Not only is developing an Internet marketing business plan a very important part of starting an Internet business or project, it can also determine whether your project even begins.
For example, maybe you have to present an Internet marketing business plan, and you need your plan to be approved before you get funding or permission to begin. Maybe your Internet marketing business plan will be heavily scrutinized by expert marketers and potential angel investors who really want to be sure that you know what it takes to succeed with their money.
Or, maybe you’re not under that much pressure, but you still want to develop an Internet marketing business plan that assures that your Internet business project has the highest chance of succeeding.
Regardless of what your specific purpose is, we promise to do our best to deliver all the basics of creating and delivering an Internet marketing business plan that leads to confidence, approval, and success.
Now, before we get into the meat of this article, keep in mind that we’re trying to provide information for all types and sizes of businesses.
Some businesses are brick-and-mortar (physical) businesses that require office space and an Internet presence, while others are almost exclusively Internet-based and require very little physical inventory.
We’re trying to appeal to all sizes and types.
In the case of a very small (or even one-person) business, a lot of the business components mentioned below (such as manpower and resources) might not be necessary for your business. Because of this, creating an Internet plan for small business marketing might be fairly simple.
To begin, we have to take a look at the 3 core components that any Internet marketing business needs to succeed. Depending on the nature of your business, you may require more components, but the following 3 are essential to virtually all businesses. By understanding what these core components are, you can better understand what goes into the planning of a successful Internet business venture.
- Business component #1: Your business needs a product, service, or opportunity that people want or need. Plus, your ideal customer should be able to afford it.
- Business component #2: You need targeted traffic (visitors, prospects, leads, and potential customers) coming to your business’ site.
- Business component #3: Your site needs conversions. A conversion occurs when someone buys something, becomes a lead, or otherwise takes an action that helps further your business goals.
Those are the core components. Here are other ones to consider when thinking about your business plan:
- Business component #4: You need a way to be sure that your business can deliver the product, service, or opportunity that was promised to the visitor or consumer.
- Business component #5: Depending on what your business is, customer service is also good to have.
- Business component #6: Resources. These can be virtually anything your business needs to succeed. Personnel, operating location, servers, specialized individuals, suppliers, existing customers, a list of prospects…the list can be endless. If you can extensively visualize everything your Internet business needs to succeed, you’ll probably list most of the resources you’ll need.
- Business component #7: Manpower. Manpower can be part of your resources, and is also worth mentioning again. Manpower doesn’t just include numbers of people, but also, the numbers of qualified personnel you have in various positions. Depending on what the nature of the business is, IT staff, legal staff, customer service staff, technicians, and content producers are all manpower requirements.
- Business component #8: Training. Of course, training just depends on how well-trained your staff already is. If you’re simply releasing a new product or conducting a new project, you might only need to update your staff, rather than give them A to Z training.
- Business component #9: Research. You might have to present your Internet advertising business plan to a tough panel of experts. These experts know how to see the holes in a business plan, and they’ll throw a lot of hard questions at you. Your research will give you the confidence to answer some of their toughest questions.
There are many categories of research. To name a few, there’s demographic research, customer or market profile research, and keyword research. Keyword research is not only important when considering an SEO business plan, but if SEO is going to be a key part of your traffic generation method, SEO should be part of your overall plan.
Another thing that can give you confidence when presenting an Internet marketing business model is…
- Business component: #10: Statistics.
While research is more qualitative, you eventually have to present the hard numbers that will quantify just how realistic your marketing business plan is. Looking at the numbers will tell you if your plan is realistic, and good statistics will help assure any investors that your plan is solid.
Number of potential customers, how many you can reasonably reach, your conversion rate, the number of visitors you get per day, projected ad budget, total number of keyword searches a month, the total number of units you can move per month, projected sales each quarter/season…there are so many numbers that can come into play here. The key here is to know as many of these as possible, and incorporate them into your Internet marketing plan.
Those are most of the crucial components that any business needs. We’re sure you know this, and we only bring it up because a good business plan connects the dots between these different components. When it comes to the planning stage, you have to think: “How are all these components going to interact with each other?” “What happens at point A, B, and C?”
You really have to think like a systems engineer when creating a marketing plan. Here are some ideas that will help…
Internet Marketing Business Plan Ideas That Will Help You Create A Great Business Plan
Of course, not everything goes as planned.
- There are a number of core components that make virtually all successful Internet businesses what they are. Plus, in the planning stages of these businesses, there are potential problems that are seen far in advance, and taken into account while the business plan is being created.
Remember Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong…and at the worst possible time. Your business plan should cover most of the things that can foreseeably go wrong, and your Internet marketing business model should be designed in such a way that such problems don’t hinder the overall movement and flow of your business’ progress.
- That’s one good characteristic of great Internet marketing business plans: the person planning the business has identified potential delays and obstacles that might slow down the business’ success. By identifying these potential problems, and even mentioning them in the marketing or business plan, they help put you (or the people evaluating your plan) at ease, because the potential problems have been identified and addressed before they occur.
- Internet marketing consultants might be able to help you come up with a good Internet marketing plan. See if you can simply speak to one. They might give you ideas and tips that can steer you in the right direction.
- An affiliate marketing business plan, especially a long-term one, can come into play if your company or project will recruit the efforts of affiliates. An affiliate marketing plan can also be useful if your company or project will involve being an affiliate for another company’s products.
- Of course, your plan and presentation should be well thought-out, well-planned, and well-written. An Internet business sample marketing plan is in order here. It’s great that we’ve described things for you, and a sample marketing plan would help bring a lot of this together. We’ve found that MarciaYudkin offers a good sample marketing plan. Also, WebsiteMarketingPlan.com offers a free sample marketing plan.
- Though this goes a bit beyond the scope of this article, you should have good presentation skills when you present your business plan. If you haven’t made a lot of presentations before, don’t worry: knowing a good deal of what we presented here, as well as having an arsenal of knowledge will help you pass any scrutiny. Just be confident in that we’ve given you a very good chance of getting your project approved.
Internet Marketing Business Plan: Article Summary
In this article, we covered most of the core ingredients you need to create a solid business plan for your Internet marketing business. We’ve given tips, resources, and ideas that will help you put together a great business strategy. If you follow what we have to share with you, you’ll be confident in your ability to deliver a plan that gets approved and gets funded for your Internet marketing business.
We hope that this article has given you insight into what it takes to create a great Internet marketing business plan.
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