How to Write
an Internet Marketing Plan
by Peter Geisheker
1. Market Research
Collect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. (From now on we'll refer to your products or services as "product".)
Collect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. (From now on we'll refer to your products or services as "product".)
Some areas to consider:
- Market dynamics, patterns including seasonality
- Customers-demographics, market segment, target markets, needs, buying decisions
- Product—what’s out there now and what's the competition offering? Conduct market research by going to google.com and conduct searches on the types of products or services you want to sell
- Current sales in the industry
- Suppliers-vendors that you will need to rely on
- Target Market(s)—To be successful, focus on one or two small niche markets instead of a large general market. Niche markets have far less competition and they tend to be more profitable. If there is one thing you can do to help your odds of being successful in business it is to focus on one or two small niche markets
2. Product
Describe your product (or service). How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?
3. Competition
Describe your competition. Develop your "unique selling proposition." What makes you stand apart from your competition? Why are you special? Why should a customer choose to do business with you instead of one of your competitors? The better job you can do to differentiate yourself from your competitors, the more success you will have.
4. Mission Statement
Write a few sentences that state:
Describe your product (or service). How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?
3. Competition
Describe your competition. Develop your "unique selling proposition." What makes you stand apart from your competition? Why are you special? Why should a customer choose to do business with you instead of one of your competitors? The better job you can do to differentiate yourself from your competitors, the more success you will have.
4. Mission Statement
Write a few sentences that state:
- "Key market" - who you're selling to – be very specific!
- "Contribution" - what you're selling
- "Distinction" - your unique selling proposition – why are you different from your competition?
5. Internet Marketing
Strategies
Write down the Internet marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider include:
Write down the Internet marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider include:
- Search Engine
Optimization (SEO). What this means is using optimization techniques so search engines
(Google, Yahoo, MSN) will rank your website within the top 10 search
results. By doing this you can get literally thousands of people to your
website every day for free. To do this I recommend you use a fantastic
software tool called SEO Elite.
- Pay Per Click Search
Engine Marketing. When you use this service you are bidding on keywords so that your
website text ad is displayed when a person conducts a search on a
particular keyword or key phrase. Google, Yahoo and MSN all have pay per click internet marketing services.
- Affiliate
Marketing. This is where other websites market your products for you and you
pay them a commission on each sale. This is an outstanding way to create a
successful Internet business.
- Link Exchanges. This is where you and
other websites exchanges links to drive traffic to each other’s website.
Exchanging links with other websites is also a great way to get better
rankings in the search engines. The reason for this is that search engines
want to give top rankings to the the websites that are most popular in
their category/industry. The best way for the search engines to determine
which websites are the most popular is to see who has the most links
pointing at their website. That is why getting a lot of links pointing at
your website is so important.
- Write Articles and
distribute them online. This is a great way to get tons of one-way links pointed at your
website (which search engines love!). I try to write one new article each
week and it has gotten me thousands of links pointed at my websites. And
remember, the more links that point at your website, the higher search
engines will rank your website. And, if getting tons of links pointing at
your website wasn't enough, writing articles will also send targeted
traffic to your website and it will make you an expert in your field. The
way it works is very simple. You write a 1-page article and use online
article distribution services to distribute your article to hundreds other
websites, blogs, and ezines (electronic magazines). People them read your
articles to learn about your products or services. The best two services
to use for distributing your article are EzineArticles and Isnare.
- Write press releases and
distribute them online. Just like writing and submitting articles, this is a very simple and
extremely effective way to get tons of links pointed at your website. It
is also a great way drive targeted traffic to your website. For more information, please visit PRWeb.
- Advertise in
ezines (also know as an internet newsletter or an internet magazine). This
is another simple yet highly effective way to market your products or
services online.
- Network using social networking services like myspace, facebook, twitter, and linked in.
6. Offline/Traditional Advertising Strategies
- Networking-Go where your market is, Chamber of Commerce, BNI, etc.
- Direct marketing using sales letters, brochures, postcards, flyers, etc.
- Advertising-Print media, directories, billboards, yellow pages, radio, TV
- Training programs-Seminars that you give to increase awareness
- Write articles for magazines, your local newspaper, and other publications read by your industry. Doing this will help you to become known as an expert
- Direct/personal selling
- Publicity/press releases
- Trade shows
- Referral programs
- Co-marketing with businesses that share your target market
- Barter
7. Pricing, Positioning and
Branding
From the information collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.
From the information collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.
8. Budget
Budget your dollars. What strategies can you afford? How much can you afford to spend per month?
Budget your dollars. What strategies can you afford? How much can you afford to spend per month?
9. Marketing Goals
Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goal might be to gain at least 10 new clients each month or to generate 100 leads per month.
Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goal might be to gain at least 10 new clients each month or to generate 100 leads per month.
10. Monitor Your Results
Test and analyze. Identify the strategies that are working.
Test and analyze. Identify the strategies that are working.
- Survey customers
- Track sales, leads, visitors to your web site, percent of sales to impressions
- Determine which marketing strategies are producing the most customers and which are producing the least customers
- Measure Return on Investment per each marketing activity
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