Sharing and Editing Your Marketing Plan

 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. You 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.

You 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.

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.

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, 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. You 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

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.

 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.

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?

You 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.