Online Marketing Strategies:

Strategic Documents

By James Atkinson, LLB

Online Marketing Strategies - Strategic Documents: Because of the newness and rapidly changing technology of the internet, I suggest you maintain a number of strategic documents. These documents need only be a half a page or so each.

Once you have started the benchmarks documents, keep adjusting them so you’ll always have a continuing illustration of your overall progress.
 

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

When I first started marketing online much of my advertising was pretty weak because I had not worked out a USP. It’s going to be difficult to BRAND yourself – because most online businesses don’t have millions to do so (like Coca-Cola and Pepsi).

However, It’s relatively easy to create a USP where your product has unique features.

Where your competition is stiff and your features are similar to others in your field, I suggest you work on your USP in: “a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising” ( see below). What that means is you have to differentiate your product or service from your competition! There are other important reasons for determining a USP.

A USP is crucial when you are doing keyword research.

Rosser Reeves states the idea of “USP”:

• Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to the reader: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
   
• The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique – either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
   
• The proposition must be so strong that it can move mass million, i.e. pull over new customers to your product.
   

Marketing Action and Budget Plan

When you first start up your online business or begin internet marketing, your marketing budget will be very high. Of course you can’t make a Marketing Plan until you know what you want to market.

here is an example of a Marketing Action and Budget Plan. The items indicated in the plan are not prescriptive. Modify the plan to suit your own circumstances. What is important is to have a structured plan.

Of course you should spend as little or a much time as you wish in your online endeavors. The “Marketing Action and Budget Plan” is self-explanatory and you should adapt tasks items and allocated funds to your own requirements:

Month	Analysis, Test, & Track	Marketing Campaigns	Time Allocated: Monthly	Funds Allocated	Actual Cost	Planned Result	Actual Result
January
	Daily	Adwords: Search Network	10 Hours	$	$	50 sales
	Daily	Adwords: Display Network	20 Hours	$	$	1,000 opt-ins
	Monthly	Social Networking: Blogs	30 Hours			SE Ranking; plus 50 opt-ins
	Monthly	Social Networking: Videos	30 Hours
		Social Networking: Forum	20 Hours
	Monthly	Educative Content	30 hours			SE Ranking
	Weekly	eMail Campaigns	30 Hours			100 sales
	Weekly	Banners
February
	Daily	Adwords: Search Network	10 Hours	$	$	50 sales
	Daily	Adwords: Display Network	10 Hours	$	$	1,000 opt-ins
	Monthly	Blogs	30 Hours
		Videos	30 Hours
	Monthly	Educative Content	30 hours			SE Ranking
	Weekly	eMail Campaigns	30 Hours
		Social Networking
	Weekly	Banners				50 opt-ins
March
	Daily	Adwords: Search	10 Hours	$	$	50 sales
	Daily	Adwords: Content	10 Hours	$	$	1,000 opt-ins
	Monthly	Blogs	30 Hours
		Videos	30 Hours
	Monthly	Educative Content	30 hours			SE Ranking
	Weekly	eMail Campaigns	30 Hours
		Social Networking
	Weekly	Banners

Your budget depends upon your staff levels (if you have any), the technology you use, and the level of outsourcing, delivery, support, and so on.

If you make the plan in excel or similar spreadsheet software you can have a large numbers of items to keep track of. The image above gives you an idea of some of the online marketing items you need to cover.

The marketing suggestions are simply a guide – but they act as a starter for you to begin thinking about your Marketing Action and Budget Plan. The Monthly Time allocations are not suggested allocations – they simply add up to 170 hours per month – a full time job.
 

Long Term Online Business Objectives

It’s important to maintain long term objectives for your online business. What you are trying to achieve with your internet business?

You only need to keep this document to one or two paragraphs.
 

Financial and Business Strategic Objectives

It’s also important to know your long term financial and strategic objectives. What do you need to earn with your eBusiness? How will you achieve it? You only need to keep this document to one or two paragraphs.
 

Web Site Objectives

It’s important to have a very firm idea what your web sites are trying to achieve. There are a number of different possibilities.

For example, I have found that a pure educative content site coupled with separate sales sites is best. Your site plans are dependent upon your online business model. I’ll explain this later in the book.

For a roadmap that includes all of the major strategic online issues see: SEO Strategic Roadmap. In the alternative we provide online strategic services.

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