Creating a Plan

The process of telling a marketing story and integrating the story into the 5P fundamentals is shown in diagram form in Figure 2-1.

By combining business narrative with marketing fundamentals, you can create a marketing plan

Figure 2-1. By combining business narrative with marketing fundamentals, you can create a marketing plan

Taking the 5Ps of marketing in the context of a web content site, Place and Price are somewhat irrelevant. Place, the distribution channel, is simply the Web, and Price means ad revenue (see Chapter 5, Chapter 6, and Part II for information about cashing in with web content). The key issues a marketing plan should resolve are Product, Promotion, and Positioning.

Promotion and Positioning of web content is primarily accomplished by advertising, by optimizing your site for search engines, and by generating buzz (the online equivalent of word of mouth).

So the five marketing Ps in the web content context boil down to only 3Ps. This simplification of the process of creating a marketing plan is shown in Figure 2-2.

A marketing plan is created by placing your (hopefully compelling) business narrative in the context of the basic elements of marketing. As opposed to an overall business plan, a marketing plan doesn’t have to be an extensive or formal document. In particular, it shouldn’t include financial projections or spreadsheets (which are an important element of a general business plan).

When you are creating your marketing plan for web content, you usually don’t have to be concerned with pricing or distribution channels

Figure 2-2. When you are creating your marketing plan for web content, you usually don’t have to be concerned with pricing or distribution channels

The two most important aspects of a good marketing plan are to present a clear understanding of exactly who your customers are, and why they would, should, or could be interested in your product. If you know the customer, and the reason for the customer’s interest, you can usually figure out how to “connect the dots”—and get your offering in front of your potential buyers.

How can you discover your target customer? There’s no exact science to it. Large businesses often employ focus groups for this purpose. But not only are focus groups expensive, they often yield results that are neither generally applicable nor useful. For smaller enterprises that want some kind of analytical basis for making marketing decisions, the survey is probably a more useful tool. Surveys can be used with existing customers or potential customers. If properly designed, surveys can yield good data for analysis and can help drive marketing decisions.

Note

Services such as iContact and Constant Contact provide tools that can help you design effective email surveys. In addition, by using one of these services your surveys won’t get labeled as spam, and your survey targets can use the opt-in and opt-out tools provided. This will keep you in compliance with applicable laws and make your surveys feel more user-friendly and professional to those who are interested in completing them.

Whether or not you use tools like focus groups and surveys, the key issue is to understand your customers and potential customers. If you can, talk to them and get to know them. Think about them. Research competitive businesses and see how they position themselves.

The two most important aspects of a plan for online marketing and publicity are: