BSBMKG514

IMPLEMENT AND MONITOR MARKETING

ACTIVITIES

Kowshik R Magham
ASSESSMENT 1
1.Who are the stakeholders in the marketing plan and what are their roles /
responsibilities in the marketing plan.

STAKE HOLDERS:

Stakeholder is a person, persons or organisations that have an interest, effect and can be
affected by what the organisation does.

This highlights why organisations need to be able to identify their stakeholders and also
judge the level of power they hold to affect the decisions and outcomes of the organisation.

A first step for any marketer is to create a generic stakeholder map. This map will include all
the stakeholders for his or her organisation with the organisation at the centre as can be
seen by the image below.

Once this stage is of stakeholder mapping is done, the marketer should have a better
understanding of who the stakeholders are for the organisation. This in itself can highlight
the impact of certain stakeholders on the organisation that could have been overlooked in
the past.

All of these stakeholders can then be placed into one of three broad categories:

Internal Stakeholders

Internal Stakeholders are usually members of the organisation. The following is some
examples of who these stakeholders might be:

Directors

Managers

Employees

Connected Stakeholders

Connected stakeholders, also called primary stakeholders, are those that have an economic
or contractual relationship with the organisation. Have a look at some the examples below:

Company shareholders

Customers

Distributors
External Stakeholders

External or secondary stakeholders are those who are not directly connected to the
organisation. These stakeholders will have an interest in the organisations activities or they
might be impacted by the organisations activities in some way. Key examples:

Governments

Interest and pressure groups

Media and news organisations

Local Communities

It has to be said at this stage that grouping stakeholders in categories is useful but it would
be a mistake to think of each stakeholder as an entirely separate entity or group. There are
most often overlapping with the categories. For example – The organisations customers are
also part of the wider community and they might also be shareholders or even employees.
The important point to take away from this theory is that any organisation affects the
environment that it operates in and at the same time is also affected by the environment.

The following is a brief guide to developing a Stakeholder Analysis, for a more detailed
explanation; review the resources in the reference section.

Step 1: Identify your Stakeholders

Use your guiding coalition to identify all those who can contribute to or are impacted by the
change initiative. This can be achieved through a brainstorming activity. Cast your thoughts
as widely as possible. A stakeholder list that your guiding coalition may come up with for a
change involving teaching methodology may include:

school academic staff; school professional staff; Head of School; Executive Dean;
undergraduate students; post-graduate students; TEDI; ITS; Unions; employers; community;
alumni; etc

Step 2: Categorise your Stakeholders

It can be useful to categorise your Stakeholders according to Influence and Attention. What
is the amount of influence that each stakeholder group has on the success of the change?
What is the likely attention each stakeholder group has with regard to the change? You can
then map each stakeholder group onto the Influence – Attention diagram (example below).

Executive Dean Head of School

High
School Academic Staff

Consult
Unions
Consult
ITS
Often
TEDI

Postgraduate Students
Undergraduate Students

Inform Consult
School Professional Staff
Alumni
Influence

Low

Low High
Attention

Mapping Influence and Attention

To continue our example of a change that involves teaching methodology, the Head of
School, School Academic staff, ITS and TEDI may all have a high degree of both influence and
attention in enabling the success of the change initiative. Alumni may have low influence
and low attention. It’s important to monitor stakeholders over time, the Executive Dean
may increase in attentiveness due to a number of factors as the change initiative evolves, so
may the Unions.

2. What are the objectives of the marketing plan and performance measures of the plan.

Marketing plans are written documents that help you communicate your marketing
efforts for the following year. The objectives and issues section of your marketing plan is
probably the most important part of the plan because it helps internal employees or
external stakeholders understand your marketing goals. Communicating your objectives
at the beginning of your marketing plan sets the tone for the entire document. Marketing
plan objectives and issues should be written as "SMART" goals, meaning they need to be
specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

Specific Marketing Plan Objectives

The first aspect of writing SMART marketing plan objectives and issues is to make sure
they are specific, detailed and results-oriented. Write your marketing objectives so they
communicate exactly what needs to be achieved and who is responsible for each activity.
For example, an objective statement like, "Increase efficiency" is much too generic.
Instead, indicate a specific goal and how that goal will be achieved, such as, "Increase
efficiency within the project management team by 12 percent by increasing our number of
billable hours." Specific goals and objectives can help you clearly define and address the
issues outlined in your marketing plan.

Measurable Marketing Goals

According to Entrepreneur Magazine, to set a measurable marketing goal, start by

reviewing your sales numbers, market growth, market size and product performance. For
each of your marketing objectives, describe what you intend to accomplish along with
quantifiable numbers to give you a concrete goal to aim for. For example, saying you want
to, "Enter into the healthcare market segment" is not a measurable goal. Instead, mention
a specific measurable goal like, "Go from 0 percent to 5 percent of the healthcare market
share in Royal Oak in two years."

Make Objectives Achievable

SMART objectives in a marketing plan also need to be achievable. If you set objectives that
you think you can't achieve in the coming year, you may waste resources and lose
motivation. While writing your goals, make sure you set achievable expectations in your
plan. In addition to ensuring the specifics outlined in your marketing objectives are
achievable, the measurements mentioned throughout your objectives should also be
reachable.

Keep Goals Realistic

Your marketing plan objectives also should be realistic. While this aspect of SMART goals is
similar to "achievable," the difference is making sure you have the necessary resources in
place to accomplish the objective. Examples of resources include employees, budget,
technology and time. The key here is to closely review each of your objectives and issues,
and make sure you have the resources in place so your goals can realistically be achieved.

Setting Timely Objectives

Finally, the objectives of your marketing plan should be time-based. Setting a date for
when you want to accomplish each of your goals gives you a specific mark to measure
against. Stating that your company will "increase sales by 15 percent by October" leaves
no doubt as to the time you have to complete the goal. Once you specify a time frame,
you can then lay out a detailed plan for how you will accomplish the goal or address the
issue in the rest of your marketing plan.

3. In what way would you communicate with other members in the organisation
regarding the objectives, roles and responsibilities and performance measures.

The Communication Plan gives us a planned, structured approach to our communications

and ensures that all the key stakeholders are consulted on their areas of interest and
concern.

Key Messages

Consider the key messages that you want to reinforce in your communication. These will
obviously be different for each change imitative but to continue our example of a change in
teaching methodology the following are some examples of key messages that may relate to
that change initiative:

The new methodology has an evidence base that supports it as superior teaching practice

All academic staff will receive professional development in the new methodology

There are benefits for students from adopting the new methodology

There will be no staff reductions as a result of the new methodology

Channel - It is important to consider multiple channels for communication. ‘Change by

Email’ is rarely effective. Communication channels include: meetings; newsletters; project
briefs; emails; teleconferences; video link; one-on-one; etc. Consider the channel that will
be most useful for the audience and the message you are trying to convey.

We now have a better understanding of our stakeholders, the key messages we want to
communicate, and the channels of communication available to us. We can now develop our
Communication Plan.

Communication Plan Example

Below is an example of putting it all together into a Communication Plan for our teaching
methodology change initiative scenario.

Key Stakehold Communicati Channe When Responsibili Status

Message er on l ty
The new Head of Paper that Email End of Mary and Complete
methodolo School provides the followe June John d
gy has an evidence d by
evidence based face to
base that research that face
supports it supports the
as superior new initiative
teaching
practice Progress Monthly Mary and Not yet
reports John commenc
Email ed
Academic Presentation Staff End of Mary On-track
Staff to staff meetin July then
demonstratin g monthly
g the new
technology
and progress

ITS Discussion on Meetin End of John On-track

the technical g July
requirements
for the new
innovation

Implementati Mary and On-track

on steering Meetin Fortnight John
committee g ly
progress papers
reports
All Academic Training plan Email End of John On-track
academic staff with dates August
staff will and times
receive TEDI Training Meetin End of Mary On-track
professiona requirements g July
l
developme
nt in the
new
methodolo
gy

4. Discuss 3 marketing strategies and what human resources and financial resources
(budget) will be required for each strategy.

MARKETING STRATEGIES

There are three ways to compete--product, service, and price. That's it! The rest is about
execution. Sure, there are all kinds of other details to be worked out to craft a killer
strategy. Decisions related to marketing, distribution, operating models, physical location,
and the like are all essential considerations. But the choices made in those areas only serve
to further inform your product, service, and pricing strategies. Indeed, these three strategic
elements are the only levers you need to create a successful business.

1. Product strategy

This lever is about what is being delivered to the marketplace and consumed by the
customer. The opportunity for differentiation relates to perceptions about quality, value,
features, and functions. Commodity companies spend little time with product strategy,
relying more on service and pricing to compete, while other businesses fine-tune their
product strategy by varying their combination of quality, value, features, and functions to
meet the perceived needs of a specific market niche.

To illustrate, let's compare Lamborghini and Ford. The former is offering a superior quality
and feature-rich product, while the other ratchets the product lever down a bit to produce a
value-based product for the market. Both are competing on product but they move the
lever in very different ways.

2. Service strategy

This lever is about defining how to provide customer support to the marketplace.
Differentiation happens on the quality of the service provided and the customer experience.
Lloyds of London, for example, provides concierge-level service to its high-end insurance
clients, who are willing to pay higher premiums to receive exceptional service. Lloyds is
competing on service. Its product (i.e., insurance coverage) is very similar to what can be
obtained elsewhere, but Lloyds has made a strategic decision to attract its clientele by
offering impeccable service.
3. Pricing strategy

This lever is about determining the rate to be charged for the product or service being
offered. Wal-Mart is competing on price, so don't expect outstanding service to be part of
the package. By comparison, your local boutique may have a personal shopper option to go
with the hot lattes and imported wood panelling that covers the walls at the store, but don't
expect to find bargain-basement pricing there--because the boutique's strategy is tipped
toward an emphasis on product and service differentiation.

5. What strategies would you use to build a marketing team (team building strategies) to
ensure that people responsible for each element of the marketing mix (product, price,
place and promotion) work effectively to achieve the marketing strategies.

STRATEGIES TO BUILD MARKETING TEAM

Step 1 Defining Unique Selling Proposition

The first item on the marketing manager’s agenda should be to define what the product has
to offer or its unique selling proposition (USP). Through customer surveys or focus groups,
there needs to be an identification of how important this USP is to the consumer and
whether they are intrigued by the offering. It needs to be clearly understood what the key
features and benefits of the product are and whether they will help ensure sales.

Step 2: Understanding the Consumer

The second step is to understand the consumer. The product can be focused by identifying
who will purchase it. All other elements of the marketing mix follow from this
understanding. Who is the customer? What do they need? What is the value of the product
to them? This understanding will ensure that the product offering is relevant and targeted.

Step 3: Understanding the Competition

The next step is to understand the competition. The prices and related benefits such as
discounts, warranties and special offers need to be assessed. An understanding of the
subjective value of the product and a comparison with its actual manufacturing distribution
cost will help set a realistic price point.

Step 4: Evaluating Placement Options

At this point the marketing manager needs to evaluate placement options to understand
where the customer is most likely to make a purchase and what are the costs associated
with using this channel. Multiple channels may help target a wider customer base and
ensure east of access. On the other hand, if the product serves a niche market then it may
make good business sense to concentrate distribution to a specific area or channel. The
perceived value of the product is closely tied in with how it is made available.
Step 5: Developing Communication / Promotion strategy

Based on the audience identified and the price points established, the marketing
communication strategy can now be developed. Whatever promotional methods are
finalized need to appeal to the intended customers and ensure that the key features and
benefits of the product are clearly understood and highlighted.

Step 6: Cross-check of the Marketing Strategies

A step back needs to be taken at this point to see how all the elements identified and
planned for relate to each other. All marketing mix variables are interdependent and rely on
each other for a strong strategy. Do the proposed selling channels reinforce the perceived
value of the product? Is the promotional material in keeping with the distribution channels
proposed? The marketing plan can be finalized once it is ensured that all four elements are
in harmony and there are no conflicting messages, either implicit or explicit.

6.How to monitor the marketing activities.

Marketing plans serve as the blueprints for your company's sales strategy. They lay out
every detail of what's to come over the next year and may be subject to alteration or
evaluation because of changes in the market. Marketing should not be set in motion and left
alone, but constantly reviewed, evaluated and adjusted to suit the needs of the company
and the wants of the consumer. Understanding how to judge whether your marketing plan
is delivering the best possible results can save you time and money and help ensure the
success of your business.

Return on Investment

Return on investment is always a major concern when it comes to marketing or any other
business expense. The idea is to check whether the money you put into your marketing plan
has resulted in a profit. You must measure the amount spent on each campaign, versus the
amount of sales each campaign brought in specifically. You can calculate an overall
measurement, but a more specific breakdown by each marketing initiative will tell you
exactly which campaigns worked and which fell short.

Reviewing Sales Numbers

Reading the numbers can be the fastest and most basic way to determine whether your
plan is working. Take into account any rise in prices or expansion of the business, but when
all is said and done, in raw numbers; that are selling more than a year ago

Customer Response and Reactions

Customer response in all its varied forms can help to determine what type of reactions the
marketing strategies create. Surveys online and in person, general customer service
feedback and online commentary can all reveal what your customers think of your
marketing and which campaigns have the greatest impact.

Marketing Reach Expansion

If the market reach is expanding, the effectiveness of plan is the probable cause. Marketing
that makes its way into new regions either by customer recommendation or natural growth
indicates both a successful and popular product or experience and an effective marketing
message. The expansion of marketing budget is another sign that the plan is working well
and has gained more support from the company.

Marketing Partner Response

Marketing Partner feedback reveals the effectiveness of efforts in relation to associated

brands, suppliers and vendors. These outside members of the team might feel the effects of
a successful campaign before you do because they are often on the front lines and might
have more direct customer interaction.

The same goes for a negative report. If partners are asking about releasing new marketing
efforts, it might be time to revamp the marketing plan.

Outside Salespeople Feedback

Outside salespeople are a great barometer for the measurement of marketing effectiveness.
Ask for feedback from sales persons in the field to determine whether the ways are
effective. If the feedback is overwhelmingly negative or customers are completely unaware
of latest marketing efforts, then the plan should be revised to better address existing clients
and to suit the needs of sales team.

Actions of Competitors

The actions of competitors can often be very telling when it comes to the success or failure
of marketing plan. If competitors try their best to mimic the marketing initiatives, then the
plan is working.

7. How to analyse marketing performance of an organisation.

Organizations use various methods to evaluate marketing key performance indicators (KPIs)
or metrics. Marketing Performance Measurement, Marketing Performance Management,
Marketing Return on Investment (ROI), Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), and
Accountable Marketing are all metrics that companies use to connect marketing
performance to the financial performance of the organization.
In order for marketing KPIs to be integrated within the business and management of the
enterprise, and ensure consistency and reliability across the marketing mix, they must meet
these minimum requirements:

Measure marketing outcomes from the consumers’ points of view

Include all marketing activities

Be repeated over time

Meet statistical and technical criteria required of all measurement systems

8. What is marketing code of practice and conduct.

Marketing Codes of Practice

A code of practice is a set of written rules that explain how people working in a particular
profession should behave. Marketing codes of practice, as defined by the ADMA
(Association for data-driven marketing & advertising), are a set of standards of conduct for
marketers to minimise the risk of breaking legislation laws and to promote a culture of best
practice. The codes of practice are based on common sense, and deal with fairness and
honesty.
Marketing codes of practice are guidelines put in place to ensure businesses and consumers
have access to adequate product and service information, to allow them to make informed
choices. An example of this are generally accepted behaviours in a cricket match, like
showing good sportsmanship by shaking hands with the opposing team after a match, even
though it’s not in the set of rules.

Marketing Codes of Conduct

Code of Conduct is a document that expresses the practices and behaviour of a person,
required or restricted as a condition for becoming a member of the organisation or
profession. The code sets out the actual rules, so it lays down the do’s and doesn’t s of an
employee. The members are responsible for its adherence and held accountable for its
violation.

Every organisation has its code of conduct issued by the Board of Directors (BOD) that
determines the social norms, regulations and responsibilities. It is in the form of written
statement; that contains rules for behaviour, which are supposed to be followed by the
employees of the company. The document directs and guides the employees in various
matters.
ASSIGNMENT 2

1.How to monitor and implement the promotional activities.

To maximize the return on a marketing plan, there need to be controls in place to monitor
the plan's progress. As a marketing plan moves along, the controls are constantly analyzed
to determine how the plan's actual performance compares to the projections. Any changes
that need to be made are done based on the analysis of marketing controls. Understanding
what the controls in a marketing plan are will help you develop effective performance
measurement indicators.

Monitor Customer Feedback

Marketing is designed to persuade consumers to purchase a product or invest in a service.

One control put into place in any marketing plan is the monitoring of customer feedback
through polls and surveys. You can reach customers indirectly by hosting online polls on the
Internet that ask specific questions about your latest marketing plan. Conversely, surveys
can be done with marketing groups or via individual interviews by phone or in person.

Adjust your marketing plan according to the results of your research. For example, if your
marketing campaign includes a new company mascot and customer feedback indicates that
the mascot is not popular, then the mascot should be removed from the marketing plan.

Target Market Sales

Sales can be measured in units sold, revenue generated or profit amount. Each marketing
plan sets out to determine the effect of the plan on the target market. Once again, this is
done through market surveys or at the point of sale with the assistance of retail partners.
Actual sales in the target market are compared to the marketing plan projections to see if
any changes need to be made.

For example, if the target market for a marketing plan is males ages 15 to 21, then the
target market sales reports would monitor sales made to that group. If sales are down, then
further market research needs to be done to see why the target audience is not responding
to the marketing. In some cases, analysing a demographic breakdown of sales may indicate
that the initial target market was inaccurate and a new target market may emerge based on
sales data.

Budgeting and Monitoring Spending

A marketing budget is a balance between the cost of generating the advertising materials
and the revenue created by the marketing plan. There are several controls in place that can
be used to monitor a marketing budget, including print advertising expenses, travel
expenses for trade shows, the cost of market research studies and internal personnel costs
for the company's marketing department. All of these costs need to be closely monitored to
minimize spending and maximize profitability. By examining expenses, you are able
maintain your budget and see exactly where spending increases come from.

Market Share Milestones

Market share is that percentage of consumer sales dominated by your product. For
example, you may have a product with sales making up 15 percent of all products in the
marketplace. A marketing plan outlines the product's market share before the plan is in
place, and then projects the changes to the marketplace when the plan ends.

For example, your marketing plan may call for an increase in market share from 10 percent
to 15 percent of all products sold. During the plan's timeline, a milestone may be seeing a
three percent increase halfway into the plan. If you do not meet this goal, you need to
analyse why the plan is falling short and how to correct it.

2. How to monitor product, pricing and distribution decisions.

Product- Monitor the sales of different sales persons and try to improve the sales by using
promotions and also check the demand for the product. Getting feedback customers will
also help to know the market trend for the product.

Pricing- The price of a product can be managed by checking the costs involved in making the
product, brand value and marginal profits. Try to implement combo sales to increase the
product sales.

Distribution- Tracking the distribution data and getting feedback from customers.
Monitoring regular market trends and demand for the product. Promotions, online sales
would also boost to spread marketing distributions.

3. How to monitor marketing results against targets in Marketing Plan.

Choose tracking tools that are appropriate for each strategy in your marketing plan. List
each marketing effort that is planned for the coming year and find tools that will help you
monitor its effectiveness. For web-based initiatives, look into website analytics programs
like Google Analytics; for discounts, you can use coupon codes that are different for each
publication in which you advertise.

Build in monitoring systems at the beginning of each marketing effort. Before you launch a
new campaign, implement your monitoring tools. Put a tracking code into your website
HTML code, for example, or set up a spreadsheet to monitor sales progress. Treat
evaluation and tracking as an integral part of the marketing process and assign one of your
marketing staff to monitoring duties.

Track the response of sales before and after the launch of a marketing campaign. Because
the end goal of marketing is often to boost sales, keep an eye on how each effort impacts
your sales. Ask sales staff for specific feedback on the number of qualified leads that come
in after a new promotion, and request that they ask customers how they came to your
company for more detailed results.

Talk to your customers. For marketing efforts that are difficult to monitor quantitatively,
such as awareness-building, survey customers and members of your target audience. Send
out simple email on your social media profiles, and post one on your website. Design
questions that will get you specific information that relates to the success of your
marketing campaign: customer knowledge of new features or awareness of environmental
efforts, for example.

4. How to monitor marketing revenue and costs against budget.

The primary purpose when monitoring expenditure against income is to ensure that
expenditure does not exceed the available income. As when monitoring expenditure against
budget, the first problem is how to identify which sources of funds are showing significant
surpluses or deficits. The easiest way for departmental administrators to spot significant
variances is to regularly review the Financial Summary Report.

5. How to record variations in revenue and costs against budget.

Recording income and expenditures can be done manually or electronically. Recording has

to be done instantly and on a daily basis. All the accounts related to income and
expenditure, any income that is due in, any payments that were received, receipts and
invoices issued, debts etc., need to be recorded clearly with date and purpose.

Recording income is a way of determining whether the business is making profit or not,
because it includes details of money received and spent.

Record details of the areas of business in order, starting from the most profitable to the
least profitable. This will automatically help you analyse and take action on areas that create
huge loss.

For small expenses, it is good to use petty cash account to use for and track the small
expenses. Recording these will help with efficient reimbursement of money and only
recorded money will be reimbursed. This is an efficient way of recording small expenses that
may otherwise go unnoticed.
ASSESSMENT 3

1. How to improve implementation of the promotional activities.

 Set the right expectations

 Build the team and secure resources
 Communicate the plan
 Build out timeline and tasks
 Set up a dashboard for tracking success
 Monitor and check-in regularly
 Be willing to adapt
 Communicate results and celebrate success

2. How to improve product, pricing and distribution decisions.

Product

 Create a long-term plan for quality improvement, break it in to small steps,

and then make changes to achieve goals of each step.
 Give supreme priority of quality in every plans and procedures.
 Talk often with clients.
 Talk politely with employees, especially sales persons, what do they and their
clients expect from the company and why company fail to deliver so.
 Frequently compare the product with competitors
 Always look for possibilities to improve product and service

Pricing

 Empower executive team, most likely the VP of Marketing or CMO, with

developing a pricing improvement plan and process.
 Review with competitors, selling terms and price structure annually
 Monitoring product pricing strategy vs. user segmentation

Distribution

 Introduce new distribution systems – such as home delivery, subscription

delivery, free delivery to volume customers, free shipping or guaranteed
returns with online purchases and so on to increase sales, serve customers
and gain advantage over competitors.
 New distribution channels, such as online sales, distributor relationships or
new retail outlets and Business partnerships
3.How to improve marketing results against targets in the marketing plan.

Eliminate ineffective marketing strategies. To make your monitoring efforts worthwhile

and to streamline the marketing plan, cut programs that do not achieve their initial goals.
Pay particular attention to strategies that cost a large amount of money to make sure
that the return on investment is worthwhile. Pare down your marketing plan so that it
contains only the most effective activities, which will make room for new efforts.

4.How to improve marketing revenue and cost against budget.

 Educate rather than advertise

 Stick with what works
 Analyse the data
 Don't make mistakes
 Take a strategic approach
 Use marketing automation
 Focus on client retention

5. How to change business practices to meet requirements

Customer loyalty has taken a hit, and executing on the 4 P’s of marketing—optimizing
product, place, price, and promotion—has become more complex. So it’s understandable
that a company’s first inclination is to redouble and broaden its efforts toward meeting
changing customer needs. But could the answer instead lie in selecting your clients more
judiciously and prioritizing your time more selectively.

If a company is at crossroads with regard to customer engagement, the following principles

can provide more clarity about with whom, and how, to engage.

Identify which needs matter - and get creative about meeting them.

Customers can be a needy bunch: with existing needs, latent needs, unrealized needs, or
even incipient needs. Which are those that can never be fulfilled? Companies can only turn
a profit by addressing a customer’s existing or unrealized needs, only a fraction of which fall
within your company’s reach. By working with a partner, you can expand your service
offerings, increase your value, and create new opportunities to engage with customers.

Identify which customers matter.

In a B2B scenario with multiple stakeholders, identifying who makes the purchasing decision
can be tricky. But it’s essential to your success. Tracing a path from the point when your
product left the building to its final destination. Between those two points, there are
potentially many roles, such as a purchaser, a buyer, a specifier, or an operator. Each of
these roles may be considered a customer. There may even be people who play dual roles,
but the primary stakeholder is likely the person with so much relevant information that he
could impact your product’s design.

Let the customer set the pace.

In the rush to convert, we often forget the importance of slowing down and listening, asking
relevant questions, and finding out what matters to our customers. Rather than rushing
things along, focus on matching the customer’s pace. Become familiar with your customers’
mindset and needs—both current and developing, and their decision-making process. Be
fast when speed is what’s needed. In all cases, be responsive.

Tools such as social CRM can be invaluable in getting a sense of what customers are thinking
throughout their journey, and are most effective when coupled with ongoing customer
engagement and marketing initiatives. In addition, it’s critical that companies have a
solution in place that formalizes the selling process.   

Solutions such as Smart-sheet for Salesforce can help to provide a structured experience by

connecting sales reps, consultants, and customers, and helping align everyone’s
expectations as they move toward closing a deal. Real-time visibility via self-service reports
and dashboards help teams rapidly align operations to strategy. And the ability to adapt
your processes to match a customer’s requirements can help ensure that they stay engaged,
and that your project stays on course to completion.

6. Who are the staff you have to inform regarding the changes to the marketing objectives
and targets based on your improvement plan, what will you inform them about and how
will you inform them.

Target Audience

Audience types may be a specific business unit, senior executives, sales teams
(national/regional or local) shareholders, employee affiliate groups or people leaders.
Depending on your organization and industry, additional audience types may range from
physicians and nurses if you’re in the medical field, and call centre employees if you have a
large customer service department to plant employees if you’re in manufacturing. 

Consider using a template like this to outline relevant audience types and what you what
them each to think, feel and do as a result of your communications. It’s a great way to stay
focused on the key audiences and outcomes you want to achieve.

Improvement Plan:

Think 5 Ws and an H to ensure you’re not missing an important detail, sharing the
all-important context, and making it relevant for your audience. 
What - What’s the decision? What does it mean? What should I know? What’s in it for me?

Why - Why is it the right decision? Why now? Why is it important?

Where - Where is this decision coming from? Where/what locations will it affect? Where
can I get more information?

When - When is this happening?

How - How was the decision made? How will it be implemented? How will communications
flow internally and externally? How does it impact me?

Who - Who made the decision? Who’s in charge? Who does it impact? 

In communicating message, the order is important. Adult learners want to know the “what”
first and then the “why.” The rest can follow logically. 

Communication Type:

Face-to-face communication is best for making a personal connection and overcoming

resistance to change.

Meetings are best for communicating more complicated ideas or when you want input from
team members

Paper (such as handouts at a meeting or a flier on a bulletin board) is best when details are
important, or dates needs to be referenced

Electronic (such as email or an intranet page) works well for those who have frequent
access to computers

Video is best to use when you want to appeal to visual and audio senses and to tell a story.
More and more companies are using short, grassroots type videos to get messages across

Internal social media is most effective to build a culture of collaboration and rapport among
dispersed team members