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Don't Plan Your Business If You Plan To Fail!
By Chris Stirling
Copyright 2005 Chris Stirling
So you have a great idea for a profitable online business. Before you can do anything with your business, be sure that you have a plan before. This is not the time to "pick it up as you go". These are some basic things that should be included in your business plan.
The first part of your plan must consider your target market. The target market is the customers that you expect to see visiting your site. For example will your product be more appealing to college students or single moms? Your plan should clearly state who is your target market?
Once your target market is established you need to research the various methods for advertising online to advertise where your target market will se it. You should become educated about search engines and how they work since each one is different. Also be sure that you know how to submit your site to search engines. You should be prepared to spend a small amount of money on advertising, but the profits that you will gain from the advertisements will prove to be money well spent.
When advertising consider the competition for your business. Visit sites that are advertising similar businesses as yours. Find out the cost, and how they are marketing their business. Finds out the pros and cons of their business and try to improve your business based on their flaws. When you are advertising and checking out the competition you need to think about pricing. Pricing can play a big role in the success of your product since selling a product well below the average price may lead customer to think that there is a problem with the product or that it is not of the best quality. However, pricing items too high could also detour customers. See what your competition is charging for their products or services.
Finally you will need to consider the different methods of payment that you
will accept. By not accept credit cards, you should be ready to give up half if not more of your sales. If you decide to accept credit cards will you use a merchant account or will you use a third party credit card processing centre? Both will help you get started and the third party processing centre will handle all of the business so you don't have to. You should decide which you will use and also if you will accept checks or money orders. It is essential to have a secure server when taking credit cards.
These few things will help your online business to become a great success and also provide you with peace of mind knowing that you have thoroughly thought about and planned for the opening of your online business.
About the Author
Chris Stirling's website is dedicated to help YOU start your own profitable business on the Internet within the next 24 hours... To learn more, visit: http://www.stirls.com
Visit his Home Based Biz Blog http://www.stirls.com/blog
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/10526.html
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