Practical marketing solutions are necessary to build a successful business. As a solopreneur, you don't have a full-fledged marketing department at your disposal. You need some practical marketing solutions to grow your business without exhausting all of your time or money.

Practical marketing solutions are things you can do quickly, repeatedly and cost-effectively. They can – and must – become part of your daily or weekly routine. Here are three practical marketing solutions you can put into practice immediately.

Practical Marketing Solution # 1

Publishing Search Engine Optimized articles is a quick and easy way to start driving traffic to your website so you can showcase the value of the services you offer. SEO articles include relevant keywords placed in strategic locations in your text in order to draw the eye of the search engine spiders that crawl the Internet looking for content.

The goal is to write an article specifically for your ideal client. Then you take a few minutes to research popular keywords and incorporate them into a short, intelligent piece that will draw readers to your site. Spend a few more minutes distributing the article to several different article distribution sites and you've got your first strategy underway.

Practical Marketing Solution # 2

Information products are digital reports, books or other copy that you distribute free of charge or sell to customers on a specific topic. To show a prospective client exactly how you can help them to solve their most pressing challenges, you can give away a short report on your website in exchange for their name and email address. You can also create a more in-depth product and sell it inexpensively directly from your site. This helps in two ways – first, it brings in cash and second, the product itself gives you an opportunity to upsell clients to other products and services.

You can continue to create information products throughout the life of your business. Stand alone products are great, but you can also create a series that builds on one another or compliments the others. Information products can be text, audio, video or a combination of all of these. Different people assimilate information in different ways, so if you offer a variety of formats, you'll get the best results.

Practical Marketing Solution # 3

Email marketing is a very effective, practical marketing solution. When you request a prospect's email address in exchange for that free compelling resource you just created, you begin to build your email list. Using this permission-based type of marketing is very cost effective and easy to do. Keep your emails short and informative, but don't let them become dull or canned. You can use an auto responder service so each subscriber receives a series of brief, helpful emails after they've subscribed to your list, so you can create an ongoing, trusted relationship and continue to share information.

You can also create an email newsletter that you write weekly or (at a minimum every two weeks) that has actionable content, tips and tricks to solve problems and resources and links to complementary services. A newsletter is longer than a typical email, so make sure you pack it full of useful information. You can see an example of this by reviewing the latest issue of my email newsletter.

Practical marketing solutions are available to your business – and they don’t have to cost a fortune. As with almost everything in business, knowing what to do, and then actually doing it is the key to success.

Writing different types of articles can be beneficial to your target audience.  For example, the "how to" article can show them how to do something very specific.  It outlines a task, how to complete the task and a call to action.  Even if the "how to" article is actually one of the services you provide, it's OK to give this information away because then your target audience will see how knowledgeable you are, they will start to build trust, and sometimes when they try to do it themselves, they realize they can't and call you for your expertise.

Your first question is probably “how does it work and why should I do it”?