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Thread: Compiling a marketing plan for Internet business Stage 5

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    Compiling a marketing plan for Internet business Stage 5

    Planned content for this tutorial will include:



    Stage 5

    Compiling an online marketing plan is often the part where people get sidetracked. It seems like the easiest thing to accomplish in the online environment, but it is not.

    What do you do when you get bombarded by people offering you advertising if you haven’t got a plan?

    How do you judge if the offers that you do consider are worthwhile, if you do not have a plan?

    The content of the conventional marketing plan can be very useful and a very good to apply if you have the time to do so, but in this tutorial I will rather focus on the following.

    There are 4 steps by which a marketing plan is compiled.

    1. Defining the core marketing benefits of your product
    2. Planning your acquisition strategies
    3. Planning your conversion strategies
    4. Integrating a retention plan

    Defining the core marketing benefits of your product

    All online marketing material and website content will be designed around the basic human needs that most people have in common. Remember, the online business that you start will have only one goal and that is to make money. It doesn’t matter how beautiful or ugly the site is, only thing that matters is that it will make sales efficiently. Do not waste time on anything other than making that all important sale.

    The 12 basic human needs in no particular order are:
    • The need to receive attention
    • The need for purpose and meaning
    • The need of a sense of control
    • The need for status
    • The need for safety and security
    • The need of belonging
    • The need of love and intimacy
    • The need for happiness
    • The need to feel smart, clever and intelligent
    • The need for power
    • The need to feel sexy
    • The need to feel respected


    Note that money is not in the list. Money can actualy fall under several of the words in the list.

    These 12 basic needs are extremely important in order to be able to sell online.

    Once we completed our 4 step process, these needs will determine the content of our website and marketing material.

    In Stage 4 we have done niche research in order to find that product that we will sell. Now that we have the product we need to understand it so well that we will understand the human needs it will satisfy.

    What we will do now is define which of the 12 human needs will apply to our chosen product or service. Lets say our product is Widgets, we need to document whether or not widgets will;

    1. Satisfy our need to receive attention
    2. Satisfy our need of purpose and meaning
    3. Satisfy our need of being in control
    4. Etc

    If you look at successful sales techniques you will often find that good sales people will always focus on these needs to close a sale.

    “Just imagine how jealous your friends and family will be when they see you in this beautiful new shoes”

    “How good will it make you feel to know that you have the ability remember anything you want to memorise, on the first try?”

    “This system will help you achieve the success that only a 0.1% of the population of the world has ever achieved”

    There are so many, many more, but I am sure that by now you get the point.

    Your entire website and I mean ENTIRE website will be dedicated on focussing on these basic human needs. Although the above mentioned lines are not all powerful and accurate ways of achieving top sales, it should sounds very familiar to many of you that have encountered any good salesman in their lifetime.

    Now you should understand why you have purchased some verimark product from those infomercials on TV and why your better halve still do. They focus on the basic human needs and are to a large degree the only way to sell.
    Something I want to state right now is this. It is almost never the specifications of a product or its features that sell it, it is the need that it will satisfy.

    But how does it work?

    First you create the need, then you satisfy it, and boom, you have a sale! Needs is the primary motivating factor in any person’s life and your product or service must be the solution. Ask yourself what drives you to live this life? Then align it according to selling those driving factors to you visitors.

    Product Research

    Product research can be absolutely revealing. It can give you more and more ideas on how to sell your own product and show you where you have the edge on any competitors and where you might have a few gaps in your own product.

    Do some research using Google. First of all type your own product name within quote marks to find any other sites selling the same product.

    Eg “widgets”

    Next do a search on the key elements of your product and find competitors to your product or service. I normally use Excel for this purpose. According to a SWOT analysis document the following

    Strengths
    Weaknesses
    Opportunities
    Threats

    Understanding the impact that these 4 elements has on your own product will definitely make your own selling angle unbeatable and it will help you understanding how you will sell your own product in the social environment.

    A further benefit that it will bring is the better understanding of your consumer. For example you will do a search on Google for terms that include keywords of unhappiness and happiness.

    Eg; unhappy with widgets
    widgets sucks
    widgets great
    widgets good
    etc...

    This will give you a good indication what customers look for in your product and how you can use it to sell the product, compiling promotions and using other conventional marketing strategies.

    Planning your website content

    The next logical step would be to plan your website content. For this purpose you should download some Mind mapping software that will make it easy to keep track of all that you want to do.

    In general it is recommended that you have a website with at least 25 pages or more for SEO purposes. But there is one VERY important rule. Each page must squeeze into the sales funnel without being distracting to the visitor. More about this later…

    The sales funnel has one purpose and that is to offer the following;
    An irresistible offer of unbelievable value.

    Each page will create the need it targets, then make the visitor drool as the possibility of the impact of the solution that you offer them becomes more and more desirable as it offers solution after solution but not revealing the answer up to a point where the visitor is literally screaming to buy and start scrolling down to find the answer of the solution that you offer. But it also offers added value in additional specials, freebies and offers that squeeze the visitor in making the buying decision then and now.

    Create urgency

    Creating urgency should be a continuous factor that is integrated into every page. The visitor must buy now as there is limited stock, limited time or additional freebie stuff added to the sale as a onetime offer only.
    Mind Mapping your site

    Download Freemind and start listing the key needs that your product will focus on for the sale.

    Now branch out each and every desire to at least three pages targeting the specific keyword you identified in the previous stages of this tutorial.
    Divide each of them further into conversion factors, but no more than 2 per page.

    So in Freemind you name your website then branch out the key needs that will be targeted for the sale, then add the main keyword phrases to their specific needs. (These keyword phrases will also serve as the page titles for each individual page) You will safe this mind map as you will use it further for your marketing plan.

    Now that you know what your website content will be you will be able to do the next step and plan your Acquisition strategies.
    Last edited by Chatmaster; 22-Feb-10 at 08:04 PM.
    Roelof Vermeulen (Entrepreneurship in large organizations)
    Roelof Vermeulen| Rock flaps south africa

  2. Thank given for this post:

    Dave A (01-Dec-09), Faan (02-Dec-09)

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