Simple Business Plan: Your Budget

Simple Business Plan: Part 2 of 7

Today we’re going to get to work on the next part of your Simple Business Plan for marketing your offline business online. The money. I know this is never a happy topic, unless we’re talking about money coming into your bank account. But remember that’s our goal here.

To recap, if you are just tuning in, this is Part 2 of a 7 part series. To get you caught up in all the activity here, go read Simple Business Plan: Goals for Your Website first, then you’ll be up to speed on the project. :

Here’s the workbook, just in case you need it.

Click here to download the >> Simple Business Plan for Successful Online Marketing Kit.

Then save the document to your computer.

Okey-dokey, let’s get the party started…

Your Budget

When thinking about a budget, let’s start with just the basics. Building an online presence can range in cost tremendously. The whole point of you deciding to build your own website is to NOT spend a crazy amount of money, right? Right. So as we continue to build your project we will take into account expenses that are “must-have” and expenses that are “not-really-needed”.

We are working on Page 6 of the workbook right now.

To exist online you need 3 basics:

• Website Name – your ‘domain name’ (www.example.com) – about $15.00USD per year

• Website Hosting – the service that provides you the ability to show your website on the internet – about $10.00USD per month

• e-Mailing Service – autoresponder service (the service which keeps all your leads and sends them messages that you create – about $19.00USD per month

These are in the “must-have” category. Yes, you can get away with using a free website platform, but you are at the mercy of that company. And if for some reason, and it does happen, they cease to exist or they take down your site – you are left with nothing. Zilch. So, all your hard work is gone and you have to start from scratch. Not to mention you have limited ability on free platforms.

Also crucial to your marketing is a reliable autoresponder service. This is how you will be communicating with your website followers and keeping your name out there.

So, total for these 3 services it will be approximately $363.00USD per year or about $30 per month. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much. However, I don’t know your finances and maybe you need to examine your expenses to see how $30 is going to work into your budget.

Is this doable? Will you have to cut or reduce your business operating costs in another area?

How will you work in the monthly costs?

Go to Page 6 of the workbook and write down how you will cover these costs.

That’s it for day 2, you will be done with your Simple Business Plan for marketing your offline business online in no time.

As before, if you have any comments, questions, or good-natured tidbits, share them below.

Next time we are going to discuss “your time”.