Develop your Marketing Plans using Mind Mapping Software

The first thing to do is to assess where you are. It's just like someone handing you a map and saying you have to get to a specific point on the map - if you have absolutely no idea where you currently are, you are very unlikely to be able to get to where you need to go.

You have a number of questions that need to be answered in order to assess the current position, like:

• What are our products and services? Make sure you include all the services provided, including things that you do as a free service for clients.
• Who are our clients? What are the demographics, their spending patterns, the attrition rates? Really dig in to as much information as you can about who they are so you can understand how to serve their needs better. What is the lifetime value of a client?
• What is our current market position? Think not only of the position in terms of the overall revenues and number of units shipped, but also break it down by product line and product where appropriate.
• How much do our products and services cost? For the business as a whole, how much does it cost to provide the products and services to the clients? What are the overheads that need to be spread over the revenue generating areas of the business? What are the costs of purchasing the goods to be sold, and the costs of holding inventory, and the opportunity cost of the value of the inventory?
• How do people find us? How many come in by word of mouth, by Internet advertising, by print ads etc - break it down. What is the cost of acquisition of clients from each source?
• What do people think of the company? It is important to know both what people think of you as a company (as regards level of customer care etc), but also their perception of what services you provide - sometimes what you find out will surprise you!
• What do they think of the products and services we provide? Are they happy with the actual products and services they are receiving from the company?
  

In order to market effectively, it is also important to have a clear understanding of what the market is currently like and your position in it. This can be extended to looking for ways that you can either extend the market, bridge to another market, or create a new market entirely.

Here are some questions you could ask to generate some ideas for this part of your Mind Map:

• Are our markets growing? Steady? Declining?
• Is our market share growing? Steady? Declining?
• Is there room in the market for us to expand in our existing markets?
• How will we attract, hold and increase our market share?
• If you run a franchise, how is your market segmented?
• If you have a franchise, will the franchisor provide assistance in this area? How will you promote your sales? What are your contractual limitations?

It can be very enlightening to do a full SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis from a marketing perspective.

Create a branch for the strengths and write down all the strengths you have in the market, market positioning, peoples' perception of you in the market, product range, existing market share etc. Think of it from all the perspectives that come out of the current market position and market overview you have just done.

Now look at those same things again as a starting point for your analysis as to your weaknesses in the market. Note down both the weaknesses in your current position and the things that would hold you back from growing the business.

Now brainstorm the opportunities you see for the marketing of your products and services. Think both of the traditional tried and true ways of growing in your market, and also ways of attracting different clientele, moving into different markets, or offering different products and services.

Then finally look at the threats to your market - both internal to the business and external, whether that be through the supply chain, through competition, or through changing market conditions.

Now it is time to tie things down to specific objectives so that you can create a working plan to achieve those objectives. Some of the objectives may be externally imposed, for instance by shareholders saying that they need to have a certain percentage increase in profits, but many of the objectives will also come from the analysis you have just done.

Make sure that you follow proper project planning techniques and that you have all the objectives supported by tasks and resources and feedback mechanisms so that you can monitor results.

Make sure that where there are known and established strategies that you are following those tested strategies, and that if you are doing something for the first time, it is strategically planned so that you have a proper environment and feedback system in place to be able to accurately record what was actually done and what the results were.