Is your Business’ Internet Marketing Plan Effective?

Many business owners I speak to rush in excitement to do everything they can to market their business. They post countless social media posts, add clever lines on their website, create a new logo, and continue to push hard until they’re worn out. They aren’t worn out because they lack passion for their business, they are worn out because they don’t see the results they imagined.  Building an effective internet marketing plan for your business is crucial to the success of your business.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

-Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was a wise man. Lincoln knew that preparing for a task or goal before you attempt to accomplish the goal will yield better success than simply attacking the problem without a plan. The same can be said for your business’ internet marketing plan. Let’s review 10 internet marketing plan components that are important to your business’ success.

 

How is your internet marketing plan coming along? Do you know which keywords you’re ranking for? We’d be more than happy to review your web presence and provide you with a free consultation.

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10 Internet Marketing Plan Components

1. Building your Brand

The first component of your internet marketing plan should start with your branding strategy. Here’s a checklist for you:

• Does your brand have purpose? (Why do you do what you do?)
• Have you positioned your brand in the market? (How are you different from the competition)
• Does your brand have a promise to your customers? (excellent service, quality, speed, etc.)
• Does your brand have beliefs? (taking care of your employees, social or political causes, etc.)
• Does your brand have its own personality? (funny, informative, clever, etc.)
• How is your brand’s look and feel? (graphics, logo, colors, etc.)

You can read a thorough post on branding strategy here.

 

2. Learning your Competition

The second component of your internet marketing plan should include learning about your competition. Here are some questions you can ask about your competitors:

• How are they positioned?
• Which marketing mediums are they using?
• How does their website look and function?
• How much market penetration do they have?
• How many keywords does their website target on search engines (and how many appear in the top 100 positions)?

3. Learning your Customers

The third component of your internet marketing plan should include learning who your customers are. This is so important in building an internet marketing plan so that you target the correct people in your efforts. Here is a post on how you can building a business marketing persona.

 

4. Building your Website

The next component of your internet marketing plan is establishing your digital hub, also known as your website. It’s so important to have an effective website that is visually appealing, strategic, and fully-functioning. In marketing, perception is reality. Your website can make or break your business. Learn 10 great tips how to build your website strategy.

 

5. Building your Content Strategy

A content mapping strategy is a great way to build the right content for the right customer at the right time.

1. I typically start by creating a spreadsheet with 1 product/service per tab. For each product/service, I list out each persona (customer segment) on the first column of my document.
2. The second step is to use the next 5 columns to define the lifecycle stages. Many marketers will use only 3 stages of the lifecycle stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. I like to add a fourth, brand advocacy. These are your customers who engage with you and boldly express how much they love your products. They are willing to go the extra mile because they love your products and what your brand stands for. The fifth stage, recurring purchases, is the customer who now trusts your brand and buys your products repeatedly.
3. The third step is to define a problem or opportunity your persona(s) need help with. You can list these under each persona respectively.
4. The fourth step is to create content ideas for each problem/opportunity corresponding to each of the 5 stages in the customer lifecycle.
5. The fifth step is to define which mediums your content ideas should be found. These can include specific social media channels, email, blog, videos, and many more types.
6. The sixth and final step is to create your marketing content for each stage and assigning a date to publish or post. This is by far the most time-consuming aspect of the content mapping strategy.

Content creation is a MASSIVE job to do properly, but it’s an important part of any internet marketing plan. From my experience, successful campaigns need to be well thought out, clearly defined, and measurable. Data is so vital in determining successful aspects of each campaign and the success of the overall campaign.

 

6. Building your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

The next internet marketing plan you need to think about is a solid SEO strategy. SEO is important because it positions your website on search engines so that people can find you. SEO strategies should be a major consideration in the website design process. Your on-page SEO needs to be highly optimized, and you need to work your tail off to build an effective off-page SEO strategy. Here are some questions to ask yourself to evaluate how effective your SEO strategy is:

• Do you know which keywords you should be targeting for your business?
• Do you have the data to back up your decisions to choose those keywords?
• Have you written your copy specifically to target keywords in your strategy?
• Do you track traffic to make sure your SEO strategies are working?
• Do you track your search engine ranking position (SERP) for each keyword you are targeting?

These are just a few questions to evaluate your efforts. SEO is an ongoing process that takes a lot of effort and time, but the benefits are a beautiful thing!

 

7. Reaching your Potential Customers

The seventh internet marketing plan strategy you should have is how you’re reaching your potential customers. When I worked at the University of Miami, about half of our leads came from SEO. The other half came from paid advertising, email marketing, social media marketing, and other strategies. Here are a couple questions you can ask to see how you’re doing:

• Do you have a social media strategy?
• Do you have an effective advertising strategy? Some channels may be better than others for your specific business and even your specific products and services.
• Do you have a lead generating strategy that funnels into an email marketing campaign (drip campaigns)? Savvy business owners know that leads often need more convincing to become customers.

8. Communicating with your Customers

The next internet marketing plan strategy that you should be on top of is being able to communicate with your customers. Whether you’re speaking to them via email campaigns, social campaigns, or other strategic campaigns, your customers are your best brand advocates. Tapping into them allows you to tap into their networks and brings a trust factor that is invaluable for others deciding which products or services to purchase. Here are some questions to see how you’re doing:

• Do you regularly send out messaging to your current customers?
• Do you make your customers feel special?
• Do you ask your customers to help you? (reviews, sharing, etc.)
• Do you cross-sell other products and services to your customers?
• Do you develop viral campaigns that incentive your customers to help you?

9. Building a Positive Perception of your Business

The ninth internet marketing plan component is building a plan to promote how great you are. No, I don’t mean you personally speaking about how great you are, I mean, getting your customers to do that for you! Reviews a crucial piece of getting weary potential customers to try your business. Let’s take a look at some amazing statistics from Forbes:

1. 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. (2016)

2. Online reviews have been shown to impact 67.7% of purchasing decisions. (2015)

3. 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. (2016)

4. 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more. (2016)

How are your efforts coming to get positive reviews from your customers?

 

10. Analyzing and Tracking your Efforts

• The final internet marketing plan step is to make sure you’re tracking everything. Google Analytics is your (free) friend! Answer these questions to see how you’re doing:
• Do you track where your traffic comes from on Google Analytics?
• Do you utilize Google UTM builder for all campaigns driving traffic to your website?
• Do you utilize Google goals on Google Analytics?
• Do you utilize Google tag manager to track events on your website?

Need some help on your internet marketing strategy? Contact us for a free consultation – we look forward to speaking with you!

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“X Factor” is defined as “a variable in a given situation that could have the most significant impact on the outcome.” BartX is the “X factor” your business needs to thrive. Our internet marketing company uses the power of the internet to help your business grow by finding a unique marketing formula for your unique business. We know that you’re passionate about your business. That’s why we offer solutions customized to fit your unique business needs, goals, and expectations. Whether you’re searching for a partner to manage your online presence or a full-service digital marketing company to design and boost your website to the first page on Google, we can create a package just for you. Some of the services we offer include web design services, SEO services, local SEO services, social media marketing services, and PPC management services.

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