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After a lot of hard work, you finally have a great product or product line, but you*re not sure how to tell people about it. Though it's tempting to dive headfirst into marketing your business, promoting your product without first defining your target market is wasting resources you may not have a lot of.

As much as you*d like to think that everyone is going to fall in love with your products, it's rare that that would happen. So the first step to marketing is to begin by defining your target market, and you can do this by thinking about the type of person that would buy your product.

The quickest way to determine your perfect customer is to ask yourself questions:

- How old are they and what is their income level?
- What is their marital status and do they have children?
- What are their interests and hobbies?
- What other products do they buy?
- Who needs your product?

Once you figure out who is going to buy your products, it will be a lot easier to find your customers and promote to them. So, now that you have a market to promote your product to, it's time to begin your marketing campaign.

Free Workshops:

Inviting potential customers to a free workshop is a great way to establish your business, build trust, and get your products into the hands of the right people. Prepare a presentation or have guest speakers, and be sure to show them your products in action. Make sure that you keep the focus on your visitors, and continually remind them of the benefits of your products and what they can do for them. Don*t forget to send them home with your contact information, samples, catalogs, and coupons for their first order.

Hold a Draw:

It's no secret that people love free stuff, so a draw can make a great promotional tool. As long as the prize is valuable, you'll have no problem getting people to enter your draw. But to ensure that you also reap the benefits of your investment in a prize, you need to ask for something in return.

There are few ways that you can do this:

* Give customers a ballot into your draw every time they order. This gives them an extra incentive to order from you (which can lead to more sales), and you are giving something in return.

* If you want to build your mailing list for future promotions, you can enter each person who signs up for your free newsletter into your draw.

* To increase the number of entries you get and gain exposure at the same time, announce your draw on your blog. Tell other blog readers that they can enter your draw simply by leaving a comment with their contact information, and then blogging about your free draw on their own blog.

Email Newsletters:

Advertising in newsletters and ezines that have a decent subscriber base, and that reach your target market can be a worthwhile investment. But you need to take the time to do your research before you hand over your money. Don*t be afraid to ask how many subscribers they have, where your ad placement will be, and how long your ad will stay in their newsletter for.

Go ahead and signup for the newsletter you want to advertise in to find out if it's any good. This will give you some insight into the type of people who are reading it, as well as seeing who else is placing ads. Make a note of who is advertising and contact them to ask what kind of a response they*re getting from their ad placements, and whether or not they recommend the publication.

Message Boards/Forums:

A little research will help you find the sites that may have members who will be responsive to your products. However, you can*t simply register as a member and then plaster your ads all over the place. The majority of these sites will let you advertise your business and website link in your signature line which shows up at the bottom of your posts. But in order for people to actually see your signature, you have to post.

Though blatant advertising is forbidden at most places, many forums do offer their members a special section where they can promote their business. This keeps the boards free of spam and allows those members who are interested in reading the ads to go that board and do so.

There are countless ways to promote your products both online and offline, and while some will necessitate a monetary investment, many of them will require nothing more than your time. And do give it time. Promoting your business a couple of times won*t bring you a flood of customers, it's going to take on-going effort from you to make that happen.