Strategies for Your Web Site Marketing Plan

Written by Bobette Kyle


Based onrepparttar strategic marketing plan book "How Much for Justrepparttar 121470 Spider?"

How strong are your Web site strategies? Do they move your business toward achieving your objectives or overall goals? Think of your strategies as a framework that clarifiesrepparttar 121471 approaches you will take in meeting your Web site's objectives. They are more specific thanrepparttar 121472 objective, but do not include exact details. After developingrepparttar 121473 strategic framework, you will fill inrepparttar 121474 details with tactics (I will leave tactics discussions for later, in part four of this series.).

You can increase your strategies' effectiveness by taking into considerationrepparttar 121475 business environment you operate in - both online and offline. Two approaches to analyzingrepparttar 121476 business environment are to complete 1) an industry analysis such as Porter's Five Forces and 2) a situation analysis such as a SWOT analysis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Porter's Five Forces ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A formal industry analysis, such as Michael Porter's Five Forces, is more in depth than simply looking for trends and general industry information and can help you better develop successful strategies.

Michael Porter's Five Forces can provide insight into both your online and offline competitive environments. Inrepparttar 121477 Five Forces Model, Porter explains that in any industry there are five forces that influence what happens withinrepparttar 121478 industry:

1. Existing companies, 2. potential new companies, 3. substitutes for products offered, 4.repparttar 121479 suppliers, and 5.repparttar 121480 customers.

These five forces combine to make uprepparttar 121481 business environment. By studyingrepparttar 121482 structure of and dynamics between these forces, you can discover opportunities for improving upon your strategies. Porter designed his basic model to be applied to an entire industry. The same analytical method, however, could also be used to study a narrower universe, such as online presence within an industry. When developing your Web site marketing plan, for example, you can identifyrepparttar 121483 "forces" as:

* Competitors: Those sites that offerrepparttar 121484 same product, service, or information as your site.

* Potential new entrants: Your site-less off-line competitors as well as new companies enteringrepparttar 121485 industry via a Web site.

* Customers: Visitors and potential visitors to your Web site and your competitors’ sites.

* Suppliers: Those companies that supply you withrepparttar 121486 products (or parts if you are a manufacturer) and/or services offered on your site. Other suppliers arerepparttar 121487 Web hosting, software, and other vendors that supply Web- enabling technology.

* Substitutes: Other means and sources forrepparttar 121488 same products, services, or information as your Web site provides.

Using these definitions forrepparttar 121489 five forces, you can get a clearer picture ofrepparttar 121490 business environment in which your Web site competes. Be aware, however, this is not a true Five Forces analysis. This analysis only borrows Porter’s forces to lend structure. His full analysis goes beyondrepparttar 121491 information gathering and cursory analysis explained here. By fully utilizing Porter’s strategic methods you can gain an even clearer picture ofrepparttar 121492 industry, resulting in sounder strategies. To fully appreciate Porter's model, study his two classics, "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries" and "Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance".

Are you Quitting Before you Win?

Written by Michael Smith


We see it happen every day. People giving up before they should. Why? There are as many excuses as there are quitters. Yup, I said excuses. What isrepparttar difference between excuses and reasons?

Excuses are only justification for giving up. You have let yourself get whupped. You have failed. Failed to give that little extra effort that separatesrepparttar 121469 winners and losers. You have failed to learn fromrepparttar 121470 tools available to you. You have failed to ask for help. You have failed to plan. Instead, you have planned to fail. Remember, failure is a state of mind. You have created an atmosphere of tunnel vision and lost site of vision. You lostrepparttar 121471 battle but failed to fightrepparttar 121472 war.

Reasons are real, not excuses. Your health has failed. You have exhausted all of your available resources. You just don't haverepparttar 121473 necessary conviction to be in business. You have tried change, asking and searching for help and are convinced that business just isn't for you.

It isn't for everybody. 10% of marketing people make 90% ofrepparttar 121474 money. Why? Read back overrepparttar 121475 previous paragraphs. The most important tool you have to succeed is You! It isn't easy cause if it was, everybody would be doing it. We are all blessed with 20/20 hind site. I should have, I could have, if I had only, why didn't I. These words create negativity and that in turn creates failure.

Folks,repparttar 121476 information and resources are there. You can get everything you need to succeed except perseverance and tenacity. No one can give yourepparttar 121477 belief you can succeed orrepparttar 121478 mental attitude to stick with it. Quitting is much easier than succeeding. It is human nature to takerepparttar 121479 course of least resistance. Quitting before you really try.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use