Plan Your Internet Marketing Strategy to Start Getting Results
Posted on 05 November 2009 by jasonverdelli
In this post I want to share with you a key component of your internet marketing strategy that will save you a ton of time and will start working for you to see the results you want using the web. First, as I always mention, you want to determine the purpose of why you are going to use online social networking. Is it to increase sales, develop relationships with prospects, conduct research, receive feedback, etc. If you haven’t already read the article, “The Why of Social Media“, I suggest you do so you can apply that basic fundamental into this strategy.
With any successful venture comes planning. Imagine this for a second. You are getting ready to go on a trip to a place that you have never been before. Once you have decided why you are going on the trip you are going to need directions to know how you are going to get there. You then have the choice of medium in which you would like to access the directions. This could be through MapQuest, Google Maps, a Traditional Map Book, a GPS or a phone with a GPS built into it. There are a number of different ways to receive the directions that you are going to need. If you were me, you may choose the phone with the GPS built into it. Why you may ask? Probably due to the fact that a phone with a GPS built into it serves multiple purposes and can save a lot of time, space and money. Although all of the sources for maps may get you there, one in particular will serve your needs better. Also, the things you bring with you on the trip are all going to serve a purpose somewhere during your trip. This same type of thought process needs to occur when you are developing your map to success on the internet.
To make things even simpler with the analogy I have generated a key below to help you understand the relationship between planning a trip and planning your internet marketing strategy:
Clothing, Toothbrushes, Computer, Notepad, Recorder, etc. = Social Media Websites
Gas = Your value in time
Road = Order of implementation of your plan
People that you ask for advice and directions = your connections/followers
GPS/Map = Your plan in visual format
These are just a few items to relate to when determining how you want to structure your plan. So where do you start? First, at the top of a piece of paper write down all of the social media websites and/or tools that you are going to use to drive traffic to your blog or most frequently updated portion of your website. Then draw arrows down to the blog/website that you want them to visit next. This should be the most frequently updated part of your internet presence. For most, this will be your blog. The key thing that I want to mention is that as you move down your map you will want to list the places that are the most frequently used/updated down to the places that are mostly static (i.e. informational website). At the bottom of the page you will want to write down what you want out of social media. As you will see in the video, I have a SALE as a main goal. You will also see that I started with the social media websites that I use to built relationships and then start moving down closer to my website where I know people generally have to go before I make a sale.
Essentially what you are doing is creating a map of interconnected components (i.e. email marketing, blog, websites) that all serve a purpose. If you know that people must visit your website before you make a sale it is as simple as adding all of the components that drive people to your website. Any arrows that you have pointing horizontally will be components of your strategy that you will use to measure your results to see how effective you are in implementing your strategy. Any double arrows that go between two components mean that you are setting up a way to automate how either your content or traffic is being communicated – for example, every time I generate a new blog post I have my blog setup to create an auto message out to all of my social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and it even takes an excerpt of my post and embeds it right into LinkedIn. This would be a place on the map where I would put a double arrow. Your main goal should be to create more spots in your map where you can add double arrows. This means that you are setting up your communications across your social networks, website, email campaigns, etc. to automate with each other thus saving you a ton of time.
Now once you have determined how the components are going to work with each other and which ones are used more frequently, take a look at the part of your map that has the most arrows pointing at it. This is the component that you will spend a majority of your time. For me, this only happened when I started to automate the way my blog was updating all of my statuses on my social networks. Through the automation I started to add more arrows to and from the blog and thus the blog became the place where I spend a majority of my time. I particularly use the social networks to develop relationships and try to gain loyal readers to my blog.
Once you start paying attention to where the arrows are going you will have a better gauge as to where you need to be spending a majority of your time online. It is imperative that you watch the video shown below so you can grasp this concept even further.
Be sure to consider joining as a premium member so I can work directly with you to help you develop your own internet marketing strategy map so you can start saving time and become more effective online today. For your convenience I have posted a link here: Premium Membership Information.
Thank you for reading!
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Tags | email marketing strategies, internet marketing plan, internet marketing strategy, Internet Marketing Tools, online marketing strategy, planning internet marketing, social media strategy, website strategy, website traffic
