We hear it said that in order to be in business, you must have a
Business Plan, and this is true. Without one, you are like a
person in a dark room trying to find something. Eventually, you
may stumble across it, but how much time did you waste in the
process? If you had turned on the lights, the odds are you would
have found it a lot faster.

The Internet provides a great number of opportunities that allow
someone to get into business quickly, but many folks who try, are
like that person stumbling about a dark room. A good business
plan requires that research is done on whether it will work prior
to getting started. Once a product or service is settled on,
the next major step is to develop a marketing plan.

At the risk of oversimplification, a good marketing plan must get
information about your product or services to those who are able
and willing to buy them. You will be competing with "droves" of
others however, who are trying to accomplish the same goal, so
the steps you take here will either make or break your business.
Let's see if we can turn on a light or two.

The first part of your marketing plan should be to identify your
potential market. Again, this sounds like a simple process. But
it is amazing how many people don't. A campaign aimed directly
at your target market, will produce results.

Don't believe the ads you read about how mass email is the road
to success. Nothing could be further from the truth. If someone
receives a lot of junk email (spam) about a particular product or
opportunity, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth.

If you are into Network Marketing or represent an Affiliate, what
better place to advertise yours, than where they are trying to
market theirs? They have already made a decision about this
being a viable field, and many are looking to diversify. So here
we have identified a potential target market.

Are there ezines or newsletters that go out to these people, or
others who might be considering this? If so, this is a must. How
about web sites that accept ads which are similarly targeted?
You should definitely have representation there.

What about cost? There are thousands of places (FFA) where you
can place a free web ad. In fact, there is software that will
post your ad automatically to them. The majority of these
however, only keep a limited number of ads up there. When new
ads come in, the older ones get rolled off. Your ad there has a
life, which is usually measured in seconds. Hardly worth your
time, not to mention the expense of the software. The real agenda
here is that the FFA sites don't care if anyone sees your ad.
Their business is collecting targeted email addresses that they
then market. If you don't believe this, place an ad in one, and
watch the spam that arrives daily in your mail multiply faster
than you thought possible.

While we're on this, how about the ezines that allow free ads.
This is could be a further waste of time and effort. Yes, there
is even software to place your free ad automatically to these,
again by the thousands. Many of the people placing ads this way
never even see the publication they submit to. Some require you
to subscribe before accepting your free ad, and this helps build
their subscriber base. There is however, little if any loyalty to
the publication, and many times, the only reason they subscribe
is to be able to place their ad. If they bother to read it, they
might make a cursory scan to ensure their ad is there, and then
delete it.

So what should you do? First, find a few ezines and web sites
that accept paid ads, and most are relatively inexpensive. You
can get your message out to thousands of potential customers this
way. Don't think a "one time" ad however will work. It can take
5 - 7 or so exposures to your ad before you can expect results.

One other mistake you should avoid is to assume that the larger
the subscriber base of the publication, the better the results
will be. An ezine with only a few thousand targeted subscribers,
many times will produce better results than some that have
several hundred thousand that are not.

So, when planning a marketing campaign for your business, do a
little research. Don't stumble around in the dark, hoping to find
something that works.

About the Author
Bob publishes the free weekly "Your Business" Newsletter
Visit his Web Site at http://adv-marketing.com/business to
subscribe. As a bonus, get 40,000 FREE E-Books from
Larry Dotson, when you visit http://www.ldpublishing.com