It took me a long time to develop my idea and finish the website. I am ready for customers and I think it's a great idea for today's times. The problem is, I HATE selling. I really don't have the money to invest in putting ad's out all over the place and would like to only spend money on growing IF I start bringing some in.

This is day two of my business being ready. All the free ad's I have placed have only accounted for about 7 hits to my website and no inquiries. I know this is ONLY day two, but I feel like I am not presenting well to my target audience, so I came here for some advise and to have a look around oat other posts.

Here is my new site:
www.Barefoot-Academy.com

BTW, if you know anyone that could benefit from one of my services, I can offer a 50% off for anyone referred from IdeaCafe :)

Thanks in advance!

I took at look at your site, trying to get a feel for your offering, audience, marketing approach, etc. While I'm certainly no expert on homeschool curriculums, I do have experience working with a small company that sells high-end training curriculums B2B. The bulk of that company's leads come right from their web site (inbound), and it is mostly organic and not paid. Every page's content (i.e. a specific course) is optimized around a very targeted and well researched set of keywords to get visitors there, and the web pages are designed with forms and offers (e.g. complimentary module to review) to turn those visitors into leads. You still have to sell, but selling is much easier when you have good leads that are by definition interested in what you are selling.

A good organic inbound strategy might be very cost effective, and can be integrated with some ads and pay per click as well. I would also bet there are some list resources for people doing/interested in homeschooling. This would allow you to integate some very focused outbound email marketing with your web presence.

Hope this helps ....

Thanks Eric!
Cole

No message

Hi,

We are a group of students at Bryant University that are currently in a consulting class and would like to offer you some advice.

Before we feel comfortable offering you any advice we have a couple questions for you. Have you identified your target market? If so, who is it? Is there a geographic limit? Is there an area you are targeting? Have you researched where your target market would be most likely to view your ads (i.e. websites, radio, television)?

Some of the ideas that we have after reading your post and viewing your website are as follows. Social media is an inexpensive way to reach a large audience. It is also easy to target specific markets on these media forums. Some social media sites that we suggest are Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google advertising. Each of these media sites target people differently. Google bases advertisements on searches while Facebook bases advertisements on each individual's interests.

We also think it would be beneficial if you participated in conversations on blogs that concentrate on topics such as education, travel, religion, parental advice, or other areas that your target market might relate to.

Hope this helps!

Team How-To