How to make a marketing plan for an online store (practical guide)
How to make a marketing plan for an online store is one of the most important things that every online store owner should know. Marketing without a plan is gambling, and perhaps gambling has much greater winning and profit rates.
Competitiveness among online stores is increasing day by day, which has made creating a solid marketing plan a necessity, not a luxury.
Although the topic is somewhat stressful and requires knowledge, research and time, this is the only way to good results.
It's not that complicated. By implementing a few steps, doing some research, and using some tools, your marketing plan will be ready for implementation.
In this article, we will cover all the steps you need to know that will achieve maximum results from your marketing campaign, in addition to all the details and operations that you will need to do to complete a marketing plan for your online store.
Prepare your cup of coffee and start reading immediately.
What is a marketing plan?
The marketing plan is simply the plan that helps you attract the target audience to your online store and convert them to potential customers in the future.
It also helps you delve deeper into market research and determine your target audience, how to reach them, and the best ways to target them to sell the products you offer.
It basically works to increase your store's sales by answering several questions and using some tools that aim to make this plan at the highest level and efficiency possible.
Therefore, creating a marketing plan for an online store is one of the basic skills that every online store owner must master.
Why do you need a marketing plan?
Before we move on to how to make a marketing plan for an online store, you must know more why you need a marketing plan.
Although one of its most important goals is to attract customers, it is much more important and broader than that, as it also helps you in:
1. Define the goals of your online store and make them more realistic compared to market conditions.
2. Expanding your awareness of what the largest group of customers wants, which makes you more capable of meeting their needs.
3. Knowing the best marketing channels that suit what you are selling, whether it is social media, email, or others.
4. Determine the appropriate marketing budget and how to distribute it well among marketing strategies.
5. How to move to the next step and how to develop not only your marketing process but also your product.
6. Help you make appropriate decisions.
Now you should have completed the idea, and that you have been convinced of the importance of creating a marketing plan for your online store.
But the most important question remains: how to create a marketing plan for an online store in the first place, and that is what we will answer in the next point.
How to make a marketing plan for an online store?
Now we move to the most important part of our article today, which is how to make a marketing plan for an online store, which we present to you in 8 practical steps.
If you follow these steps, as we will explain to you, in the end you will have a solid marketing plan that will help you achieve your marketing goals in addition to achieving sales and profits.
These eight steps are:
1. Analyze the current situation.
2. Identify potential customers.
3. Competitor analysis.
4. Determine the marketing mix.
5. Choosing marketing channels.
6. Determine the budget.
7. Write goals and time frame.
8. Analyze results and learn improvement.
Let's learn about it in detail.
The first step: analyze the current situation
While you are making a marketing plan for an online store, your first task will be analysis, as you must analyze your online store and competitors’ stores, and we certainly should not forget the products you offer and your customers.
You will have to analyze your own store and your current situation and clearly define your store’s identity based on that so that you can take the next steps.
You can consider this first analysis process as a preliminary step to begin the next step, in which you write all the information related to your online store.
This information may include the name, headquarters, mission, members, and the role of each of these members in achieving your marketing goals and making your store successful.
In addition to the most important part, which is conducting a SWOT analysis:
It is simply a term that summarizes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the store.
By writing down these four elements, you will have a good idea about the store and its current situation, which is one of the basics of making a marketing plan for an online store.
This initial analysis should lead you to one thing, which is the competitive value that you will be able to offer at the present time to attract customers to your store over other stores.
Let's be honest, the competition on the Internet is very fierce and you will not be able to withstand it if you do not clearly distinguish the customer from the rest of the stores.
We'll go into this more in the Techniques and Strategies section, so keep reading and take notes.
Step Two: Identify potential customers
There is no product or service that can target all segments of humanity equally, but each age group, geographic region, and even hobbyists have different preferences for the products and services they purchase.
This is an essential element that you must pay attention to in your marketing plan, because all the next steps will be based on the category you target.
That is, it serves as the cornerstone for making a marketing plan for an online store, and everything that follows is based on it.
To understand the personality of this potential customer, you must deduce him according to the nature and nature of the service or product that you provide. If you sell electronic games, for example, the potential customers will mostly be young people and teenagers, and so on.
With that simple information that you have deduced, you will easily be able to know the ideal marketing channels to target that category, as well as the additional value that will distinguish your product in their eyes.
This analysis is not limited to age and preference only, as we mentioned in the previous example, but can also address gender, place of residence, interests, and other factors that change with the product.
You may also take an additional step, which is to prepare your ideal customer’s Buyer Persona with extreme professionalism that suits the nature of your customers.
Step Three: Competitor Analysis
If you have ever wondered how to make a marketing plan for an online store, this point has certainly occurred to you. It is self-evident to know what others offer so that you can try to overcome and overcome it.
In addition to what we mentioned about analyzing the site and potential customers, there is one step that you still have to take before starting any marketing strategies, which is studying and analyzing competitors.
There is no point in doing any form of marketing without knowing the best ways to do it for the customers of the service or product you provide, and the best way to do it is certainly to see how competitors do it.
If you are still new to the field in which you are selling, they certainly have a lot of data that makes their online stores successful.
Which you should use while making your plan, and even if you are not new, this study will still teach you some points that you were unaware of.
There are many aspects in which you will do this analysis, starting from the marketing methods they use, through the marketing channels most used by them, and even the strengths and weaknesses that you see in their products.
As we mentioned, you do not only aim to learn from them, but also to provide additional value that makes you as distinct from them as possible, which will easily happen from studying their strengths and weaknesses.
Step Four: Determine the marketing mix
Marketing Mix is simply the distinctive thing that makes the product or service you provide better than what others offer.
This mix revolves around four things: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
By arriving at a distinctive combination that combines these four factors, you will ensure that customers choose you during the purchasing process.
If the product is in good condition and price, presented to them in an appropriate manner, and promoted professionally, then it is already superior to most of its competitors.
Depending on the group you are targeting, it is possible to change these factors. For example, if you are targeting a group with an income higher than the average, it is possible to increase the price in exchange for increasing the value and quality of the product. However, if your audience is a small segment of people, marketing will have the largest aspect, and so on.
It depends on the analysis and data you collected from the previous steps, which will help you determine the appropriate marketing mix for your target customers.
Final tip here, just ask yourself: What do these people want?
Step five: Choose marketing channels for your online store
Now it is time to talk about the means that you will use to carry out the marketing process, which are called marketing channels.
These channels can be traditional, such as television and media, or they can be digital, such as social media and search engines, which is mostly what you will use as an online store owner.
Like the previous point, the marketing channels that you will use depend entirely on the audience you are targeting and the places where they are located and which your competitors constantly use.
The most prominent marketing channels for e-stores are:
A) Social media platforms: These are the most popular methods and one of the most effective and can be applied by writing posts, whether free or paid, specific to the product and offers provided by your store.
It is also a fertile environment for interacting with buyers and knowing their preferences, in addition to the possibility of using influencers on these sites to market your product as well.
b) Email: This method does not work to attract new customers as much as it tries to convert users who have shown interest in the store into potential customers.
This is done by sending them offers and discounts periodically via email. This marketing channel also works to make actual customers buy again, through the use of appropriate tools.
C) Content marketing: It is a common method among stores and brands in which you write content that helps you achieve your various marketing goals, through content marketing tools in different marketing channels.
D) Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization is an essential element in any online store that wants to appear professionally in search engines, and is done through different strategies and plans that depend on targeting the correct keywords.
Step Six: Determine the budget
Your marketing plan should have certain limits, and these limits depend on the amount of money you will invest in the process.
Of course, if someone has an open marketing budget, he will be able to work on all marketing channels side by side.
But this is not realistic at all, so having a budget makes you choose the most important, most influential, and most useful while creating a marketing plan for an online store.
Depending on the budget that you will set to carry out this process, you will see the desired results, but try to make the budget distributed in a balanced manner between the various costs of the store’s marketing process.
Which includes service providers, whether marketers, content writers, influencers, or paid advertisements, whether on social media sites or search engines, and also includes the tools that you may need during this process.
Step Seven: Write goals and time frame
Writing goals is a very important step that will make you decide whether your marketing campaign succeeded or failed, so you must take into account that these goals are realistic and achievable.
Not only must it be achievable, but it must also be clear, specific, and measurable, such as: increasing sales by a certain percentage or increasing followers on a social media site by a specific number.
The goal must also be linked to a time frame, which may range from weeks to months and up to a full year.
Of course, do not start the plan with specific strategies, methods, and marketing channels from beginning to end without modification. Rather, review the results periodically and modify them as required and according to the results you obtain.
Step Eight: Analyze results and learn improvement
Now you know all the aspects of making a marketing plan for an online store, but after the plan is made and implemented, you will definitely want to get the most benefit from it.
This will be done by studying and analyzing it in detail to find out what you did correctly and what you did wrong.
This is so that you do not repeat the same mistakes over and over again, and the marketing efforts you have undertaken will also help you understand customers and the market more.
Therefore, it will also help you develop the marketing plan in the future, make it more efficient, and come up with new marketing ideas that will enable you to reach a larger segment of potential customers in the future.
Conclusion
Online store owners always want to increase the sales and spread of their online stores among potential customers for what they offer, whether it is a service or a commodity.
If you are a website owner, you know that the best way to do this is to market the store in some way, but you do not know the clear, direct and organized steps to do this in a professional manner.
Here comes the role of the eight-step marketing plan, which we have explained in detail and in a practical manner in this article.
We hope that you have benefited and enjoyed, and if you have any questions or inquiries, ask us in the comments below and we will respond to you as soon as possible.