Whether you are a budding entrepreneur just starting his or her new business or you have a thriving small business, you must consider using the Internet in advertising your business. Your example marketing plan must include a really good website at its centerpiece with lot so different ways and methods of attracting traffic to it.
Your Website
As you know, websites come in various flavors……. there are simple, one page listings and very complex sites with hundreds of pages for the visitor to page through, if they are interested. You will need to have a very basic site, at a minimum, and then weave other pages based upon the type of business that you have.
For example, a professional such as a doctor, attorney, CPA, etc., should have a site that conveys a message of professionalism, integrity and trust. The site should be designed to attract only those people with a specific need for services. To accomplish these objectives, the professional’s website should detail the depth and breadth of the firm’s experience, education, and achievements. A website for a restaurant or similar local merchant, on the other hand, has the main objective of attracting the general public into their store, and so their site will take on a different purpose. Likewise, a website for a contractor, kitchen remodeler or craftsman should be built to appeal to a certain audience with certain needs and budgets.
Each company’s website should, therefore, be customized to and for the business it represents. This can require a custom web design, but most of the time you can find a free or inexpensive template that can easily be customized for your business. It will be unique to your business and the colors, graphics, text, etc will all be unique to your business – you just won’t need to invest to pay someone to recreate the basic template. (If you search on Google for “Website Templates”, you will find a plethora of options!)
The most critical ingredient of your website should be it’s CTA or Call to Action. Your website should request or require the visitor to take some sort of action while they are there. Whether its signing up for your newsletter, downloading a coupon, or downloading a special report on your products and services, your main website must ask the visitor to take some sort of desired action. This need not be invasive nor need it be expensive, just get them to take the initiative. This will be the start of a relationship that may develop into your next “Ideal Customer”
Once your example marketing plan has the specifications of your website in plain view, the next (and obvious) most important thing is to lay out ways to get traffic to your site. The best website in the world is worthless if nobody sees it and acts upon it. Here are some great traffic builders:
Search Engine Listings
Sign up with Google, Yahoo, and Bing (at least) using their free local business signup. This will ensure that your company is listed in your locale for certain keywords pertaining to your products and services.
Internet Yellow Pages
Sign up for free listings with as many Internet Yellowpages, Yellowbooks, and other online directories as possible. Since studies now show that almost 80% of retail customers now go online when searching for a local merchant, you can be sure that paying to have a display ad in the printed Yellow Pages is rarely a good investment anymore. Those books have gone the way of the buggy whip!
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the term used for getting your business listed on the various search engines (primarily Google) in such a way and using such keywords that people searching for your type business in your locale will be able to find you (and your website) without your having to pay for such advertising.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Each of the major search engines provide a way for you to place small ads on their sites based on certain, industry specific keywords. The ads are displayed free of charge, but you have to pay each time a visitor ‘clicks’ on your ad and is transferred to your site. Depending on your industry and competition, such Pay-Per-Click ads may be a critical element of your example marketing plan. You actually bid against other vendors to have your ad appear in the highest possible position. (Any ad that appears after page one of Google, for example, is likely never to get clicked upon.) You at least need to check out this option and give it a test in your market.
Online Advertising Consultant
In many communities, there are consultants who specialize in providing online advertising solutions specifically for certain industries and merchants in their respective market. You may find such a consultant to be helpful to the development of your example marketing plan, but beware of a consultant who earns a commission from the advertising vendor for signing you up. Such a consultant tends to lack an independent viewpoint of the market and their objectives may be at odds with your needs.
All in all, focus on making your website the centerpiece of your plan and then concentrate on finding as many different ways to attract traffic to it with the available marketing budget that you develop. You can be assured that the time that you devote to these activities will pay off greatly in attracting new customers to your business!
Archive for the ‘Business Plans’ Category
A convincing business model is a must when writing a business plan because it will help you to address all the details that are required to turn your ideas into the concrete steps needed to develop a business. A model house shows you what the real thing looks like, how the rooms are arranged, what the interior layout is and so on. Similarly, the business model or paradigm will help you identify what is required to set up and operate a business based on your business ideas. It will also point towards the key decisions that you need to make in order to make your business operational. It is not important to know all the answers at the beginning – just make sure that you ask all the right questions and the answers will present themselves to you over a period of time.
You should start by writing down what you want to achieve both in quantifiable and non-quantifiable terms. Include the product or service that you have in mind, your experience, what you bring to the table and the resources on which you can draw. If possible, at this stage, add your thoughts on the target market and the competition. Remember that this is an iterative process where you will constantly be going back and forth. As you go through this process, several things can happen. Almost certainly, your thoughts will get clarified as you subject them to objective and logical analysis. It is not uncommon to find that your thoughts completely change or at least undergo substantial modification as you develop your business model.
Next you need to address the following points:
What value will your product or service deliver to the customer? What particular need are you aiming to satisfy? Who are the customers to whom you are catering? What are their characteristics and do they constitute a large enough market to make your business viable? What is the supply chain that you need to develop so that the different parts of your business work together to deliver to the customer? What will it cost and what kind of margins can you expect? Identify fixed and variable costs separately. What revenue streams is it possible to generate? For instance, in an Internet business, can you generate advertising revenues through affiliate programs or generate subscription fees?
As you can see, just asking the right questions is a very substantial step forward in developing your business model when writing a business plan. Without the business model, it is going to be impossible for you to develop any other plans such as your marketing, finance or human resource plans.
(c) 2010 George Osawaye
How to rapidly and with no trouble complete your internet marketing plan to commence products & maximize your profits…”
Everyone knows that marketing is necessary to efficiently communicate a business to its customers in order to sell more of its existing products, commence new products to the marketplace, and to make the most of revenues and profits. But creating a marketing plan that actually achieves those goals can seem a frightening and difficult task.
Here are some of the widespread mistakes business owners make when implementation of their marketing plans:
Mistake #1:Not targeting the accurate customers. Although many businesses “think” they know their customers, in many instances this is not the case. Not everyone wants your products, so it’s a waste of time and money to attempt to target them all. Mistake #2:Not understanding customer requirements. The biggest building block of marketing is to systematically understand what your probable customers actually want. Make mistakes here, and you’ll develop a product people don’t want – and your sales will be negligible. Mistake #3:Customers not knowing about your product. So you know what your customers want and you have developed the ideal product or service, but ensuring your customers and prospects know about it is of course straightforward. So many companies use the wrong announcement channels and fail to let their objective customers know that their product is obtainable. Mistake #4:Poor announcement messages. The actual words you use in your marketing messages are critical. Not just what you write down but the way your write them. everybody knows that only benefits sell and not features – but extracting the reimbursement that are going to turn your prospects into paying customers is possibly the hardest part of marketing. Mistake #5:Over determined projections. Everyone thinks their new products will grow exponentially in the first 12 months but in reality this is hardly ever the case. Your marketing plan must show a practical path to productivity that proves your actual revenues and profits are similar with your written plan. Mistake #6:An incapability to sell your plan. Having a mentor prepare your plan may save you an annoyance, but it is you who needs to explain to your sponsors every query they have about your plan. You need to understand everything that is written in your plan.
It is better to correct them at formulation stage rather implementation stage. If not correctly done you may face bigger looses or even end up of your business from the earth.
SBA or Small Business Administration is an independent agency of the US government that helps in protecting the interests of the small business organizations by assisting them in securing loans, forming business plan, business counseling so that they can thrive among competition which in the long run is beneficial to the economy of the country.
The SBA business plan provides such guidance so that one can manage the business efficiently from the start to the finish. This agency guides how to start the business by selecting a proper location, frame a strategy of the business and the steps to obtain the license ad permits necessary to run the business successfully.
The basis of a successful business starts from its planning and writing down the features of the business plan in a standardized template guides the business person to the right path in achieving the goals.
The SBA plan starts with mentioning the mission of the business giving a total description of the growth of the organization, its goals and achievements along with the background of the organization. This represents a clear view of the business and the perception of its growth and potential. The plan reflects the outlook of the business and in identifying the target in the market with the special mention of the existing clients and customers and the market share which the business is holding at present.
The detailed information of the products and services are included in this plan emphasizing its uniqueness with other competitors and possible up gradations of the product, supported with the brochures and photographs.
A brief summary of the management and the administration is mentioned in the SBA plan highlighting the names of the key managers duly supported by the organization charts. The strategies adopting in marketing and sales promotion along with the distribution are specified in this plan. Financial management holds a key position in the business plan which is clearly laid out reflecting the financial health of the organization. This guideline by the SBA enables one to generate a business plan.
Are you still trying to understand why some marketing plans are successful while others are dismal failures? I’ve studied every imaginable kind of plans over the years, and I’ve concluded that there are five keys to a winning business marketing plan.
Virtually every business marketing plan failure I have seen misses the mark on one of these keys. You will need to incorporate all five of the keys in a way that allows them to support and enhance one another to achieve maximum results.
1. Goal orientation. Your business marketing plan should be created around the marketing goals you want to achieve during the period covered by the plan. This keeps all activity focused on results and provides a basis for measurement of achievements.
2. Reach potential customers where they are. Putting ads here and there and sending somewhat random promotional efforts into the world does not mean the right people will ever see them. More than ever before, you must go to where your customers are if you expect to have any hope of getting their attention.
3. Parts of the business marketing plan need to address potential customers at each stage of the buying cycle or decision making process. People need different information at each stage of the process. Your strategy needs to systematically move each prospect through the process.
4. Carefully orchestrated and harmonious plan. You need to carefully plan and time the release of each piece of your marketing plan for maximum effect and in a way that allows various pieces of the total plan to support and reinforce each other.
5. Constantly tested, adjusted and refined. Every marketing effort, ad or campaign should be carefully and thoroughly analyzed, re-tested, adjusted, updated and refined. Every ad and every e-mail message will meet with a different level of success. The only way your marketing will improve is by testing, analysis and revision.
If you will implement these keys to a winning business marketing plan you will quickly reach an understanding of why some plans succeed and others fail. No matter what marketing tactics you use or how completely you focus on your ideal customer, without these keys there will always be something missing.