Develop An Online Marketing Strategy To Maximise All Of Your Marketing Activities

Developing an online marketing strategy is essential
before you do any marketing or promotion of your
business. Without a strategy it's like stabbing around
in the dark, not knowing what you want to achieve. You
risk your marketing becoming unfocused and not
producing the results you really want.

An online marketing strategy is the general and overall
approach you'll take with your marketing and
encompasses the big picture. It's the starting point
for choosing the most effective marketing tactics to
use and then the actions you need to take. A clear
strategy helps you make the right day-to-day decisions,
saves you time and keeps you focused.

Before doing any marketing of your business, you need
to develop your strategy. This gives you a clear
picture of what you're up against and what you need to
overcome through your marketing. This enables you to
choose the best marketing tactics. The tactics are the
means of achieving your strategy.

With so many different marketing tactics to choose from
it's to easy to do what many people do and that's just
pick any tactic. Just picking any tactic prevents you
from maximising your marketing and the results it
produces. You may use a variety of marketing tactics to
fulfil your strategy.

So, how do you develop an online marketing strategy?

First you need to do an appraisal and gather
information about your company, competitors, customers
and other industry players. You need a clear picture of
what you're up against. This includes identifying your
target market/clients and carrying out a SWOT analysis.

S - Strengths
What are the strengths of your business?

W - Weaknesses
What are the weaknesses in your business?

O - Opportunities
What opportunities are available to your business?

T - Threats
What threats is your business facing?

Next, define specifically what are the challenges and
problems that you need to overcome. From this answer
the question, "What will it take to overcome your main
marketing challenges and problems?"

Once you've developed your objectives, then choose the
strategies to support these objectives. Your strategies
could include:

Improve communication

Educating potential clients

Sharing information

Increase awareness of your products/services or company.

Then select the most effective marketing tactics to
bring your strategies to life. These tactics then need
to be turned into an action plan.