Free Sample Marketing Plan to Develop a Successful Online Business

October 2nd, 2010 | Posted by admin in Business - (0 Comments)

This sample marketing plan will show you how to get your new online business off to a great start by preparing for marketing, establishing your website in the marketplace and then to penetrate the market.

Most sample marketing plans I’ve come across so far have everything backwards.

Plans like that do not work because you cannot just set up an expensive website, with an expensive advertising campaign, with the hope that your product will sell. Find out first if there is enough demand to keep you going (even in the leanest times – or have a backup plan) BEFORE you go and blast away all your money on empty promises.

Let’s look at the key components of our sample marketing plan:

1.  Market Research

A) Target Market: “My site will cater for Chefs”

First, focus on finding a niche that will create good demand for different profitable products. Do some internet traffic research using relevant keywords for the niche market that you are interested to sell to. Only once you found a profitable niche market can you research a profitable product for that specific niche.

It is better for a new business to start off using keywords with less competition first, to give you a head-start in your ratings.

This strategy will save you a lot of money and your efforts will have greater impact.

B) They will need, knives, spatulas, pots, pans..

If you are happy that the niche market you want to sell to has enough profit potential, and you have double checked that it receives a lot of visitor attention, you can continue to step 2. If not, find and research a different niche market. It’s no use starting of with a bang if that market is dead and doomed from the beginning.

For example: It’s like still trying to sell one of those old cassette tape decks, but everyone is only interested in mp3 players nowadays.

2. Objective: “The profits will finance a new kitchen”

What is your objective from using this marketing plan? Make enough money to pay for college or replace your salary? Be able to stop the commute to work and rather work from home? Only work on your website as a hobby? Spend 2 hours a week on your site?

Pick a specific objective, and set a S.M.A.R.T target.

(S – Specific, M – Measurable, A – Achievable, R – Realistic, T – Timed)

Don’t be vague like: “I want to make as much money as possible”

It’s easier to achieve specific goals.

3. “$1000 will be used for advertising”

Setting a budget is a very important step. There are a vast amount of ways to drive traffic to your website. Some are free, some affordable and some are expensive.

Calculate and then decide what amount of money you have available and this will help you to determine what tools and strategies you need to use to drive traffic to your website.

4. Tools: “Hand me the eggs and onions, please”

Invest in the necessary tools that you need to promote your website. For example: you must be able to capture leads and follow-up with your prospects. Get a reliable auto responder for this purpose.

You must also be able to research new keywords with ease, monitor your site in different ways and track the source and behavior of visitors.

5. Goals and Strategies: “Queen to H2, Checkmate!”

Decide what your short term and long term goals and strategies are going to be.

The quickest and easiest but expensive way to generate traffic and leads for any business is pay per click (PPC) advertising because it can bring you immediate results.

PPC can also help you drive targeted traffic to your website. The downside of this strategy is that when you have no money to advertise, you also have no traffic.

Pay per click marketing can only be considered as a short-term solution for generating targeted traffic and leads fast, but it is also one of the most expensive ways to advertise your business.

However, if you also use other marketing strategies it will generate traffic to your website in the long term. This can be accomplished with very low or even no cost at all.

It is therefore important to have other affordable, but very effective ways of generating traffic to your website, sending traffic to your site in the long term. Article marketing, blogging and forum participation are some of these less costly ways of generating traffic to your website.

Make the most from your marketing efforts by implementing the steps given in the sample marketing plan.

Read more Internet Marketing articles and get more info about Marion at get-that-click.com

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Your Guide to Developing a Successful Marketing Plan

September 29th, 2010 | Posted by admin in Business - (1 Comments)

PART A

Where does your marketing plan begin?

It’s been said that “vision without action is simply a dream”. And this is certainly true with marketing. A brilliant idea will just sit there stagnant and unformed until you actually move it into action. The process of moving your idea into ‘action’ by giving it a distinct direction is called a plan.

A marketing plan sets out a ‘framework of actions’ required to achieve one or more marketing objectives and can be put in place for products, services, brands or product lines.

What is the life of a marketing plan?

Normally a marketing plan covers a period of one to five years. However, most organisations annually review their strategy and only focus on planning one year in advance.

How should your marketing plan be displayed?

Your marketing plan needs to be formalised into a written document. This allows you to navigate the ‘formal marketing plan’ from broad organisational objectives down to individual action plans for each marketing campaign.

Be aware that this is a highly interactive process which will involve many drafts and revisions. This allows the impact of each stage to be reviewed and amended accordingly.

The sections of a marketing plan

A marketing plan contains several sections. In ‘PART A’ we discuss the first two components of a marketing plan.

Executive Summary and Challenge

The executive summary always comes first. It is a high-level summary of the marketing plan written in an easily digestible format. The executive summary doesn’t delve too deeply into the specifics – it only outlines the overarching theme and eventual result of the plan.

The next section is the ‘Challenge.’ This usually involves a brief description of the product being marketed and outlines specific goals and targets. For example, a target may be to achieve 1,200 sales for the financial year 08-09.

Situational Analysis

This is where you conduct a detailed SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

You first look internally at an organisation’s strengths and weaknesses. This also includes analysing the organisation’s goals, focus, corporate culture and market share.

Then you must focus on the wider external environment and become aware of all the opportunities and threats operating in this arena.

Ask yourself – who is this marketing plan aimed at? Then analyse your customers in terms of demographics and core values so that you can determine their key buying behaviours.

Remember, you cannot afford to take your eyes off the competition. Make sure you understand your competitors’ market position, market share, strengths and weaknesses. On a more complex level, be mindful of collaborators such as subsidiaries, joint ventures and distributors.

Finally, there is the macro view – don’t forget to consider the political and legal environment, economic conditions, sociocultural situation and advances in technology. Look at how these current conditions will affect your product and customers.

At Hands On Design, we provide cutting-edge technology and solutions custom-fitted to yourself or to your business, but we also know that the best way to personalise something is to ensure that we work with the person behind it. That’s why we stand by our name. It’s more than a motto. It’s who we are.

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3 Elements of Successful Marketing Planning

September 27th, 2010 | Posted by admin in Business - (0 Comments)

Many small business owners and managers approach marketing in a shotgun approach. They throw money at different marketing activities and hope that something hits their target. In most of these cases, the results are poor. Owners and managers start blaming the radio stations, the ad agency, or even the marketing consultant who told them marketing was the most important activity of their business. They don’t understand the need to plan and map out their marketing efforts. Planning is key to reduce marketing costs and increase effectiveness.

Why create a marketing plan?

When an entrepreneur starts a business, they decide on the product or service, determine where they are going to get it, and plan on how they will sell it. Most owners and managers don’t realize that this planning actually coincides with marketing planning, but in order to be successful a conscious effort has to be applied to planning marketing activities that correlate to creating the product or service and selling it.

As we discussed in the marketing concept of consistency, marketing must be consistent. In order for marketing to be consistent, it must be planned. You must plan each step of your marketing just as you do a business plan. Most businesses have realized the need for a business plan. It helps to guide where the company is going, what is expected, and what they will do when they fail or succeed. These are the same reasons for creating a marketing plan. You must know what the goal of your marketing is, how much you are budgeting, the expected results, what to do if you exceed or fall short of your goals and expectations, and how to relate your marketing to the rest of your company.

What is the difference between planning and strategy?

Planning consists of your marketing roadmap. It tells you where you are starting, what’s your end point, and what the path is to get there. Your organization’s goals are included in planning. Budgets, analyses, and forecasts go into your planning.

Strategies are how you accomplish your goals and forecasts. In fact, strategies are part of the plan. Strategies tell you how you will get from the starting point to the end point and the specific way you will take your planned path. Strategies consist of the action steps that you will implement to obtain the forecasted results. To sum it up, planning creates the big picture and strategies make up the individual parts of the big picture.

What goes into marketing planning?

Marketing planning is typically conducted by your executive staff. The top-level managers usually provide input and feedback for the necessary goals and objectives to make your company successful and maintain a high level of growth. If you have a dedicated marketing department, they will ultimately be responsible for the marketing plan and its contained strategies, but the entire company must be involved in creating the basic outline of your marketing plan.

The marketing planning should begin with an overview of your business and what you intend on selling. When starting here, you should define your business specifically and break down your products and services so that everyone involved understands the basis for all of your marketing planning. Your marketing planning should consist of goals and objectives that relate to the goals and objectives of your business plan. From there, you should analyze your target market, competition, strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities (SWOT). You should also include what you are budgeting for this marketing plan so you can plan strategies correctly. Forecasting your expectations will give you benchmarks to evaluate your marketing planning, which leads to the need to determine how you will assess your results and what types of metrics need to be installed to successfully review your progress and success or failure.

Creating a roadmap is vital to being successful in business and marketing. Marketing can be expensive, wasteful, and ineffective if not properly planned. The old adage, “Failure to plan is planning to fail,” is very true in the realm of marketing. Even though many of today’s marketing activities include free and low-cost tools such as social networking, engaging marketing activities without planning can become expensive in regards to time spent.

Nate Stockard offers free consulting at freemarketinganswers.com, created by Stockard & Associates, Inc, a marketing and design firm in Houston, TX specializing in small business solutions.


His 13 years of marketing experience is also put on display at The Market Seedling, an informative source of information, articles, tips, and advice for small business owners and marketers.

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How To Write A Successful Home Based Business Plan

June 21st, 2010 | Posted by admin in Business - (0 Comments)

Before writing a business plan for a new business, consider these issues. What makes your product or service different and what needs does it fill? Who are your potential customers and what will make them purchase from you? How will you market your product or service? Where will you get the capital to start your business?


Begin with a cover sheet that includes the name, location, and telephone number of the business and the name of the person who wrote the business plan. Use a loose leaf binder to package the plan and to facilitate any revisions.


Keep it as short and crisp as possible. Include a one or two page executive summary with an overview of the most important issues in the plan. Include the business niche, marketing strategies, management strategies and finances. Organize it with a table of contents that shows logically arranged sections and appendices.


Identify your target market in the plan. This is very important. Indicate whether the market is growing, steady or shrinking. Provide extensive details about competitors, including their strengths, weaknesses, and all other estimated market shares. Include your pricing strategy and how you plan on marketing and promoting the business.


Explain the benefits of your product or service to the user or consumer. Describe how it is unique and its appeal to customers. Include information about your business location, current and future space requirements and area demographics. Focus the plan toward the future. Attempt to develop industry trends over the next three to five years.


Highlight current and potential problems and demonstrate how they will be overcome. This will enhance your credibility.


How to strengthen your home based business


Just as you build marketing structures for each new year, it is possible to design profitable small business enterprises as well. As a business owner, sometimes you have to ask yourself, “what can you do that will make your existing or brand new business venture better, healthier and stronger?


Here are a few suggestions you need to take in consideration when attempting to strengthen your home based business:


First you should write or update a business plan.

If you have a business plan, when did you last update it? Are all the main key elements up to date? Has the environment changed? Has the capital changed, etc? It is a must that you update your business plan frequently. This is one of the main things that private investors, companies, and organizations look for when deciding on financing your business. If you don’t have a plan, it is time to craft one to properly evaluate your home business goals and map your course toward reaching them.


Take a class or attend a workshop

These can be very effective. It is important that you learn to network and build long lasting relationships with people within your industry. You never know who can help you or you helping them. Also, as a business owner, the business can only go as far as you can take it. Why not consider upgrading your skills or learning new skills? If you can utilize your time and money strategically, it usually will pay big dividends in the long run.


Attending seminars, workshops, and conventions in your industry will also play a big role in the marketing of your business. They offer network opportunities, educational programs, provides members with services and information, and stand for the values that we as business people take very seriously. You will be surprised at the endless of opportunities for additional profits that you never knew existed with attending workshops.

Carael Knight is a very aggressive internet marketing expert.
MajorEnterprise is an Independent Internet Marketing And Advertising Company That Specializes In Boosting Website Sales.

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