"How to Plan Your First Internet Marketing Campaign"

When you are first starting your business on the internet, it is a daunting task to build an internet marketing campaign. There are so many ways to market your business that it's hard to decide how to do it for the best results.

Before planning your marketing campaign though, there are a few things you need to do:

1. Research your market.

This is actually a step you should have taken before starting your business online. You don't want to offer products or services that there's no market for.

Start by doing some keyword research. Google offers a great keyword suggestion tool on its  website, and you may search for other keyword suggestion tools by doing a search for "free keyword tool" (without the quotes).

Another way to do research, and this works really well for product creation, is to search for forums on your topic. Read some of the posts. Find out what problems forum members have and then decide if the product you are marketing solves the problem.

2. Decide how you will market.

It seems as if there are about as many ways to market online as there are people. Don't let this bother you though. With a little research, you will also find out which internet marketing techniques are the most effective.

Another factor you want to consider here is how much time and money you have. If you don't have a lot of either, then you will definitely want to consider using free techniques like classifieds, article writing, and search engine optimization (if you have a web site.)

Do a little something every day to market your business. Consistent marketing is better than no marketing, and even bad marketing will get you some traffic. Generating traffic takes time and practice. Learn how to do it.

3. Find the places you want to market your business.

If you choose pay per click, you don't have to use Google. Yahoo, MSN, Amazon, and other sites offer pay per click advertising, and some sites will even give you free clicks. You may also pay less and get the same results.

If you use free techniques, then look for sites related to the technique. If you market articles, then look for article directories. If you use forum marketing, look for high traffic busy forums on your topic. High ranking busy sites allow you to "piggyback" onto their traffic.

4. Write your marketing materials.

Before posting anything, you want to write your ads, articles, press releases etc. first. This way you will be able to submit a lot faster because you will have all of your information at your fingertips. Then you only have to copy and paste.

With forums or blogs, where the replies have to be personal, find free software to help you keep track of these sites so you will be able to add replies quickly. Regardless of what marketing materials you write, don't spam.

5. Post your marketing materials.

There is plenty of free and low cost software available on the internet to help you get your work done quickly. All you have to do is search through a few software directories to find it.

Google even makes software for use with their pay per click. Take advantage of any software that makes your work go faster and easier.

Like these tips? Then check out my internet marketing blog for more free tips, strategies, and tools to help you make more money from your marketing. Sign up for my free internet marketing teleseminar.

Jinger Jarrett is the author of "Internet Marketing for Free: The GUIDE," available on Amazon.