Planning – Steps and Stages
How do you go about planning for something? An e-Commerce site, or online shopping experience is an important development. Planning for its success is one of the most important tasks you can do.
Planning is a process of deciding, today, what you will do tomorrow (or next week or next year…) With that definition, there isn’t anything magic about getting it done. You think about what needs to be done, and you make a plan of when and how you’ll do it.
Take this BLOG, for instance. What does it take to make it successful?
1. It takes Content. These essays need to be meaningful and interesting enough to keep visitors reading them, and to entice them to return.
2. Consistency – the entries should appear often enough to be relatively predictable.’
3. Organization – there should be multiple ways to organize Categories, Pings, Track-backs, and the like.
4. Exposure – More and more visitors need to come on by and see what’s cooking.
With those 4 criteria, we can construct plans for each area.
Content – I don’t know about you, but writing is hard work for me. How can I keep up any sort of consistent schedule of content creation? The blank screen blanks my mind. What can I do to improve my output?
Try this:
Make a list of topics. Brainstorm a number of them and write them down. Filter them down to a manageable number. Formalize the list.
Make an outline for one topic each day.
Write a rough draft of a different topic each day.
Edit a third topic each day.
Post it.
Consistency – This is simply a calendar schedule that makes it plain to me when I have to have something ready to post. If I’m using the Content plan, then virtually any calendar will work. If I need a different writing schedule, I can make it based on my desired posting plan.
Organization – This might be First topic, or come after your brainstorm. Primarily, this is to bundle my random thoughts into recognizable and relevant topics. I write down the potential topics and bundle them together.
I also need to keep my eye on how the site in general will be managed. This requires a plan, too.
Finally, how will I organize my business in general? Topic for another BLOG, I think.
Exposure – There are plenty of known ways to market a BLOG. Which of those ways will I include and How Often will I engage in “Marketing?” Again, knowing what needs to be done will allow me to construct a schedule of tasks and deadlines.
Planning is deciding today what to do tomorrow. It is as simple as that. A skeleton outline of the process is:
1. What needs to be accomplished?
2. What are some of the ways it can be done?
3. Which way will you choose to do it?
4. Write down the plan.
5. Do it
6. Evaluate how well you did.
Plan your next big adventure in online shopping.