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Marketing - it (usually) starts once the site is launched (notwithstanding any pre-launch campaigns of course).

However, the marketing plan is a key tool in understanding the needs of the website before design and development begin - the plan helps identify the demographics of your target audience as well as possibly indicating traffic volumes or targets. This information feeds into the user interface, graphic design, site engine, hosting and infrastructure components so that the right systems are designed and built to meet your needs and your audience’s needs.

I am not going to get into a discussion of which marketing channels you should use because there is no hard and fast rule - except to say that you should look at all the channels and decide which will be best for your site, from online communities, through video blogs, podcasts, search engine optimisation, traditional advertising or even targeted mailshots and postcards.