Promotional Activities

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is a type of advertising campaign that seeks to elicit an action (such as an order, a visit to a store or Web site, or a request for further information) from a selected group of consumers in response to a communication from the marketer.

Publicity/PR

"The profession or practice of creating and maintaining goodwill of an organization's various publics (customers, employees, investors, suppliers, etc.), usually through publicity and other nonpaid forms of communication. These efforts may also include support of arts, charitable causes, education, sporting events, and other civic engagements."

Publicity — "Type of promotion that relies on public relations effect of a news story carried usually free by mass media. The main objective of publicity is not sales promotion, but creation of an image through editorial or 'independent source' commentary. While the publicist can control the content of the story, he or she may not have any control over its placement or interpretation by the media."

Advertisement

The Mind Mapping Software Blog offers numerous opportunities to promote your products and services to an eager audience of visual thinkers and mind mappers.

Personal selling

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Competitions

Who is the competition?

You have many challenges as a small business owner. There are customers to woo, bills to pay, upgrades to make and wares to sell.

So it’s easy to understand why your competition might take a backseat to those pressing concerns. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my years working for businesses ranging from tiny to global, it’s that underestimating companies in your vertical is a foolish mistake to make.

I suppose I should be giving you a friendly, kumbaya message about how small businesses should work together, but that’s simply not realistic all the time. Sometimes, you must crush the competition in order to thrive. In fact, sometimes you need to have a healthy obsession with the businesses both small and large who are cutting into your customer count.

Direct competition

A term that describes a company that produces a virtually identical good or service that is offered for sale within the same market as those produced by one or more other companies. In addition to watching their relative pricing for similar products, a business operator will keep track of any significant technological innovations at any direct competitor that might put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Indirect competition

Indirect competitor is another company that offers the same products and services, much like direct competitors; however, the same end goals are different. These competitors are seeking to grow revenue with a different strategy.

Nearly every company is involved with some form of indirect competition. General contractors face indirect competition from do-it-yourself promoters, such as The Home Depot. Both of these strategies are aimed at satisfying the customer's needs and desires utilizing a different marketing mix. By outlining all the potential ways the customer's needs can be met and using the marketing mix to handle the competition you can generate an advantage for your products and services

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Buyers

Description of buyers

The buyers will dictate the level of demand of your product or service. On a Mind Map, you can use branches to explore the different avenues that the buyer could purchase from, such as a shop or online. Stick to keywords rather than phrases on your branches to help trigger more associations and a deeper analysis.

Start by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each avenue, especially cost and availability. This will help you to determine where the buyers are most likely to purchase from. Further topics to explore on the Mind Map include the product itself, the concentration of buyers, price sensitivity and the choice available to the buyers.

Let’s take the example of custom made oak furniture. Buyers will be willing to pay more for this as it is not a widely available product. This gives the manufacturer, you, more bargaining power. However, if you look at a product such as washing up liquid, there are more readily available options to the buyer, and factors such as the price and quantity will play a pivotal role in the buyer’s decision.

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Objectives

Company Background

Mind Mapping software Ltd, a Hong Kong registered business, offers the productivity software tools and service. Mind map, its flag product, is a great mind mapping and brainstorming software, and serving more than a million users around the world. Our purpose is to develop the best productivity tool, save people's time and raise the efficiency. Mind mapping software was founded in 1998 by computer programmer Mike Jetter and his wife, Bettina Jetter, in order to support the development of their mind mapping software, Mind Manager. Jetter conceived of the idea for the first product while recovering from an illness in hospital, and began developing the program while living in Germany in 1994, aiming to simplify the creation and sharing of mind maps for business users.

Objectives of the plan

If we haven’t already done so, most of us are in planning mode and setting out business, departmental, team and personal objectives.

One definition of the term :-

                                          “Objective” is: “a statement of a specific result or outcome that a person is aiming to achieve within a defined timescale and within available resources”.

The same definition can of course apply to team or organizational objectives.

All around the globe, towards the end of 2013 and at the beginning of this New Year, many individuals, teams and organization have been harnessing the power of Mind mapping software to map out and, more importantly, focus on their plans, priorities and key objectives for the coming year. With that in mind, I decided to focus on the all important aspect of personal objectives for this month’s Newsletter and share some sample Maps with you.  Also included are some hints and tips on how Mind mapping software can be applied and add value to this area of work.

Vision

Do you remember the vision or mission statement of the last company you worked for? Did you actually understand all the bits that made up the vision, and why they were there?

If you’re anything like me (and everyone else employed at all the places I worked), then you probably didn’t really read or understand the vision statement, and it had no impact on what you did in the job or how you did it.

In many businesses, it’s like the owner or board of directors had a “planning seizure” one day and produced this document that got pinned to the wall somewhere, and has been steadfastly ignored ever since.

Well that whole scene changes when the vision statement is done using Mind Maps. The visual nature of the Mind Maps means that they are noticeable, colorful and easy to understand. The linkages between the overall company goals and the specific things that the company does to implement the things that lead to achieving the goals is clear. You can see at a glance what the company is all about and how they are going to achieve the vision.

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Mind Map Use in Marketing

Using a Mind Map Marketing Plan may be more important than using a Mind Map Business Plan.

Many entrepreneurs put together a Business Plan when they want to acquire finance. 

If you don't have a Business Plan look at our article on creating a practical Mind Map Business Plan, which can not only be used to raise finance, but to actually run your business.

A Marketing Plan while less often used, is equally, if not more, important. Knowing how you are going to take your business to the market requires some serious thinking about who you are and what you are offering your customers.

Using a Mind Map Marketing Plan will allow you to quickly and easily put together a plan that works. Mind Maps allow your Marketing Plan to come alive, yet still explore all the necessary options.

Use our Mind Map Marketing Plan guide to help you draw up your own marketing plan. Simply follow the instructions at the end of this article to have the first draft of your Marketing Plan within a few minutes. As we mentioned in our Mind Map by example article, using examples and templates to get you Mind Mapping is the easiest and quickest way to get started.

Things will also be much easier if you make use of Mind Map Software for your Marketing Plan. Try Free Mind Map software to get a feel for Mind Mapping before you try some of the commercial Mind Map Software products.

Before we look at our Mind Map Marketing Plan, let's explore some important points that you need to keep in mind when drawing up your marketing plan.

Who is your purchaser?

Knowing who wants your product or service is the very best place to start. The better you know your customer, the better your Mind Map Mark

eting Plan will be.

Knowing your customer will also allow you to get an idea of the market share that you will be able to take. Knowing what competitors your customers buy from will also give you a good insight into how you can ensure you get your fair share of the market.

Mind Map your Ideal Customer and use this with your Mind Map Business Plan and Mind Map Marketing Plan to attract customers that love what you have to offer.

Where do you want to go?

The success of your Mind Map Marketing Plan is also largely determined by your vision of the future. Try projecting yourself five years into the future. What do you want your business to be?

 Look back at where you are now. Can you build a roadmap to get there?

Having this future vision will enable you to put to a Mind Map Marketing Plan that all your stakeholders (you, your staff, your customers, your suppliers) can buy into.

How are you going to promote your product or service?

Before you can start with this, do you have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). You Mind Map Marketing Plan depends on you having an idea of what you provide from the customer's point of view. Put yourself into your customer's shoes. You will then see your business through their eyes. Do you like what you see?

Now that you have done some visualisation of your business, you are better equipped to put together your Mind Map Marketing Plan. We've put together a short bullet list with headings to serve as an outline for your Mind Map:

Objectives

Company Background

Objectives of the plan

Vision

Buyers

Description of buyer

Competition

Who is the competition?

Direct competitors

Indirect competitors

Promotional Activities

Publicity/PR

Direct Marketing

Advertising

Personal Selling

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