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Choosing Effective Programs for Your Internet Marketing Plan
Objectives, strategies, and tactics (i.e. programs or action plans) - these are the parts of a solid strategic marketing plan. Your site objective defines the big picture, strategies provide the framework, and tactics fill in the details. Tactics are where the action takes place - these are the things you will do to bring your plans to life and "work" your marketing mix. There is no shortage of Internet related marketing tactics. Many have great potential. The challenge is to sift through and choose the ones that are right for your situation - the ones that have the greatest potential to support your strategies and, together, incorporate all elements of the four p's. Randomly ricocheting from one "proven technique" to another will frazzle and disjoint both you and your business. Examples of promotional tactics are numerous, as are sources of advice. Public relations, search engine optimization, affiliate programs, reciprocal linking, advertising, direct email, newsletters, and customer incentives are all promotional tactics that may be appropriate for your plan. A key to knowing which tactics to choose involves thoroughly understanding your target markets and your positioning relative to each. Other elements in your marketing mix (price, product, and place/distribution) come into play as well. Once you have addressed these strategic issues, you will be better able to choose tactics with the most potential to increase your business. Target Market A target market is an identifiable group of people that could benefit from purchasing your product, visiting your site, and/or responding to some other call to action. You can define your target market(s) according to some combination of behavior, demographics, psychology, and/or social influences. You are likely to have several potential target markets; focus on those you can most profitably help. Marketing to a target market involves understanding how you can help them, developing effective messages, then reaching them via appropriate tactics that use all of the four p's. By using this approach you can focus your marketing mix resources on tactics that are most likely to increase sales for your business. Hence, earning the greatest return from your marketing activities.Positioning Positioning defines your product, business, and/or site for those in your target market. It sets the stage for your image - how your target market perceives your business - and shows your market the benefits you provide. The positioning process involves first understanding the needs and wants of your target market. You should also know the positioning strategies of your competitors and have a thorough knowledge of your own product's features. Armed with that information, you can better develop tactics that will most closely fit your positioning. Another factor to keep in mind is your online positioning will be tightly interwoven with your off-line positioning. Because your business and products are a reality in both the physical and virtual worlds, your positioning should be consistent across both. Accordingly, your marketing tactics should be consistent as well. The Four P's:Price, Product, Place, and Promotion Too often, we tend to focus on "promotion" to the detriment of the other marketing mix elements. When choosing tactics for your Website marketing plan, consider *each* of the four P's (4 P's) in your marketing mix - price, product, place (distribution), and promotion. You are likely to find the results much better than if you include promotions alone. The opportunities for incorporating all four P's (4 P's) into your plan are numerous. You may find, after studying the competition, that increasing or decreasing your price is likely to result in better profits for your business. Perhaps there is a distribution channel (electronic delivery or mailorder, for example) you haven't fully integrated into your business. With respect to products, developing a new product or giving an existing product a facelift may be an effective business-building tactic. By considering the Four P's (4 P's), your target market(s), and positioning, you can be better prepared to choose effective tactics for your Website marketing plan. Once your tactics are chosen, you are ready to begin implementing and evaluating results. Bobette Kyle draws upon 12+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing. Bobette is proprietor of the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, http://www.websitemarketingplan.com, and author of the marketing plan and Web promotion book "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Website Marketing For Small Budget Business": http://www.HowMuchForSpider.com
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If you're able to quickly find new promotional tools, opportunities and/or informationon Internet marketing, you will be in position to sell (more or less directly, we will notplunge here into discussing downlines and referrals) these information - for after all it isexactly information! - to other marketers. I personally see no reason why marketers should beless receptive to this sort of information than average person. In fact they are probablymuch more receptive, as they know perfectly well how much in their personal lives depends onthose tools, information and opportunities.It is probably not true that whole 95% of people trying to earn online is not earning any money, butit must be obvious that most marketers still have not found their way of doing business online andthere's no reason to believe that this situation ever radically changes.So it's not only information on new available services and opportunities that is sought after,and therefore sellable. In order to be successful in this sort of business, where there's so muchavailable information, potential chances and risks, and so little road-signs that can be fullytrusted, one needs to find their own way. Way of doing business online.Human life being as short as it is, with most often very limited finances (or you wouldn't spendyour time in front of the monitor with uncertain result, would you?), people who still haven'tfound the right method and attained real success in online business will need a "recipe", or,perhaps better, a successful person to help them -- a teacher, or even perhaps what the Americanscall "the mentor". (There's this old joke about some American children asking their parents topay them tree-climbing lessons, but Internet marketing without qualified help is a dreary andvery risky thing to do.)If you already are successful, then being the N marketer you have serious advantages. One of them,perhaps the most important, is that you only deal with one (big, that's true) issue: online marketing.As X marketer you would need to handle both marketing itself and the market niche you're in. Thisfact has some further interesting effects. For example this that by attaining success as N marketeryou're becoming a Guru, or "almost a Guru", and this time I'm using this term without irony. WhatI mean is simply that you've become an accomplished expert in your field, which of course isInternet marketing. While if you attait even the biggest success in selling widgets online, youwill be a "Great Expert In Selling Widgets Online". Which means that you will be generally seen asa crossing between "widgets expert" and "marketing expert". Nobody will be certain how good you arein any of those two parts of your activity! Effect of which will be that your success will bemuch harder to duplicate! You will have much more difficulty in teaching people your tested businessmethods. If they are not going to sell widgets like yourself, nobody can be completly sure it's thebest marketing practice that you're teaching. And the widget niche may be too small to accomodate manynew players. It will be a totally different matter with general marketing knowledge that you obtain practicingN marketing.One special advantage that N marketing has is something that I personally call "self-propelling money machines".So far they are not very numerous, at least those that work smoothly and bring tons of money withoutconstant need for adjustments and pushing. But there are some, pretty successful. And their will be more.What are those self-propelling money machines? They are smart combination of promotional resources with selling.One could say that they are resources that sell themselves, automatically. The simpler form cosists of just twomain parts: the Lead Generating Module (more often multiple Resources) that are constatly being sold by something thatcan be called the Selling Module to the leads they generate. One program that I remember that worked like that wasCommisionSpyder. In another, more advanced, version is probably best represented by the new "Explosive" ebook byStephanie L. Woolford, a very successful online marketer. (This ebook can be for example found on http://ebiz-guru.com.)Here one can three conceptual modules:the Lead Generating Module, the Selling Module, and an ebook (that can be either free or paid) that ignites thewhole process. I'm not sure I managed to describe the idea clearly enough, but it can be understood when seen in action.Ebooks are supposed to be the almost-perfect business and in near future they may really become that. If we assumethat this statement is true, we can say probably risk an opinion that X marketers have greater chance of publishinga competent book on topics related to their chosen niche they know lots about, while N marketers seem to have muchgreater chance of publishing purely marketing ebook, "viral" ebooks, and ebooks of the sort mentioned in previousparagraph included. Which seems to be another advantage of N marketing. So after all Selling to Sellers may notbe so stupid idea, wouldn't you agree? How To Actually Make Money In Network Marketing Most people that I know who are, or have been in network marketing, never seem to make a dime! Others (myself included) make a small fortune. If you're not doing VERYwell with your business, and you're honestly putting in the effort, let me explain to you how to turn things around! If You Build It They Will Come - Not Without Web Marketing! I'm sure everybody has received an email from a company promising to get their website placed first on all the major search engines. Maybe some of you have even tried these services or may be thinking about it right now. The Internet Marketer The internet marketer is really a perfect profession. This profession allows you to gain many positive characters. You become more responsible, you learn how to earn money in your home business, how to make it professionally and treat your customers in a way you wanted them to treat you. We have to keep in mind one very important thing that marketing on the internet is different from marketing in real world in some aspects. You may ask why? So, the difference is a little hidden and can't be seen at first.
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