If you're going to use online marketing techniques, then you need a plan. Here is how you can do it.

Any business owner that wants their company to be successful will need to put together a complete business plan. However, when it comes to online marketing, there is a large number of business owners that come to a internet marketing company without first analyzing what they want to achieve online or how they will get there. While partners such as online marketing companies can help you put together a strategy, as a business owner you're the one who is the best placed to set some goals for your online activities and figure out how exactly you will achieve your objectives.

Creating an online marketing plan isn't so difficult and a recent report from Webmaster World has given some insight on what one needs to include in one.

The first step, before you even contact a Boston search engine marketing company or other online partner, would be to do an analysis of your situation. Define what your business is, what your products and services are and what groups of customers are going to be targeted by your business or by the specific products and services you will be selling. Write down the benefits that your products will bring to your customers and the problems that they will help them solve.

Then, you should analyze your competition. You already know what you're offering and who you'll be offering it to, now is the time to do some research on your markets so that you can figure out who your main competitors are. This analysis needs to be thorough, as in many cases it will lead to you making adjustments to your business strategy in order to be more competitive in your niche. It shouldn't be limited to only doing a Google search to see who is selling the same products and offering the same solutions you are. Take a look through online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Look through classified ads sites to see who else is selling products similar to yours. And don't forget your brick and mortar competitors and their offerings. After you've done this analysis, note down what makes your offerings better and more valuable than those of the competition.

One other important step would be to analyze the marketing channels that you will be using. Your website is the main point of contact that your customers will have with you and can be created by a Boston web development company or done in house. But you need strategies to get traffic to your website. Look at SEO, pay per click ads, social networks, video ads, email marketing, classified ads, etc. Analyze every marketing channel that is usable by your business and determine which ones are likely to bring you the most advantages as a business owner. However, be careful as to not to launch too many marketing campaigns in different channels at the same time. Start off by focusing your efforts on the tactics that are the most likely to be successful.