Every year I make resolutions (who doesn’t?), and every year I break them before the ink is dry (who doesn’t?). This year, I have one super resolution, which I do not intend to break. It is market, market, MARKET. Not that I haven’t been marketing like crazy in 2008, but it has been a somewhat undisciplined activity. Whatever looked like fun, I tried it. So, if you’ve read any of my blog posts in the past, you will know I’ve been all over the place.
Since I met my friend, workout partner, and marketing guru, Bobette Kyle, my fitness and marketing have improved tremendously. My organization skills, unfortunately, have not. So, I’m not only writing a new marketing plan, I’m also creating a marketing calendar. I have the calendar all set up and ready to fill in, but as usual, I want to do everything, right now.
At this point, Bobette reminds me about the differences among goals, strategies, and tactics. (That’s why she’s the marketing guru, after all.)
So, I go back to the drawing board. I start with my big picture goal — the WHAT I want to achieve this year. Then, I figure out strategies — the three or four ways in which I plan to achieve my goal, the HOW. Finally, the tactics are the very detailed (small H) “how and when" I am actually going to take a specific action.
Most people would probably write an outline. They would be more linear than I seem to be. I am creating a mind map — actually several mind maps. The big one shows my goal, strategies, and tactics. Then, there is a separate mind map for each strategy. Believe or not, there was a lot of thinking involved; but the right side of my brain is so happy to be creating mind maps on the computer, that the left side hardly notices how hard it is working.
This isn’t about making my marketing plan beautiful as much as making it doable. I guess I think visually, because the little boxes on the mind maps and the marketing calendar bring order to what was just a chaotic list a few hours ago.
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