Since last month's column, you have been reviewing (or creating) your business plan. Your objective was to find out how a web site fit into the marketing section of your business plan. If this exercise has left you frustrated, it's not your fault. You see, there is no such thing as web site marketing! Not yet, anyway.

Web Site Marketing: Fact or Fiction?

Marketing is merely a process that helps you fulfill the needs of your clients. Your success will be based upon the extent that your clients' needs overlap your products and services. There is ample market research data available for almost every business, in almost every setting. This data literally tells you what to do. Send out 10,000 mailers, for example, and you should get a certain number of orders.

These guidelines rely on statistics, which take time to generate. Until three years ago, commercial activity was not allowed on the Internet. The bottom line is that there are no reliable marketing statistics for Internet-based businesses.

There are plenty of books about Internet marketing. As you now suspect, these books are works of fiction.

Trial and Error

Create a web site, and you are on your own. You must guess the characteristics of your target market. You must also guess which marketing mix will be most effective.

When you buy something expensive, do you like to guess if it will actually work? If not, there are several things that you can put into your business plan.

Who was that Masked Man?

Visitors to your web site are anonymous. They might as well be wearing a black mask. At the very least, you need a log analyzer for your web site. This software is like a super-deluxe hit counter. It shows how many hits you get on each page of your web. It shows the time of day of the hit, and the country that your visitor is in. These statistics let you see if you are reaching your target market. If not, you must either change your marketing plans or change your web site.

All IPPs and ISPs generate these log files for the web sites that they host. Some include log analyzer software in the price you pay for the site. Most do not; you might pay from $300 to $3000 for one.

Knowing where your visitors are from, when they visit your site, and which pages they view is important. It does not clearly identify the visitor, however. You may be targeting photobuyers, but you won't make many sales if most of your visitors are amateur photographers.

You need direct feedback from your visitors, to help you identify them. Encourage them to comment on your web site via e-mail. If you are targeting the consumer market, provide a guestbook for them to sign. Entice them to fill out a short questionnaire, in return for which you could notify them when there are important updates to your site.

Now you know how to start and run a basic marketing plan. Identify your target market and design your site for them. Analyze your activity log, e-mails, and questionnaires to verify that you are reaching your target market. If not, either change your marketing plan to sell to the market you are reaching, or change your web site to reach the correct market.

Next month, you will learn how to clearly identify the most important objectives of your web site. This will enable you to project the correct message to your target market.

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Latest Revision: Saturday, 07 May 2005 08:52 AM