Dr. E Biz has the Prescription for A Healthy E Business!

review by Kamau Austin

Published on this site: February 10th, 2004

Dr. E Biz has the Prescription for A Healthy E Business!

Planning Your Internet Marketing Strategy written by Dr. Ralph Wilson AKA Dr. Ebiz.

Book Review By Kamau Austin

Since the Internet is quickly approaching a decade in commercial usage, now is the time to give pause and reflect on - what truly works for developing a successful e business. Obviously the well funded IPO, spend at all cost, dotcom strategies were a bust.

Nevertheless, it is easy to chronicle the burn cash and crash Internet companies of the late 90s and early 2000s. However, for the black business, small business, or minority business person looking to get a marketing advantage on-line, the questions still remains: where can they turn to get the 411 on e business success? Dr. Ralph F. Wilson AKA Dr. E biz, has both the prognosis and prescription for e biz success in his book Planning Your Internet Marketing Strategy published 2002 by Ralph Wiley & Sons.

Dr. Ralph Wilson, a Baptist Pastor with a Doctorate in Theology, is easily one of the most respected small business authorities and publishers on-line. Reading his book, destined to be an e business classic, shows why he merits this recognition. He starts out with a chapter on Comprehending the Opportunities for Doing Business on the Web, which is a good spring board for aspiring netpreneurs to ascertain the commercial viability of the web. Then Dr. Wilson covers both the tremendous opportunities and later some of the downsides of running an e business in his book. Many of the insights of Dr. Wilson are concurrent takeoffs of the classic works of Al Reis and Jack Trout in the marketing classic: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. He certainly is aplomb at being inspired by the insights of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and applying the style to the dynamics of the On-line world in his chapter entitled the 5 Mutable Laws of Web Marketing.

One of the most salient points of the book is the keen distinction that Dr. Wilson makes between a marketing plan (which is a central component of a full blown business plan) and a promotional plan. On-line Promotional plans like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, press releases, and writing free articles for ezines are all elements of the marketing mix of a marketing plan. These things help you to realize the goals of your marketing plan, but a marketing plan is more fundamental to your business than your various and sundry promotional efforts. Dr. Wilson explains the differences between the two in his book. He puts a focus on researching the viability of your Internet business in its nascent stages of development.

The approach Dr. Wilson takes makes good common sense because, you can have all the traffic in the world but, if you don't understand the basics of a good marketing plan (i.e. product development, differentiation, positioning, branding, pricing, your USP, identifying your target market, and exploiting a niche) all the site visitors in the world won't help your e business to survive. A credit to Dr. Wilson is his easy to understand writing style and lucid exploration of the difficult task of effective web marketing. He uncovers the subject with core subjects like Making Your Web Site's Purposes Clear, Defining a Unique E business Niche, Differentiating Your Company's Products, Naming Your On-line Business, and Budgeting for and Implementing Your Internet Marketing Plan. There are also two sobering chapters on Devising an Adequate Revenue Plan and SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).

Later he discusses "Budgeting and Implementing Your Internet Marketing Plan", which would be a real wake up call to those who still only believe in free Internet promotion for their business. Of course he closes with Writing Your Internet Marketing Plan. The only short coming I see with this book is it predates the usage of Word Tracker, Overture's Suggestion Tools, and similar web applications which can now be used to gauge Internet interest based on search queries of your products and services. Furthermore, these web applications can help you identify niche markets and interests for which to develop products and services.

Nevertheless, I give Planning Your Internet Marketing Strategy my Editor's Choice highest recommendation for black entrepreneurs, minority entrepreneurs, or any small business people who are looking for effective competitive tactics and strategies to run viable Internet businesses. This book gives realistic strategies for a small e business to find niche industries to survive amidst the Amazons and Ebays of the world.

Kamau Austin, helps small and minority business make more money, by creating, search friendly web sites. He is the owner of http://www.Ebizbydesign.com , http://www.Einfonews.com , and the creator of the Free Search Engine Promotion Tele-course
at: http://www.SearchEngineplan.com . He can be reached called free at 866-324-9669.