subject: Strategic Internet Marketing - Even Newbies Need To Know This [print this page] When's the best time for you to consider strategic internet marketing? Well, the answer to that is before you actually go live with your efforts. You should have a business plan that details just how you are going to do business, where you do business, how much it will cost and what is a realistic expectation for revenue. That is strategic thinking.
The only problem is, if you are new to the internet marketing field you are like a babe lost in the woods. How are you supposed to plan what you don't know?
So the first step, and one that many newcomers do wrong, is to get educated in this thing called internet marketing. There are hundreds of training programs, boot camps, e-books, audio programs, video tutorials and personal coaching programs that provide information on how to operate as an internet marketer. Most of them are simply not appropriate for a newcomer because they have nothing to compare the "training" to so they don't know if they are being led down the right path.
There is an enormous difference between offering information and teaching someone how to use the information. There's no question but you are going to have to invest in education but just make sure it's right for you. Hang out in forums or Google the course and see what others like yourself have to say about a particular course.
While you're in the process of learning you can move on to the next step in strategic internet marketing and that's identifying who you will be selling to. You'll hear a lot about niche selling but when it comes down to it, you basically want a marketplace that is viable and has a history of spending money.
There's an old direct marketing axiom that says:
1. Find a hungry crowd.
2. Find out what they are hungry for.
3. Feed it to them.
Finding that hungry crowd and figuring out what they are hungry for is the hard part. Feeding them (selling a product or service) is much easier to do. Use all the free tools available to you like Google's external keyword search tool and Google Insights to find the crowd. Once you figure out what they want just Google it and look at the returns. Almost all marketers have affiliate programs that you can use to feed the crowd,
Now that you know who your audience is, how are you going to reach them and how are you going to interact with them. Is buying a domain and simply redirecting to a sales page the best way to go initially? Maybe, maybe not. At some point you will need your own site and how are you going to develop that? More training? On what? How much should you budget for?
Reaching the market, driving traffic to your site, can be done quickly using Pay Per Click advertising. It's also the fastest way to lose your shirt if you don't know what you're doing. Look at free methods like article marketing and social networking. These don't cost anything but they do involve a heavy investment in time and some of the work is pure drudgery.
So you have a basic education, you have identified your market, you have a vehicle to convey your offer and you have a way to drive traffic. This is all a part of strategic internet marketing. Now look beyond today. Look six months and a year downstream. Plan for the growth and your ride in the world of internet marketing will go much smoother.
