A MARKETING PLAN

     That's right, you will need one. Relax, it's pretty simple really.

     You would be surprised how many emails I get from people saying that a marketing plan isn't needed.

     Well, it is and I'll tell you why by giving you one.

     Every marketing plan has these steps:

     - Assessing your competition

     - Looking at the market in your sector

     - Understanding what your business is and where it fits

     - Finding out who your buyers are and where they are

     - Reaching your buyers and fulfilling your plan

     - Analysing your results

     Ok, before we go any deeper on each of these steps I strongly recommend you buy yourself the notebook and a pen I've been talking about since the start!

     This way you can outline ideas, draw whatever comes to your mind regarding your business, or take notes if you see or think something interesting.

     Don't take this marketing plan too serious when your starting out, but do write down your ideas and set targets.

     It's important to write down any ideas you get, they will most likely be useful in the future whether you can see it now or not.

     It doesn't matter how unimportant you might think they are, just write them down!

     Make sure you have a notebook near you at all times. A marketing plan is something you will need to revise once per month and have a complete revision every six months. A notebook will always be needed.

     A successful marketing plan is one that is frequently fine tuned to the new trends. Times change and so must your plan. Be aware and make adjustments.

     I suggest you keep a voice recorder handy if you have ideas at night.

     I don't know about you but I get my ideas when I'm sleepy. But usually am too tired and don't really have the strength to do much work.

     In the morning I feel full of energy to do things. If I write those ideas I can always recall them and actually do something about them.

     Many artists, painters, musicians, writers, confess to having had their best ideas at night, so I recommend you should harness the potential of those ideas before they slip away.

     Get a big A3 piece of paper in your bedroom or on your fridge and keep putting down ideas or thoughts/diagrams that will help you stay focused.

     Be creative! It's all about having fun!

     Ok let's have a deeper look at those steps again...

 - Assessing your competition

     Many business owners like to pretend their competition isn't there, but let me tell you right now, the most successful people in the world today keep an open eye to what their competition is up to! You should too.

     This will give you what I like to call free training.

     In fact, while writing this e-book I needed to use a pop-up window for one of my web sites. I didn't know how to do it so I scoured the Internet looking for that precious piece of code and didn't really have much luck.

     Then I remembered where I'd seen just the kind of pop-up I wanted. Well, needless to say, I went to my competition's website and "stole" the stuff I needed! It was an innocent thing really but this type of "stealing" has been going around for a while.

     For example, the big computer chip maker AMD "stole" the best selling Pentium technology by using a clever technique called reverse engineering,

     It's illegal to copy something and sell it for profit, so what they did was create a chip that didn't do all the things the Pentium didn't do. Clever isn't it?

     By monitoring and learning about your competition you'll get marketing strategies and ideas for your own business. You can even keep up with their offers by making your product that little bit more appealing to your costumers.

     You should know what products your competition is selling, how long does their web site take to load, what META TAGS they are using on their web pages (you can do this by opening their page and clicking VIEW at the top of your explorer window and then SOURCE).

     Find out what sort of promotions they are currently running.

     Find the answer to every possible question you can make about their business and develop your business so you are the best option at all times. That way you'll always be on top.

 - Looking at the market in your sector

     Even though you have to keep an eye on your competition, it's important to keep an eye on your market.

     If you were selling Betamax Home Videos about 15 years ago, you should have kept your eyes open for the new changes.

     The VHS format was already strong and today the DVD format rules the scene.

     Betamax? Many young people today don't even know Betamax ever existed! (I only did 'coz my parents were pretty poor and all they could afford was a Beta video when the VHS was the bomb))

     What I'm telling you is, you must keep an eye open and an open mind at all times.

     But this is not all of it. You should find yourself a quiet corner on your market and be the absolute best at it. Find a niche!

     If your going to sell books, sell how-to books only or cook books only. Do it so people will think of you whenever they need a cook book. Get the drift? Play with the idea and see what you get.

"In the land of the blind,
the one-eyed man is king!"

       There is a guy on eBay that sells bubble wrap! That's all he sells and he's making a fortune. He found a hole in the eBay market and he's getting his dreams come true, thanks to that.

     Finding your niche is very important to your success!

 - Understanding what your business is and where it fits

      This is where you should realise what your business is, and where you act according to it.

      If you're just starting, you'll be a small business. If you are starting a brokerage business don't out-stretch yourself, take easy steps instead.

     Whatever business you're starting, you can't advertise like a big corporation. Instead reach the small publications that are often overlooked. Be more face to face and more human, big corporations can't do this.

     Be smart. Know your potential, you might one day be a big corporation.

     Make a list of all the reasons why being a small business can be better for your buyers and develop on it.  This will mean your strength to getting out of the shadows!

      Adapt this sort of thinking to every aspect of your business. Write down the positive aspects of your business and make them even stronger and obvious to your target audience.

 - Finding out who your buyers are and where they are

     I'm going to advise you to read. Hold on, don't panic yet. I'm only advising you to read about anything related to your trade area.

     I mean, whatever your business is the chances are, there is a trade publication, or a trip to the library that is worth it.

     Find where your customers are. If you're selling fishing supplies join an online mailing list related to fishing or created by fishermen. That way, you'll hear from your customers about their needs.

     In worst case scenario you'll hear fishing stories that will help you realise new ideas or needs.

     For example...

    Ever thought of selling digital cameras so the fisherman can take a picture of the fish that is "this big"?

     I mean, a fisherman has a lot of time, ever considered what he could be doing with that time?

     I think you're getting the idea!

 - Reaching your buyers and fulfilling your plan

     There are several ways of reaching your buyers but here go a few:

           Newsgroups and mailing lists - Join the lists that include your target audience. You should take part of the debates and answer any questions in a responsible way. You should also leave your signature at the end of each reply.

           This will mean people will see your email address and also your web site which will very likely attract more sales. Many of the lists use Meta Tags which means sooner or later these pages will be indexed by search engines and people outside the list will probably end up seeing your signature on one of your posts, and visit your web site.

           Give and thou shall be given! Participate in whatever forums you can and soon enough you'll start building trust. This will translate into more visitors and more sales.

            Email advertising - Some people think email advertising is SPAM. I'm not encouraging SPAM. In fact, most of the unsolicited email only serves to annoy people. Most of this email gets deleted before it's even opened.

            So you ask now: "Peter how can I advertise through email?"

            Well there is something called Opt-in advertising. This consists of people who opted to become part of a list of users that wants to receive targeted offers through email.

             For example, a computer expert will always want to be informed about the best deals or newest products. So in order to be up-to-date he can become part of a list of users.

           Purchasing direct traffic - You can buy a direct traffic campaign online. These campaigns can be a little costly and the results can be surprising or disappointing. Just make sure you get the right audience and have the best marketing campaign running when you do this.

           A direct traffic campaign takes a while to setup but is something you should try when you have a little more money to spend.

           Newsletter advertising - Some newsletter owners will allow you to advertise either at no cost or by paying a small fee. This means you'd be advertising to a specific audience that would be just the people you want to be reading your ad.

           Writing a newsletter - Many people will tell you that if you really want to be successful online you should have your own newsletter.

           I agree that this will make things a lot simpler. The truth is, you don't really have to publish your own ideas exclusively. You could get your subscriber base to publish their articles in your newsletter, maybe by letting them run their own ads when they do so.

           The truth is, by owning your own newsletter and by creating the conditions for it to grow, you'll always have a huge amount of prospective buyers listening to you. That sounds like free email advertising to me!

           You could run affiliate ads for similar products and by endorsing them you'd be getting a huge amount of sales because these are your subscribers and they trust you.

           Nowadays it couldn't be easier to run your own newsletter and at Topica you can run your newsletter for free.

             Link Exchange - You can have on your webpage a link to someone else's website that has a product that compliments yours in some way. Of course on that website there would be a link to your own website. This is an easy way for webmasters to attract more traffic to their web sites.

             To set this up you must contact the other website owners and see if they are willing to work with you on this.

             Forming an Alliance - Maybe you know someone who sells a similar product to yours and there is a shared interested in developing a product together for mutual benefit? Shawn Casey and Frank Kern, two big internet marketers have done this with great success.

             Press Releases - The first time I got an ad out about an Internet Marketing opportunity I was developing, I got contacted by a magazine of great international reputation. They were asking me for a small fee BUT they were going to write a press release about me, and my story. PLUS they would advertise my website.

            What I'm saying is, look for opportunities with the media, no matter if it is radio, TV, magazines, newspapers. The chances are, running an ad or participating in interviews will get you exposed and can be very very lucrative once you have everything up and running.

            Make sure you get the opportunity to place an ad in a magazine and try to do it with some regularity.

              Banner Ads - These can produce interesting results. There are several companies responsible for the exchange of banner ads among billions of web sites. Results can vary but this is a good source of traffic for many web sites.

 - Analysing your results

     Make sure you're tracking what's going on with your business. Ask your customers where they first heard of you.

     Abandon the tactics that didn't work only after testing that target audience with at least more than one advert. You should try at least five ads per target audience or for as long as a month.

     I'm saying this as you might be new to a newsletter and are expecting results from just one ad. That's not how it works, trust is everything and it takes time to build trust.

     On another note, if one newsletter advert doesn't seem to work don't abandon the method entirely, you need repetition to produce results. Many people won't buy from you the first time they hear from you, so make sure you advertise more than once (twice in the same week if possible will help generate trust). But don't stick to it if you don't get results. Instead search for other newsletters.

     If at first you don't succeed try and try again! Persistence is the name of the game here.

     Ok, I just gave you precious advice on how to get your business moving. Now if you turn your marketing plan into a living creature that grows and adapts, you'll have the pillar to the growth of your business.

     Remember, YOU NEED THAT NOTEBOOK!!! A marketing plan that only sits in your head is as useful as a belly button.

     NOTEBOOK NOTEBOOK NOTEBOOK! Get one and start using it right now!

     Here's the first idea you could write down as it is the most important thing you should know:

      My goal is to acquire customers

     This piece of advice comes from within. Many people obsess about making sales. That's not what you want!

     Sure, you could be making sales and making money with ease even with the most uninteresting of products. But your real goal is to acquire customers and to constantly promote your products with them!

     It's the relationship you build with your customers that will get you more sales and fame through word of mouth. There is no way of beating this powerful method of marketing.

     Remember to give!

     Oh, and one more secret. This is the big one...

TAKE ACTION!

     Taking notes isn't all of it. You have to constantly review them and improve on what you are doing. Don't save it for later because later will never come. Do it now!

     By taking notes of your ideas and constantly getting them in motion, soon enough you'll be making money and lots of it. That's what it's all about!