With regards to any online strategy, it's vital to get both your plan and budget right. Success will depend on your having:

• A solid internet marketing strategy, and
• Realism about the true costs of doing it properly.

In this context, it's worth pointing out that the old rule "build it and they will come" rarely works in online space. Too many businesses spend large amounts of money getting a website developed - only to find they have no money left to promote it.

If that sounds like you, then we're here to help. With the benefit of experience, our consultants at Prospectvision have devised six essential tips for what you should plan with regards any new internet marketing campaign:

1. Microsite / Website development - design & maintenance

The development of a new website or microsite has many variables. The overall cost  depends on several factors - whether it's static or dynamic, whether it includes a blog or shopping cart, and whether it's a bespoke design or a template. The functionality of your website will inevitably be determined by your overall internet marketing strategy. Remember: in the online world, all promotional activity leads eventually to your website.

2. SEO - Search Engine Optimisation

The bottom line is that the majority of your website traffic will come from search engines and directories. While the organic search engine traffic is free (no click costs), you will need to invest in some sort of SEO program to ensure you're maximizing this free search engine traffic.

3. Pay Per Click (PPC)

If you're looking for some quick wins in terms of traffic and results from your website then ‘Pay Per Click' (PPC) will be an essential tool. With a well set-up Google AdWords campaign, you can have highly targeted visitors delivered to your website almost instantly. It's a great way to ensure that you're getting a return on your website investment whilst the SEO and other strategies are still taking effect.

4. Email marketing

Email marketing provides a very cost effective form of direct marketing. However, there's a big challenge, especially for start up businesses, in finding and building permission based contact lists. The result is that this is a mechanism that often comes into its own once a business has been up and running for a while, and you've had a chance to build a decent subscriber base.

5. Blogs

Hosting and authoring a site blog can prove refreshing and insightful, since the task requires regular analysis and reflection of your business, markets, successes and failures in order to create vibrant and up-to-date content. Although these factors are by-products of blog creation, they can prove just as beneficial as the blog itself. Whether used for general news, training, product guides, promotion or notices, blogging is firmly rooted as a favourite tool for internet marketing.

6. Final steps and following up

After taking these initial measures, it'll be necessary to monitor your website traffic. A good first step would be the use of Google Analytics to give you an overview of website traffic per month. It's then that you should turn to Prospectvision - enabling you to identify, categorise and target your visitors using website visitor tracking.

Put simply, Prospectvision performs the essential task of identifying the potential customers for your services - whilst separating out casual site visitors. Whereas Google Analytics allows you to monitor the volume of traffic to your website, Prospectvision actually helps you to monitor, rank and target those website visitors so that you can nurture them through the buying cycle. In summary, the use of Prospectvision will help to increase both your sales and marketing efficiency.