Effective Internet Marketing Begins With A Business Plan
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010Effective internet marketing begins with the business plan. One of the reasons that franchises are such a popular offline business model is that they present a plan for making hamburgers or tutoring kids. Having a plan is one of the most important things in business and a key component of effective internet marketing.
The first thing I want to ask you is whether you want to have an internet marketing business or an internet marketing hobby. There’s nothing wrong with making a couple hundred dollars a month doing something that is kind of fun. But it’s not a business. It’s a hobby. Effective internet marketing means treating it like a business.
The first step of your plan needs to be your long range strategic goals. How much do you want to be making? What are your resources to get there? Steven Covey made popular the saying “begin with the end in mind.” That means, look down the road 5 years or so and find out where you want to be. Then you can plot backwards what milestones you need to meet to get there.
Your plan should be divided into long term (5 year), mid term (1 year), quarterly, monthly, and daily objectives. This way, you stay on track.
Additionally, you need to develop systems for everything you do. If you plan to outsource your article writing, set up a system for everything from hiring your writers to how they deliver the content to you. If you systematize the plan, you will get better results. One person posted a question about why his writers never gave him titles to the articles. A responder asked him whether he had asked them to. If you have a system in place, when you bring on a new writer, he or she will know exactly what you expect of them.
Effective internet marketing also means developing a budget and sticking to it. Internet hobbyists buy every WSO or course on the market. They dabble in one thing, listen to an ecourse, buy a domain name they never use, etc. Someone who is marketing on a business developed budget will buy only the things he or she needs to move their business forward.
As you put together a real business plan for your internet marketing business, you will find that you are making a lot more money. It stops being something you are playing at on the evenings and weekends and starts to take shape as a “real” business. Pretty soon, you will find that you can leave your day job and make the online world your primary source of income. Many people have done this before you. More, though, have played at it, and said, “internet marketing doesn’t work.” Those are mostly people who didn’t have any real plan.
Do you want to have a hobby or a business? The answer to that will determine how successful you are. Always remember that effective internet marketing is a business and you need a plan.
