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Developing your online business plan No matter whether you already have an ongoing business, or are just starting out, you need to have a plan to get your business online. Your plan must address how you are going to get your business online; how is it going to work once it gets there; and (most importantly) the benefits it is going to offer your customers. Every business plan should cover certain aspects of the proposed venture, including: a description of the business; a marketing strategy; a financial budget; and a staffing plan. However, the format and content will primarily be determined by your target audience. If you want to get your business online in less than thirty days, then the amount of time that you will be able to devote to your online business plan will be limited. Take some advice from the US Small Business Administration, and develop a plan that is divided into four distinct sections, as follows:
Begin with a description of your proposed online business. This can be a few sentences that describe what your Web site does and how it operates. Tell your viewers whether it is a content site that provides a lot of useful information about a particular subject; an e-commerce site that will give them the capability to buy products and services online; or a combination of the two. You should definitely develop a description of your online business before you begin the publishing process, since you will be able to use this information on your Web site and for various search engines and directories. Following your online business description, you will need to have some idea about how you are going to market your Web site. In the words of Mike Valentine (www.website101.com), "This isn't the field of dreams kind of 'Build it and they will come' fantasy that so many entrepreneurs believe it is! You've gotta wanna work at it or you might as well be putting a baseball diamond in a corn field!" Mike's point is that just publishing a Web site does not mean that anyone will actually come and visit. Your business plan should describe some of the advertising and promotion activities you are planning to use in order to get prospective customer to visit your online business. These might include banner advertisements, e-mail campaigns, press releases, and search engine listings. The next part of your plan should explain how you are planning to finance your online business. Many would be entrepreneurs are intimidated by financial terms like balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, all of which are usually required for a full blown business plan. However, you can simplify things by estimating how much money you have in the bank; how much you are planning to spend for your online business; and how much you are planning to make. If you already have a computer, then your significant expenses will be for Web hosting and advertising. At a minimum, these expenses will run you a few hundred dollars a month. Finally, your business plan should account for who is going to build and maintain your Web site. Believe it or not, the amount of time you will have to devote to maintaining and advertising your Web site will be significantly greater than the time required to initially publish it. You will need to recognize that time is required to update links, produce new content, add new products, and respond to e-mails. Your plan must address whether you are going to do this all by yourself, hire contractors, use outside services, or even take on a full time employee or two. Once you put these four distinct sections of your business plan together, then consider setting some goals and objectives for your online business. Your goals will be more general targets, and might include "being the most visited Web site in your market," that are backed up with specific objectives, like "getting 10,000 page views a month in our first year of operation." You should also set sales and profitability goals for your online business that will be determined by your growth rate and projected levels of funding.
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