With the economy doing as badly as it is, many people are losing their jobs and are busy trying to find a new job. Bills are a constant expense so it’s really difficult to go too long without getting a new job. Unfortunately, it’s tough to find a new job when everyone else is trying to find one as well. Why try finding a job when you can create your own, such as being a consultant?

Starting your own business isn’t for everyone, but many have found success as a consultant. You can take the knowledge that you obtained in your previous jobs and offer that industry experience, knowledge and wisdom to companies on a contract or hourly basis. There are companies out there that value your knowledge and are willing to pay for it.

With the growth of the internet, video conferencing and other technological tools, it’s easier than ever to run a consultancy firm from your own home and have clients anywhere in the world. Instead of dealing with a small local market, the entire world is your area.

If you are unemployed, or even if you want to break into a new career, being a consultant could be just what you are looking for. Get on Google and do some searching, you’ll quickly find leads and opportunities.

The real goal of any kind of marketing is to make money. It’s plain and simple and easy, companies market their products to increase sales. Companies market their services to improve service revenue. Companies even market their brand name in order to increase the value of their brand name.

As long as this concept is kept in mind when thinking about any kind of marketing, you can better tailor a marketing program that reaches that real goal of marketing. I know it seems like it’s obvious that the real goal of marketing is to make money, but some people seem to forget it. They seem to think that advertisers owe them money or they treat ad spends like a job rather than as a business.

The tip here is to never lose site of the real goal and make sure that everything you do is adding value to the marketing effort, no matter if you are company doing the marketing or the company receiving the marketing spend.

I think it’s time that I bring up a few business ideas that have been going through my mind lately. I think that there’s a lot of great opportunities out there if people take them on and run with them. It just means doing it. If you want to take on a great opportunity then here are some great idea to go with:

1) Online Store. Utilize affiliate links to build an online store of your own. This is something I am working on right now.

2) Blog about Affiliate Offers. Make a Niche blog and find different affiliate offers. A good core of 10 to 15 offers to base your posts around. Push an affiliate offer in a good pot while providing good quality information.

3) Sell something online. Find a single great paying product and promote it every chance you get. Own the niche.

Successful marketing of any product revolves around the 4 P’s of marketing. The 4 P’s are product, price, placement and promotion. The more I look at these 4 P’s, the more I see that successful telemarketers and internet marketers are turning those 4 P’s on their head. They’ve been able to warp and morph those 4 P’s.

The super niche marketing of telemarketing and internet marketing mean that price is not as important as it once was. Since the market can be segmented, large profits can be made off of smaller groups of customers who are not as affected by price as the mass market.

This super niche marketing also means that the product itself can be refined to fit exactly into the needs of a niche consumer group. This means that products that may have never been released because of a limited market can now be released profitably.

Both the price and product play right into the promotion aspect of this new super niche marketing. The avenues of promotion have expanded greatly since promotion can be focused directly on a sub niche or even related niches and qualified consumers can be focused directly on. There are email campaigns, contextual ad campaigns and even affiliate ad campaigns. Not only has this promotion become more encompassing but it is also coming at a lower price in times past. In fact, it is easier and cheaper to reach a niche consumer group now than at any time in the past.

The important power of the internet and telemarketing is its power over placement. Launching and marketing any product means getting placed in various distribution channels. In the past, this was expensive and was a barrier for market entry. Not anymore. The internet has thrown this door wide open. A company can market its products through many different kinds of distribution channels, most of them web based, inexpensive and easy to take advantage of .

Thanks to the warping and morphing of the 4 P’s of marketing, it is the easiest time in history to market a product.

In the previous post, I touched upon using marketing lists to help get sales. It’s really an age old technique. The goal is to get find the people who will likely be most interested in your products and services and personally delivering your sales pitch to them. It’s a very successful technique and will never really go out of style, but it did get me to thinking about some interesting marketing ideas for the internet age.

Ok, SPAM is just stupid so don’t even think about that. No one opens the emails and those who do are not exactly savvy consumers. No I have four ideas that are used offline to promote online businesses. Now, I haven’t examined their legality, so you’ll need to check legal information just to make sure, but here they are.

1) Telemarketing prospects. A fun way is to make up a survey related to your site and professionally script it out. Call up a statistical sample, survey them and let them know who you are. Post the survey results on your site. You will get visitors who just want to check you out.

2) Take out a newspaper ad. This can be a highly effective way to get your website out there and known. Take out a small ad and talk up whatever your site offers. Of course provide a link.

3) Make flyers. If you have a site that appeals to a geographical area then getting some flyer made up and strategically placing them might be a good way to generate traffic and interests in what you have to offer. You may opt for a brochure instead. Think of leaving in places where people are waiting and looking for things to read, like hospitals, doctor offices, you get the idea.

4) Sponsor a local contest or event. There always seems to be an event taking place in communities all over and funding always seems short. Approach one of these events about being a sponsor. You may be able to sponsor for a very cheap price. You’ll gain goodwill and you’ll gain web traffic.

I am interested to hear any other ideas for Marketing offline.