Failing To Plan For Your Website - Is Planning To Fail

The good news is that marketing plans are relatively easy to develop, especially with help from your web hosting provider.

Would you hop into your car and venture off on a 1,500 mile trip across the country without a map or directions of any kind? Probably not. Would you
prepare an elaborate dish that you made for the first time and serve it to dinner guests without even consulting a recipe? Highly unlikely.   

Then why do so many people launch ecommerce sites without a marketing plan of any kind? Or they build their site and THEN develop a marketing plan. This type of “cart before the horse” mindset will almost guarantee failure. As the old saying goes: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” 

The good news is that marketing plans are relatively easy to develop, especially with help from your web host. Your host can show you strategies that have worked for other companies and help tailor one to meet your specific goals.

There are literally thousands of articles on the web that offer helpful information about how to build and sustain an ecommerce business site that will help you meet and exceed your business goals.  Ecommerce Digest offers an ebook titled “Advanced Ecommerce” that will guide you through the process step by step.

The basics of ecommerce marketing are essentially the same as brick and mortar business marketing except that you have many more options. With an ecommerce site your customer will have access to information about your business 24 hours a day 365 days a year. You can use audio, video and so much more. Most importantly, your customer will be able to buy from you 24 hours a day – even while you sleep!  It is no wonder that ecommerce is the fastest growing segment of our economy. It allows even the smallest businesses to reach a global audience with its product or message at a minimal cost.

The primary objective of ecommerce marketing is to create a strategy to deliver the right messages to the right people that will entice them to visit your site. Once there, you want them to become a customer.

Sounds simple enough, but where do you start? That’s a good question because often the single biggest challenge is simply knowing where to begin. In order for your marketing strategy to be effective, you should start by gathering information about your type of business and also about the larger business environment on the internet. Information about the external business environment is readily available through articles and industry news. You must have a clear understanding of what internet shoppers are looking for and build your site to capture that interest. Marketing campaigns that involve coupons, discounts or time-limited offers can generate product interest. It is important to use the offers sparingly or your long term sales may be hindered by customers who are “waiting” for the next special offer before they make a purchase.     

Make sure that the marketing plan you develop is long-term. Short term marketing strategies may create sudden sales spikes that usually don’t last. While short term marketing may produce sales, only long-term marketing plans can sustain sales.

One of the most critical aspects of long-term ecommerce marketing is preparing and optimizing a site for search engines. Most surfers use key words to search for the product, service or information they are seeking. Knowing your audience and optimizing your site for keywords is critical to being found on the internet.   

Here are some things to consider before you develop your plan:

• Find out what your potential customers want by surveys, market research and visits to competitor sites.
• Check out the competition. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Set yourself apart by offering an exclusive benefit that your competitors either can’t or won’t copy.
• Develop a budget. How much time and money will be needed to get the results you are seeking?
• Construct a timetable for traffic levels, conversion rates and sales.
• Devise clear contingency plans.
• Look at potential new markets.
• Make it flexible.
• Decide how you will adjust your plan to accommodate growth.

Once you develop your plan, decide how you will measure success. Build in feedback systems and conduct frequent reviews. Ecommerce is dynamic and fast changing and what’s state of the art one day may be passé the next.  

Marketing is rooted in an understanding of how people instinctively think and feel. The only sure way of marketing an ecommerce business is to plan intelligently, follow the plan meticulously, assess results and keep modifying the plan as needed.

A little planning will pay off in big dividends. It often means the difference between failure and overwhelming success.

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