The marketing plan for an online business is essential for its success. Well planned efforts will reap the most results in web traffic, web presence and profits for a business. Creating an online business marketing plan is easy to do and sticking to it will ensure that you are meeting your goals and generating the traffic and business your company deserves.

Assemble a list of ideas that help promote your online business. This list should include various forms of advertising such as Pay-Per-Click, website advertisement, link exchanges, list building and search engine optimization.

Perform market research to determine which method is most effective for your business niche. An online business that sells products is more successful with website advertisement and search engine optimization than they will be with pay-per-click advertising and list building.

Set a budget for each quarter of the fiscal year that will be devoted to marketing.

Find the best software to decrease costs. Especially for companies that are just starting out, performing your own marketing can save thousands of dollars. A good SEO program will cost around $400 for one year and a social media automation program will cost approximately $40 per month. The savings are substantial to hiring someone else to do this work. Keeping money in your pocket for a few extra hours of work each day is worth it.

Draft a one-year marketing plan that outlines each month, the budget for each form of advertising and types of ads that will be used. For example, many companies bump up advertising efforts during the holiday season to boost sales and recognition for the coming year and for holiday purchases. You may want to offer special deals or discounts at this time as well.

Implement your marketing plan and monitor it closely. Not all marketing efforts are successful. By assessing your marketing efforts on a month to month basis after the first quarter you will be able to determine which methods are most beneficial for your business. With any marketing efforts for online businesses it takes 60 to 90 days to successfully start generating high volumes of traffic to a website.

If you want to increase your marketing results and get more qualified leads, you will need to improve the effectiveness of the copywriting on your website, print ads, emails and direct mail.

This is vital because copywriting is your “salesperson in cyberspace, in print and in the mail” … and great salesmanship produces great sales … average salesmanship gets only average or worse results.

Here are the copywriting tips that will improve your marketing results. These are proven based on our copywriting work for over 450 businesses since 1978.

This is a list of what your prospect is thinking as he reads your marketing copy. It’s important to make sure everything is addressed on this list. If you do this, your marketing results will improve dramatically.
1. You’d better have done your research to know what benefits I want most from your type of product or service. If you don’t, I won’t even notice you, and if I do, I won’t even give you a hearing.

2. What do you do? How will it help me? I need to know “what’s in it for me” instantly or I’m gone.

3. Why should I believe you?

4. I already have a supplier for that – why should I listen to you?

5. Make it easy for me to read, understand, navigate, and “scan” your marketing material.

6. I want a specialized expert in your field for my situation or my needs or my type of business.

7. Don’t bore me! I’m sick of corporate talk, business buzz terms and mumbo-jumbo. Almost all business marketing is very dull and boring and I won’t read it.

8. I want ALL the details and specs, including product information, product applications, CAD drawings and plans, costs and shipping. A
ThomasNet.com study finds a very large percentage of buyers say these details are not readily available.

9. I want to read copywriting from a real live person talking to me person to person, and not from some emotionless corporation.

10. I won’t admit it on the record, but I make purchases based on my emotions. Sure I need logic and features for verification, but if you can touch my emotions, I’m much more likely to buy from you.

11. I badly want more from my life than just work. I’m very interested in saving time, work and stress.

12. Make it easy for me! You list many different things I can do and I’m confused. What one thing should I do now and why?

13. Don’t overload your website or brochure with fluff – stick only to relevant and helpful information I need. I’m tired of all the irrelevant “filler” information on the web and I won’t read through it anymore.

14. Compare your product or service against your competitors for me if it is really as good as you say it is. Be honest, as I’ll see through any
favoritism.

15. Be specific; generalities go right into my garbage.

16. What’s your guarantee?

17. How can I test your product, service or company first, in a low or no cost way, before I make a large commitment?

18. Help me justify the investment to my boss on an ROI basis.

These copywriting secrets applied properly are a main reason one website, direct mail piece or ad can pull 2 to 3 times the response as another for the same product or service. This is why the most successful marketers hire the best outside freelance copywriters they can afford.