Planning a New Website
MARKETING ASPECTS
PLANNING
Planning a new online development is the most crucial part of the entire process. 90% of all websites that fail do so because of a failure to plan effectively.
MARKET RESEARCH:
As any good student, first we must do some research. We need to define a "market" for our product, service, or information. Before anything else, we must know the volume of business our target market gets to be sure there is a fair amount of profits "on the table". We must define our best customer to have direction for our Marketing Plan. We must also know where these people hang out, what their daily habits are, and what they currently spend their money on.
WHERE DO WE START?
We do this by first defining our market. Let's say that Tom owns a Tire Shop in Memphis, TN. Who will Todd sell the majority of his product to? Will it be to private or commercial customers, vehicles that are ___ yrs old?, Or maybe even, Customers who live within ___ miles of his shop. The best way to find a well targeted marketing plan is with a Venn Diagram like this one (fig. 1).
Figure 1
THE RIGHT GUY:
We'll start by finding the "right guy" for your product, information, or service. We can use the same kind of Venn Diagram to do this as well. In the following scenario, we will be introducing a new streaming television station. This would be our target market venn diagram (fig. 2)
Figure 2
THE RIGHT PLACE:
"So, where does your target market..."
Work?
Play?
Live?
How much education do they have?
What is their preferred form of payment?
Where do they visit online already?
What kind of computer are they using?
What internet browsers are they using?
How fast is their internet connection?
THE RIGHT TIME:
Now that we know who we are looking for and where they will be at, we need to know when the best time to reach them is. Do they work primarily first, second or third shift? Do they have certain browsing habits? Is this a promotion that is best done in a particular time? What time zone are they in and many other questions can be answered here?
Once we are sure that we have "The Right Market" we can begin preparing a sitemap of pages for our new site that will act as a directory to find anything on our website. This sitemap will serve as our outline to keep on track, so we want it to be organized, accessible, and easy to navigate.
