Bringing the World to Your DoorWritten by Heidi Richards, Ms
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What are your goals? What do you believe you can accomplish that may be a bit of a stretch but doable? If goals are too easy, you are not getting 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 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 time-frame for accomplishing your goals? Create a time-line for every goal in your notebook. Next to each goal, write down 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 results. You can track online advertising using ad tracking software such as adtrackz.com, to track all 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 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 marketing strategy cost? How much money did you take in? Subtract second figure from first and that is your profit (or loss). Keep track of those marketing campaigns that worked and those that didn’t. Do more of first. Reevaluate second. Can you change one thing in strategy and achieve different results? Try it! Add new strategies to mix. Stay focused on your goals. Nothing feels better than accomplishing a goal. Except maybe, all money you are going to make when you do!
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-kī) – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic membership is FREE. She can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org
| | How to Achieve E-commerce Success –You Gotta Plan!Written by Heidi Richards, MS
Continued from page 1
What are your goals? What do you believe you can accomplish that may be a bit of a stretch but doable? If goals are too easy, you are not getting 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 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 time-frame for accomplishing your goals? Create a time-line for every goal in your notebook. Next to each goal, write down 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 results. You can track online advertising using ad tracking software such as adtrackz.com, to track all 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 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 marketing strategy cost? How much money did you take in? Subtract second figure from first and that is your profit (or loss). Keep track of those marketing campaigns that worked and those that didn’t. Do more of first. Reevaluate second. Can you change one thing in strategy and achieve different results? Try it! Add new strategies to mix. Stay focused on your goals. Nothing feels better than accomplishing a goal. Except maybe, all money you are going to make when you do!
© 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-kī) – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. She can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com or heidi@wecai.org
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