Strategic Internet Planning
WordPress & Joomla Specialist
Strategic internet planning
You need on online marketing plan
Whether you have an existing business or you're a startup, you will have spent some time creating a Marketing Plan for you business and will have set aside a marketing budget based upon an expected ROI (return on investment).
Marketing online is no different! You need an Online Marketing Plan and a budget. Although that budget might just be your time and effort!
Know where you want to be and have a plan to get there!
Most businesses want to use the internet to keep existing clients or to get new ones. That doesn't usually happen by accident.... it needs a plan!
Part of the internet strategic planning involves asking yourself these questions:
- What are your online objectives? Why do you need/want a website? What do you want to site to do for you?
- What does your company do? What are you selling? List everything. How can we make it clear what you do or sell? Keep it simple and use the terminology that your customers use.
- Who are you? Do you have an existing brand/logo/colour scheme?
- How will you coordinate your existing marketing material with your online presence?
- What functionality do you need? Shop - blog - forum..etc?
- Who is your target audience? What are their needs/problems? Profile them... how old, what sex, where are they - local, national or international?
- How does your product or services meet their needs or solve their problem?
- Can you provide quality content that gives the visitor what they want?
- Who are your online competitors?
- Who comes up in the top 5 serps for you most important keywords? How are they doing it? What do they do well or do poorly?
- Can you compete? Can you match their online marketing budget?
- Do you have a USP (unique selling proposition)? Or a compelling reason for them to choose you rather than your competitor?
- Can you devote the time and effort needed into maintaining your website?
- What do you want visitors to your site to do? You will need meaningful 'calls to action'. At the very least, your phone number on every page.
- How can you satisfy the 'trust' issue? Let's assume that your visitor can see that you have what they need and are looking for - their next question is "Can they trust you to deliver it"? Can you show qualifications, awards, testimonials, case studies, the full name and address of the company, its status, registration number and vat number if appropriate?
- What legal requirements do you need to meet? Privacy and cookies, accessibility, data protection, trades description, distance selling regulations etc?
- How do you plan to measure your ROI on your online marketing budget?
Online the visitor is in control!
They decide when to leave your site, what to look at, what to read, what to ignore! And of course, whether to do business with you.
If you need help with your strategic internet planning do give us a call on 0115 9621218.
