Tag: Image Posts

Funnel mapping is the method of creating a diagram to visualize your customer conversions to drive sales figures.

It’s a model that contains everything about your marketing process, from your traffic sources, the stages of your funnels, customer interaction points, landing pages, and even remarketing methods.

Funnel mapping is a useful tool that a capable marketer can utilize and develop in presenting marketing strategies and fine-tuning different parts of a campaign.

Simplifying funnels

In the marketing industry, a funnel describes the journey of a customer towards opting in for a service or making a purchase. This includes various types of actions ranging from signing up to a newsletter, filling in a form, or buying a product.

Once a person successfully performs one or more of these tasks, they’ve successfully gone through a conversion process.

Although a funnel can represent one act, the entire process before and after the conversion is a complex sequence of elements that a marketer provides to a potential customer.

This is the reason funnel mapping and tracking helps in plotting the interconnected steps that a visitor makes before they’re added to a company’s conversion figures.

Understanding what funnel mapping means

A sales funnel isn’t as straightforward as seeing a product they want to buy, then moving forward to purchase it. The reality is that smart consumers will go through several steps before they can decide on choosing a product that’s worth their investment.

(Pic – A GIF or Image MarketPlan’s funnel mapping canvas)

It can take anything from a few days to several months before people can be convinced to enter your customer conversion funnel to drive your sales.

One recurring reason customers aren’t quick to make a purchase is that they want to assess whether other brands and companies offer the same benefits or price range.

Funnel mapping allows you to dissect the different steps that your customer encounters in purchasing a product.

Through visualization and data presentation, you’ll be able to create a marketing model that can help implement and improve your current sales strategies so that customers will have a seamless experience.

Visualizing the marketing process

The use of the term ‘funnel’ represents how customers approach your business in driving sales.

At the top of the funnel are the people who have taken the first step in your marketing offers. A reliable marker for this is the number of online foot traffic that your website receives.

As your potential customers look for products or services for their needs, they’ll end up seeing different landing pages that your brand offers.

Along the way, some customers tend to lose interest if they don’t see any incentives in convincing them to opt for your services.

This process then continues until your target demographic is filtered through the thousands of people who were first introduced into your marketing campaign.

Presenting the necessary elements

As a visual diagram, your funnel map should include all the necessary ingredients that will lead customers to make a sale. Listed below are the elements that should be included in your funnel map:

• Traffic sources: Your traffic sources are a set of platforms that you’ll use in driving people towards your sales funnel. This can be done by identifying what methods you’ll use in attracting traffic or from what mediums you’ll be expecting your customers to come from.

• Website content: This describes what type of content you’ll be presenting as they reach your website. You can start by presenting your company’s mission and vision, presenting an engaging video about your service’s processes, or leading them straight to a product purchase page.

• Landing page: This step should include how you can make your potential customer proceed with their purchase. Include what types of elements on your page will help them make the right choice in assessing the quality of your products and services. You can also include achievements awarded by authority figures in your industry, or make use of customer testimonials to increase your credibility as a service provider

• Incentives: How you’ll attract your customers in purchasing your product can also depend on how well you market your incentives. You can offer a trial version of your service so that customers can get a feel of your service free of charge, or provide limited discount periods to help your potential buyers feel a sense of urgency.

• Remarketing attempts: Many times, a transaction with a customer doesn’t end with the purchase. Remarketing efforts allow you to make the most out of your customers’ attention to offer other products and services that they may be interested in.

By organizing the trajectory of your sales funnel, you’ll be able to see an overview of your full process. This allows you to show an organized and accessible format of your sales plan to potential investors.

It can also serve as a blueprint that your team can analyze to determine which processes are doing well and which ones require improvements.

You don’t have to be a master at graphic design to visualize these steps easily. Thankfully, there are several funnel mapping software tools available to fit your marketing model’s preferences.

Widening the funnel

Your goal as a business owner is to make sure that you “widen the funnel” by reaching the highest conversion rates with your site’s foot traffic.

The closer the percentage is to your total foot traffic, the more successful you’ll be in converting online visitors into invested customers.

Repeat customers will take less time to purchase new products, so they tend to skip the conventional steps of your sales funnel. Nevertheless, make sure that you maintain contact with your previous clients by sending them relevant product releases that might interest them.

Conclusion

When creating a funnel map, you should always define your end goal. By figuring out what it is, you can then design your customers’ trajectory towards it by working backward.

Keep in mind that your funnels aren’t always strictly about purchasing a product. Sometimes, you can use modified funnels to create different ways of generating traffic to your website. Doing this allows you to discover alternative strategies in implementing your overall sales funnel model.

A digital marketer needs to have reliable tools to make sure that they can help a business grow. We offer an all-in-one marketing platform to give you the resources that you need to develop your sales funnel.

Subscribe with us today and see how our funnel mapping software can help your business optimize its conversion process!

Collaborative marketing is a strategy that involves cooperating with similar companies in the industry to build brand recognition, minimize costs, and increase sales. It can also take place between rivals, and in either case, has shown repeated success.

It is one of the longest-lasting advertising and promotion strategies used in the industry. While the principles of collaborative marketing remain relatively the same, it has shown immense success in the digital age.

An example of a successful and strategic Collaborative Marketing Campaign include Taco Bell’s partnership with Doritos to create the Doritos Locos Tacos, which sold a billion units in just the first year of its release.

This is proof that one of the most important effects of collaborative marketing is the fact that it is a way for companies and brands to overlap their markets and grow their captive audience by leaps and bounds.

Successful collaborations not only increase awareness of the brands involved but also improves how it is perceived. Customers are more likely to see both brands as innovative and creative.

With modern marketing collaboration tools, such partnerships are easier and more efficient than ever. However, before we get to the tools, a well-planned strategy must be in place. Here are just some of the most important strategies for better collaborative marketing campaigns:

1. Choose your collaborators wisely

This is where collaborative marketing begins. It is important to be selective with your collaborations, especially since an ill-thought-out partnership can hurt your brand and bottom line. Make sure that the companies you tie-up with share your values and quality of work.

With the right partners, you can not only bolster every aspect of your business, you can do so for a fraction of the cost. A good collaboration covers the weaknesses of everyone involved, and maximizes each company’s strengths.

An interesting example of a well-chosen and equally beneficial collaboration was the interesting partnership between Pottery Barn and Sherwin-Williams, which gave customers the ability to seamlessly select paint colors based off of their furniture from Pottery Barn. It captured two audiences that may not have had much overlap had the collaboration taken place.

2. Remember that the consumer is a powerful resource

One of the most powerful aspects of the digital age is how modern technology has shaped the landscape of commerce. Social media and the internet have expanded our world in so many ways while simultaneously closing the gap and making everything easy to reach. Now more than ever, the average person has a greater capacity to carry and express a meaningful message.

It would do your campaign wonders to remember that the consumer has power. Creating a strategy that relies on and utilizes the engagement and involvement of the consumer can cause the messaging of a collaborative marketing campaign to spread like wildfire.

Even a single consumer, enamored by your campaign, who shares a video or expresses positive thoughts about your campaign, is valuable.

Many marketers and marketing collaboration tools will tell you that organic growth is the most valuable type of consumer reaction.

When given a platform to interact and engage, a consumer will be a carrier for the message, spreading by word of mouth, social media, and so on. Essentially, an empowered consumer can become a beacon of free advertising.

3. Strategize your goals

While it is important to have similar and unified goals with your collaborative partner, it is just as important to tailor these goals to the needs of all involved. It is also important for all brands to have their own goals.

The partnership between Sherwin-Williams and Pottery Barn is a great example of companies who have similar audiences and most likely similar goals come together for a mutually beneficial effect (which has continued for several years).

With the right strategies and an honest approach to each brand’s strengths and weaknesses, there are so many possibilities of what types of companies you can partner up with, and to what goals you can set as partners.

4. Plan, plan, and plan

Rare is the successful endeavor that did not begin with a sound plan, and the same can be said of marketing partnerships.

A good plan begins with research on marketing campaigns from similar companies that have been successful. Ask yourselves what made those plans great, and how you all could embolden your own plans with what you learn.

While it is easier to enact a collaborative campaign with more entities and partners, the planning will be a lot more difficult. Certainly, it might cost less if you all split the costs, and the combined followers of each brand could be redirected to the others. However, the enactment of such steps in a plan must be as the movements of a well-oiled machine.

For this, you will need comprehensive marketing collaboration tools to smoothen the interactions. The bottom line is: the more companies and brands are involved in the process, the more planning the campaign will need.

When a good plan has been made, make sure that the expectations and goals of the campaign are set into writing and contracts so that every member of this partnership will take their commitments seriously.

5. Adapt

There is no telling what disastrous events may come to throw a wrench into all your best-laid plans. It may come in the form of a pandemic or a sudden shift in the market—or all of the above. Whatever the case may be, it is important to at least have capable people ready to make backup strategies to adjust your campaign as needed.

Adaptation isn’t just about being ready for disasters or unexpected changes in your circumstances. It can be about adjusting your strategies based on gathered data. Your target markets can react in unexpected ways, and as such, it is always good to adjust your strategies to what you learn.

A good marketing collaboration tool should be able to provide the right data in such events. From there, you can then decide which steps to take to ensure the success of the collaboration.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it is every company and brand’s hope that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. While this is definitely along the lines of easier said than done, the strategies discussed in this article can help when coming up with a comprehensive plan for collaborative marketing.

If you need the right marketing collaboration tools, we at Market Plan have the resources and expertise to help serve your needs and solve your problems. Send us a message if you’d like to discuss your goals with us; we’ll be happy to help you achieve them.

You did a great job marketing your products and services to your home country, and now you want to take on a new challenge. You are proud of all your local achievements, and you want to share it with the world. If these thoughts are going on inside your head, it is probably time for your brand to go global.

Expanding your brand’s reach is an exciting thing to do, but it requires more hard work and investment than you can imagine. With that, we want to help you make the most out of your decision with the tips below that can guide you on your venture.

Your Brand Is Going Global: What Does That Mean?

Having a website accessible to any part of the world 24/7 is not the definition of going global. It is much more than that.

Going global means bringing your brand to different cultures and audiences and reaching these people the way you did with your local market. It is introducing your brand, your values and mission included, in a way they will understand, accept, and find helpful.

Think of successful global brands like Airbnb, Netflix, Uber, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and more. They have both the reach and the market in their respective areas. They are still working within their umbrella branding, and people from different countries understand what they are all about. They even made these brands part of their lives.

Before you bring your brand to the global market, you need to have a plan. You need to do your research, and you need a team with different backgrounds to help you out. It is not a simple decision you can make overnight. You will encounter various steps, and you need to make a lot of considerations.

Part I. Finding Your Target

Unfortunately, you cannot capture the entire world in an instant. You need to be clear with your target so that you can prepare accordingly. Choosing a specific group of people first can help you make any necessary updates and tweaks. Knowing your target country will also help you realize and fix the requirements needed if there is any.

Here are some critical steps to do:

• Choose and understand the new market

Any business comes with a big risk, but it does not mean you should just take a chance every time. Before choosing any new location, check based on your current stats, which countries you have more potential of succeeding. Which areas do you have more traffic coming from? Which audience is more likely to invest in your products and services?

To limit any uncertainty, you need to research the market you are entering. Learn about the facts, the competition, and also the demand forecast, if you can. Knowing all these can help you estimate how much commercial success you should anticipate or prepare for and whether the new venture would be worth it.

• Learn about the culture

Knowing your audience is one thing; learning about their culture is another. You need to keep in mind that different countries and groups of people think differently. This step is crucial because you need to make little adjustments for your brand to be more accepted.

For example, in the UK, more partnerships and deals happen in physical locations than in emails. In Germany, they prefer replying to messages written in their language. In Japan, they would prefer it if your website is translated into their language. Knowing these facts can help you list down what next steps you should take, and tweaking your methods to fit these little details can help you achieve your desired results.

Part II. Preparing Your Brand

Do you notice why not all McDonald’s around the world offer the same menu and sometimes the same taste of their food? It is because they adjust their brand to meet the needs of their specific market. You have to do the same for your brand. There are certain things you should go through about your brand before you offer them to a particular market.

• Adjust your strategy

Because your strategy for your home country worked does not mean it will work the same for other countries. You do not need to veer away entirely from your core messaging, though. You only need to find a way to convince people from another country to try your brand or make a switch.

To do this, you need to keep an eye on the competition and see how they do their job. Identify how you can participate in this competition and how your brand can win in a particular section.

• Check your brand translation

Brand guidelines and brand principles should be followed at all times; however, before you implement the same rules in a new place, you need to do some checking first.

• Assess whether your brand translates the same in their language and culture.
• Make sure that all of your marketing communications are delivered in a culturally appropriate way.

In some countries, colors and symbols have different meanings and impacts. Some words or phrases may sound offensive even when you do not mean it. You need to be careful and sensitive since you are a newcomer into their market. Having a trusted local partner to help you understand these nuances can help make your global effort a success.

You also need to make sure you are protecting your intellectual property. Know that the law of intellectual property rights differs from country to country. You need to abide by their rules to protect yourself. Seek the help of an attorney who is well-versed in international intellectual property law, and adjust your brand accordingly.

• Prepare for expansion

Now that you are mentally prepared, you need to be physically prepared too. If you are selling products, make sure that you can meet the higher demands in production, shipping, and warehousing. Doing your research well at the beginning can help you predict how much increase you should be anticipating.

You also need to check if you need to change your packaging. In some countries, using plastics is not advisable. Some countries prefer using boxes. Check out if there are any mandatories or requirements for packaging in these areas and apply them to your business.

Lastly, you also need to prepare your website for your new audience. Creating a translated version for a different market would be a good idea. Although it will require a considerable investment, if you know your new audience would appreciate it better and the effort will translate to more sales, you need to trust that and make it happen. Making your payment options accessible online and shipping available worldwide can help bring your business to the next level.

• Build local relationships in these countries

Preparing your strategy and logistics is not the end of the process. You also need to establish a good relationship with local suppliers from that country. It is one way of expanding your business distribution channels and market.

It is also one method of knowing more about the local community and the business community in the city you are targeting. Finding the right local partner can help you prevent taking any missteps, and they can help you see opportunities you would not notice otherwise.

Conclusion

Working on your brand alone for a local market is already challenging. Bringing it outside of your comfort zones will demand more work and attention. While going global is not impossible, you must study all the steps you need to take to make the best decisions for the business. It is like starting over again but not from scratch and with more background knowledge. Understanding the new country you are targeting and tweaking your brand to cater to their needs can help succeed.

Using an all-in-one marketing platform can help make the intricate work of bringing your brand to an international market easier and more manageable. If you are looking for a marketing plan software that serves as a campaign planning tool, funnel mapping tool, live analytics tool, and team collaboration tool in one, consider checking MarketPlan. Contact us today to learn more.

Marketing is so much more than just making a product sell better. It is a field of industry that requires intelligence, savvy, and creativity.

And content marketing is no different. These attributes and so many more are necessary for a campaign to yield positive results. While relatively new, content marketing is proving to be an essential component of any business’s success. However, it must be executed correctly in order to gain its benefits.

For this to be possible, a business’s content marketing campaign has to have a comprehensive strategy and approach. It should improve the company’s online presence by generating interest and attaching meaning to all its endeavors.

In a sense, effective content marketing is only attainable when it is aligned with the people who comprise a business’s audience. As people rely on the internet for everything from their needs to their aspirations, it is critical to not only keep abreast of the rapidly evolving trends in technology but also how society interacts with it.

To help you not lose sight of this, here are some principles to live by for your next content marketing campaign:

1. Audit your content

Before you make the great leap forward with a new content marketing campaign, it is important to assess how and why your previous strategies did not work. Consult with a third party about the problem areas in your content, from your email marketing to your social media and your blog.

Does your content paint a unified and holistic picture of the branding of your business? Are your posts on social media indicative of how you want your business to be represented and remembered? Is any of it relevant and/or meaningful to your customers and stakeholders?

By answering these questions, you gain a deeper understanding of what may have gone wrong with your previous strategies and find ways to improve in the future.

2. Make the customer’s experience with your product and business more convenient

For many online businesses, this specifically means redesigning and improving their website and other digital channels. As with anything online, even just the slightest inconvenience, such as a loading time longer than two seconds, can result in lost sales and conversions.

Having an online presence is more important than ever, with the meteoric rise in the amount of business and transactions being conducted online (and on smartphones). The landscape is fierce and competitive, and as such, the edges you take to make your business the most convenient choice add up to a lot.

Your content marketing campaign will not work if your website is difficult to access, understand, or navigate. In fact, one of the markers of credibility and legitimacy that a customer considers when conducting business online is the quality of the website.

Investing in better and more efficient systems, both online and offline, can make it much easier for a customer to hand you their money.

3. Understand your target market

It cannot be stressed enough that you must understand the needs and nature of your target market. While it is understandable to try and craft a strategy that attracts as many portions of the demographic as possible, attempting to do so is inefficient and often yields thin and unsatisfactory results in addition to wasting a bulk of your marketing budget.

A targeted and more focused approach can yield far better results than casting a wide net. Work on growing the interactions and conversions between your business and its target market first, and then you can feel free to expand your audience.

4. Set well-defined and attainable objectives for the short term

The goals of your business depend on many circumstances—everything from the marketing budget to the nature of the product or service you provide. While lofty aspirations can be good long-term goals for a business, it is better to err on the side of caution. Be conservative with your estimates and adjust your goals accordingly.

Do not hope for long-term success in only a short amount of time. Large and miraculous explosions of profit, follower gains, or website conversions are usually the exception and not the rule.

5. Observe for trends in consumer purchases

Trends in marketing change over time, and certain approaches lose steam as others rise to success. It is important to maintain even just a basic knowledge of these trends as they come and go so that you can either ride the wave to the profits or prepare for pitfalls.

All this means is that it matters to understand the needs and expectations of your customers and how they change over time.

6. Gather and use the data

Most websites and domain providers have metrics in place for the gathering and analysis of data. Data is one of the most important tools you will need to understand the successes and failures of your business.

Use the data to figure out which endeavors and products your customers reward and which ones they punish. From there, you could compare the strategies you took between them, and apply more successful ones accordingly.

That’s not where data stops, either. It can go further towards understanding your target market and perhaps discovering new markets you never knew existed. The data should be used to inform your strategy and approach as well as influence your operations.

Product A, for example, can experience 1000 purchases per month. Product B only experiences 200. As such, it should be logical to adjust stocking levels to meet the needs of supply and demand.

7. Integrate search engine optimization (SEO) practices with your content strategy

Google is the standard, and for any business to be considered successful, it must be one of the top results that appear when one of the services or products it provides is searched for. The search engine automatically decides the relevance of a website based on keywords most commonly used across the internet.

With a diverse set of content and distribution channels and the right use of such keywords, a good content marketing campaign can raise your standing in Google SERPs. This not only increases the number of people who can find your business with a search but increases your reach as an enterprise.
Good SEO practices can increase organic traffic by a large amount if done correctly, and this traffic can result in conversions and purchases.

8. Diversify your online presence

It is important to have representations of your media on all relevant social channels. It does not stop at a website. Many businesses often have accounts for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and even Pinterest.
Maintaining a diverse online presence can make your customers feel more connected to your business, especially if you regularly make content relevant to your market.

Conclusion

However you decide to go about your content marketing campaign, take these principles into account for better results and better profits. Remember to be patient and attentive to the needs of your market. Respond and adjust accordingly, and you just might take your business to the next level.

For more information on your next comprehensive content marketing campaign, send us at MarketPlan a message.

Our all inclusive Marketing tool will help you map out your content marketing strategy, write down all your blog posts and email sequences within the same tool and collaborate with all your team members easily.

Being new to the world of marketing can be daunting, especially if you don’t know where to begin. As a rule of thumb, you’ll never want to skip over a marketing plan, which will allow investors to get a better grasp of how their commitment to your business will generate a positive return.

Similarly, if you’re selling your business, having a marketing plan and strategy already set up for your successor is an excellent selling point. Even if you aren’t seeking external support, having a marketing plan software in place can help you get the ball rolling as quickly as possible.

What is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing strategy isn’t just about building content or spending on ads that lands your business quality leads and results in an attractive number of conversions. You’re going to want to know how to get there in the first place.

An effective marketing strategy consists of:

• How you intend for your business to be perceived
• Who your target audience is and how to best approach them
• What your route to market is and how your offerings are segmented
• What your core mission and vision is and how this can enhance your marketing efforts
• What your marketing activity intends to deliver

However, before execution of a marketing strategy comes a marketing plan. Approach a market plan tactically. Treat it similarly to the step that comes before crafting for your first prototype. With one in place, there is less room for error and more room to grow.

Why is Marketing Plan Important?

How you plan the strategic direction of your business can have a direct impact on the actual results that you reap. A marketing plan is what holds everything together, allowing you to keep an eye on whether the right activities are taking place at the right time in front of the right people and using the right platforms.

If your dozens of attempts at various marketing strategies aren’t giving you a better idea of what is and isn’t working, chances are you’re lacking a solid marketing plan. Such is also the case if the activities you’re implementing are interfering more with your business operations rather than making them more efficient.

The formula for a thriving business is having your business strategy, marketing strategy, and marketing plan functioning totally in sync. The more in tune you are with your business goals, the more efficiently you can perform daily tasks that make a positive impact on the bigger business picture.

For a breakdown of why a marketing plan is so crucial for your business, read on.

Focus

A blueprint requires a clear school of thought, which means a marketing plan will give you the opportunity to thoroughly determine what types of activities can direct your eventual strategy.

Especially for entrepreneurs, it can be easy to become distracted by a new opportunity. If you’re making any tactical changes to your strategy, you’ll want to make sure these can be properly implemented in the first place. Flexibility has its perks but a lack of focus can often prevent you from seeing certain opportunities through to the end.

With a marketing plan, you can always keep track of whether these new and existing activities are aligning with the direction your business is strategically following.

Plan and manage resources effectively

A lack of budget and marketing resources will usually indicate that your business isn’t entirely sure of what it needs or should be doing in the first place. Implementing a marketing plan and strategy from the very beginning allows you to set aside the correct amount for your marketing budget.

It will also help you determine the level of resources you’ll need to deliver the strategy to completion. Remember, resources don’t entirely depend on your internal manpower. You can easily outsource specialists in web design and social media or even incorporate a marketing plan tool. This is especially helpful when you aren’t currently employing anyone with a specialization in marketing.

Another important resource a marketing plan can help you manage is time. With a clear plan of action in place, there’s less room to procrastinate or take shortcuts that can potentially harm your marketing output.

Transparency

Ultimately, the end goal of your marketing strategy is to generate a positive ROI. After all, if the investment you’re making on marketing efforts can barely break even with the profits you’re incurring, you probably aren’t doing it right. With a marketing plan, you can work on creating measurable goals that can be tracked and recorded over time.

If, for example, you’re launching an SEO campaign focused on the website content, how much website traffic and leads in your pipeline you’re earning can dictate the success of this action. The metrics you’ll be tracking will depend on your goals. However, the same principle applies across the board.

Data begets total transparency and can help you make more informed decisions regarding your overarching marketing strategy. It can also identify metrics that are underperforming and potential flaws that exist in your current system.

Consistency

When you find yourself in desperate need of sales, it can be all too easy to engage in sporadic marketing. Though a quick new wave of marketing activity is sometimes successful in pooling new clients, you often won’t have accounted for a dedicated resource and might suddenly have to halt your marketing efforts altogether. Spontaneity can be exciting and, sometimes, pay off, but isn’t always sustainable.

A lack of a marketing plan can cause an erratic pipeline of sales opportunities due to the unhealthy development of stop-start habits. Allocating a dedicated resource to your marketing plan will allow you to market your business consistently and efficiently, making it easier to keep track of monthly sales predictions. It’ll also guarantee a constant amount of sales flowing through your business funnel.

It provides clarity

At its very foundation, the key to a successful business is a team that knows what it’s doing. A clear marketing plan will outline growth targets, overall business goals, and how team members can contribute to the success of your ultimate strategy.

Not to mention, clarity allows employees to keep better track of their responsibilities, increases productivity, and enhances performance. The better your staff can manage themselves and obtain a clear, visual representation of the tasks they’ve already achieved, the more they’ll be motivated to perform their responsibilities well.

Conclusion

A marketing plan can prove itself helpful throughout any stage of your business but is especially effective when incorporated from the get-go. It helps direct your strategy and makes your marketing projects more purposeful and targeted. While it’s entirely possible to forego a marketing plan and still achieve business success, it could take you much longer and put you at risk of expending unnecessary resources.

For an all in one marketing platform that can help you execute your projects to the best of your ability, sign up with us at Market Plan today! With over 10 built-in marketing apps such as kanban task delegation, a blog, and keyword planner, and projections, all your marketing goals become that much more achievable.

Using Big Data

Big data and real-time data analytics are among the biggest trends in business today. Campaign projection software, resource allocation tracking systems, and other similar programs give a company valuable inputs about customers and employees. Getting those insights in real-time will help them respond better to concerns.

Using big data opens various opportunities for a company. Maximize revenue, learn how to take care of personnel better, and improve the customer journey, all using big data. Analytics can also help a company strategize better and protect itself from financial, reputational, or technological losses.

As helpful as they may be, insights like these come with a cost. The most significant barrier for many businesses is that the infrastructure a company needs for a fully-realized data analytics system is expensive. In this article, we delve into the reasons why your company should consider real-time data analytics despite this.

It mitigates pain points or major errors in the workflow

Real-time data analytics provides near-instantaneous insight, allowing companies to spot workflow problems quickly. This leads to a faster turnaround for solutions. It also results in a workforce with a growth mindset.

Having ready access to data prevents issues from becoming causes for downtime or complete operational breakdown. The company can preserve its revenue-earning capacity and keep its reputation intact.

It helps companies note new strategies competitors use.

Data obtained real-time can also help businesses keep tabs on the competition. A company can stay ahead by receiving notifications when their rivals deploy new strategies like raising or lowering prices or switching to different office hours.

It can also use campaign planning tools to know in advance how their product might fare when pitted against one from another company. Strategizing data use lets a business constantly evolve while keeping itself attuned to how the industry is shifting.

It helps companies manage resources better.

Smarter Resource Management

Finding the right people for a project is a challenge for most organizations. Before the advent of data-based decision making, managers allocated resources manually. They also partly relied on historical information about people’s capacities and the amount of money needed for specific projects, which isn’t the most scientific way of making decisions.

Manual resource allocation was a time-consuming process; businesses waited until the end of the month for reports on how the company spent resources. At this point, there could not be any interventions made apart from adjusting the order for next months’ supplies, or reshuffling personnel to better roles.

With real-time analytics, though, a company can have a better handle on their resources. For example, they can see at once which resources are idle and which ones are operating at full capacity. Seeing this allows them to make the necessary changes as they are needed and before the situation becomes irreparable.

It makes it easier to detect fraud

Simpler Crisis Management

Successful businesses must contend with fraudulent operators and criminals in their industry. These individuals might attack from all fronts, even from within the company. Real-time data analytics helps businesses track suspicious movements. Systems can flag fraud, theft, insider trading, and other dubious activities for observation.

A financial institution, for instance, could be alerted by an analytics program about large amounts of money deposited from a political hotspot. This deposit could be a red flag for money laundering. Tools like these help prevent a company from becoming an unwitting accomplice or a victim of a crime.

It helps a company improve its service

Real-time data analytics can flag issues that crop up when customers use a company’s product or service. This allows a company to respond quickly to prevent these concerns from becoming more extensive and less easily managed.

The benefits are clear, especially today when social media could easily exacerbate a problem that could be solved easily behind closed doors or with a few well-placed calls regarding customer service.

It keeps a company in the black.

Get Reliable Results

Professional services organizations generally have slim margins. With real-time analytics, a company can leverage information to improve revenue. They can optimize realized hourly bill rates and billable utilization, or the hours billed divided by available hours.

If you can see in real-time a project’s billable hours, you will know if the billing is lower than the projections. You can intervene before the problem makes a negative impact on the overall profit margin.

Companies need to make these adjustments as the incidents occur so they can control the situation. If they wait until the end of a project, they would have lost the window within which they can reap insights about the amount of work employees are doing. Real-time analytics offer more visibility into billing.

It ensures more reliable forecasting

Real Forecasting

Service professionals can be more confident in their forecasting and run their business with more certainty with the help of real-time analytics. Forecasts used to be somewhat inaccurate in the past. For instance, when a project is in the planning stage, managers have to manually check calendars to identify which resources would be available within the given duration.

In contrast, real-time analytics does away with time-consuming spreadsheets. With campaign planning software, a manager can instantly see project backlogs, services projects that are still in the pipeline, projects invoiced, and projects for which clients have paid.

They also have access to revenue and analyze it at various levels. You can see how much money is coming into the company through multiple lenses like customer type, project type, and even region where the project launched.

It helps match supply with demand

With real-time visibility into a pipeline, a manager is always aware of the resources at their disposal. They can quickly gauge how much of the product or service clients want at any given time and figure out where they can source from within the company to fulfil the demand.

Analytics tells you a lot about your resource pool. In the past, it was not possible to have this kind of instantaneous view into a company’s resources, and this is valuable to companies that rely on moving large volumes of inventory or meeting multiple clients’ requests at the same time.

It helps control the value leakage

Free services and discounts are a part of any company’s strategy. A software company, for example, could offer discounted services to sell product licenses. Companies implement this type of promotion strategically so that the company does not negatively impact the market for service organizations.

Real-time analytics gives organizations a clearer picture of the real amount of discounting for a project. It allows businesses to define the giveaway parameters. You don’t necessarily want to give your entire service away for free; analytics will help your company contain your products’ value.

Tools like these will let you see how much value has leaked out of the bucket. It can also give your business insights into whether this is an acceptable amount of leakage or if you need to make interventions and execute changes.

Conclusion

Real-time data analytics are valuable for any organization. Whether service- or product-oriented, analytics tools can help you see the big picture and work on solutions that accurately respond to the situations on the ground. With these technologies, you will surely reap the long-term benefits—provided, of course, that you know what to do with the data and act promptly.

Help your team maximize your company’s real-time data with MarketPlan. Our campaign analytics software enables marketing teams to create sound and reliable projections while keeping you connected on one platform. Get in touch with us today to learn more!

One of the most critical aspects of your business plan is the sales forecast. As a tool that helps you predict future revenue, your sales forecast ties into the other elements of your business plan, including the market analysis, marketing plan, and pricing sections. The objective of a sales forecast is to build and justify your sales estimate for the upcoming year.

Traditionally, sales managers are responsible for preparing sales forecasts and ensuring their teams have a goal to reach during each business period. But how do you start? Why is sales forecasting as important as it is? Keep reading to find out.

The Importance of Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting is a supplement to your finances as it will allow you to create essential financial statements, such as a balance sheet, cash flow statement, and more.

Besides being a crucial tool for your business finances, a sales forecast also allows you to set clear goals for your business. It will open you to things that you want to achieve and push you to reflect upon your goals.

During the process of developing a sales forecast, you’ll have to consider what results you want to see over the next month or even the next year. Goals are essential for your company as they will help give it direction. A sales forecast will help you set KPIs and make sure you hit the numbers you need.

Aside from giving your team direction, sales forecasts act as a guide to the amount of money you should spend for the sake of your business. Use your sales forecast to help you plan your marketing, operations, and administration budgets.

No business owner wants to run out of funds in the middle of operations, and a clear forecast makes it easier to create income-generating strategies that will sustain your business.

How To Create a Sales Forecast

Building a sales forecast doesn’t have to be complicated. Sure, it’s going to take time because of all the details involved, but the results are worth it. You don’t need a huge number of data points, but that doesn’t mean you should come up with ballpark figures. At the end of the day, it’s a process that will lay the foundation for a realistic business strategy.

Here are some tips to help you create a complete and detailed sales forecast.

1. Map Your Process

Begin by mapping the sales process. Doing so will help you manage and document your sales better, which will enforce consistency and accountability. Your sales process also includes your pipeline stages. In this case, you need to define each stage according to the behavior of your prospects.

2. Refer to Past Data

One of the easiest ways to forecast sale is to refer to your past data. Projecting sales based on past performance will help you set a decent baseline. It will present you with reliable data that will help you predict your future sales. There’s no need to go back to data from day one—instead, you can look back at the past two years to get enough data. Keep in mind that you will need to adjust the numbers for inflation and estimate prices for your latest sales forecast.

3. Make a Unit Sales Projection

To come up with your Unit Sales Projection (USP), you need to start by forecasting unit sales every month. This is often thought to be limited to the sales of physical goods, but a lot of service-based businesses also create unit sales projections because it’s a lot easier to break things down for reliable forecasting.

If you’re creating a unit sales projection using past data, you can use the corresponding period from the past to go forward.

4. Predict Prices

It’s natural to feel that you need to adjust your future prices for inflation based on your past data. To do this, project the prices as you did with you unit sales—monthly going forward one year.

5. Calculate Your Average Unit Costs

The Cost Per Unit (CPU) refers to the amount paid for one unit. For physical products, the CPU is determined y the set price by the supplier. It doesn’t include salaries or marketing expenses. If you’re calculating for a service, the CPU is the cost of delivering said service.

6. Use Visuals

Make your sales forecast easier to understand and read with visuals. One of the most highly recommended visuals for sales forecasting is charts. A chart will make your sales easy to see and is a great way to highlight irrationalities in terms of your sales growth. Regardless of the visual aid you use, these tools will make your forecast more presentable to investors and lenders as well as your team.

7. Calculate Everything

When you finally have your unit sales projections, projected prices, and average unit costs, it’s time to put everything together. Start by multiplying the USP by the projected prices to get your sales. Do the same with the USP and the average unit costs to find the costs of your sales. After that, subtract the costs of sales from your sales. There you have it!

8. Prepare For Ongoing Adjustment

Keep in mind your forecasts will never be wholly accurate. While they play crucial roles, they are ultimately predictions that will require some adjustments along the way. You’ll also have to remember that there are a lot of factors that can affect your sales, which is why when you finished with your sales forecast, it’s time to focus on tracking your actual numbers and revise your projections accordingly.

9. Use a Tool

Keep all your data for your sales forecast in one place by using a tool. Find a free marketing tool like MarketPlan that will allow you to automate all your data and make creating a sales forecast for your business so much easier.

Conclusion

These are some of the tips you need to keep in mind when you’re creating a sales forecast for your business. Indeed, it could be a tedious process but there is a wealth of information that you can pick up along the way to help you form more effective strategies for better results.

A sales forecast will lay the foundation for your business plan and help you make better financial decisions. Make your sales forecast more convenient with the help of marketing tools as they will help you plan, executive, project, and optimize your marketing strategy from one place.

We’re a free marketing tool that offers more than ten marketing mini-apps to help you stay on top of business forecasting and analytics. Sign up today to start planning for success!

While running a business, the experience of your consumers has to be the highest priority at all times—which is why your marketing strategies should always be in line with what they perceive as good.

After all, your brand is only as good as how your customers perceive it, thus the ongoing task of constantly improving your marketing & sales process to always give your customers a better experience.

Improving your business’ operation and marketing strategy effectively requires a tremendous amount of data to work on. While there may be numerous factors that affect a customer’s purchasing decision, a simple look into the flow of their experience can provide some insight as to how to improve.

At any point, a bird’s eye view of your brand’s overall marketing strategy must be accessible to constantly improve & fine tune it.

In order to view these properly, two frameworks could be applied: the Marketing Funnel and the Customer Journey Map. By utilizing both in the assessment of your customer’s experience, you can create an even better flow that can keep your customers or clients satisfied.

The Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel—or a sales funnel depending on your business model and strategy used—is a framework that helps you segment and analyze each step of a potential customer’s buyer’s journey.

It starts with the basic premise that people who view your business are not immediately a customer, with each step further cementing their decision to choose your products and services.

The “funnel” analogy shows how numerous potential customers “enter” your sales process, but only a few “make it out” to the other end and actually make a purchase.

By focusing on certain aspects of your sales process, the goal is to “widen” the ending funnel to ultimately increase your overall sales.

The basic sales funnel has four major steps: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action—or the AIDA model. As a customer passes through each step, they create a deeper commitment towards making a purchase—which is where marketers take action to have customers go through each part of the process.

Depending on your business type and your ideal customer profile, each step in this process could become very complex and hence it becomes absolutely vital to plan each step, map it out and keep a track of it once it goes live.

The more time and effort that goes into the planning, the more seamless and effective your funnel becomes.

If you are an agency or a sales & marketing team, another important aspect that comes into effective planning is active collaboration within the team members.

More ideas and brainstorming sessions within a team would bring about new ways to improve a funnel to increase conversions, reduce the number of friction points, and to simplify it for the users.

There is little surprise that project management and team collaboration SaaS tools have gained a huge amount of traction in recent times. Companies and brands have understood the positive effects of good collaborative work rather than individual brilliance.

The Customer Journey Map

The customer journey map, on the other hand, focuses on the entire journey of a customer and their relationship with your business and brand.

Unlike the marketing funnel that focuses on getting a potential buyer to make a purchasing decision, the customer journey map focuses on obtaining the loyalty of a consumer and pushing them to become a return customer to purchase repeatedly.

The overall goal of this method is to review each step that a customer takes until they make a decision to purchase again from you.

Right after the first purchase is done, your planning and strategy starts to gain the loyalty of that customer to bring them back again for the next purchase. This phase between the first and the subsequent purchase is where your strategy has to be planned and mapped out extensively.
An introspective look to your business’ buying experience through the lens of a customer can provide you insight on certain chokepoints and weak links that could cause a consumer to not patronize you.

While you may be able to do this through a general look-through of your process, having a consistent look into the comments, feedback, reviews, and suggestions of your regular consumers can come in handy.

By taking note of the data gathered through this model, you can improve your business process, resulting in overall ease of your consumers’ experience. This will then deepen your relationship with your customers—which inevitably breeds loyalty to your brand.

Irrespective of your business model, it can be B2B or B2C, e-commerce or an agency, tracking this journey map gives a significant improvement in overall retention of your existing customers/clients, thereby increasing the revenue numbers.

Conclusion

Improving your business process can easily be done through the strategic and well-implemented use of two models: the marketing funnel and the customer journey map. Not only can you increase the conversion rate that you have through these, but you can also help establish better loyalty from your repeat customers—thus letting your business stay relevant in the market.

Are you looking for marketing software to help enhance your overall strategy? At MarketPlan, we provide you an all-in-one platform solution to help your run and visualize each facet of your marketing strategy. Get in touch with us and sign up to obtain a free account today.