"How to Achieve E-commerce Success –You Gotta Plan!"
Before becoming a netpreneaur, I was an entrepreneur. First, I owned a successful
child care center which grew to capacity in less than two years. When I sold that,
I bought a little flower shop that had less than 300 customers and grew it to
what it is today, one of the most successful, award winning companies in South
Florida with more than 7,000 customers who purchase from us on a regular business.
To better serve our customers, we took our business to the Internet. We still
have a brick and mortar storefront, yet everyday we receive more and more customers
via the Internet.
How about you? Do you or did you have a traditional business or professional
practice? Is it successful? Unless you were born under the star called “LUCKY,”
you probably did lots of planning. A business plan, a marketing plan, maybe
even a succession plan for what to do with your business when you were through.
You may have heard the statistics that half of all small businesses fail in
their first year and of those, only 25% make it through to five years. According
to youngbiz.com it can be even less for e-businesses.
Build it and they will come! Not! You can have a terrific site, with lots of
bells and whistles and if people don’t know you exist, you never get any
visitors, let alone customers.
Planning is the key to success in business. Amazon.com had a plan, Bill Gates
had a plan, eDiets had a plan, and I’ll bet they still do. Once a business
launches on the net, you will need a marketing plan to be successful. Your biggest
challenge will be to find time to plan. However, if you don’t find time
now, you will find yourself with plenty of it (time, that is) later on, and
no business to speak of.
Unlike a business, generally created to get financial backing from investors,
Netpreneurs create marketing plans for themselves. Where do you start? First
you have to ask yourself these questions. Where do you want to be in 1 year,
5 years, 10 years? How many customers do you want or better yet, how much money
do you want to make? Who are your customers? Do you know what they want, need
and expect? Can you give it to them? What are your competitors doing? What are
you doing that is different? How will you promote your business?
Now Create your Website marketing plan.
Put it in writing! Not only do you have to plan, you have to write it down!
Take a notebook or idea book and write the following: your vision, mission strategies,
goals and the time frame you wish to accomplish these goals. Keep this notebook
next to your computer to refer to. It will help you stay focused.
What is your vision for your business? Your vision is what you want your web
site to accomplish. Write your vision statement in your notebook. The vision
statement for my flower shop is to “Make a reasonable profit via the Internet
by providing a quality product, delivering exceptional service, at a price my
customers will pay.”
What are your goals? What do you believe you can accomplish that may be a bit
of a stretch but doable? If the goals are too easy, you are not getting the
most out of your planning process. And you could be losing money. Can make a
profit of 20% in 3 months? Can double your customer base in 6 months? If so,
write it in your notebook.
What steps do you need to take to achieve your goals? How much do you have
to sell to achieve your goals? You must first know your profit margin to determine
this figure. Then you have to figure out how you are going to find the customers
to make your goals come true.
What are your marketing strategies? Start with those goals you know you can
attain. How will you reach your market? Are you going to use search engine optimization,
email, newsletters, networking, advertising on related sites, advertising in
trade magazines, or write an article to submit to online publications? Participate
in online forums, message boards and newsgroups. Include your URL (Internet
address) in your signature file.
What is the time-frame for accomplishing your goals? Create a time-line for
every goal in your notebook. Next to each goal, write down the starting and
ending dates of when you plan to accomplish that goal as well as what type of
marketing strategies you are using.
Are you keeping track of your marketing results? If you are doing any advertising
whether it is online or offline, track the results. You can track online advertising
using ad tracking software such as adtrackz.com, to track all the links you
place online. Analyze web site statistics to find out how visits found you.
For offline advertising, place codes or words in your advertising to keep track.
Your online order forms should have a place to enter the code. To learn how
customers found us, we use a numeric code on all advertising/marketing materials.
What is your return on investment? How much money did the marketing strategy
cost? How much money did you take in? Subtract the second figure from the first
and that is your profit (or loss).
Keep track of those marketing campaigns that worked and those that didn’t.
Do more of the first. Reevaluate the second. Can you change one thing in the
strategy and achieve different results? Try it! Add new strategies to the mix.
Stay focused on your goals. Nothing feels better than accomplishing a goal.
Except maybe, all the money you are going to make when you do!
About the Author:
© 2004 - Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing
Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is also the Founder
& CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org
(pronounced wee-ki) – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do
Business on the WEB.” She can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com. |
