Wednesday, August 18, 2010

How to Implement an Online Marketing Plan

You are not far off from being able to take advantage of the vast amount of opportunity that exists online for your business. Just about every transaction begins with a search on the Internet and you are that much closer to being able to tap into this prospective customer base. Best of all, you can start thinking about how you are going to ditch those old, expensive forms of marketing that have done nothing, but increase your overhead for too long now.

Hopefully, by this point you have planned out and implemented the following elements that make up your blueprint to success:
These four crucial components will set the foundation for the success of your business online. Without them your business may survive for a few more years, but it will never reach that higher level of success that every business owner strives for.
Just as important as the aforementioned elements is the next step: Implementing an Online Marketing Plan. Your online marketing plan will dictate how much exposure, branding, and visibility your website will receive and thus, how successful it will be online.

Online Marketing Plan Implementation

To ensure that your product, service(s) and business get in front of the right people at the most opportune times, you must implement and stick to a well thought out marketing plan. If you happened to have skipped the step of plotting out your marketing plan, then we recommend that you do this first before thinking about spending any money on marketing.
View our post on Developing a Marketing Plan for helpful tips
If you have already ironed out your marketing plan (at least for the coming quarter), then here is some useful information on how to successfully implement your marketing plan.

Communicate Your Marketing Plan

The first step in implementing your marketing plan is to communicate it to the rest of your company. Obviously, if you are a one man / woman show, then proceed to step 2.
You have spent hours on creating your marketing plan and getting all of the other necessary pieces in place. Now you must get everyone else behind you and create a rallying point behind your marketing plan. New marketing efforts can be motivational for any business. People like to feel a part of something new and exciting so make sure to include those around you to create this sense of involvement and enthusiasm. You may find that some of the best ways to get exposure for your new product or service that you are marketing is actually through some of the people right around you.
Your sales team is a perfect example – if you get them excited about how you are going to strategically and effectively market what you are asking them to sell then they will create a higher sense of confidence and pride for themselves in what they are selling.


Know the End Goal for Your Marketing Plan

Business, like life, is unpredictable for the most part. That being said, it is important that you remain confident in the research and planning you did to carry out your marketing plan. As long as you have a particular set of goals in mind that you are continuously striving to reach then you are on the right path to success.
Just know that outside factors will create kinks in your plan and may cause you to get off track. This is normal, just stay true to what you are shooting for and being a few degrees or dollars off here or there will not hurt you in the long run. However, if you are implementing your marketing plan with no end goal in mind, then these outside factors will most definitely prove to be detrimental to your business and its bottom line.

Chart the Success of Your Marketing Plan

One of the most important things you can do during the implementation of your new marketing plan is to track as much of it as possible. One of the benefits of online marketing, which should make up at least 70% of your marketing plan, is that you can literally track your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Return on Investment (ROI) down to the penny. Traditional marketing methods, like newspaper advertising, make it extremely difficult to do this as accurately or effectively.
The data that you collect during the implementation of your marketing plan will not only prove extremely useful during the implementation, but also for future marketing efforts. Companies pay lots of money for this data so make sure to chart it, analyze it and utilize it effectively.

Make Adjustments to Your Marketing Plan

As previously stated, business can be very unpredictable so be ready to adjust your marketing efforts to accommodate the highs and lows of the market. It is important to stick to your marketing plan as much as possible, but in cases where an outside factor affects the implementation of your plan you need to be able to make precise, strategic moves on the fly.
One thing you do not want to do is panic. This is the easiest thing to do. Perhaps the economy slows or some news event negatively impacts the acceptance of your offer…don’t panic, these things can be used to your advantage. The last thing you want to do is get scared and turn things off in fear of wasting money. This will kill your business.
You need to be more aggressive during slow markets as this is usually the best time to get the most exposure and branding for the lowest possible price. When the market picks back up, which it will, your company will be positioned nicely while most other companies will be scrambling to get the same expsoure.
You also need to use all press, negative or positive, to your advantage. One of the greatest things about the media is that they will provide you with some of the best advertising and exposure and if you position your company and marketing right.

Marketing Plan Success

By following the steps above and truly investing yourself into your marketing plan, your product, service, business and company will receive the exposure, branding and positioning it needs to be successful.
The best advice we can give, as a summary to everything outlined above, is to never get stuck in your traditional ways of marketing.
There are so many ways to market a business these days and if you are not creative and strategic with how you market your business, then success rate will drop exponentially. Don’t get stuck in the old fashioned ways of marketing you may have learned in school or from your first boss. The Internet alone holds so many different ways to market your business that are cheaper, have a much further reach, and are much more cost effective.
The biggest advantage with Internet Marketing is that people are constantly using the Internet to find information or products they want to buy. In other words, they are specifically asking for someone to advertise their services to them and prove that they should go with them. This is called Inbound Marketing and it generates the best type of customer. Take advantage of the methods that the Internet offers and your business will grow faster than you could ever realize.

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