Marketing

10 Steps to Create the Perfect Marketing Plan

For many people who start a business adventure on the Internet, it can be frustrating or unclear to know what to do or what steps need to be taken to start successfully and on the right track.

Without marketing, failure is the most likely destination.

Online Marketing Plan – 10 Steps to Start Successfully

If you already know the type of business you will create or are ready to start doing Internet marketing, follow this 10-step guide to starting on the right foot.

Then little by little, I recommend you improve and optimize each of these points; Remember that everything changes very quickly on the Internet, and it is necessary to adapt to current trends.

Table of Contents

1. Define your business, your niche, brand, and products/services

Before making a marketing plan, it is important to have defined some aspects that are pillars of your Internet business; some of them are:

Your business model. On the Internet, several types of business can be undertaken. What will be yours? It is essential to define it from the beginning. It can be creating and selling 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 to? Defining the market niche through market research is an 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 its identity and characteristics is necessary.
Your products/services. Although it is not mandatory, you can already have defined the products or services that you are going to offer. As you get to know more about your market, it’s needs, problems, and motivations, you will be able to create better products and solutions.

All these elements are a previous step in creating your marketing plan.

2. Study your market in-depth (including competition)

The more you know your market, the better products you will be able to offer them, and your marketing will be engaged the right people. I study that this is a step always in constant study and progress. Meanwhile, you can always see a little more about any niche and the people that make it up.

It is also crucial to carry out a competition study. This works to find out what they are doing and offering (so you can provide something better or unique) and generate exciting ideas.

I do not mean to copy what they do directly, but if you find already successful businesses or people in your market, you can guide yourself and take them as a good reference.

To study the competition, you can use Google to look for keywords or terms related to your main topic, use social networks, go to forums or explore product markets such as Clickbank, eBay, JVZoo, Commission Junction, etc.

3. Usual your short and long term goals and objectives

When you reach this third step, you have already defined a business model, a niche or market, a brand (perhaps), and an idea or concept of the product you will sell.

You have also already done solid market research; you know well the needs of your prospects and future clients.

Before moving on to marketing strategies, it is essential to define your short-term and long-term goals. A plan is like a map that will take us to the destination (goals or objectives) that we want to reach.

You always have to make the goals realistic (not so pessimistic but not unrealistic either).

They can be about sales (how much you want to sell by a specific date), how many products to have available to sell, positioning, staff growth, etc.

The areas you set will depend on the type of business you will develop.

4. Create a unique selling proposition

What is going to make you different from the competition? What makes you unique in the market?

Therefore, every person and every business is different and has something unique to offer that no one else can. Unfortunately, however, not everyone takes the time and effort to develop a unique selling proposition.

While it is not mandatory, and you can start without it, I recommend creating it as soon as possible. Then, you can perfect it over time.

5. Define your traffic sources

One of the most critical columns of your online marketing plan will be the traffic sources to use. On the Internet, we have available many systems and strategies to generate traffic and visits to a Web page.

To choose correctly, it is essential to comply with the first step that we have previously seen since the traffic sources will depend mainly on the business model and market niche on which you are going to focus.

6. Take content marketing into account

On the Internet, information is the main asset that is shared everywhere. As a result, more and more people and businesses choose a content marketing strategy as an essential part of building their business.

With content marketing, you can spot yourself as an expert, educate and teach, generate virality, influence, and create trust in your market. The benefits are unmatched, and little by little, it has become a necessity instead of something optional.

Create a WordPress blog and a blogging strategy to begin publishing articles and valuable information. Then use social networks, SEO, and other methods to attract readers.

7. Email marketing

Email marketing is always one of the essential pillars of (almost) every Internet marketing plan, regardless of the niche or the business model to be developed.

There will be somewhere it is used less or not as relevant, but email will never cease to be a piece with unique benefits that cannot be obtained elsewhere.

To put email marketing into practice, you will need an autoresponder (such as Mailchimp or Aweber) to “capture” prospects, send them messages and establish a long-term relationship of trust to convert them into customers later.

8. Advertising

Within the primary traffic sources to define, it is essential to consider advertising. There are several ways to do marketing and generate free visits, such as social networks and SEO, but although these may not cost that much money, they are time-consuming 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 two options that I recommend the most for advertising are Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. Both are pay-per-click programs with different costs depending on the budget and the market niche.

You can also advertise on other sites or blogs on topics related to yours that allow you to put a banner or text. A monthly fee is usually charge to use this method.

Although not required, advertising can significantly accelerate your marketing and growth.

9. Necessary tools

In addition to a hosting account, a domain, and a website, other types of tools may be needed to optimize, measure, and sell successfully on the Internet.

Here is a list of examples to consider:

Software de email marketing (autoresponder).
WordPress-specific plugins.
Software to measure conversions does split tests and analytics.
Cloud file hosting service
Software to do market and competition research
Updates on the server or more domains
Professional themes or templates
Plugins to create memberships
Payment processors like PayPal, e-Junkie, Click bank, etc.
Others more

Each of these tools fulfills a function that helps your marketing plan work successfully and meet the established objectives.

It is significant to consider them in the budget because each implies an expense. However, not all of them may be need.

10. Sales funnel

Many of the strategies and points that we have seen so far are focus on the external part of getting positioning, traffic, and subscribers.

But what happens when they reach our page? This is perhaps the essential part of all and where the results obtained are defined.

One of the best tactics you can apply to sell and grow much faster is to create a sales funnel, which is made up of different phases that users go through before becoming customers.

For example:

A user arrives and subscribes to your landing page
Receive a sequence of emails related to your product for seven days
In each of these emails comes the mention and announcement of a $20-USD 30 product.
When they buy that product, they are automatically move to another list.
In the new list, they are also sent emails with valuable content and also with promotion of products with a higher price ($100-USD 300).
By becoming customers of these more expensive products, they continue to be promote to more products of equal or more significant cost.
Over time, they become long-term customers who trust the seller and the brand.

The create traffic is sent to the capture page where the sales funnel begins and which can be highly automated thanks to email marketing and payment processors such as PayPal.

Not all business models use a sales funnel, but it is undoubtedly an excellent strategy that works very well in many cases.

Take it into account if possible and necessary.

If you comply with these ten steps that we have just reviewed, you will have an excellent marketing plan that will allow you to generate traffic and position yourself adequately in any market.

There may be more steps or tasks to perform, but I am sure that you will have an excellent reference to start successfully with this guide.

Executing. So there’s a long way to go

What are the most serious parts of your online marketing plan? What did you think of this guide? Share your experience in the comments.

Conclusion

Marketing is one of the most critical moments of any business since it is what allows you to connect with customers, create relationships and transmit the message that will enable you to make sales and generate money. If you have any comments to contribute, we will be happy to hear them. Please share this article or tell us on social networks; we regularly update tips on Work Publishing. Please keep supporting us. Thank you.

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