Plan Your Ecommerce Marketing Strategy Early in the Game
A Home Business Article Contributed by Donna m. Brown
A Website Marketing Plan is Key to Ecommerce
If a written marketing strategy is low on your list of "things to do" when creating your ecommerce business, move it closer to the top immediately.
You should begin executing a marketing plan before you ever launch your ecommerce website. Customers should be drooling in anticipation of your electronic grand opening. Marketing is the one tool that will drive people to your webpage. Your products, services and excellent webpage design is what will keep them there. You can't sell products or services if your customers don't even know you exist!
Steps to Creating a Well Planned Marketing Strategy for Ecommerce
Imagine where you want your business to be five years from now. What kinds of numbers to you expect to see on your bottom line? Don't generalize, think in terms of hard numbers and decide just how many customers will have to visit your ecommerce store - and buy - each minute, hour, day, week or month to get you there.
This will help you to determine just how hard you will have to work to help customers surf into your business instead of competitors throughout the world.
Now that you have some numbers in mind, set attainable goals. Don't be too hard on yourself, but don't be too easy either. Based on your five-year plan, determine what you need to accomplish today, tomorrow, this month and this year.
Hold a brainstorming session with yourself and your ecommerce employees. Ecommerce is tough business because there are so many competitors out there and such a small chance that customers will stumble over your ecommerce door with some crafty marketing and interesting enticements to get them there.
Once your website is up and running, you're web address should appear everywhere you look. Create business cards with your web address as the most dominant feature. Purchase ads in print as well as electronic publications that will point ecommerce shoppers toward your door. Focus on trade publications that cater to your type of customer. If you own an ecommerce survival store, frequent publications that your customers are most likely to read.
It is a grave mistake to assume that the Internet is all you need to promote your ecommerce store. Take advantage of traditional advertising methods such as radio and flyers delivered to areas of high concentration of target audience members.
Take the time to optimize your website so that search engines will find you first. Take advantage of every opportunity to add your link to websites of other ecommerce business owners willing to make a referral for you.
Name the strategies you will use, prioritize them and begin creating your plan of attack. Draw up a timeline and set deadlines for each stage of completion for your marketing strategy. Don't forget to earmark a significant chunk of operating capital for marketing purposes. Advertising can be expensive, but without it even ecommerce would die a slow cruel death.
How is Marketing Helping Your Ecommerce Adventure?
Once you have an established marketing plan in place, be prepared to change it. Track your results and do your best to determine the effectiveness of each marketing method. Ad tracking software is available to track all the links you place online. Create an online survey and ask your ecommerce customers how they learned about your business. The results can help you determine where to spend your advertising dollar.
Once you know where your advertising dollar is going and from where your customers are coming, calculate a rate of return based on the sales generated by each advertising method. Constantly evaluate your results and change your strategy to meet the ever-changing tastes of fickle ecommerce customers.
