Create a Successful Marketing Plan From Scratch
Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................3
The Why ..................................................................................................................4
Reason for Having a Marketing Plan........................................................................4
Components..........................................................................................................4
Mission Statement .................................................................................................4
Executive Summary ...............................................................................................4
Competition...........................................................................................................5
Implementation Strategies .....................................................................................5
Size Matters..............................................................................................................6
Development.........................................................................................................6
Involvement..........................................................................................................6
Sharing and
Editing Your Marketing Plan ....................................................................8
Researching Your Market...........................................................................................9
Primary Research...................................................................................................9
Direct Mailing ........................................................................................................9
Phone Surveys........................................................................................................10
Personal Interviews .............................................................................................10
Costs ..................................................................................................................10
Creating Your Market
Plan .......................................................................................11
Preparing to
Write the Marketing Plan...................................................................11
Financial reports..................................................................................................11
Opportunities and Threats.......................................................................................13
Addressing Problems...............................................................................................18
Procedures .............................................................................................................20
Marketing Objectives...............................................................................................22
Sales and Finance...................................................................................................24
Budget...................................................................................................................26
Tracking Effectiveness .............................................................................................26
Conclusion..............................................................................................................27
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Introduction
Marketing plans are an
imperative part of starting any business. They are used as a
blueprint for mapping out the manner in
which you will be able to achieve your business
goals.
A marketing plan is not only necessary for new businesses, as it can be used to help
existing programs
incorporate the strengths
their company currently
enjoys in an effort
to implement necessary changes or improvements.
A marketing plan can be implemented for a new
product or service in which case it is
meant to pull together all of the needed elements
for an effective
marketing start. It is
important to have a marketing
plan so that you can determine
where you are, where you
are headed, and how you will get there. It is
especially important to have a marketing
plan so that you can submit it
for things such as loan considerations.
As a whole, you should see your marketing plan as a process for which you have a
team whole goal is keeping it simple,
developing a time-frame, providing feedback,
implementing necessary revisions,
and remaining consistent with the mission
statement.
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The Why
Reason for Having a Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan is a small
subsidiary of your business plan. The
business plan is
responsible for spelling
out what your business does and does not do as well as the
ultimate business goals. It
is more than merely marketing as it discusses your locations,
financing, staffing,
and strategic alliances. It also includes
your vision.
Overall, think of the business plan as the cornerstone for your business. For new
marketing or business
measures, you need to
alter the business or marketing plan. Your
business plan should
encourage an environment where your marketing plan can grow,
thus both should reflect
well on one another.
Components
There are many components to a marketing plan. The first component
is a mission
statement. Following this should be an executive summary. After the
executive summary
should be an internal or external analysis. You should include objectives after this point,
followed by marketing strategies. Once you have determined your marketing strategies
you should identify your resources, an implementation plan, a marketing
budget, and
evaluation methods.
Mission Statement
The mission statement should contain a clear
description of the organizational identity,
for what the business is meant, as well as which results
your organization seeks.
The mission statement should
do more than just describe who is a part
of
the
organization. It should
reflect upon the internal
and
external perception in a manner
which is
understood by all.
The mission statement should speak
to
what drives the organization and how things
are
accomplished within the organization. Overall, the mission
statement should be simple.
Executive Summary
The executive summary
acts as an overview
which is readable and concise and
summarizes the
main objectives of
your marketing plan.
The internal analysis provides the background of the
company, the current
states, future
directions, current resources, as well as the strengths
and weaknesses of the company.
The external analysis
includes the economy,
the demographics, trends, competition,
and target markets. As far as opportunities and threats are concerned, you should
understand that the environment will produce both. You should estimate
the probability
therein based on
severe to not severe, as
well as likely to very unlikely.
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The Executive Summary
should be brief, a single page, and located
at the front of
the
marketing plan. It should use short sentences, bullet points, as well as bullet points for
the major issues. It should spell out what someone reading
your marketing plan needs
to know in order to
make sense of it
all.
The summary should provide readers with a concise description of the upcoming plans
for your company while also boiling
down your main thoughts.
Generally, this summary
is written after
the
completion of the marketing
plan.
Competition
Yo u should also list
who
your competition is, what
their products and/or services feature,
their pricing, their packaging, and their promotion. You should list the strengths
and
weaknesses of your competitors and how you are
different.
The customers and target markets section
should include the current
and potential
customers, the requirements of the customer
as well as the market clusters.
For the marketing strategies you should include the customers, target markets,
programs, services, packaging, pricing,
and promotion.
Implementation
Strategies
The implementation strategies
should include the steps, responsibilities, deadlines, and
budget. The marketing budget
should include the advertising, media, direct mail,
databases, printing, production, and possible
mailing.
When you are evaluating your market plan you need to understand your success
measure, the completion of action dates, accomplishment of goals and
strategies, the
results, as well as new customers,
repeat customers, the average
size of your
contracts, and revenue.
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Size Matters
The size of your marketing plan is dependent upon the size of your company. If you run
a small company,
you can generally create a marketing plan that is no more than a
handful of pages, whereas
a large corporation might have a marketing plan that runs
over one hundred
pages. In either case, the marketing plan should be
placed in a binder
where it can be referred to at least
quarterly, but hopefully
monthly. A section can be
placed in the marketing plan
for monthly reports on things
such as sales and
manufacturing for the sake of tracking performance as you follow
your outline.
A marketing plan should cover
the
length of one year. This
is because markets will
evolve, people will change, customers will leave, as will
people.
It is helpful to include
a section in your
marketing plan that addresses two or four
year
segments. Whether
or not
you do this, the majority of your marketing plan should
address the coming year.
Development
Yo u should make sure that you
have a couple of months to write the plan before
finalizing and publishing it, even if the marketing
plan is only a few pages in length.
The
development of the plan is the hardest part. Executing the plan will bring with it
challenges, but the biggest challenge
is deciding what your
company should do in the
market and how to
do it. Generally a marketing
plan will begin with the first of the year
or with the opening of
the
fiscal year if they are
not the same.
Involvement
Everyone in your company should see the marketing plan. There are many
companies
who like to keep their marketing plans secret because they are ashamed
of them, or
they think that the information contained therein provides
them with a competitive
advantage. However, marketing cannot be done without
getting people involved.
Whatever the size of your company might be, you need to ensure feedback from every
aspect of your company including finance,
personnel, supply, manufacturing, etc…
Getting every
facet of your company involved in the process
is important for many
reasons.
Part of having
a decentralized company is that you can seek decision
making processes
that facilitate every member of the organization, in an attempt
to ensure that all
members feel as though
they are a part
of
the organization.
By allowing every
employee to contribute in some fashion or another, they all feel as
though they are a better part of the organization and as such work
harder to see
projects to which they contributed through. Since our company is not facing a crisis,
there is no need
to
employ centralized decision
making.
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Even with decisions
such as an annual marketing plan, the company will have less risks
associated with dispersing power evenly, which also contributes to lower
management
levels, communication
strategies, and better office relations.
Employees are
more motivated to perform
for the organization of which they are a part,
since they
know that by sharing their ideas
they are improving the organization. They
feel as though their actions can improve
the inefficient aspects of
the
company without
having to take any idea to the top, while all management levels are able to utilize
their
knowledge and experience in their respective divisions.
Taking advantage of
decision-making from all employees
will created the opportunity for
advanced creativity and a better division of labor.
A decentralized management will
allow your company to diversify aspects of the company
which we might not have done
otherwise.
Managers can be encouraged to use their own
teams and each team can be
responsible for an
individual aspect of the marketing plan or review of
the
marketing
plan. There are also
cross-functional teams that work within all divisions
ensuring that
all employees
are
performing tasks above menial, allowing
them to continually be
challenged and continually work with one another.
By facilitating better
communication your company will able to improve
efficiency within
departments that might otherwise have failed to communicate. Your divisions must
continually be in sync with one another,
also contributing to more efficient
workplaces
and staff members.
Your top levels still maintain
the overall say in major
company decisions, but other
smaller divisions and
teams and management are responsible for their individual
aspects, all of which combine
to make a large and impressive organization from the
bottom upward instead
of from the top downward, trickling
slowly until some parts reach
the bottom levels. This is
the
best way to ensure
great marketing and company
involvement.
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Sharing and Editing Your Marketing
Plan
When you are attempting to involve everyone in
your company in the editing process,
you need to provide everyone
with access to your marketing plan. Thanks to modern
technology there are a handful of viable options
in sharing the marketing plan in any
stage, receiving feedback,
and group editing
of the marketing plan.
There are online
forums such as Google Documents
where you can allow access as
“view-only” to certain facets
of the company,
while others are allowed
“edit” functions
when viewing the document
online.
Another popular method for group viewing,
sharing, and editing
of marketing plans is
Dropbox. Dropbox is a software program which lets you sync
documents between
computers, iPhones, Androids,
and online. You can share them with other computers
and then edit them on the web later.
Dropbox is a great mechanism used to sync files between a main desktop
and a laptop.
Yo u simply install it onto the computers
or iPhones which you are using and then drag
your files and drop them into the folders
so that they are synced
between computers.
After you create a user account, you can log in and see all of the computers synced to
your account.
If you use the internet interface
you can view any of the files
which were synced online.
Using it is really simple. You download
the software, whichever version you want for
your computer, and then
you create the Dropbox
file. You create your online account
which links all of your connected computers. Then you simply
click on the file you want
to sync and drag them to the Dropbox
file
and drop them off.
They will then be synced to the other
computers and online. There are some
great pros
to the Dropbox including the free 2GB you get. It also has
a great web interface
which
makes it simple to upload your
files and access them later. It is compatible with
Windows, Mac, and Linux
making it perfect for nearly any users.
Yo u can share files through
Dropbox and it is simple
to use. If you have an iPhone or an
Android then you have a mobile application you can use too. However, you can’t use it
with a Blackberry and the mobile applications are really limited. The basic version is
free, but if you want
to upgrade to the Pro 50 or Pro 100
then it will cost you either per
month or annually.
Overall the Dropbox
software is great for anyone who just needs to send basic
files or
for businesses to share files
from different locations. Multiple
people can submit
changes at the same time, mirroring
the Google documents
application and an
integration of cloud
computing. If you create
documents which aren’t shared to public
folders, you can simply
invite someone to view it
and
collaborate.
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Depending on the size of
your company and the needs of the employees, you can find
the right offer for your
company for a moderately low price.
Researching Your Market
It is
important to research your market so that you have
relevant data to
aid
you in
solving any
marketing problems which your company might encounter. If your company
is just starting up, then this is absolutely necessary. Thorough market surveys function
as the cornerstone for any successful business.
Without market research
you cannot identify
specific segments within your market nor
can you identify which of your products and/or services separates you from your
competition. Whether
you
use experimental methods, survey methods,
observational
methods, or historical methods,
you will end up
with two types of data.
The first is
primary data which is gathered by an
outside source but compiled by you.
The secondary data is compiled
and organized by someone else. This is
the most
popular source of information generally reported by government agencies, businesses
within the industry, or trade associations.
Primary Research
Primary research can
be exploratory or specific. If the latter, it is meant to be open-
ended so that you can define
a specific problem.
It will require detailed
and unstructured
interviews which include lengthy
answers solicited from
respondents. Specific research
is broader and is meant to solve a problem identified by exploratory research. In this
instance, the interviews
are
structured and very formal. Specific research is the more
expensive of the two. If you plan to conduct
primary research with your own resources,
the first step is deciding
how you plan to question your target group. You can do this
through personal
interview, telemarketing, or direct
mail.
Direct Mailing
For direct mail, the best way to ensure you increase the rate
of response is to do the
following:
Make it short and sweet
Address questionnaires to specific persons
Address questionnaires to people interested
in the respondent
Limit the questionnaire to two pages
Enclose a cover letter from your company explaining your needs
Send a reminder two weeks after
the questionnaire has been mailed with a self-
addressed, postage-paid envelope.
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Response for direct
mail is generally less than five percent.
Phone Surveys
Phone surveys can be cost-effective, particularly compared to direct mail, with a higher
response rate. The cost is one third that
of personal interviews whose response
rate
rests around ten percent. If you choose
to conduct market research via phone surveys
ensure that:
• The interviewer confirms the name
of the respondent at the beginning
• Pauses are avoided so
that
interest does not drop
• A follow-up call is made if any
further information is required
• Interviews do not divulge
details pertaining to the poll until
the respondent has
been reached
The typical rate associated with phone interviews is five or six per hour per interviewer.
The best part
about phone surveys is that you can cover a wide geographic with a
relatively inexpensive
rate, particularly since phone rates are less during certain
hours.
Personal Interviews
With personal
interviews, you will find two types. The first is
the group survey while the
second is the depth interview.
The group survey is generally reserved for
big businesses when they are brainstorming product modifications or new ideas as the
results of group surveys
can
dictate buying preferences as well as purchasing decisions
made by particular populations. The depth interview is a one-on-one interview wherein
the interviewer works with a small checklist. These interviews can be focused or non-
directive. Focused interviews include a pre-set checklist. With a non-directive depth
interview, the interviewers
encourage the respondents to discuss particular topics but
with very
little questioning. This design encourages the respondent to lead the interview.
Costs
When you consider which surveys should be used you should bear in mind the costs
attached to each.
For mailing, the costs are
contained in the printing, envelopes, postage, cover
letters, as
well as researcher time, incentives, and time for analysis
and presentation. For
telephone surveys you must consider
the
costs for the interviewer’s fees, phone
charges, the cost of preparing the questionnaire, the researcher time, as
well as the
cost for the analysis and preparation of results.
Personal interviews incur expenses based on printing costs, cards if they are necessary,
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incentives, interviewer’s fees, researcher time, as well as the cost for analysis and
presentation.
Group discussions will cost you based on interviewer’s fees, recruiting expenses, rent
for a conference room or another facility, researcher time, incentives, recording media,
and the final analysis and presentation.
Creating Your Market Plan
No matter how you organize your marketing plan, it should be easily
understood by all.
Yo u want to ensure
that everyone in your company
has access to the document both
physically and linguistically.
Preparing to Write
the Marketing Plan
There is vital
information which your company
should have gathered
prior to writing the
marketing plan. If you have everything that you need before you sit down to write, you
will be able to avoid
interrupting the writing process and thinking process. The first
thing
you should have when preparing to
write the marketing plan is:
Financial reports
These should be profit and loss,
operating budget, as
well as recent sales figures
relating to each product
and region for the current
year as well as the past three years.
If your company
is new, then you should have financial reports for as long as your
company has been in business, or estimated reports.
The next thing you should have is:
List of each product
or service
This should include everything
in
your current line as
well as your target markets.
The third thing you should
have when you are preparing to write your marketing
plan is:
An organization table
This is especially for the larger
companies. If your company has less than five
employees then you won’t need this section.
After this you should include:
Your understanding of the current marketplace
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This includes a list of your geographic boundaries, your competitors, the customers to
whom you sell,
any distribution channels that you
already have, demographic data, as
well as information pertaining to trends in your current markets
either product related or
demographic related.
It would be prudent
to ask any of the employees currently in customer
relations or sales
to list the major points that
should be included
in the coming marketing plan. It is
not
necessary to include every crucial point, but taking
a few into account is nice.
Chapter Fourteen: Market
Situation
The term “market situation” refers to the best description of the current
state of your
current marketplace. This section
should include the following
answers:
• What are your current products or services?
• What are your current product lines or service lines?
• What is the dollar size of your current market or your
markets?
• What is your sales set up?
• What is your distribution set up?
• To what geographic area do you sell?
• What is the population of
your audience?
• What are the demographics
of
your audience?
• What are the income levels of
your audience?
• What competitors do you have in this marketplace?
• How well have
your products sold historically?
A market
situation section in your marketing plan might look like the following:
Markus and Associates is a legal firm started in
1988. We provide legal services
to individuals and to businesses under
$700,000 in annual sales. We provide legal
support to those same businesses. Our
market area is Jacksonville, Florida, and its western suburbs.
For the personal
market, our clients typically are in the $85,000 and higher
income
range, or they are retired with assets of $250,000
or more. For the business market,
most of our work is for independent convenience store.
With the exception
of a poor period from 1991 through
1993, Markus and
Associates has grown steadily from its creation. Gross sales in 1998 were
$165,000.
Competition for our immediate
market is a group
of six firms roughly
comparable to our
company. Only one of these firms, McCormick
Legal, has an interest
in marketing itself.
We believe we rank third in
the group of
competitors, behind McCormick.
We have a strong position
in the convenience store
portion of our business.
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Generally, the head management team will have this information, but now
you must
write it down. The marketing plan is
where you can pull all relevant
information together
and justify your actions for the following year. In the marketing
plan you should consider
how each of your services or each of
your products compares to the services and
products of your competition. You should explore
whether there are opportunities within
the market that neither
you nor your competition is exploring currently.
Also, while preparing to write the marketing
plan you will discover that different
members of your company will have different
ideas about the
current situation and the
elements therein. You can use this opportunity to compare different aspects of the
market against one another.
Opportunities and Threats
There are always
good and bad implications within the current
market. You should
consider the
following questions when determining opportunities and threats
in the
current market:
• Which trends in the market are working against
you?
• Are there threatening competitive trends?
• Are your current products
prepared for
success in the current market
as they
exist right now?
• Which marketplace trends are working in your
favor? • Which competitive trends are working in your favor?
• Are your current market place demographics working for or against you?
Yo u can locate this information from all over.
You can begin with the city and state
business publications, you can
talk with local business
reporters, you can browse
chambers of commerce
publications. You can also contact various manufacturers, read
trade journals, or talk to the professionals
within your association.
If your company
is simply creating a marketing
plan for the coming year, it is
important
to address
issues which were met during the last year
in
an effort to
create and
implement strategies to overcome
them at present.
Consider the following
scenario from the previous year:
In a recent project (source:
Project Connections, 2010), a company
had contracted with
an outside software developer (vendor) to provide software code (software program)
that would be used daily by customers. On that first main project with the vendor,
problems were encountered due to fast-moving schedules, early misunderstandings on
requirements, management changes in the middle,
and some unreliable performance to
deadlines. As the team approached time to release the code
for final QA prior
to
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release, the functionality of the system
they delivered was not all that we had wanted or
needed. But time was short and
the company moved into testing this first release.
The outside developer was of course
needed to support
the in-house software team
during testing, with fast
turnaround on any remaining bugs. Unfortunately, the issues
and difficulties working
together on the first development cycle had already created a
strained relationship.
By the time the teams
were ready for Validation testing
(an
important step in software
development to see that it
works), the team environment was
rife with tension,
some finger-pointing and scape-goating, and general
unpleasantness.
In this difficult environment came the discovery,
during QA testing,
of a software bug
that would cause horrible problems in certain customer usage scenarios.
The software code in question was scheduled for its first
deployment and customer use
in just one month. An internal memo describing this state of affairs was circulated, and a
low, rumbling panic began in the technical
corners of the company.
Political considerations kept the project
in limbo for another two weeks after the memo
was published. Meetings with the vendor's high-level management finally resulted in the
assembly of an augmented project team to tackle
the problem fast.
By then, the teams
had 12 days to design,
complete, test, and implement the needed
software code changes. Never had
a deadline loomed so large or seemed so
unreachable.
It is
important that the company
be able to state the problems
that have occurred,
determine how the company could have avoided them, give guidance
to the project
manager of this
project on how project planning
could have been done.
Also, make recommendations for future projects
of this type regarding the project life
cycle, stakeholder
management and creating effective project
teams, and then
determine what
were the risks in this project and how could they have been avoided,
as
well as what were the shortcomings
in
the project manager’s work and how could they
be avoided in the future.
The problems which occurred started
with the fact that there were fast-moving
schedules, adherence to which was either
not done or could not be done. There
were
misunderstandings between the company and the outside
software developer about the
requirements. During the middle of the project
there were changes to the management.
For some deadlines
were there unreliable performances.
The functionality of the delivered system was not up to par upon
the release time. It
was
not what the company
wanted or needed.
This presented further
problems because
there was limited time and the company
had to adhere to the deadline
for the testing for
the first release.
Because the outside developer was still a necessary component for the testing, they
Page | 14
needed to be
there for the in-house software team during
the testing period.
There was
a fast turnaround time to remove any remaining bugs, which placed
an additional strain.
Because of the aforementioned issues and difficulties between
the company and
outside software
team during the first development cycle there was a strained
relationship.
The next time period
was the validation testing
which was an
important step to
determine whether or not the software
development worked. With the tensions
between
the team environments, there existed
finger-pointing and scape-goating, and general
unpleasantness between the two.
During the QA testing period,
they discovered that a software
bug existed which cause
horrible problems
in specific scenarios of
customer could use. The deployment of the
software code was
scheduled for one week from that date while customer use was
scheduled for
one
month from that date causing
panic among the already rift
environment. After
this, an internal memo circulated and all of
the
technical corners of
the company began
to panic.
There were political
considerations made regarding the project which took another two
weeks of time after
the date of the published
memo. After this, meetings
with the
vendor's high-level management finally resulted in the assembly of an
augmented
project team to tackle the problem
fast. However, by this point the teams had only 12
remaining days
to
design, complete, test, and implement the needed software
code
changes, a deadline
which encompassed the most unreachable and large deadlines of
the past.
There are a myriad of
things which could have been done to avoid these problems,
each taken at different
steps in the process.
In the initial phases, given the fact that the
schedules were fast-moving and resulting with people unable to meet them, this
could
have been a problem with a lack of understanding regarding the schedules, or the
schedules literally
being too tight.
If the problem was the former then it could have been averted
by speaking with every
stakeholder and receiving written
confirmation of their understanding of the deadlines
and the requirements within
those deadlines. If
it was the latter, then more frequent
communication between the company and the outside software
designers would have
been prudent so that any hindrances in terms
of deadlines could be met head-on.
If, for example,
the outside designers
had an issue within the first
three days, that issue
could be presented to management from the company
hiring them and they
could re-
evaluate their overall
deadlines to ensure
that the software was
designed to meet their
standards, even if the time needed was
a bit
longer.
If they could not accept additional time, then the possibility
would arise of hiring another
outside company before things got worse. Stating that there were misunderstandings
about the requirements
could have been solved
by requiring both parties
to sign
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confirmation of their understanding of the requirements so that they would not
create
conflicts from that later in the design
process.
Changing management in the middle of a project
will create fundamental issues
between the two parties
because of the shift in communication styles. It would have
been best to avoid this change
altogether, but if it
could not be avoided,
then everyone
should have met with the new management and redefined schedules and deadlines and
requirements.
If there were unreliable performances for any of
the deadlines they should have at once
been stopped. The unreliable
performances should have been reviewed and changed,
and all pending deadlines
changed to accommodate the new changes.
If this had been done then the additional
problems of the functionality not meeting
requirements upon release
time could have been avoided.
If, however, that point came,
then the company should have gone back with the software
developers and pointed out
exactly where things
were not acceptable and what changes needed to be made, then
had the software company fix them before
the release.
While the
company had limited time and needed to adhere
to
the testing for the
first
release, it would have been more
prudent to fix any impending issues before testing, no
matter the cost incurred for delays. Since
there was an additional
strain created from
the fast turnaround to remove any remaining bugs, the company
would have maintained
the outside developer
because they were necessary,
but added to them and the in-
house software
team if possible to ease the burden of
the time constraints, assuming
time constraints could not be altered.
If measures
had already been taken prior
to now, then the strain between the two
groups could have been averted.
However, if not, then it would be prudent to remind
both parties that blaming people was not going to get work done and that at this point,
it
was not a matter
of
who was at fault but
rather, getting
the issues fixed
as quickly as
possible.
Team building exercises could be done to build better relations between both parties
so
that the work environment could be more conducive to work. Ensuring that little
measures were taken to bring the members
of
each party back together would be the
best way to do this.
There could be group meetings wherein each side could discuss the biggest issues
with
the software and the other teams, and then they could work together to find solutions to
all of the issues.
With the
validation period, again, hopefully
at
this point the aforementioned issues could
have been worked out, but assuming
they were not and we arrived at this point
with
these problems, then it would be prudent
do many things.
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The first is to take the bug which
was found and immediately
gather both sides together
to determine which steps would be needed
by
both sides to
remove the bug.
Also, how
long it would take, and then each party would have to sign a written
confirmation of their understanding of the issues and the time periods in which these
issues needed to be resolved.
Instead of simply circulating a memo, it would be
more beneficial to bring
everyone
together in a meeting
to have these discussions. These meetings
might have to involve
conference calls if the software
developers are far away, but otherwise, any political
considerations to be
made should be discussed with both parties so that everyone
is
aware of what is
at stake, what needs to be done, what decisions are being considered,
what help might be needed,
and how long it will take.
With the most unreachable deadline
and the largest amount
of remaining work, an
augmented team would hopefully
be
adequate, but they should have also included the
original team in the augmented team
to create more hands working and a better
relationship between all working
parties.
For future projects of this
type the project life cycle should have been created with all
involved parties
in a round-table effort to ensure that everyone understood and was
confident that deadlines could be met.
The stakeholder management, for future projects of this
type, should have better
communication between them at all times and if any rift is
beginning to form, everyone
should be brought back together in a manner which relates everyone to the issues at
hand, the larger
project, and less focus on individuals and seclusion or taking side.
Creating effective project
teams means generally the same thing, that everyone openly
accepts and complete
understanding of the project and what is expected of them and
their teams
and that the work environment be one in which they can alert management
of their status’ throughout the project cycle and re-evaluate the project cycle if time
constraints are discovered.
The issues with the project included
poor communication, poor management,
misunderstandings, personal
conflicts, strained relationships, secret communication,
poor time management, and fiscal constraints. All of these
are also shortcomings of the
project management. Poor communication could have been avoided
by better
management and better acts between parties to ensure communication.
Without getting written
confirmation and understanding of all project deadlines, then
there is no way for the
project workers to create positive
work relationships at the start
of the projects.
This would alleviate the misunderstandings as well. As
far
as personal conflicts, this
could have been avoided by better
managed teams whose relationships would not
reach the point of strain
if communication were improved and all involved
parties were
able to openly
discuss matters in group
formats instead of
via memos or secret
communication by upper
echelons of managements.
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Poor time management could be rectified, again, with better communication and
working environments, and overall,
fiscal constraints were a major root
of the issues
with this
project because without wanting
or having the money to spend on extending
due dates, undue pressure was
placed upon all parties
involved.
With better
communication and management of teams, an understanding of the fiscal
constraints could have inadvertently explained
to all parties why time extensions
were
not permitted.
Addressing Problems
It is
important to recognize potential problems in new marketing strategies so that they
can be addressed
in the future.
Assume that a new
domestic tourism operator
specializing in surf holidays wishes to
build an interactive web site that allows the customer to see in real
time the weather,
wind, surf and other data relating
to their destination. As a new and bold initiative the
operator wishes to tie in the price of
the holiday with the weather
situation. Better waves
and better weather attract
a higher price and vice versa.
It
is a new and potentially
risky
project and the owner of the business has asked you, a recent project
management
graduate, to assist
him
in planning for this project.
For the marketing plan pertaining to this endeavor, it would be product to list the
following:
A) List the risks associated with this project
B) List the top ten
steps you would undertake in delivering this project
There are many risks associated with building an
interactive web site that allows the
customer to see in real time
the weather, wind, surf
and other data relating
to their
destination.
There are many risks
involved in this project. Because
of the interactivity associated
with the design of the website, there are
many challenges that any interactive website
would encounter. The website would need applications
which are hosted within an
environment controlled by a browser.
With the site you can update and maintain the
web applications
such as the live-feed weather reports.
Potential problems include having to develop specific browser-based technology which
might prove a costly
endeavor, offset by users
paying a monthly fee instead of
downloading the software linked to the web access.
Yo u might have to hire a web programmer to write the web application to work with
your
internet operating system
which would incur an additional cost. This can
reduce the
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number of errors in
the
program, which will help
attract more customers, but there
can be security-related problems with the frameworks of the program.
Not only would you
have to develop an application that links
any weather software with
the web access, but you would need to take on the risk and
costs of creating an
interactive payment program, and an equation
for linking costs with weather,
an
endeavor which would need to be constantly monitored.
This web site would sacrifice basic usability and user experience for the interface and
weather updates. The issue of standard
compliance might arise.
As with any website,
the browser applications are reliant upon access to the application files.
These files are
located on remote
services which are accessed via the internet. If their connection is
interrupted, then they cannot use the application. There is
the potential for a
loss of
flexibility since the web applications are not always an open source.
This means that
users are generally
dependent upon third-party servers which mean there are
no
options for customization. There can be privacy
issues associated with the fact that any
company can track
the actions of the users.
There can be unwanted costs associated
new software and necessary alterations to functionality.
The risks associated
with tying in the price
of the holiday with the weather situation are
quite simply the potential
for
a loss of revenue because of uncontrollable events. There
are also risks such
as determining how much to
charge for any given weather
situation
and the amount of additional
measures one would need to include
in determining this
number. There are many different factors such as wind
speed, direction, etc… This
would require meticulous
detail into the influential
factors and the affects that each had
on the overall price for the vacation spots. Also, another issue would be people who
book their vacations at a set price based on
weather and upon arrival the weather
changes, changing the price with it. There would need to be
stipulations for whether or
not they can be charged
more or less upon arrival based on the weather, or if their
purchase is
finalized based on the weather at
the
time they book their reservations.
As far as the top ten things I
would do for this project,
I would begin with the browser
type, such as Java or JavaScript to make the applications possible for each of the
clients.
The website would need a familiar
interface that combines things such as the specific
weather application,
audio, video, and keyboard
access. I would establish general
purpose techniques that allow
things such as drag and drop. I would integrate client-
side scripting so that the clients can
enjoy the interactive experience of the live-feed and
up to date weather information without consistently
requiring the page reloading.
Yo u would have to break
down the necessary applications
into what are commonly
referred to as “tiers”. Each of these “tiers” would be assigned
a specific role. You would
recommend a three-tier application for this site with the first being presentation, the
second being application, and the third being
storage. The web browser
is
the
presentation tier. Web content technology is used for the second
tier.
This is where the updates
and user interface are generated. Since this
is a moderately
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complex application for the weather,
the third tier would provide users the
continual
access to the data. Since this
interface is meant for a business,
you would need to
devise a business strategy to use interconnect the new software with the web
access.
Yo u would ensure that all new features
were implemented on the original server which
would negate the need to upgrade. You would integrate the
server-side web procedures
such as the ability
for
clients to search
and email.
Yo u would ensure that the
website has cross-platform compatibility so that it can
be operated within any
web
browser window.
Procedures
Understanding what potential problems might be faced and how a company can go
about ensuring that marketing plans are
implemented is one important
aspect to a
successful marketing
plan. Consider the following example:
Your company wishes to obtain data from private companies regarding their economic
activity. The project requires 100 firms to be interviewed. These are split into 3
categories. The project
manager has a timeframe of 2 months and has
3 employees to
deliver this project. The results
need to be verified by a second
government department
before they are used.
For this project, the stakeholders include the project owner, project
management team,
the three categories of businesses, the second government department as well as the
end user of the data.
For each step of the project,
it would be necessary
to document written understanding
and agreement from
all involved parties
to ensure that there is
no confusion amongst
any group and that each stakeholder
is
well aware of their
responsibilities and their due
dates.
For the design, you would need to divide the one hundred
firms into the three
categories. After
this point, you would establish three teams. In this case,
it would be
one employee per team
since there are only three employees tasked for this
assignment.
They would have to designate
a specific goal for the number of
firms interviewed per
day. This would help maintain a consistent quota.
Given the fact that the project needs to be completed and verified by another company
before the two month time period, it
would be best to acquire
the results to the one
hundred interviews
as
quickly as possible.
Assuming each employee
works five days per
week, ensuring the completion of at
least
one interview per day would
mean that the total
interviews per employee would be
finished in a matter of
thirty three days which is a little over six weeks, leaving one and
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one half weeks for the final review.
It would be more prudent to establish goals of 1 ½ to 2 interviews per day to ensure that
the other government agency has
time to review the interviews. You would manage the
stakeholder interaction in the design stage
by monitoring the division
of the one hundred
interviews and the establishment of the 3 employees per one set of interviews.
Yo u would also ensure that the project
owner was aware and that the other government
organization was informed of the time period
in which they could expect to receive the
completed work.
If they reported that they needed the work
soon to review, then
communication between the three employees
would be needed to speed up the
progress of the interviews.
For the inception, the three employees
would need to be monitored
for progress in
terms of the interviews. You would manage the stakeholder
interaction in the inception
stage by providing updates to the project owner as well as the second government
organization.
Yo u would supply them as often
as requested, whether daily, weekly, or bi-monthly.
This
would require maintaining updates from the project management
team as to their
progress during a designated time period so that the current
information can be passed
along to the project owner as well as the second government organization.
For the scope agreement, you would need to
ensure that every
organization as well as
business was
informed of the deadlines, the goals, the necessary progress reports, and
the frequency for all of the aforementioned.
Yo u would manage the stakeholder
interaction in the scope agreement stage by
ensuring that each group was in agreement as to their
necessary deadlines.
This would mean that the project
owner was aware of the official
deadline, which
businesses were divided into which category, which employee from the project
management team was responsible for overseeing the interviews of their designated
group of businesses, the daily
goals of the interview progress, as well as the length
of
time needed and given to
the second government organization to complete
the final
review.
For the delivery,
you
would need to ensure
that the throughout the two months
each of
the employees from the project management team were meeting their goals in terms of
the amount of daily interviews,
that they were establishing current updates which were
to be passed along to the project
owner as well as the second government
organization.
Yo u would have to ensure
that the project owner was
receiving the necessary updates
and that the second government organization was also kept informed
as to the progress
and when they would receive the total
project with the one hundred interviews.
Yo u would manage the stakeholder
interaction in the delivery stage by checking
on
each of the three employees to determine that they are filling
out any necessary
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updates and that they have
met
their goals, combined their total interviews, and
submitted them to the second government organization.
For the review, you would need to ensure that the second
government organization
received the interviews and reviewed
them within their designated time frame,
you would manage the stakeholder
interaction in the review stage by conversing with
the second government organization to get written confirmation that they received the
document with
the
interview materials and that they were reviewing.
For the completion, you would need to ensure that the completed
project was submitted
back to the project owner.
You would manage the stakeholder
interaction in the
completion stage by verifying with written confirmation the sending and receiving of the
completed document from
the second government organization to the project owner.
These are
simple concepts, though
the detail in implementing them from beginning
to
end is a necessary component to the marketing plan because without
that attention to
detail, all employees cannot contribute because they will not fully understand, nor will
you be able to dictate the necessary
roles each facet of the company plays.
Marketing Objectives
In a marketing
objectives section of your
marketing plan you should
describe the future
picture. This
section should answers that objectives your company
wishes to achieve
over the course
of the following year. You should include a narrative of
what you intend
to accomplish alongside
the data to support
the objectives.
As an example
you could start with the following:
Strategic management
has recently expanded to include the management of
logistics.
Within the maintenance of logistics, information technology has played
a large role in
productivity. Thanks to the
complex developments involved
in travel, shipping, global
supply chains, and supplying
businesses with materials,
logisticians have been called to
ensure that businesses like ours are able to offer services
which get all of their clients
where they need to be and when.
From this
point you should be able to work
with each department of your company to
determine how the
group best feels about implementing new strategies for the coming
year, what things worked previously,
what advances have been made recently that
would help to bolster
numbers for the following year, as well as how strategic
management would work with the marketing
plan at hand.
With the
widespread use of technology, the coordination between
logistics management
has been greatly affected. Processing and communication has been improved
which in
turn increases interdependencies between different organizations. Technology has
created computer
networks which provide coordination between large numbers of
Page | 22
people with the ability
to
work together. Computing tools
and information technology
have created new
collaboration in the form of electronic collaboration, aiding logistics
management. The effective integration of information technology has built commitment
into business management, making it one
key
factor in the success of
effective
management. Interpersonal
computing has made organization processes less
expensive and quicker.
Real organizations can dramatically reduce the costs of their
coordination as well as communication through new information technologies radically
creating more flexible
organizations.
Conducting business
logistics management to its highest
capacity has been a conflict
for small and large corporations
since their inception. Aiding this challenge, technology
has proved an effective medium for over one hundred years. Electronic collaboration is
debated to have rescued
communication, projects, data-entry, processing, and the
continual search for better
production. However, the all-encompassing rescue is
now
generating skepticism regarding its impact on creativity,
effectiveness, and quality.
Given research from
the past decade, it is debatable
whether or not e-collaboration has
been an aid or hindrance; still, the more important inquiry is finding the balance
for small
and large businesses between efficiency and produced
quality generated by the
advancement of these
technologies.
E-collaboration spaces intended for advanced
methods of maintaining contact with
fellow employees during the work
day
and creating instant
communication, ability to
view availability, and create conferences, generated Lotus Notes and Domino. These
environments expanded from military to business to educational with the development
of e-learning environments catered to class discussions, class projects, and rapid
accessibility to documents and information through Blackboard and WebCT. Sharepoint,
and Documentum Eroom
are additional portals developed
specifically for the sharing of
documents. While these systems
allowed correspondence and minimal documental
transactions, they
were expounded upon to create
the web “made up of millions of
platform-dependent web servers providing users access to static and dynamic content
through platform-independent web browsers”. Overall, this produced browser-based
systems within the web as well as the earlier non-browser based systems
of
peer-to-
peer and client-to-server systems. These innovative tools
for e-collaboration were
founded and distributed by key players such as Microsoft, IBM, and Groove Networks
and sharply reduced the cost of traditional business collaboration.
All of the aforementioned platforms and systems have been exercised
by small and
medium sized enterprises as well as corporations in their marketing plans for the
benefits of product innovation and infrastructure
management.
Corporations have learned from trial and error, gambling
with large up-front costs, and
merely predicting which
of these methods
best suits their needs as the technology
develops and their new marketing plans have been developed.
Corresponding via e-mail is the oldest of these technologies and still functions as the
most accepted means of asynchronous collaboration for all sized businesses. E-mail
Page | 23
provides the ability
to
create mailing lists for specific teams both nationwide and
internationally. It allows a means of better organization and communication with all
employees.
Building off of
email offers online discussion boards used for those for whom email
is
not a sufficient means of
grand communication and require more focused discussions.
These discussions can
take place in online forums allowing
for better monitoring of
project progression.
Advanced security measures
allow centralized management to reduce their list
management and create levels of
viewing, editing, and access
for clients and
employees involved in said projects
and forums. The Bulletin board system within
forums allows members to
complete an online profile,
descriptive of their interests,
which other
members may view for the
purpose of discovering like-minded personnel.
Another large forum used
in most systems currently integrated into daily
business is the
use of instant messaging (IM).
This expansion is
the first step to leveraging ease, speed, and affordability in this
market. Instant messaging
is allotted through
systems such as lotus notes, aiming
to
provide continual
access to staff through synchronous
collaboration.
This portal delivers
instant gratification as one is
able to instant message a colleague
once viewing their availability—whether they are listed as available, busy, or offline—to
clear up minor matters
with ease. Integrating calendars allows business to better
coordinate office functions and meetings as well as tracking
documents, notifying group
members of new documents, and changes to documents
in progress.
Implementing special
features within e-collaboration technology produces multiple
layers of correspondence such as video streaming
within an instant message.
Incorporating voice and picture into these communication types presents us with
sophisticated conferencing.
The conference styles included
are phone conferencing, which can
connect business
communities with
other members nationwide at the same time. Video conferencing
allows others to view not only the
people with whom they are speaking, but also any
objects held in front of the
camera such as diagrams or charts. Both types of
conferencing are offered through the web, with Voice Over Technology (VOT) for video
phones, or Skype as a means of video and written
chat, as well as via electronic
connection for phones. These measures exhibit a larger use of telecommunications and
international clients.
Sales and Finance
Your sales and finance departments should be able to work
hand in hand when it comes
to developing the quantifiable goals and costs necessary
to implement said goals.
For small business owners, it is common knowledge that sales and finance
are hardly
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able to interconnect, making
the relationship between
the two impossible until now.
Thanks to sharing
data online and sharing communication, sales and finance
departments and staff can
come together to maintain
the best credit
for your company.
Prior to now, these two were
completely separate departments or areas.
The two have had a difficult relationship in spite of their
actions affecting
the success of
each other. Profit levels,
business volumes, tracking progress are all components of
finance while sales is
directed toward closing
deals and continuing to grow the
customer
base. Finance is often
responsible for the imposition of
aggressive targets in terms of
business restrictions.
As far as sales are concerned, these moves limit their creative revenue
and add
unnecessary complications to the sales process. More often than not, Sales has viewed
Finance as only
caring about closing business
instead of accurately billing
and
recording.
However, in order for companies to effectively maintain
their transactions including a
debit as well as a credit, they must
have a relation with each other so that there are no
errors in invoicing, poor customer services, and broken processes.
Until now, Finance was not as privy
to
the complexities of relationships with the
customers upon which Sales focused. Sales departments were not pleased at spending
months creating good relationships with clients, only to have that relationship tainted by
receiving an incorrect invoice
from Finance.
Thanks to new technology such as cloud computing, these two
are
forming a
relationship with great communication, immediate
responses, and improved
collaboration. Modern accounting has now been linked to modern
business, forming a
relationship between Finance
and Sales. The
two can now invoice effectively, improve
customer services, better
understand credit balances, and collect cash in a more
time
efficient manner.
Prior to now, Sales
was
reliant upon a system
for
managing customer relationships
while Finance relied
on software for accounting.
This older software was often stored in a back
office because it required significant
upkeep as well as infrastructure
which led companies to continue
working with systems
which were a decade
or two old.
Thanks to cloud computing, accounting systems have grown and advanced
to allow
companies to work with the best software. This has encouraged a mind-set for Finance
that is customer-centric, much to the appreciation of Sales.
The customer relationship management systems
have been integrated into the cloud
along with accounting software which allows the two departments to inter-connect,
share data up-to-the-minute and collaboration online.
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This collaboration has allowed the Sales’ revenue to grow
thanks to new accounts,
better customer service, an improved
corporate reputation, and extra
sales. In order to
define future
strategy, Sales requires a forecast from Finance which is
often times
convoluted at bust
when reported.
This forecast dictates the allocation of resources and time. Cloud computing
has
created the close communication between
Finance and Sales which
has allowed for
more direct forecast reports.
This has allowed
for more accurate data
to be exchanged between
the two departments
by maintaining accounting applications and customer
relations management
applications to work in
sync. Answers regarding invoices
can be provided
immediately
with cloud computing
as opposed to the past when
Sales would have to email Finance
and would only respond to the customer once they had received a response.
Budget
Your marketing plan should include
a section which allocates
the necessary budgets for
each anticipated activity that year. People in charge
of each subsection of each new
activity should be informed
as to their allotted budget.
The anticipated costs should be
approached in an objective
manner. If you have no budget
experience, then you should
add at least 25% to any estimate.
You should also include a budget for internal hours
and external costs. The budget should be
maintained on a spreadsheet or in Lotus
so
that it can be manipulated throughout the process.
Your budget section might include the following:
Gross Sales $140,000
Budget for annual
marketing $8,045
Yellow Pages$2,400
Sales letter mailing $600
Clerical help for mailing
list$135 Advertising in local magazine $400
Advertising in local business newspaper $1,300
Brochure design plus copywriting $420
Brochure Printing $375
New mailing label software$250
Registration for business
exhibition $125
Tracking Effectiveness
In order to track the progress of your
marketing plan as the year progresses, you should
establish regular
meetings. You should develop a plan for incorporating adjustments, a
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plan for
monitoring sales progress, as well as a plan for monitoring costs. You should be
able to state what was accomplished during the last quarter
during each meeting, how
much of the budget was spent, and what else is
anticipated for the following
quarter. At
each meeting, reports should be verbal with a printed copy. Whatever changes you
decide to implement as the year progresses, they should
be included in the marketing
plan.
Conclusion
The marketing plan should
address the short term (which is
one to twelve months) as
well as the long term (which is
over
twelve months).
It should outline
the major goals of the year while also analyzing the mechanics
necessary to meet those goals, bringing together the short term actions with the long
term goals. It
is good to think beyond the upcoming year and include
the next few years
in your
planning.
Yo u should be able to anticipate how many employees you will
add over the upcoming
years, how much office
space you will need, whether your staff should endure additional
training or certification, if you
will hire another manager, whether or not you will
be
purchasing major
equipment, how you can improve
your profit margins,
how to become
active in local trade groups, regional
trade groups, or national trade groups, as well as
how the market demographics
will affect your business
in the future.
Overall, your
marketing plan acts as the key ingredient to a successful
business plan
and business.
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