Using a SWOT to Develop Your Internet Marketing Strategy

Your internet marketing strategy can make or break your business. It is important to note that simply setting up a website for your business won't make your money. There are thousands of businesses with websites, and there are even thousands of business that are only website based. Among these, lots of of them make little or no money because they have no internet marketing strategy.

Internet marketing allows you to do more things than you ever imagined. Your business may be able to operate at levels you never thought possible. Creating a strong internet marketing strategy will help you develop this new level of business. Before you create that marketing strategy, though, you should consider completing an SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT is a great tool that has helped traditional businesses for years. It helps you to evaluate your business at every level.

Before you complete your SWOT, though, there are a number of things you must remember. First, an SWOT analysis is very subjective. Not everyone will come up with the same results from the same analysis. For example, if eight different people within the very same company did the very same SWOT analysis, they would probably come up with eight very different sets of results. This means that you cannot rely heavily upon the analysis itself. Doing so might lead to trouble for your company. Second, if you are going to engage in this type of analysis for your company, you have to be honest and realistic.

You need to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and you need to do so on a level that is helpful to you. Ignoring your true problems, or bolstering your strengths is simply not going to help you or your customers. Lying will only cause the downfall of your business. Third, be sure that your analysis makes a clear distinction between the current position of your business and the future possibilities of your business. Don't spend time dreaming about where your business might be. Moreover, don't neglect the future possibilities of your business in favor of being depressed of the current status of your business.
Next, you need to be overly specific with your analysis. Don't fight with the areas you are unsure about. Work only with the areas you can analyze fully. Also, be sure to think in terms of your competition. For example, if you offer free basic web hosting services, but your competitor offers free web hosting services with all sorts of extras, you can't really list that as one of your strengths. Finally, as mentioned before, be specific, but keep your analysis as short and simple as possible. If you over-analyze during the process, you could cause yourself as many problems as under-analyzing.

About the author:

Visit Kris Koonar's http://www.websitemba.com to discover more tips and techniques taught from the top MBA schools of the world that you can shamelessly use to promote your own website.

Contact Kris and 1.877.270.7170 or kris@crackmarketing.com **This article may be distributed and used free as long as it remains unchanged and with the signature intact.**