A well prepared Internet marketing plan can project the name of your business and create brand recognition along with exposing you to a fresh group of potential consumers. If you need to know how to go about creating an internet marketing plan for your business here are a few tips to start you in the right direction.
Determine your objective: first consider what you want to achieve through Internet marketing. Ask yourself whether your aim is to: * Expand your customer base * Provide your present customers with fresh information and services * Increase sale of products and services * Make an online community from your target audience * Find out how much the internet marketing plan is going to cost
When you know what you want to achieve from your marketing plan and have a definite budget for the plan, it will let you create a truly effective marketing plan.
Create a marketing funnel: your online marketing plan should incorporate the funnel theory. It consists of beginning at the top end of the funnel that means low priced offerings or freebies then gradually moving customers towards higher end products that requires them to make gradually higher investments as they move towards the narrower parts of the funnel. For this approach, you need to have a range of products at various price levels for creating the funnel effect. If there are gaps in your marketing funnel you need to have realistic plans for developing new products aimed at filling those gaps.
Plan to counter competition: send across a strong marketing message when you know and understand where you stand among existing competition. Go about this exercise seriously. Make an online search for your business using keywords a user may type to find your site. Once your reach the search results page jot down the URL's of five topmost competitors. Use Alexaa for checking their traffic rankings and find out other websites with links to them. Try to find out if your competitors have something unique to offer to consumers. More importantly find out the gaps in the services or products they offer.
Go for target marketing: concentrate your advertising and marketing efforts. Instead of trying to sell to all and sundry, you must focus your marketing activities on your target market that you can both define and locate easily. They may belong to a specific gender i.e. male or female, a particular age group, or some clearly definable socio-economic segment. Try to ascertain their hangouts, both online and offline. To what professional, virtual, or personal group do they have an allegiance, what is their earning level and whether they can afford the product/service you are offering easily are some other things that you need to find out.
Create a brand for your business: ensure that your brand name makes you clearly stand out from the rest of your competitors. The least you can do is to buy a domain name in the .com variety that includes your own name and another that includes the name of your business. This of course would depend on availability of the names. Later on, you can buy .com versions in the name of your products. Another potential way for your target market to notice you is through a domain name related to the solutions you provide for problems related to your products or services. For example, if you sell seepage and water leak repair products and equipment you could try a domain name like RepairYourBasement.com. The name will give your business an idiosyncratic identity and people searching for basement repair solutions will land on your site.
About the Author
Peter Brittain is a director of an Australian internet marketing company - Slinky, and is an expert in SEO.
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