Developing a successful Internet marketing strategy is the key to your online success. Your strategy not only involves your marketing and promotional efforts, but your web site will also play an important role.

You must develop and implement both short-term and long-term marketing strategies to bring a continuous flow of targeted traffic to your web site.

Developing a powerful strategy is a very important part of your success. However, unless your web site is specifically designed to sell, your efforts will be useless. You must look at the entire picture before you begin.

Short term marketing strategies are those that bring you a temporary boost in traffic. Although these techniques are very important to your over-all plan, they are only a temporary traffic source and must not be solely relied upon.

Short-term marketing strategies include:

Purchasing Advertising

This form of short-term marketing includes ezine advertising, banner advertising and classified ads. Although it is important to occasionally purchase advertising, it is short-term and will produce short-term results.

Bulletin Boards

Although sharing your expertise at popular bulletin boards can provide you with a boost in traffic, it is a temporary boost. It will not continue to produce results. Most boards only display a certain number of posts and the rest are archived.

Search Engines

Obtaining a high ranking in the Search Engines is a never-ending battle. You may have a top ten ranking one day and the next day your site may disappear. It is very important to submit your web site to the Search Engines, but trying to keep a top ten ranking is very time consuming -- your efforts may be better spent on more effective marketing techniques.

In order to create a steady stream of targeted traffic to your web site, you must also market for the future. Long-term marketing techniques are those that will continue to produce results even years down the road.

So what are some of these long-term powerful techniques? Here's a few to get you started:

Opt-in lists

Ask for your visitor's name and email address. In return, provide them with a valuable publication, a free course or some other valuable information. By continuously building your opt-in lists, you're creating a long-term database of potential customers.

Freebies

Give away something of value engraved with your name, business, product or service. Your freebie might be software you've created, a free ebook, or even a free course. The key to creating a long-term marketing freebie is to allow it to be freely distributed. If your freebie is good, it will quickly saturate the Internet and continue to circulate eternally.

Content

Provide the Internet community with free content. Content comes in a variety of forms such as articles, tutorials, tips, reports or whatever you'd like. Allow your content to be freely published in ezines and web sites. Content is a highly sought after commodity and can provide you with a great deal of free exposure for years to come.

A solid Internet marketing plan will include everything from your ad to your thank you and follow-up letters. Each process in your plan must perform a specific task.

1. Your short-term marketing strategies will drive traffic to your web site in intervals. Each time you place an ad, your traffic will increase. After a few days, your traffic will drop off.

2. Your long-term marketing strategies will drive a steady stream of traffic to your web site. Your traffic will continue to increase over time.

3. Your ad must draw your potential customer's attention and create curiosity. It must lead them to click through to your web site.

4. Your web site will then take over and provide further information, while leading your potential customer to your order page.

5. Your order page will be packed with all of the benefits your product has to offer and call for action.

6. Your marketing plan will continue to be implemented by closing the sale with a thank you letter.

7. Your final step will be to send follow-up messages in the future to provide good customer service and introduce new products.

A marketing plan is an absolute must. If you have no direction, you'll travel in circles and ultimately never reach your goals. Plan your work then work your plan. You may be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.