Marketing Case Study: Launching WebSiteMarketingPlan.com

By Bobette Kyle
Posted Monday, August 30, 2004

WebSiteMarketingPlan.com was to be a companion site to the Marketing Plan Book How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Web Site Marketing. Although the approach was relatively new - marketing plan development integrating traditional and online marketing strategies - the general "Internet Marketing" category was crowded. Additionally, I had much offline marketing experience, but zero online credibility.

My initial challenges when launching the Web site were:
1.) to gain online credibility and
2.) to be heard in a crowded and often hype-filled category.

By February 2002 the site was nearly ready. I had fought through a FrontPage learning curve and had a site brimming with content but a bit hard on the eyes (Let's just say I could never make a living as a graphic artist.). I signed on for a basic hosting plan with Lexiconn and uploaded my Web site. Within days, Alexa found the site. Rank? 17 million and some change.

With the site up but largely unknown, an early focus was to get my target audience - those looking for strategic marketing and planning ideas - interested enough to visit WebSiteMarketingPlan.com. Making it even more difficult (Wouldn't want to make anything easy on myself. J), I had decided on a severely limited budget - no consultants and no expensive marketing tactics. Just a computer and a truckload of reference books.

Marketing Site Launch Case Study: The Approach

To gain credibility for both the marketing plan book and for myself, I had to show that the approach explained in the book was solid. For this reason, I developed a marketing plan for the site using the same planning process detailed in the book. When done, I had a summary page with four strategies and four to six tactics under each. The 20 tactics were to be implemented over 12 -18 months, revised as necessary over time.

Thinking in terms of the customer acquisition stages of "awareness", "interest", "trial", and "repeat", I focused first on implementing tactics that would build "awareness" and "interest".

Here are some of the tactics implemented since February:

Getting into Search Engines and Directories. To gain site awareness I manually submitted the site to about a dozen search engines and directories - the large ones plus a hand full of specialty sites.

Because of budget constraints the Yahoo! directory, at $299 a year, was not feasible. I paid a one-time submission charge to Looksmart (This was before they "improved" to a pay-per-click model.) and submitted two URLs to Inktomi through PositionTech.

I purposely *did not* submit to Google because I had read more than once that Google rankings may be higher for sites Googlebot finds on its own. I do not know if it made a difference but Google did find the site, with cheer-invoking results.

Publishing a Newsletter. Early on, I started a newsletter and continue to publish every one to three weeks. Strategically, this is both to gain personal credibility and to have my own publishing and advertising venue. The first issue was published in March - with five subscribers, including my Mom.

I am adamant about growing a targeted, quality subscriber list, so I have so far stayed away from mass acquisition tactics. Going with slow and targeted methods, my opt-in list now, at end of September, is around 600 and growing by 5 -10 daily.

Writing Articles. Also to gain both personal credibility and awareness, I write and distributed articles. Mostly, I have been adding the articles to content sites such as IdeaMarketers. Publishers may reprint an article at no charge as long as the article remains intact and the resource box at the bottom is used. This creates a win-win situation. The publisher gets free content and I get free advertising.

Joining Organizations. I have also become a member of a few organizations. Early on, I joined the eMarketing Association. This has become a mutually beneficial arrangement. In addition to the normal membership benefits, several of my articles have appeared in the monthly newsletter and article of the week.

Recently, I have intensified this tactic. WebSiteMarketingPlan.com has been accepted into the International Council of Online Professionals (iCop). I have also joined the Internet Affiliate Marketing Association (iAfma) and the Internet Warriors.

Communicating. Personal communication with select high-level marketers and specialists has garnered mentions of the site as well. Tactics that have led to personal communication with several high-calibre personalities include: 1) Answering questions on bulletin boards. 2) Publishing a guest article in my newsletter, and 3) Publishing others' material on the site (With permission, of course.).

Note that I always initiate contact by giving them something of value. I do this for two reasons. 1) More likely as not, I have learned from them through their writing and in my own mind, it is a small payback for their free advise. 2) I am uncomfortable with "selling", so do not push goods/services, etc. on others. If the relationship produces revenue, hooray! If not, refer to #1.

Learning from Others. WebSiteMarketingPlan.com and it's companion Marketing Plan Guide are "Big Picture", planning resources. When it comes to implementing promotional tactics, top specialists have been a tremendous resource. I do not always take their advice, but they are indisputably more knowledgeable than I in their chosen fields. Three of my favorites and URLs to their newsletters (in alphabetical order):

- David Frey, MarketingBestPractices.com - Information business.
David's a former Anderson business consultant and top executive. He now makes his living from home with several successful information products/services.
- Paul Myers, Talkbiz News - Business how-to with attitude.
Paul has the rare ability to understand issues from all sides and to develop innovative tactics. Don't let the rough exterior fool you - there are a lot of brains under that hat.
- Jill Whalen, High Rankings Advisor - Search Engine Optimization.
Jill takes an ethical, common sense approach approach to search engine marketing.

Other tactics are in progress or "on the back burner" until the timing is right.

The Results

The initial challenges - gaining credibility and attracting attention - are well on the way to being met.

As of September 2002, monthly visitors to WebSiteMarketingPlan.com are consistently growing and number about 10,300 for the month. Just over 8,000 of those were unique visitors. The site's Alexa ranking hovers around 50,000...48,000 as of September 30.

The site has a top-5 Google ranking - usually first or second - for both "Internet marketing plan" and "Web site marketing plan". The site is also in the top ten - usually fourth, fifth, or sixth - for "marketing plan".

While the interest level and number of visitors to the site have far exceeded expectations, the conversion rates (which have not been a focus) are disappointing. It is time to move to the next stage of implementing the site's marketing plan - focusing on "trial" and "purchase" through increased attention to improving conversion rates.

About the Author
Bobette Kyle draws upon 10+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, Marketing MBA, and online marketing research in her writing.

Bobette offers a range of marketing plan tools to fit your business and budget. Find out more at (http://www.HowMuchForSpider.com) or visit the Web Site Marketing Plan Network, (http://WebSiteMarketingPlan.com).