Affordable Website Marketing Plans and Strategies
Possibly one of the biggest mistakes Website owners make is to
invest the majority of their budget into the development of
their Website while leaving only a small percentage of the
budget to actually market the site. Does this make any sense?
When developing your e-commerce business plan remember to
include reasonable marketing costs within your budget. The scale
and type of marketing required to market your site is relative
to your type of business. For example, if your business is
seasonal then your marketing requirements might be different
than if you operate a year round business. And if your product
is orientated towards teens your marketing requirements will
certainly be different than if you are selling pharmaceutical or
medical products.
Considerations for Your Website Marketing
Plan
Reasonable Internet marketing costs for small businesses could
range from $2000 to $10,000. Medium sized businesses are easily
investing $25,000 or more per year into their online marketing.
While there is no magic formula to calculate exactly how much
you should spend on Internet marketing it is important to
realize that some forms of marketing are more effective than
others. But no matter what type of marketing you do, if you do
not plan and manage it well then it may result in a lower return
on your investment.
Below are several factors to consider when developing your
marketing plan and budget.
1. Who is your target customer? Are you targeting teens,
doctors, parents, wives or husbands? This will help you
determine which type of Websites or portals to direct your
advertising.
2. What are your goals? Do you want to increase sales,
increase brand awareness, or sign members to your newsletter?
Knowing your goals could help you with the development of your
keyword phrases, ad copy, and landing pages. And may also help
to decide what specific type of marketing would be the most cost
effective for you.
3. Is your business seasonal or
year-round? If your business is seasonal then you may want
to focus more of your budget on pay-per-click and behavioral
targeted advertising. If you are a year-round business then
focusing your budget on search engine optimization might be a
priority.
Below are several effective Website marketing methods. When
developing a marketing campaign one or many of these methods
could be considered. A. Pay-Per-Click Programs -
this form of direct marketing displays your ad in the sponsored
section of the search engines and in the search engine network.
This is an alternative solution if you are not ranked on the
first page of the organic search listings. Pay-per-click is easy
to implement allowing Internet savvy website owners to instantly
create their own campaigns. Depending on the competitiveness of
your keyword phrases you could launch an experimental
pay-per-click campaign for as low as 100.00$ per month.
Pay-per-click is an excellent marketing solution if you only
want to market during specific seasons or holidays.
B. Search
Engine Optimization (SEO) - search engine optimization is a
long-term strategy taking up to eight months before producing
any measurable results. Implementing best practice SEO requires
unique skills and plenty of patience.
Professional seo
services could produce great returns on your investment, so
expect to pay no less than 1000.00$ for the services of an
experienced SEO professional. And always ask for references.
C. Behavioral Targeting - provides data that allows you
to investigate Internet user behaviors and patterns over periods
of time. Behavioral targeting allows you to manipulate the
consumers behavior by providing advertisements based on past
behavior patterns.
D. Shopping Engines- shopping engines are just like
search engines but show products in the search results. Most
shopping engines charge on a pay-per-click or a monthly fee
basis. Froogle.com, Shopping.com and Shopzilla.com are popular
shopping engines.
About the author:
Darren offers Website marketing and
SEO services to
businesses throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
