We hear it said that in order to be in ... you must have ... Plan, and this is true. Without one, you are like aperson in a dark room trying to find ... ... youmay stumble a We hear it said that in order to be in business, you must have aBusiness Plan, and this is true. Without one, you are like aperson in a dark room trying to find something. Eventually, youmay stumble across it, but how much time did you waste in theprocess? If you had turned on the lights, the odds are you wouldhave found it a lot faster.The Internet provides a great number of opportunities that allowsomeone to get into business quickly, but many folks who try, arelike that person stumbling about a dark room. A good businessplan requires that research is done on whether it will work priorto 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 getinformation about your product or services to those who are ableand willing to buy them. You will be competing with "droves" ofothers however, who are trying to accomplish the same goal, sothe 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 yourpotential market. Again, this sounds like a simple process. Butit is amazing how many people don't. A campaign aimed directlyat your target market, will produce results.Don't believe the ads you read about how mass email is the roadto success. Nothing could be further from the truth. If someonereceives a lot of junk email (spam) about a particular product oropportunity, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth.If you are into Network Marketing or represent an Affiliate, whatbetter place to advertise yours, than where they are trying tomarket theirs? They have already made a decision about thisbeing a viable field, and many are looking to diversify. So herewe have identified a potential target market.Are there ezines or newsletters that go out to these people, orothers who might be considering this? If so, this is a must. Howabout 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 youcan place a free web ad. In fact, there is software that willpost your ad automatically to them. The majority of thesehowever, only keep a limited number of ads up there. When newads come in, the older ones get rolled off. Your ad there has alife, which is usually measured in seconds. Hardly worth yourtime, not to mention the expense of the software. The real agendahere is that the FFA sites don't care if anyone sees your ad.Their business is collecting targeted email addresses that theythen market. If you don't believe this, place an ad in one, andwatch the spam that arrives daily in your mail multiply fasterthan 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, thereis even software to place your free ad automatically to these,again by the thousands. Many of the people placing ads this waynever even see the publication they submit to. Some require youto subscribe before accepting your free ad, and this helps buildtheir subscriber base. There is however, little if any loyalty tothe publication, and many times, the only reason they subscribeis to be able to place their ad. If they bother to read it, theymight make a cursory scan to ensure their ad is there, and thendelete it.So what should you do? First, find a few ezines and web sitesthat accept paid ads, and most are relatively inexpensive. Youcan get your message out to thousands of potential customers thisway. Don't think a "one time" ad however will work. It can take5 - 7 or so exposures to your ad before you can expect results.One other mistake you should avoid is to assume that the largerthe subscriber base of the publication, the better the resultswill be. An ezine with only a few thousand targeted subscribers,many times will produce better results than some that haveseveral hundred thousand that are not.So, when planning a marketing campaign for your business, do alittle research. Don't stumble around in the dark, hoping to findsomething that works. Article Tags: Marketing Plan Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com