I need to put together an online marketing plan together for a client and have no idea were to start. The plan has to at least do the following:

1. Mass e-mails daily (1000 per day)

2. Top of search engine lists (Google and Yahoo)

How do other SEO company do it and where do I start?

Whooooboy! You have a baptism by fire coming your way!

I'll just focus on your initial qestions:

1. Who is supplying the email addresses, and if this is something you're supposed to figure out, how do you differentiate between a good one and a bad one? In other words, who is the target market?

2. What terms? Depending on their expectations, this might be very easy or it might be virtually impossible.

aaahhhh....I see what your saying and let me clarify..NOT SPAMMING

In regards to the mass emails that need to be sent out. I beleive that they are not to be spam emails but emails of people interested in their services.

I've alos been looking at this site http://www.beanstalk-inc.com to gather SEO information and will be buying a book today. As this is a service I'd like to provide my clients on a regular basis.

Any tips as how run a SEO service...WOULD BE GREAT :D

I would hang out on a lot of SEO forums... after a couple of months of reading and understanding "the game" you will pick up on things here and there. Best thing about forums is people ask questions everyday and experts (or those close to being experts.. and some losers) reply. After a month or two, you know who is Taking s and who actually knows what they are talking about.

Also, if you were to say something like "All emails are double-opt-in" I'm sure you would not get any flack.... lol

In regards to the mass emails that need to be sent out. I beleive that they are not to be spam emails but emails of people interested in their services.

...and a lot of those people will see those emails as spam, even though they have subscribed.

Yes, running an SEO service is not something that can be done based on some loose tips. It would be one thing if you showed us a site and we could make suggestions on what to do with it to increase its SERP. But asking for tips on starting an SEO practice is sort of like asking for some legal tips in order to open a law firm. A list of tips, even an exhaustive one, simply won't give you that level of knowledge.

The suggestion to hang out on SEO communities is a good one. Asking specific questions about SEO will get you specific answers too. If you'd like, we can look at the site in question and give you specific pointers in this way too. But you won't become an SEO expert overnight - no one has ever done that, and no one ever will :)

I have no doubts that the email addresses to which you're sending email will be people who have an interest in the products/services involved. My question is what mechanism is being used to ensure they've given their permission to email them?

Yep. I don't think the mass email marketing is going to work on the contrary you can be blacklisted as a spammer unless you opt for subscription based email system. Alternatively if you look for marketing through myspace and similar social networking sites, you can use their bulletin option that might be helpful to you.

Well, look @ his requests again.

It doesn't mean that the clients wants to SPAM everyone. Maybe they have an established clientbase whom they want to email, and at the same time apply some SEO enhancements to their website, in order to get more clients from that point of view.

I have asked and no word yet on their mass email tactics but I've already told them I do NOT deal with spam emails :agree:

Thanks for everyones imput. I'm on my way... :D

I have asked and no word yet on their mass email tactics but I've already told them I do NOT deal with spam emails :agree:

Thanks for everyones imput. I'm on my way... :DIf you can answer the first questions I asked regarding both email and SEO, perhaps I can be of more help ;)

I wasn't even insinuating you were planning to spam. I'm really not sure how spam became part of the discussion. I was wondering whether the client was responsible for collecting new email subscribers, or whether it is your job to come up with a marketing plan to get people interesting in receiving promotional emails.

Anywho, if you can give more insight, you can get some more helpful responses in return!

I'm sorry. I misunderstood.

1. They are supplying the email addresses. I have no way right now to know if they are good or bad. target market is stock trading.

2. Terms? None had been established.

Email marketing usually starts with the positioning of your product or service, you think who could need that product and where to find these people, then you plan carefully the message of the email, its design, color of the paper, texture etc. Make sure the site design is appealing to customers and speaks to them.
The toughest thing here is to acquire email addresses of clients wishing to receive emails from you, otherwise your host will have serious problems.
And the last thing, whenever you are creating marketing plans, terms are really important, use approximate dates, they will help youк client to get oriented.

I'm sorry. I misunderstood.

1. They are supplying the email addresses. I have no way right now to know if they are good or bad. target market is stock trading.

2. Terms? None had been established.Now we're getting somewhere :)

If they are supplying email addresses, your job becomes a whole lot easier. You get to set up the actual mechanism that will send the emails, and you can concentrate on the format you want their emails to take.

As for SEO, the most important thing when you're first discussing optimization is to make sure you manage your customer's expectations very closely. They may want to be #1 for terms as vague as "stocks" or "stock market," and you're going to have to be the one to reign them in, make them understand this is not realistic, at least not short term. SEO campaigns can be very complicated, very expensive and require a great deal of research. If you're ready to learn how to do this as a professional, start by getting an idea for the terms they would like to be highly ranked, report back here, and we'll start going a little research together :)

While I didnt read everyone's reply (read most)...

1. Since they're supplying the list, you can go with 2 (IMO) of the best providers: Constantcontact.com or Bronto.com .... Constant contact is ok, if all you are doing is sending out to your list, because they are very inexpensive. Bronto is more for large companies to use, they have an API to manage the opt/outs.. allow you to break down by segments, etc. As far as design, I don't want to sound like im pitching, although I am :) ... I would go with a company to create some professional designs for you, and then another company to do the ad copy for you. If your interested I can help you out with both those, just let me know.

2. SEO, Like most people have said - its very difficult depending on your website. I would recommend trying out Google and Yahoo's sponsored links. In the end, they'll probably be only a little more expensive than a full blown SEO campaign and are very, very targetted.

Just my .02