Plan Write® for Marketing
Reviews
Marketing Tools Magazine
Carole Hedden
The Very Model of a Modern Marketing Plan
Writing a marketing plan may be daunting, but there is a variety of software tools out there to help you get started. Found in electronics and book stores, the tools are in many ways like a Marketing 101 textbook. The difference lies in how they help.
Software tools have a distinct advantage: They actually force you to write, and that's the toughest part of any marketing plan. Sometimes called "MBA In a Box," these systems guide you through a planning process. Some even provide wording that you can copy into your own document and edit to fit your own business. Presto! A boiler plate plan! Others provide a system of interviewing and questioning that creates a custom plan for your operation. The more complex tools demand an Integrated approach to planning, one that brings together the full force of your organization, not just Sales or Advertising.
Plan Write for Marketing
Plan Write for Marketing, created by Business Resource Software, Inc., is exponentially more powerful than Marketing Plan Pro or Crush. Plan Write for Marketing brings together the breadth of the business, integrating information as far flung as distribution systems and image. And this software places your marketing strategy within the broader context of a business plan, the approach that tends to prove most effective.
Plan Write for Marketing provides a sample plan. The approach is traditional, incorporating a look at the business environment, the competition, the product or service mix you are offering, the way you will tell customers about that mix, pricing, delivery, and support.
Among the sections that were particularly strong was one on customer alternatives and people planning. Under the heading of customer alternatives, you're required to incorporate competitive information with customer information. If you don't meet the customer's needs, where could he or she go? Most often we look only at the competition, without trying to imagine how the customer is thinking. This exercise is particularly valuable to the company who leads the market.
The people part of planning too often is dumped on the personnel guy instead of being seen as a critical component of your organization's capabilities. Plan Write for Marketing requires that you include how marketing is being handled, and how sales will be accomplished. In addition, it pushes you to define what skills will be needed in the future and where the gaps are between today and the future. People, in this plan, are viewed as a strategic component.
Plan Write for Marketing offers a fully integrated spreadsheet that can import from or export to most of the popular spreadsheet programs you may already be using. Another neat feature allows you to enter numerical data and select from among 14 different graphing styles to display your information. You just click on the style you want to view, and the data is re configured.
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Marketing Plan Software
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, Austin, Texas 78728
Fax: (512)251-4401