One of the dilemmas for many small business owners is that when it comes to marketing their businesses the options are overwhelming. A cursory search on the web for marketing tactics and strategies will bring millions of hits, thousands of sites, and far too many tactics to effectively sift through.
Affordable Internet Marketing + Sample Marketing Plan = Success
And the bottom line for many of these owners is their 'bottom line'. In other words, the determining factor for choosing a marketing plan is the cost. Fortunately, content marketing through the Internet can be an invitingly affordable approach. In fact, It's a strategic move for many small businesses to pursue affordable Internet marketing, but it helps to have a sample marketing plan to guide them.
Affordable Internet Marketing - Yeah, It's Possible
Content, or inbound, marketing is more effective than ever and large companies are experiencing great results from their "high dollar" efforts. But, the good news is that regardless of the size of your business,or your limited resources, Internet marketing can work for you.
Content marketing is scalable and can be developed to work with every budget. Content marketing, or inbound marketing as we call it, is an increasingly viable marketing strategy. Consider these statistics gathered by Kapost.com.
- 82 percent of B2C marketers and 95 percent of B2B enterprise marketers use content marketing.
- 78 percent of CMOs believe custom content is the future of the marketing industry.
- Only 12 percent of companies ignore content in their marketing efforts.
- Despite the fact that content is proven to be valuable, only 32 percent of marketers believe they’re executing an effective strategy.
While the last statistic is disturbing from a marketer's perspective, it also means that two-thirds of businesses out there are probably not maximizing their content marketing potential. This means that you can establish a competitive marketing edge over the majority of your own competitors!
Need a Sample Marketing Plan?
There are a variety of approaches you can take with Internet, or inbound, marketing. This sample plan is a great guide for covering all the essential tactics and tasks. Flexibility and experimentation is encouraged - don't feel you have to be tied down to a plan "just because" you were told it works.
Here are 13 steps for building an effective and affordable marketing plan:
- Determine your marketing strategy goals: What are your specific objectives?
- Create benchmarks for current sales and marketing metrics: How are you doing right now?
- Define your ideal lead or customer: Everyone is not your customer!
- Define your buyer personas: You probably have more than one type of customer.
- Research and select keywords: What words do people use to search for businesses like yours?
- Review your search engine optimization (SEO) checklist: Are you really optimizing to be found?
- Delegate website management and content creation: Someone's got to manage the work!
- Launch and develop your business blog: Whether it's in-house, or outsourced, get it going.
- Create landing pages with lead generation and content: The more, the better!
- Set up social media accounts and build your online presence: Not for you, but for you business...
- Delegate social media monitoring: It may be free, but it costs time and effort to do it well.
- Set up email marketing campaigns: Yes, email still rocks!
- Track, measure and analyze ongoing results: If you don't measure it, you can't improve it.
Getting Help for Your Affordable Internet Marketing Plan
The approach of inbound marketing holds great promise for your business. But achieving your marketing objectives with a content marketing strategy takes time. It won't happen with a few blog posts or some other great content. People will need to consume your content for a while before they contact you. Yet, without your content compelling them to contact you, your goals may never be met.
The good news is that you don't have to figure out alone. In fact, one of the best investments you can make with your marketing budget is to partner with a solid firm like BroadVision Marketing. Click on the button below to get your free Marketing Action Plan (MAP) guide so you can make an informed decision, or call BroadVision Marketing at 707-799-1238.
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner and CMO of BroadVision Marketing. BroadVision Marketing works with business owners to put in place inbound and outbound marketing strategies that consistently secure new clients. The BroadVision Marketing Training Center is located in Petaluma, CA and primarily serves companies in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jaco can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook -www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn -www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.