For many people who start a business adventure on the Internet it can be frustrating or confusing to know what to do or what are the steps that need to be taken in order to start successfully and on the right track.
Marketing is one of the most important pieces of any business, since it is what allows you to connect with customers, create relationships and transmit the message that will allow you to make sales and generate money.
Without marketing, failure is the most likely destination.
Online Marketing Plan - 10 Steps to Start with Success
If you already have a good idea of the type of business that you are going to create or you are ready to start marketing on the Internet, follow this 10 step guide to start on the right foot.
Then, little by little, I recommend improving and optimizing each of these points; Remember that everything changes very fast on the Internet and it is necessary to adapt to current trends at all times.
1. Define your business, your niche, brand and products / services
Before creating a marketing plan, it is important to have defined some aspects that are pillars of your business on the Internet, some of them are:
- Your business model On the Internet there are several types of business that can be undertaken. What will be yours? It is important to define it from the beginning. It can be creation and sale of digital products, a virtual store of physical products, affiliate marketing, mobile applications, etc.
- Your market niche Who are you going to direct all your marketing and products? Defining the market niche through market research is a very important step that will allow you to focus your marketing plan on the right people.
- Your brand. If you are going to do branding and create a brand, defining your identity and characteristics is necessary.
- Your products / services. Although it is not mandatory, you can already have defined your products or services that you are going to offer. As you learn more about your market, your needs, problems and motivations, you can create better products and solutions.
All these elements are a preliminary step to creating your marketing plan.
2. Study your market in depth (including competition)
The more you know your market, the better products you can offer and your marketing will be directed to the right people. I believe that this is a step always in constant study and evolution, since you can always know a little more about any niche and the people that comprise it.
It is also important to conduct a competency study. This works to know what they are doing and offering (to be able to offer something better or unique) and also to generate interesting ideas .
I do not mean to directly copy what they do, but if you find that there are already successful businesses or people in your market, you can guide them and take them as a good reference.
To study the competition you can use Google looking for keywords or terms related to your main topic, use social networks, get into forums or explore markets for products such as Clickbank, eBay, JVZoo, Comission Juction, etc.
3. Set your goals and objectives in the short and long term
When you reach this third step it is because you have already defined a business model, a niche or market, a brand (maybe) and an idea or concept of the product that you are going to sell.
You have also already done a solid market research, you know well the needs of your prospects and future clients.
Before moving on to marketing strategies, it is important to define your short and long term goals. A plan is like the map that will take us to the destination (goals or objectives) that we want to reach.
Always try to make the goals realistic (not so pessimistic but not out of reality).
They can be in relation to sales (how much do you want to sell for a certain date), how many products have available to sell, over positioning, staff growth, etc.
The goals you establish will depend on the type of business you are going to develop.
Take out a sheet of paper and write down between 5 and 10 goals in the present and with a deadline.
For example: I sell $ 2,500 USD a month of digital products from my blog for November 31, 2015.
4. Create a unique sales proposal
What is going to make you different from the competition? What makes you unique in the market?
Each person and therefore each business is different and has something unique to offer that no one else can, however, not everyone takes the time and effort to develop a unique sales proposal.
Although it is not mandatory and you can start without it, I recommend creating it as soon as possible. You can perfect it with time.
5. Define your traffic sources
One of the most important pillars of your online marketing plan will be the sources of traffic to be used. On the Internet we have available a large number of methods and strategies to generate traffic and visits to a Web page.
To be able to choose correctly, it is very important to comply with the first step we have already seen, since the sources of traffic will depend in large part on the business model and market niche you are going to focus on.
6. Take into account content marketing
On the Internet, information is the main asset that is shared everywhere. More and more people and businesses are choosing a content marketing strategy as an important part of developing their business.
With content marketing you can position yourself as an expert, educate and teach, generate virality, influence and create confidence in your market. The benefits are unparalleled and little by little it has become a necessity rather than something optional.
To start, create a blog in WordPress and a blogging strategy to start publishing articles and valuable information. Then he uses social networks, SEO and other methods to attract readers.
7. Email marketing
Email marketing is always one of the most important pillars of (almost) any Internet marketing plan, regardless of the niche or the business model that will be developed.
There will be some where less is used or not so relevant, but the email will never cease to be a piece with unique benefits that can not be obtained elsewhere.
To implement email marketing you will need an autoresponder (such as Mailchimp or Aweber) to be able to "capture" prospects, send them messages and establish a long-term trust relationship and then turn them into customers.
Email is also an essential part of every sales funnel on the Internet (which we will see later).
8. Advertising
Within the main traffic sources to be defined, it is important to take advertising into account. There are many ways to do marketing and generate free visits such as social networks and SEO, but although these may not cost so much money, if they consume a lot of time and do not give immediate results.
Internet advertising allows you to start testing any business or market immediately, receiving visits, testing capture pages and conversions in your sales letter.
The 2 options that I recommend most to advertise are Google Adwords and Facebook Ads . Both are pay per click programs that have different costs depending on the budget and the niche market.
You can also advertise on other sites or blogs about topics related to yours that allow you to put a banner or text. Usually a monthly fee is charged to be able to use this method.
Although it is not mandatory, advertising can accelerate your marketing and growth a lot.
9. Necessary tools
In addition to a hosting account, a domain and a Web page it is very possible that they will need another type of tools to optimize, measure and sell successfully on the Internet.
Here is a list of examples to consider:
- Email marketing software (autoresponder).
- WordPress-specific plugins.
- Software to measure conversions, split tests and analytics.
- File hosting service in the cloud
- Software for market research and competition
- Updates in server or more domains
- Professional themes or templates
- Plugins to create memberships
- Payment processors such as Paypal, e-Junkie, Clickbank, etc.
- Others more
Each of these tools fulfills a function that helps your marketing plan to function successfully and meet established objectives.
It is important to consider them in the budget because each implies an expense. Although it is possible that not all are needed.
10. Sales funnel
Many of the strategies and points we have seen so far are focused on the external part of getting positioning, traffic and subscribers.
But what happens when they arrive at our page? This is perhaps the most important part of all and where the results obtained are defined.
One of the best strategies you can apply to sell and grow much faster is to create a sales funnel, which consists of different phases that users spend before they become customers.
For example:
- A user arrives and subscribes to your capture page
- Receive a series of emails related to your product for 7 days
- In each of these mails comes the mention and advertisement of a product of $ 20- $ 30 USD.
- When they buy that product, they are automatically transferred to another list.
- In the new list they are also sent emails with valuable content and also with promotion to products with a higher price ($ 100- $ 300 USD).
- By becoming customers of these more expensive products they are still promoting more products of equal or greater cost.
- Over time they are converted with long-term customers who trust the seller and the brand.
The traffic that is created is sent to the capture page where the sales funnel starts and which can be very automated thanks to email marketing and payment processors such as Paypal.
Not all business models use a sales funnel, but it is certainly an excellent strategy that works very well in many cases.
Take it into account if possible and necessary.
If you comply with these 10 steps that we have just reviewed, you will have an excellent marketing plan that will allow you to generate traffic and position yourself properly in any market.
It is possible that there are more steps or tasks to be done, but I am sure that with this guide you will have an excellent reference to be able to start successfully.
What are the most important parts of your online marketing plan? What did you think of this guide? Share your experience in the comments.🙂
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