IMPLEMENTING YOUR MARKETING PLAN

Now it is time to implement your marketing plan. Identify a marketing team. This team can be formed from your business’ internal personnel and consultants, and people who have intimate knowledge of the Web, web marketing and (if you are a click-and-mortar) how the Web can be integrated with current marketing plans. In addition, find graphic designers, copywriters, and illustrators. Once the team is in place, it should plan and focus on strategic revenue goals. Don’t let the team focus on the number of hits your site receives due to an overall advertising, marketing and PR campaign while ignoring whether the campaign achieved the expected revenue goals. Make it clear as to who has the decision-making authority, who is responsible for what, and set out a clear timetable for each campaign’s completion?

Don’t forget to coordinate your marketing activities. What does this mean? Here are a few example: If you plan to unveil a campaign during the Super Bowl you must ensure your website and your web-hosting service and/or ISP have the facilities to handle the added traffic. If you are a brick-and-mortar, how do you coordinate special promotions? If you plan to offer a specific item as, let’s say, a two-for-one promotion, take steps to assure that there is adequate inventory. Also additional contact center help is mandatory when launching any kind of new campaign.

Marketing Venues

Your marketing plan should include marketing through several venues, such as print media, banner ads, affiliates, television ads, radio ads, newsletters, email, etc. However, with the Web’s extensive capabilities available for a reasonable cost, make it the cornerstone.

Consistency

Create a consistent marketing message for your website that reflects its mission and goals. This theme will provide consistency to your presentation and continuity over time. The theme can remain constant, although the look and content will certainly change. Always keep the look and content focused on your potential customers’ wants and needs and take advantage of any of your competitions shortcomings.

Analyze

Your marketing plan should become the basis for analysis of whether customer needs are being met through analyzing sales trends, customer’s comments, return numbers, requests for out-of-stock merchandise, repeat customers, surveys, etc. At some point consider offering new products — either related or unrelated to current ones — and go after new target markets or penetrate current markets more deeply.

Brick-and-Mortar Advantage

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, make use of it. How? By making certain that your website information is prominent in all of the advertisements for your traditional business and check that your website’s address is prominent on all your marketing and advertising material, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, shopping bags, giveaways such as hats and pens, etc. Also make your employees aware of the importance of promoting the online business.

If you are the owner of a successful brick-and-mortar brand, then you already possess a key advantage in you online venture — name-recognition. Just this fact alone will help make your website more valuable and allow it to obtain profitability more quickly.

Finally, institute a procedure to monitor the success or failure of your marketing activities. Will a formal marketing audit be performed? If so, what will be its scope? Will specialized audits be performed? If so, which marketing functions will be analyzed?



The Complete E-Commerce Book. Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based Business
The Complete E-Commerce Book, Second Edition: Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based Business
ISBN: B001KVZJWC
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 159

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