I started my own side business some time ago and came to the conclusion that hardest part for me was proper marketing.
I used few different approaches like:
AdWords in google ---extremely expensive
Emailing potential buyers
Calling potential buyers
Established own website

I think all of them are good but probably most efficient one would be hiring experienced salesman with established network of clients

I wonder how others approach this problem?

Is this for the market in San Diego?

It depends on what product or service you are offering, and what the market and competition is like in San Diego. Come to think of it, why are you asking a group of English speakers in Switzerland?

Personally, I used Google adwords for a short while and found it cheap (if you know how to focus the ads) but at the end of the day, few people click on these ads.

Really, the best advertising you can do is client referral, and it's free. But of course you need a decent sized group of satisfied customers first.

EDIT: and I forgot, if you can't sell your service or product yourself, don't even think about paying someone else to try

No, it is not San Diego, Switzerland, and Europe
Thats why I am thinking about hiring someone ,so I can be in California but run it for short time in Europe

And I think you are totally wrong in this case unless you selling small quantities , if you selling big and large quantities and try to target larger market ,meaning suppliers wholesellers ,you can't do everything on your own ))))) it is ridiculous idea, I done that and I know thats the case, unless your stuff is in your car trunk and you go from business to business and knock on your door ,but that's pathetic

About 15 years ago I swallowed just about every business book on the market, most were rubbish but some nuggets remain.

One of them is:- 'Don't go across town until you sold across the street'. Which the way I worked it was to sell to a core of people rather than try to sell into a big market. Select a small target and work it until you cannot do any more before moving on to find fresh customers.

Start with a small geographical area and work out. If you try a bigger area too soon you end up getting nowhere.

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agree that marketing aka making paying customers know you exist is key. i used a mixture of web marketing including google adwords, but a targetted trade magazine advert would likely to have been more effective.

So why not give the whole story (such as target market, industry sector, where you are based - or confirming where - and where you hope to sell etc) before asking for advice?

I beleive all businesses started by selling door to door (or the general principle anyways) if you feel to good for that and find it pathetic then you dont sound like a good sales person. good luck with it though

I had a discussion tonight about this same issue but reached no firm conclusions. Marketing as I see it comes down to 3 main factors to achieve a sale the product, the deal or the relationship you have with the buyer, whilst all play a role depending on what or where you are selling one will be more prominent. Here the emphis seems to be more on client relationship (again depending on the product), the product second and the deal third. As GGG has said customer referal is the best way but my (and the op's) question still remains, how is the best way to get those first few customers?

Having been in Business development for several years (but not being an expert except that from field experience), I think that the best way to start is from your existing customers. Get the most out of them. Why have they purchased your products in the past, what made them choose you instead of someone else, what are their unmet needs. Once collected this info, think of what made you different and leverage on that. It is useless otherwise to go and target the broad audience without asking these questions first. If you really want to go into advertisement, then try to target a group that has similar characteristics and where the chances of success are higher.
Salesperson.... veeeeery difficult.
Good luck

Well guys thanks for all the input ,but it is saturday and you know how it is in San Diego, Sunny ,superb weather and beach is calling, so I have to grab some beer and get my self to del mar
Thanks again for all the replies

lucky its raining like a ***** here. have fun and good luck with your project

That's a highly misleading section of your post. Adwords is only "extremely expensive" if you're paying for criteria extremely popular and as you know, the price of this search criteria increases due to popularity, as in any auction. Popularity in this case suggests a high click-rate and therefore traffic to your site and hence marketability.
It's THE best way to market an item on the net, so if your product isn't suitable for sale on an internet site, then you shouldn't use google adwords and it won't be extremely expensive and need not be mentioned in your original post.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but "expensive" in terms of Adwords almost guarantees a strong return, unless you're doing something very wrong, right? $9 Billion of Google revenue in the last quarter suggests this to be the case

Enjoy! I feel you are more suited to beach life, than the cut and thrust of attempting to sell some undisclosed product in a market you know absolutely nothing about. Save your money and buy some more beer...

Well Honey I drink Tequila not beer, and don't be jealous about the weather and beach

?

I just climbed on a mountain and enjoyed a superb view over central Switzerland. From up here and with the information you gave, you clearly need to shift a paradigm in your marketing and go social - once viral will you sell like mad, whatever you are actually doing.

Have you tried a CPA model...Many companies offer this service, the best being Adparlour who advertise in Facebook only.

There is usually a minimum level entry level of $25,000 for a certain amount of clients at an agreed price each.

A premium area like the US or UK can cost between $1-$4 but for an area such as Switzerland you can pay as low as $0.44.

If you plead poverty you may get a deal like I just did $10k for 10,000 application installations.

You can set the deal you do with Adparlour and what triggers their payment, it could be a Facebook 'Like' or a go past index page etc..

One thing is certain you don't pay until a unique user has completed the agreed action, much better value than CPC or CPM where nothing is certain I feel..

Good luck !

Hello
It obviously depends on your market and your product, BUT in general people use the internet BUT sometimes choose not to click on Google adwords (various reasons, often because it does not produce the best result for them) so for me SEO - search engine optimisation - has been the best thing I've done. None of the dodgy stuff, just optimising my site for my target market. It cost me a total of the price of book and some of my time. I recommend "SEO - An hour a day" by Grappone. Good luck!

Simply put: until you have a firm lead generating system you DON'T have a business.

Here's what you can do:
1) create a killer front-end offer
2) choose a pool of 5/6 ways to funnel prospects to the offer
3) do your math and:
-> if you break even or miss it by a little: keep, optimize and repeat
-> if you don't break even: stop using the media for now
4) wash, rinse and repeat from 2 until you have a good lead generating system
5) work on the back end
6) reap the rewards

Now... that requires a bit of self discipline to do