How to Create an Internet Marketing Plan

When you own a small business and plan on using the internet to market your product or service, it is very important that you make a plan in order for your efforts to be successful. Creating that plan could prove to be difficult, and if you don’t include the right information, you could be setting yourself up for failure. You know your business better than anyone else, so you should be able to make this plan on your own with very little help, but you should make sure you are well educated on internet marketing strategies and include all of the following aspects in your plan. You should also keep in mind that when you decide to use internet marketing, you should make sure it fits in with your entire marketing plan. With the right information, your internet marketing plan could help your business grow faster than you could ever imagine.

What do you want to accomplish?

It should be very clear to you at this point what you want to accomplish with your internet marketing strategy. What’s in it for you? Do you want to gain new customers, sell your product or service, get information to current customers, or improve you branding? Maybe your reason is something else entirely, but if you don’t know where you want to go, it will be difficult to determine where you should start. You should also know from the beginning how much you will have to spend on this venture. With an objective and a budget in mind, you will start off on the right foot with your internet marketing plan.

Who is your competition?

With the rising popularity of internet marketing, you will probably have a lot of competition once you start to put your business online. Make sure you do your research and find out about all of your possible competitors. Use keywords in search engines that your customers might use to find your type of business, and look at the other businesses that pop up. Really evaluate your top competitors and find out their strengths and weaknesses. When you know about your competition, their level of online traffic, and their strategies, you can start to come up with a plan to set yourself apart from the rest.

Who are you trying to target?

You should know by now the type of person you are trying to target with your business. It is impractical for you to try to market every, so your niche market will help you figure out how to direct your marketing plan. Clearly define the group of people in your target market before you go ahead with any strategy. What is their age group? What is their annual income? What is their gender? What are they interested in? What other groups do they belong in? The strategies you choose should directly impact those in your target market, so you should keep in mind what that type of person is going to like and dislike.
What type of strategy do you want to use?

There are lots of internet marketing strategies for you to choose from. Here are just a few:

• Pay-per-click – buying a keyword from a search engine and paying a specific price each time someone clicks on your page.
• Organic search engine optimization (SEO) – the goal with this strategy is to have you link posted at the top of the non-sponsored listings on a search engine.
• Email newsletters – sent out to your customers on a regular basis.
• Blog – posting entries on a blog about your business and aimed at your target market.
• Social media marketing – attracting customers using the same social media sites.

Elise Brown is an author who writes guest posts on the topics of business, marketing, credit cards, and personal finance. Additionally, she works for a website that focuses on educating readers about real stories of people with payday loan debt.