How To Get Started Correctly And Avoid Marketing Failure
by Charles Kangethe
Published on this site: February 25th, 2004
A Problem For Marketers
Very often new marketers lack a solid success plan. Many start
with high hopes and great expectations, but in "failing to
plan, they plan to fail".
Here is how to start correctly...
Step # 1 - Planning
Your first task is a modified SWOT analysis.
- Strengths - Note your personal strengths in terms of
skills, knowledge, experience, and personality. How can you use
your strengths to give your business a competitive avantage ?
Be realistic and objective.
- Weaknesses - What are your weaknesses ? What personal
and business skills do you need to improve on ? How will you remedy
these ?
- Opportunities - What business opportunities will you
exploit ? For instance are you interested in selling digital or
"real" products ? Are you going to work largely alone
or are joint ventures your forte ?
- Threats - What issues do you forsee ? Identify the competition,
consider your cash flow, think about targeted traffic and search
engine ranking etc. How will you cope with each issue ?
Your next task is to create a business plan consisting of :
- Financial Plan - Here you write up your borrowing requirements,
your own capital stake in the business, and general business budgets.
- Marketing Plan - Detail your marketing and advertising
strategies. Set budgets for these key activities.
- Sales - Estimate sales levels and timescales when you
anticipate the sales.
For more details on constructing a business plan consult
Above all, your business plan must be realistic in the sales estimates
and it must not under estimate your time and money costs.
Step # 2 - Research and Find A Niche
If planning is the "road map", research shows the "destination".
Research and planning are simultaneous, parallel activities. One
is incomplete without the other.
- Product Centric Research :
Based on your SWOT analysis, define the business, products or
services you want to focus on.
For instance if you have a strong interest and experience in a
sport, or the breeding of a type of pet, you may choose to cater
for others with similar interests.
Being easier, most new marketers use a Product Centric approach
to define their business interests.
- Market Centric Research :
This is the difficult, but more likely to succeed, approach.
It focuses on identifying clear market needs and then finding
very specific products to satisfy those needs.
This approach is based on market research techniques such as interviewing
people about their needs and then finding out how best you can
satisfy those needs.
With this approach you know your business will succeed before
you commit money !
Your aims in finding your niche are to :
- Identify a "hungry" market
- Find out the exact nature of the "hunger"
- Determine how best to satisfy the "hunger"
Step #3 - Create a Feature Rich, Content Site
Most people will not buy from you at their first visit, even if
they have previously expressed an interest.
Visitors must learn to trust you, before they will buy from you.
It takes time and communication to build trust.
A content rich website is an invaluable tool for building trust.
Building and marketing such a site achieves two goals :
- Depending on your advertising strategy, it attracts targeted
traffic, and builds good double-opt in mailing lists.
- It encourages "pull" marketing where customers come
looking for you, rather than the more costly "push"
marketing where you go looking for customers.
Step # 4 - To Be An Affiliate Or Not To Be
The content rich website is the top of your marketing funnel. A
mechanism for pulling in highly targeted visitors who have expressed
an interest in your product or service.
This builds trust, but little hard cash.
New marketers are often concerned about what to sell, real money
comes from "Back End " products.
- The first and easier option is to research and join good affiliate
programs. These not only pay good money for hard work, but they
provide high quality, good value back end products.
An excellent example of such a program can be found at http://shmyl.com/bgz
A good affiliate program, such as http://shmyl.com/bgz,
not only provides you with products, they also provide web templates
and sites for you to use immediately.
You can be marketing in the time it takes to sign up !
- The second more difficult option, but one which offers you
more flexibility and control, is to create your own products.
Until the end of March 2004 we are offering a FREE e-book at our
website to show you how to create your own info products in less
than two hours.
(If you read this article after March 2004, contact us and we
will send a copy of the e-book to you.)
If you choose the do it yourself option, you will need to build
a professional product web page, per product, along with all the
merchant facilities such as credit card processing required to
make the site operational.
Visit http://www.iprobuilder.com/14127
for the easiest currently available point and click, "No
HTML Required", professional web site building and hosting
program.
Step #5 - Get The Sale
Whichever option you choose, you need excellent copywriting to
market your products and services.
Even if you use Market Centric research, do not fall into the trap
of thinking that your market will buy whatever you show them on
your product sales page.
The copy must be compelling and drive the prospects to take the
action you want i.e. buy from you.
Copywriting is an art almost anyone can learn. However, if you
feel your skills are not yet good enough then pay for a copywriter
to do the work.
Good copy can sell almost anything. Bad copy cannot sell the best
product in your chosen business line.
Step #6 - Mind Set
From discussions with other marketers, many people get to step
5 ready to sell products, typically 6 to 9 months after setting
up business.
Frustration begins when sales fail to materialise and your cash
flow is more out than in !
Be prepared, pre-plan and you will avoid this frustration because
:
- Your business Sales Plan will indicate a realistic timeframe
and level of sales.
- Your SWOT analysis will have prepared you for business issues
as well as opportunities.
The planning you carried out up front is your insurance against
frustration, and disappointment. It is also an excellent yardstick
by which you can measure your progress.
This focuses your mind and effort on attaining small successes
which build up over time into major career successes.
This is why it is critical to go through the planning and research
stages in fine detail, realistically and objectively.
Conclusion
Use this outline blueprint to create your own detailed business
road map and put success in your own safe 0hands. Guaranteed.
Charles Kangethe of http://www.simplyeasier.com
is a leading new wave marketer and a published author from England.
The "Simply Easier" brand name is your guarantee of high
value, quality Marketing Products, Services and Resources.
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