a product where there is a great return for your effort. Even though many fundraising companies say you get 90% profit, you need to ask yourself on what?

Getting 90% profit on a $3 item means you make $2.70 profit. Good deal for the product you sell, but you have to do a lot of selling if you want to make any decent kind of money for your fundraising team.

On some of the higher value items, you may not make as big a percentage of the cost of the product, but as you will see from the example with The LifeTime Travel Book, you stand to make more money with less selling.

The Lifetime travel book could sell very well at $50, which is the suggested value of the book if the recipient wanted to purchase extra books directly from the company. As a fundraising team, you get to establish the donation amount you would like to ask for.

Let’s say you ask for the full price of $50. If you make 40% of that amount, you will make a profit of $20 per Lifetime Travel Book sold. That is a lot more than the $2.70 from a 90% profit box of cookies. You would have to sell seven times more product to make up for that one sale of the travel book.

Now, there is a balance to this. If the product price is too high, then you will not sell as many products. If the product price is too low, then you have to work so much harder to have a high profit fundraiser.

We have found through years of fundraising experience that a balance between the two is optimal for overall high profit fundraising.

Therefore, if you price the Lifetime travel book at $30, and still make 40% profit, there is a better chance to sell more books overall.

When you consider that each individual selling the product from your fundraising team will sell to about 5 people, you really have to look at the overall amount you make from each sale. From the examples above, the profits would return $13.50 from 5 sales of cookies at 90% profit;  $60 from 5 sales of the Travel book at $30 with 40% profit; or $100 from 5 sales of the travel book at $50 and 40% profit.

It is easy to pick which one you would think makes the most money, but remember the balance. You may average only 2-3 sales per individual when you price the product higher. Either way, it makes more sense to market a higher priced product like the lifetime travel book than it does a box of cookies.

High profit fundraising is not just about the percentage you make on each product sold. It involves the amount of money your fundraising team makes on the bottom line.

For more information on the LifeTime Travel Book, you can view the informational website of TheCupTravelFundraiser.com

The millionaire mindset. “It’s not about what you do, it’s about what you do daily.”

One of the biggest keys to success is consistency. If you are like most people out there trying to market their business on the internet, or even a brick and mortar business, you will throw a bone out there and see if one advertising method works, and if it doesn’t you give up and rely on chance to succeed.

In sports, it is said, “You make your own luck through consistent hard work.”

In marketing and advertising it is just the same. You will make more sales and bigger profits through continued work on your marketing plan. Like the millionaire mindset says above, it is DAILY ACTION that makes the difference in your business.

The great thing is, about 97% of people in your industry are not going to be taking daily action to market their business, so if you can give a little time every day to help produce leads and customers, you will be instantly more successful than 97% of your competition. Things don’t look so bad when you look at it from this angle. You only really have to be better than 3% of your competition in order to be the authority in your market place.

If you have a good quality product that is in demand, you can expect to make five figure a month easily and many who follow simple marketing plans make six figures every month.

Is this something you would like to do? Are you following a marketing plan right now? Do you consistently work on your marketing EVERY day, or do you set it and forget it?

There is nothing more important in a down economy that advertising. There is no other activity that you can spend your time on that is more valuable as marketing.

It hurts when things are going badly in your business and it is easy to listen to the news and blame everything on the economy and make it someone else’s problem. But the fact is, it is YOUR problem and you need to ask yourself if you are doing everything in your power toward your marketing efforts to get you where you need to be.

Look for an all in one system like Carbon Copy Pro which will take you through step by step all the avenues you can go down to market your business. There are many free marketing methods that just require a little time to set up and they can produce terrific results in a short period of time.

Remember, it is what you do daily that counts to your success.

Neil