Internet Marketing Plan
An amazing number of companies build their site and then think about
a Internet marketing plan. That's generally suicidal. Even if you
dispense with marketing through the search engines — in many
ways still the most effective
method — you must still understand what Internet shoppers
are looking for, and build your site to capture that interest. Sooner
or later you'll have to adjust to customer requirements, and delaying
changes will only increase the overall workload. Before building
the site, you should:
-
establish and double check your unique selling proposition.
-
devise a clear, step-wise and costed marketing plan.
-
find the best keywords for each page.
-
design the site around your keywords and marketing plan.
Internet Marketing Plan
Before the internet marketing plan is finalized, and any website
built, ensure you have:
-
found out what potential customers really want by surveys,
market research, and visits to competitor sites.
-
assessed the competition, their strengths and their marketing
approaches.
-
focused on what you can do and your competitors can't: your
unique selling proposition.
-
devised clear contingency plans to counter competitor moves
against you.
-
included lead-generating advertising in the plan.
-
looked at potential new markets.
-
constructed a timetable for traffic levels, conversion rates
and sales.
-
costed each marketing phase accurately.
-
set up contingency plans for unexpectedly high or low sales.
Fitting the Site to the Internet Marketing Plan
The mechanics are covered in site
development, but the general principles of ecommerce site
building are:
-
design should reflect your unique selling proposition, and
your market position vis a vis the competition.
-
appearance must be professional, inspiring trust and confidence.
-
download should be fast, certainly not more than 10 seconds
with a 56.6 modem, even in congested Internet conditions.
-
customer convenience. Copy should immediately draw visitors
in, emphasizing its value to them.
-
navigation should be clear and trouble-free — not merely
possible to follow, but impossible to misunderstand. Check
with third parties before going live.
-
testimonials should be placed strategically (and be genuine).
-
guarantees and returns policies should be clearly stated
(and adhered to).
-
email and telephone (preferably toll-free) support should
feature prominently. Ensure your staff can answer inquiries.
Types of Internet Marketing
In terms of value for money, these are the best marketing techniques:
using search engines and
directories, search
engine ads and pay-by-click
search engines, conventional
off-line advertising, through affiliates,
with emails, reciprocal
links and viral
marketing. Follow the links to the pages in question, and
then cost the various approaches by researching the sites listed
on the relevant resources pages.
Modifying the Marketing Plan
Marketing is not a campaign, and still less a technique, but
an education. Rooted in an understanding of how people instinctively
think and feel, marketing has to find a way of accommodating whatever
is being sold to a particular conception. The product or service
may not be the best going, but it has to satisfy perceived requirements,
creating a relationship that is both sympathetic and reassuring.
The only sure way of marketing a product is therefore to plan
intelligently, follow the plan meticulously, assess results, and
keep modifying the plan. Marketing is a continual learning process,
and it's essential that your website statistics keep you fully
informed on what visitors are doing. Ensure that your hosting
company provides these traffic statistics on a daily and monthly
basis:
-
number of visitors, pages downloaded, time spent on the site
(average and maximum)
-
page popularity
-
most used trails through the site
-
pages used to enter and leave the site
-
referring sites and search engines
-
visitors' countries of origin
Even minor changes to copy and page layout may alter visitor
performance and sales, which is a reason for monitoring results
carefully.
Taking It Further
Is the above true? Up to a point. But it's also hopelessly simplistic
and out of date. If you really want an internet marketing
plan that will work, plus how to get figures for likely traffic
and conversion rates, and learn how to test plans cheaply,
then there's no alternative to our ADVANCED GUIDE TO ECOMMERCE,
now in its eleventh edition.
An overview . . .
- The Internet's most detailed guide to ecommerce: 185,000 words
/ 550 pages in pdf format.
- 160 reference sheets summarizing a particular aspect, with
advice and resources as appropriate.
- Over 3,300 resource listings grouped under 260 headings: each
hand-picked on its merits.
- Fourteen comparison tables in key product areas.
- A proven approach to planning ecommerce.
- Practical advice on improving sales and conversion ratios.
- An extended guide to pay-per-click and sponsored listings.
- Use of business blogs, advised and ill-advised.
- Practical security aspects: keeping yourself safe.
- Testing sites and ideas at negligible cost.
- Over 100 case studies, both general and dotcom failures.
- Notes on ecommerce strategies and use of the resource listings.
- Tutorials on AdSense, ePublishing, eBay, RSS feeds and commercial
blogging.
- Ten up-to-date surveys of ecommerce prospects worldwide.
- Insider information based on Internet research and our own
studies.
- Strategies to test customer behaviour and improve sales.
- Comes as an interlinked webpage ebook (2 Mb) and as a pdf
document (9 Mb). The one-time subscription covers both.
Click here for
a full contents listing of the current edition.
Our
$37.50 e-book comes with a 30-day, no-questions-asked guarantee.
If not fully satisfied, then simply email us for a prompt and
full refund. Material is continually being checked and extended,
and purchase includes free updates.
The e-book comes as interlinked webpage compilation for ready
reference (2Mb) and as a PDF document (9 Mb, 550 pages) for extended
reading. The PDF document can be read on all platforms, but the
interlinked webpage compilation can only be read on Windows platforms
( Windows 98x, Me, 2000 and XP machines).
Our July 2008 update will include an extensive tutorial on using
the pay per click search engines.
Payment is simple. You can pay by secure credit card etc. through
eMETRIX.
Immediate download follows payment, and you will also receive
an email confirmation from sales@emetrix.com.
Or click on the button below to send $37.50 through PayPal's
secure order page.
