Sample Internet Marketing Plan – Basic Outline and Top Tips for Building Your Custom Plan

As a business owner, you may feel overwhelmed trying to understand how to promote your businesses on the internet. And often, it ‘s not that you don’t want to spend the time or money, it’s more a matter of knowing where to start, or of knowing what to include in an internet marketing plan. This sample internet marketing plan starter can help to clear the smoke. At a high level outline, a sample internet marketing plan would be:

Phase I: Build your Internet Assets

1. Build or enhance the website
2. Develop your Social Media sites
3. Create a Blog
4. Develop and post Videos

Phase II: Promotion Activities

1. Paid Advertising campaign
2. Social Media Marketing campaign
3. Search Engine Optimization campaign
4. Email Marketing campaign
5. Affiliate Marketing, joint ventures campaign

Let’s take a closer look.

First, you need to look at what assets you want to build on the internet.

A website is usually a minimum, but you may also want to consider if you will have a Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter site. Also, you may have several videos you should include in your plan. Once you have your internet assets firmly in place, now you need to get targeted traffic to those places.

How to promote your business? In broad strokes, your plan should consider these 5 ways to promote your business online.

Internet Marketing Strategy #1: Paid Advertising

• Pay Per Click Advertising. Promoting your website with Google, Yahoo, Bing pay per click advertising at the search engine or on content sites that carry advertising for those search engines.
• Facebook pay per click advertising is another option.
• Paid Directory Listings
• Paid Press Releases
• And more…

Internet Marketing Strategy #2: Social Media Marketing

In business we talk a lot about “relationship building.” Well, this is exactly what Social Media Marketing is. And this soft-sell technique is a powerful way to build and to influence your internet prospects. The top 4 social media sites are:

• Facebook Business Pages
• YouTube
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Internet Marketing Strategy #3: Search Engine Optimization

This is a large activity that will help your business website rank higher in the search engines while bringing you traffic. Activities include:

• Article Marketing
• Blog posting and commenting
• Social Bookmarking
• Press Releases
• Video Marketing
• Podcasts
• And more…

Internet Marketing Strategy #4: Email Marketing

A great place to start is with your current customers and prospects. Do you have their emails? If yes, then creating an email list and sending valuable messages to that list is a great way to stay in touch and build revenues.

Internet Marketing Strategy #5: Affiliate Marketing and Joint Ventures

What about marketing partnerships? Create a “Virtual Salesforce” by offering commissions to affiliates or to list owners or others that might partner in your efforts for mutual gain. That’s an outline for creating an internet marketing plan.