ASBDC Biz Blog: Internet Marketing for Beginners: Part 1 - The Goal

Are you a business owner? Listen up! Today, it is ESSENTIAL you have a concrete online marketing plan...and I?m here to show you how. Don?t worry, I?m not going to bury you in techy lingo, like ?hits, bandwidth, and servers.? This article is your non-technical, business-owner friendly introduction to Internet marketing.

The goal of any good marketing plan is to generate business. A good Internet marketing plan should do the same. The website, while not the only piece of your online strategy, is the hub in the wheel of your Internet strategy.

A good website must generate at least one of the following: sales, leads, or customer support. Unfortunately, most people view a website as an online billboard or virtual pamphlet. A good website DOES something. Let me reiterate: A good website MUST generate sales, leads, or support for an existing group. Otherwise, in my opinion, you are wasting your money.

To that end, when establishing a good Internet promotional strategy, you must be able to MEASURE your results. Someone once said, ?You cannot manage what you cannot measure.? That is so true! if you cannot point to a documented increase in sales, leads, or a decrease in costs, you need to re-evaluate your online plans.

In this series of articles, I will go into detail how you should build your online strategy, giving you time-proven tips to increase business and sales. Until then, evaluate your current online plans. Are they effective? Are you seeing results? Be objective!

I welcome your comments below!

Eric Spellmann continues to be one of the highest rated speakers at our national ASBDC conferences. His unique view that small business websites should ?do? something pushes against the standard ?online pamphlet? view of most web design companies. He believes your customer?s websites should be driving qualified leads and sales on a weekly basis. Eric speaks at a number of other national and state conferences nationwide, but enjoys running one of the most successful web design companies in the country. He truly believes in the SBDC mission as it helped him start his own company many years ago. To contact him, visit his website at EricSpellmann.com.

Source: http://asbdcbizblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/internet-marketing-for-beginners-part-1.html

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