Planning-the Parallel Universe

Many years ago some professor or textbook somewhere told me that management was planning, organizing, staffing, contolling and coordinating. Over the years I have found that this is about as good as any definition.

Most are familiar with the basic functions required to run a business. You need a product or service, someone or something to create/produce it, a technique to sell it, someone to count and control the money and some legal assistance along the way. We also know that in most cases, start up funding is limited therby reducing the probability of incorporating each of these functions on staff which results in the business owner or manager making decisions about the functions. Who will be on the payroll, which functions they will outsourced, and who or what will they live without.

The on-line world is a parallel universe. Having or creating a product or service belongs to both universes. You need one or the other or both. Now things begin to change. The sales and marketing departments may become your web developer and SEO (search engine optimizer) person. The developer would provide an effective on line marketing presence and the SEO is there to make sure that the website is found when someone searches for the product or service.

A subset of your marketing department may be your email marketing specialist who would be the direct contact to collected email addressees. Because you may be doing various marketing campaigns that require an ROI (return on investment) your business must also have an analytics function. This function is responsible for understanding the results of website hits, misses, and conversions and to provide a basis for the future on-line marketing campaigns. It would also interpret data used for process improvement.

Just as in the case of more traditional business organizations with limited funding, the business person must prioritize the importance of each function to achieve the objective. A fledgling business might outsource the accounting function while a website business might outsource the SEO function. In fact, in this parallel universe, the website business may choose to outsource most of the functions as they are fairly compartmentalized with each requiring specific training and knowledge.

I think that the important point is to recognize that the parallel universe is comprised of different and specific functions. In a traditional business you may find someone talented and knowledgable enough to manage the finance function and the human resource funtion. In the parallel universe you may find someone who can do both the web development and the SEO functions. However, in the longer view it is not the ideal situation in either case. To mix them up or assume that they are just one function could be a strategic mistake.

Development of an effective on-line business does require those basic management tools mentioned above. It also requires an awareness of all the possibilities of marketing and mechandising that can be used, all the functions required to maximize its success, and the funding available from which to make decisions to allocate those resources.

What's Next

Now that an overall website objective has been determined (what do you want your website to do?), a sketch of how it will look and how it will accomplish that objective has been completed, and each of the items in the laundry list of options has been examined, what is next?

At this point I see many who just get on with it. They retain a developer or buy some software and start. This is not necessarily a bad route as internet marketing and E-Commerce requires much testing, and much trial and error. You will surely learn something. On the job training can work, but there are other ways that may get a better ROI. Also remember that part time effort gets part time results.

The websites that that I see that result in marketing success spend time on outlining their overall internet marketing plan which includes how they will actually market and merchandise their product or service over the first time period which may be 3-6 months. Using the laundry list in a previous post (Planning Part 2), they will determine the following:

• When and how each chosen internet marketing technique will be employed
• How to get people to come to your site-SEO, Keywords, Outside media, viral, buzz
• How and when the website will be updated for fresh content
• Cycle of specials, discounts, promotions, new products, fresh packaging will be sketched out
• How they will communication to target markets
• Human resources/expertise/time required
• The total investment/budget for the first part of the program
• Establish realistic expectations
• How the results will be measured and documented

They will also determine cost or initial investment. This may dictate limitations on the marketing plan. Although internet marketing can result in lower customer acquisition cost it is generally not free. All businesses need customers and all businesses compete to obtain customers and to keep them. This takes time and money.

I have had clients who said they tried Google keywords, purchased them and limited their spending to less than $50 over a few days or weeks. Disappointing results usually follow and they conclude that that did not work. Most of the time the disappointment comes from the lack of employing proper website principles, not having and following a general marketing plan, not allocating the proper funding and not being patient. After all, this is marketing where the one simple secret formula for success still remains a secret. Because of that we must use all the tools available to us to achieve our marketing success. I doubt that many of us would dive into 20 feet of water without knowing how to swim or knowing how to use techiques and tools to keep us afloat. So why do it with your marketing efforts?

Planning Part 2

So you determined what you want your website to do and made a determination that you could make it achieve that objective. But the planning and thinking is not over. A real goal at this time is to get your ideas into a planning environment that features marketing techiques with measurable results. I see many website clients that have a single snapshot focus as the primary marketing technique, that is, they put the products on the site with pricing and want to get on with it. Below are a few items that should be examined for a good plan:

• Viability of Amazon Stores, Ebay, Yahoo Stores, Froogle, Craigslist
• Using directories-Yahoo, Technorati, DMOZ
• Web host-capabilities, bandwidth
• Blogging
• Getting visitors-PPC, SEO, traditional media, mailings, promotions, banner ads
• Techniques of capturing email addresses-inducements
• Email marketing campaigns-developing the relationship
• Effective calls to action-buy now!
• Landing pages that convert-two clicks to action
• Easy check out-credit cards, pay pal, Google check out
• Increasing per unit check out dollars-other purchase options, upsell, special packaging
• Merchandising programs-holidays, gift cards, coupons, discounts, contests, free shipping
• Content updates
• Security and website professionalism
• Shipping and return policies
• Warranty programs
• Affiliate programs-pay others to sell
• Measuring the results-Analytics (Google Analytics)
• Figuring out if it will make money

The list is not all inclusive. A plan may include some of these, all of these or even other items. Going through this process will allow the potential marketer to determine the course of action, and determine the budget that may be required to accomplish the goals. It will also save some time down the road as most marketers will come back to one or all of these when they find their website marketing hopes fall short of their expectations.

Planning Your Internet Marketing

My experience in counseling internet marketers is that they either have a highly technical background (or know someone who does) or are marketing and sales people with limited technical background. Of course there are many in between. One common denominator among them is the lack of planning the website or blog and answering the basic question of what do you want the thing to do? This leads to the second question that is most important, does it do it?

Most answer the first question with, "I want to sell the stuff that is on my website". Obvious answer. Everybody does, all 400 million websites want to sell you something or tell you something. Does that message really come across on your website? The purpose must be obvious or self evident to the user in the first few seconds of the visit.

If you have accomplished that, then you must design the navigation and the purchase process toward a fictional user that has limited ability to think and minimal time to pick and buy. If you think you have succeeded here you must test it. Do not become your own judge and jury. I see people who come in and can show how easy it is to use the website or explain what the website does. When I try to do something it does not work or requires special knowledge to make it work. If I were a user, I would be gone. It is the forest and tree thing. Test it with your friends, family, business associates and listen to what they say. Take the approach that your first pass at your website is not very good, but let others tell you why. Let them click around. Let them even buy something. Listen, listen and listen some more. Watch them go through your process, watch what they struggle with or when they get exasperated. What seems clear and simple to you is probably not that way to many others.

So take some time an jot down what you want your website to do, how you propose to do it and what it might look like. Even consider an outline or flow chart and write some copy you might include. Starting like this will increase the probablity of having a site the does what you want it do to.