Know-How Exchange : Other

I'd recommend "The Instant Strategist" (Dan Geller). It's a book, video, software, and seminar. Very easy to follow, very good strategy steps.

Hi Michael,

Our customers are primarily small businesses, although some would be edging towards medium size. A number are marketing consultants as well as small manufacturers and those who provide services. The one comon factor to date is that they have an interest in marketing or gaining marketing knowledge or have marketing experience. Consultants and business advisors are seeing the software as a effective tool that they can use to develop and implement plans for their clients. We now have customers in the USA and of course Australia with a lot of interest from Canada.

To date, our customers have not purchased the software to gain financial assistance. Their primary motivation is that they realise that marketing is important to the success of their business and and they need the right tools to plan their marketing effectively. As there are many books, seminars and templates on various apects of marketing, which can be confusing, the software has actually simplified the process for them and in some cases has allowed them to clarify their thinking, gain insight into their business and identify opportunities.

The marketing challenges we have faced has been to get business to understand that there is actually a process to marketing as there is with finance and operations and marketing just doesn't mean choosing tactics to implement. Another challenge is that people searching for marketing information on the web are offered free marketing plan templates or sample marketing plans that they believe they can just copy to effectively market their business. They don't understand that each business faces different challenges and opportunities which relate to the market in which they compete, their competiors, their customers and their own strengths and weaknesses and just copying another plan is not the solution.

To overcome the challenges we have found the demo very effective as it explains the marketing process and features and benefits of the software. Also as marketers we have built our credibility with the addition of marketing articles on the website, development of relationships with marketing consutants and conducting marketing workshops.

If you have any other questions, just let me know.
Susan

Michael,

I wasn't thinking clearly (or at least not very carefully) when I responded earlier to your question. This is particularly embarrasing since (i) I didn't notice that it was you who posed this question; and (ii) if I had, it would have been clear that you're looking for software in the "business plan" domain, not marketing planning and execution (read 'workflow') as I had misconstrued.

I'd suggest you take a close look at https://www.brs-inc.com/ . I've used PlanWrite for several years (although only sketchingly as you might guess from my previous/other threads) and they have a separate Marketing Planning component as well, https://www.brs-inc.com/marketing_plan.asp

PlanWrite was developed using an expert dialogue approach, i.e. it helps you to flesh out the plan by asking relevant and pointed questions. I'm not familiar with other products so I can't offer a comparative analysis, but I can say that this company's products are thoughtful, well-designed and relatively inexpensive.

Hope this helps!

lloyd