The e-Marketing Plan - Brief Overview and Working Scheme

Written by Otilia Otlacan


I. Summary of a marketing plan

The marketing planning (concretized inrepparttar marketing plan) is an essential organizational activity, consideringrepparttar 141211 hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to perform profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in a difficult way to evaluate. A marketing manager must understand and build an image upon these variables and their interactions, and must take rational decisions.

Let us see what do we call a "marketing plan"? It isrepparttar 141212 result ofrepparttar 141213 planning activity, a document that includes a review ofrepparttar 141214 organization's place inrepparttar 141215 market, an analysis ofrepparttar 141216 STEP factors as well as a SWOT analysis. A complete plan would also formulate some presumptions on why we thinkrepparttar 141217 past marketing strategy was successful or not. The next phase shall presentrepparttar 141218 objectives we set, together withrepparttar 141219 strategies to achieve these objectives. In a logical sequence, we will further need to evaluaterepparttar 141220 results and formulate alternative plans of action. A plan would consist in details of responsibilities, costs, sales prognosis and budgeting issues.

Inrepparttar 141221 end, we should not forget to specify howrepparttar 141222 plan (or plans) will be controlled, by what means we will measure its results.

We will see how to buildrepparttar 141223 marketing plan, what is its structure: after we will see how to buildrepparttar 141224 traditional marketing plan, we will take a look atrepparttar 141225 e-marketing plan and see howrepparttar 141226 unique features ofrepparttar 141227 internet will require some changes inrepparttar 141228 approach of writing a marketing plan.

But, before we continue, we must understand and accept that steps ofrepparttar 141229 marketing plan are universal. It is a logical approach ofrepparttar 141230 planning activity, no matter where we apply it. The differences you meet from a plan to another consist inrepparttar 141231 degree of formality accorded to each phase, depending onrepparttar 141232 size and nature ofrepparttar 141233 organization involved. For example, a small and not diversified company would adopt less formal procedures, becauserepparttar 141234 managers in these cases have more experience and functional knowledge thanrepparttar 141235 subordinates, and they are able to achieve direct control upon most factors. Onrepparttar 141236 other hand, in a company with diversified activity, it is less likely that top managers have functional information in a higher degree thanrepparttar 141237 subordinate managers. Therefore,repparttar 141238 planning process must be formulated to ensure a strict discipline for everyone involved inrepparttar 141239 decisional chain.

II. The general marketing plan

The classical marketing plan would followrepparttar 141240 following scheme of 8 stages:

1. Declaringrepparttar 141241 mission: this isrepparttar 141242 planning stage when we establishrepparttar 141243 organizational orientations and intentions, thus providing a sense of direction. In most cases, this is a general presentation ofrepparttar 141244 company's intentions and almost has a philosophic character.

2. Establishing current objectives: it is essential forrepparttar 141245 organization to try to determine with precisenessrepparttar 141246 objectives to be reached. These objectives, in order to be viable, must be SMART. SMART is an acronym and stands for "Specific", "Measurable", "Attainable", "Realistic" and "Timed". The objectives must also conveyrepparttar 141247 general organizational mission.

3. Gathering information: this stage is based onrepparttar 141248 concept of marketing audit. After performingrepparttar 141249 audit ofrepparttar 141250 macro-environment by analyzingrepparttar 141251 STEP factors (social, technologic, economic and politic), we should turnrepparttar 141252 focus uponrepparttar 141253 immediate extern environment (the micro-environment) and analyzerepparttar 141254 competitive environment,repparttar 141255 costs andrepparttar 141256 market. Finally, we will conclude withrepparttar 141257 SWOT analysis, by this way we will have a general view uponrepparttar 141258 internal environment compared torepparttar 141259 external one. The SWOT analysis combinerepparttar 141260 two perspectives, fromrepparttar 141261 inside and fromrepparttar 141262 outside, becauserepparttar 141263 Strengths andrepparttar 141264 Weaknesses are internal issues of an organization, whilerepparttar 141265 Opportunities and Threads come fromrepparttar 141266 outside.

4. Re-formulating objectives: afterrepparttar 141267 close examination of data gathered inrepparttar 141268 previous stage, sometimes it is needed to re-formulaterepparttar 141269 initial objectives, in order to address allrepparttar 141270 issues that might have come up fromrepparttar 141271 previous stage. The distance betweenrepparttar 141272 initial objective andrepparttar 141273 re-formulated objective will be covered by appropriate strategies. We must ensurerepparttar 141274 re-formulated objective is SMART as well.

5. Establishing strategies: several strategies are to be formulated, in order to coverrepparttar 141275 distance between what we want to achieve and what is possible to achieve, withrepparttar 141276 resources at our disposal. As we would usually have several options, we should analyze them and choserepparttar 141277 one with more chances to achieverepparttar 141278 marketing objectives.

6. Plan of actions: consists in a very detailed description ofrepparttar 141279 procedures and means to implementrepparttar 141280 actions we want to take. For example, ifrepparttar 141281 strategy implies a raise in advertising volume,repparttar 141282 plan of actions should establish whererepparttar 141283 advertisements will be placed,repparttar 141284 dates and frequency ofrepparttar 141285 advertising campaigns, a set of procedures to evaluate their effectiveness. The actions we plan to take must be clearly formulated, measurable, andrepparttar 141286 results must be monitored and evaluated.

Rules to Setting Business Goals and Objectives: Why and How to be SMART

Written by Otilia Otlacan


We all know that nothing runs without a plan, and a plan cannot run without having its objectives set.

That applies to any kind of plan, whether we're talking business or personal finances, university degrees or NGO programs, website promotion or weight loss.

Setting objectives and milestones is of crucial importance for any planning activity and isrepparttar core of its success, or failure. Knowing how to set objectives is not exactly rocket science in terms of complexity, but any strategist should knowrepparttar 141210 basic rules of how to formulate and propose objectives. We will see in this article why objectives play such a major role within a company's planning and strategic activities, how they influence all business processes, and we will review some guidelines of setting objectives.

The Importance of Setting Objectives

One might wonder why we need to establish objectives inrepparttar 141211 first place, why not letrepparttar 141212 company or a specific activity just run smoothly intorepparttar 141213 future and see where it gets. That would berepparttar 141214 case only if we really do not care whetherrepparttar 141215 activity in discussion will be successful or not: but then, to use a popular saying, "if something deserves to be performed, then it deserves to be performed well". In other words, if we don't care forrepparttar 141216 results, we should not proceed withrepparttar 141217 action at all.

Setting objectives before taking any action isrepparttar 141218 only right thing to do, for several reasons:

- it gives a target to aim to, therefore all actions and efforts will be focused on attainingrepparttar 141219 objective instead of being inefficiently used; - gives participants a sense of direction, a glimpse of where they’re going to; - motivatesrepparttar 141220 leaders and their teams, since it is quiterepparttar 141221 custom of establishing some sort of reward oncerepparttar 141222 team successfully completed a project; - offersrepparttar 141223 support in evaluatingrepparttar 141224 success of an action or project.

The 5 Rules of Setting Objectives: Be SMART!

I am sure most managers and leaders know what SMART stands for, well, at least when it comes of establishing objectives. However, I have seen some of them who cannot fully explainrepparttar 141225 five characteristics of a good-established objective – things are somehow blurry and confused in their minds. Since they can't explain in details what SMART objectives really are, it is highly doubtful that they will always be able to formulate such objectives.

It is still unclear from whererepparttar 141226 confusion comes: perhaps there are too many sources of information, each of them with a slightly different approach upon what a SMART objective really is; or perhaps most people only briefly "heard" about it and they never get to reachrepparttar 141227 substance behindrepparttar 141228 packaging.

Either way, let us try to uncoverrepparttar 141229 meaning ofrepparttar 141230 SMART acronym and see how we can formulate efficient objectives. SMART illustratesrepparttar 141231 5 characteristics of an efficient objective; it stands for Specific – Measurable – Attainable – Relevant – Timely.

1. Be SPECIFIC!

When it comes of business planning, "specific" illustrates a situation that is easily identified and understood. It is usually linked to some mathematical determinant that imprints a specific character to a given action: most common determinants are numbers, ratios and fractions, percentages, frequencies. In this case, being "specific" means being "precise".

Example: when you tell your team "I need this report in several copies", you did not providerepparttar 141232 team with a specific instruction. It is unclear whatrepparttar 141233 determinant "several" means: for some it can be three, for some can be a hundred. A much better instruction would sound like "I need this report in 5 copies" – your team will know exactly what you expect and will have less chances to fail in deliveringrepparttar 141234 desired result.

2. Be MEASURABLE!

When we say that an objective, a goal, must be measurable, we mean there is a stringent need to haverepparttar 141235 possibility to measure, to trackrepparttar 141236 action(s) associated withrepparttar 141237 given objective.

We must set up a distinct system or establish clear procedures of howrepparttar 141238 actions will be monitored, measured and recorded. If an objective andrepparttar 141239 actions pertaining to it cannot be quantified, it is most likely thatrepparttar 141240 objective is wrongly formulated and we should reconsider it.

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