How to Create An Internet Marketing Strategy

Online and brick-and-mortar businesses require Internet marketing strategies. A comprehensive Internet marketing strategy can launch or increase sales substantially for a business. Internet marketing requires a knowledge of social media, search engine optimization (SEO), blogs, email lists, affiliate marketing and more. If you do not already recognize these terms, you may want to learn more about Internet marketing. If you are ready to launch a business or a product, then you should research, create and track a marketing strategy online as well as in print. Read the steps to find out how to create an Internet marketing strategy.

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EditSteps

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   Develop your brand name and image before communicating with your market. In today's marketing world, a brand name and image is as important as the strategy itself. Your brand makes you recognizable amongst competitors, so pick a name, trademark, website, letterhead and business plan before launching a strategy.
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   Study your competitors. Study them from their website through their sales process, including their marketing strategies. Identify the past and ongoing marketing strategies of your largest competitors, so you know what works in your given market.
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   Study your market. Decide if you are part of a niche market. If so, you will want to center your strategy on that demographic, instead of all Internet consumers.
   • Choose your ideal consumer. Decide who your demographic is, in order to target it with your strategy. Focus the majority of your online marketing budget on your ideal demographic.
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   Mimic the successful marketing strategies of your competitors. Your market research should tell you how many followers your competitors have on Facebook, how many people they send their email list to and how many people comment on their blog entries. This means that the demographic responds well, and these campaigns should be the first on your list for your strategy.
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   Create a multi-faceted Internet marketing strategy. In order to increase your brand recognition you should launch several marketing campaigns at once. The following are marketing strategies that you should look at starting within a few weeks of each other:
   • Create social media accounts and assign someone to launch interesting material every day. In order to attract followers, social media accounts and blogs must be consistently updated.
   • Create or pay someone to write SEO articles. Articles that mention popular keywords related to your product, but also offer tips or advice are a great way to introduce people to your product. They also help your website to show up on the first pages of an Internet search. Do not scrimp on the money you spend for SEO articles, Google has created a way to list top quality articles first.
   • Collect or buy email lists. People who have stores have most likely collected emails throughout the years, which can be used for email blasts. If you do not have any emails, you can buy them from marketing companies or neighboring markets. Send an initial blast and monthly blasts updating your customers on new products.
   • Create videos of people using your product, how-tos or people vouching for your product. You can launch these videos via your website, You Tube, Vimeo, Facebook or other places in order to draw interest to your website.
   • Buy ads on sites that cater to your market. Communicate your brand image, videos or other product info on banner ads. If you don't have the skills to craft a well-designed ad, hire a graphic designer to create a good ad.
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   Set up tracking capabilities for all of your campaigns. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Google Analytics account through your main Google account. Create a campaign for each facet of your strategy so that you can look back later and see which ones had the best return on investment (ROI).
   • Consider buying print ads that cater to your market that also launch at the same time as our Internet marketing campaign. Track this ad by buying a similar domain name that redirects to your site. Let a Google Analytics campaign track the success of the print ad, in comparison to your Internet marketing, through this other domain.
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   Launch your campaign in the same few days and weeks. Be consistent, if your method requires communication with customers. Follow through with all of your orders as quickly as possible, in order to create good reviews on your website and other marketplaces.
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   Evaluate your ROI and repeat any strategies that were successful, if and when you launch new products. Some campaigns are ongoing and you can try to slowly or virally increase your following.