ng? Good, successful internet marketing begins at home. Start by looking at your own business' CRM system - if you don't have one, then hang your head in shame, and find one. Install it, build it, make it work. A good CRM system is the most important tool in your internet marketing mix BAR NONE. A well build CRM system should be a database for existing clients, potential "hot prospects", cold prospects, dead leadsInternet marketing is easy. Actually that's a fallacy, using the internet as a medium for marketing is just as worthy of strategic planning as any other medium, however many big businesses are only recently waking up to this fact. And that is a fact. During 2005/2006 there has been an unprecedented swing in the balance of marketing budgets, with more and more cash being invested in internet marketing. I need to stress the word invested here, because previous "investments" in the internet in the late 90's were later found out - quite rightly so - as being utterly useless. I'm thinking of boo.com etc. However, many of the ideas of the late 90's were extremely good, but the contemporary software of the time was not up to task.

Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, we are in the middle of a new dotcom boom. What do you mean you never noticed? Well I can confirm that you are, but you probably never noticed due to its more controlled, long-term style. Slowly but surely from 2005 up until now businesses have invested in the internet and continued to do so because the return on investment has made it worth their while this time around.

Did you spot the key point in the last paragraph? Pay attention Bond! The key point was "ROI" - Return On Investment. That's the only thing marketing people care about. They care not a jot about actionscript, javascript, validation, ventilation, hyper-ventilation...nothing. They care about ROI. This is not necessarily a bad thing, so as a web professional it's up to you to ensure that your work creates a good ROI or you'll lose your client / job.

So what's the secret of good internet marketing? Good, successful internet marketing begins at home. Start by looking at your own business' CRM system - if you don't have one, then hang your head in shame, and find one. Install it, build it, make it work. A good CRM system is the most important tool in your internet marketing mix BAR NONE. A well build CRM system should be a database for existing clients, potential "hot prospects", cold prospects, dead leads,

d to stress the word invested here, because previous "investments" in the internet in the late 90's were later found out - quite rightly so - as being utterly useless. I'm thinking of boo.com etc. However, many of the ideas of the late 90's were extremely good, but the contemporary software of the time was not up to task.

Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, we are in the middle of a new dotcom boom. What do you mean you never noticed? Well I can confirm that you are, but you probably never noticed due to its more controlled, long-term style. Slowly but surely from 2005 up until now businesses have invested in the internet and continued to do so because the return on investment has made it worth their while this time around.

Did you spot the key point in the last paragraph? Pay attention Bond! The key point was "ROI" - Return On Investment. That's the only thing marketing people care about. They care not a jot about actionscript, javascript, validation, ventilation, hyper-ventilation...nothing. They care about ROI. This is not necessarily a bad thing, so as a web professional it's up to you to ensure that your work creates a good ROI or you'll lose your client / job.

So what's the secret of good internet marketing? Good, successful internet marketing begins at home. Start by looking at your own business' CRM system - if you don't have one, then hang your head in shame, and find one. Install it, build it, make it work. A good CRM system is the most important tool in your internet marketing mix BAR NONE. A well build CRM system should be a database for existing clients, potential "hot prospects", cold prospects, dead leads

hat do you mean you never noticed? Well I can confirm that you are, but you probably never noticed due to its more controlled, long-term style. Slowly but surely from 2005 up until now businesses have invested in the internet and continued to do so because the return on investment has made it worth their while this time around.

Did you spot the key point in the last paragraph? Pay attention Bond! The key point was "ROI" - Return On Investment. That's the only thing marketing people care about. They care not a jot about actionscript, javascript, validation, ventilation, hyper-ventilation...nothing. They care about ROI. This is not necessarily a bad thing, so as a web professional it's up to you to ensure that your work creates a good ROI or you'll lose your client / job.

So what's the secret of good internet marketing? Good, successful internet marketing begins at home. Start by looking at your own business' CRM system - if you don't have one, then hang your head in shame, and find one. Install it, build it, make it work. A good CRM system is the most important tool in your internet marketing mix BAR NONE. A well build CRM system should be a database for existing clients, potential "hot prospects", cold prospects, dead leads

was "ROI" - Return On Investment. That's the only thing marketing people care about. They care not a jot about actionscript, javascript, validation, ventilation, hyper-ventilation...nothing. They care about ROI. This is not necessarily a bad thing, so as a web professional it's up to you to ensure that your work creates a good ROI or you'll lose your client / job.

So what's the secret of good internet marketing? Good, successful internet marketing begins at home. Start by looking at your own business' CRM system - if you don't have one, then hang your head in shame, and find one. Install it, build it, make it work. A good CRM system is the most important tool in your internet marketing mix BAR NONE. A well build CRM system should be a database for existing clients, potential "hot prospects", cold prospects, dead leads

ng? Good, successful internet marketing begins at home. Start by looking at your own business' CRM system - if you don't have one, then hang your head in shame, and find one. Install it, build it, make it work. A good CRM system is the most important tool in your internet marketing mix BAR NONE. A well build CRM system should be a database for existing clients, potential "hot prospects", cold prospects, dead leads, business parters, everybody! Make sure each contact in every one of the above brackets is as fully detailed as possible with relevant telephone numbers (including mobile phone - you'll need that later!), email address, and "tag" as to their status, e.g. "client" or "hot prospect". Again, fill out as much information as you can for every contact, don't rush this job - do it right from the beginning. Could take a few weeks, but it'll be worth it, and later I'll be talking about how you can really use this monster you have created.

So run along and build that now, and then come back to this article...

Done it? Good.

Now you have your CRM in place, it's time to get strategic. For strategic you need to make a 12-24 month plan purely for internet marketing communications, and THAT my friends will need to take place in my next article, so stay tuned!