Business planning for 2010 may be the most important project you need to complete in 2009. I started planning for 2010 on December 1, 2009. That’s right, as of yesterday, I’m moving through my marketing planning process with a renewed sense of clarity and power.

My plan surrounds a few major categories. With a glimpse into my planning system, I hope you get a starting point from which to begin developing your own plan. Matter of fact, I want you to improve on what I’ve done. I’ve simplified the process for selecting my priorities from a big list of items with my “forced” ranking techniques, which will help you in making complex business decisions.

I’m not going to share the exact details within each category (sub-plan) with you because I’d be giving away major secrets; my stockholders wouldn’t appreciate that.

The Donald’s Marketing Planning System

Sub-plans

• Segmentation Plan (The segmentation is the basis for messaging and I use this category to define my “forced” ranking technique below)
• Blog and Social Media Domination Strategy (most other categories flow into this function. It’s a majorly powerful function)
• Blog Post Plan (Keeps me focused on my blog theme or purpose)
• Comments and Link Back Plan (Generates more traffic to my blog. You should see the tracking theory I’ve applied!)
• Competitive Analysis Plan (I don’t want to be like the other guy. You need to stand out, so check out other players in your market.)
• Blog Updates Plan (I’m incorporating what I’ve recently learned from my mentors into the mix! You probably already know, search engines love blogs that give your visitors relevant and fresh content)
• Keyword Research Plan (I’m all about relevance!)
• Marketing Plan for Social Media (Having special relationships is key to winning in 2010 you know. And, social media is the fastest and most powerful way to get relationships started!)
• Update Free Consult System (It’s about letting people have a risk free way of getting to know me. Well, I’m automating it and refining it. Notice I call it a system.)
• Update Free Report System (My free report is good now and it gets better all the time as I augment it with fresh ideas. It’s a living document.)
• Finance Products Plan (It is crucial for my firm to keep my finance store full of the best finance products available to satisfy your situation. It’s like a grocery store needs to make sure they keep the shelves stocked with items people want to buy.)
• Offline Marketing Plan (Because I love social media so much, I’ve been accused of not understanding terrestrial relationships. People will say and do anything to protect the “old” ways of doing things! In this plan I tie my offline strategy into my online strategies to make it easier for customers, suppliers, and joint venture partners to work with Donald Hunter™ Financial.)
• Product Development Plan (Innovation is the only way to stay relevant.)

All of these sub-plans compose my 2010 marketing plan. It’s a system. They all feed off one another to create exponential power. As you can see, I have a few things to do here. I’ve added a number of sub-steps in each of these plans, which I am keeping a secret.

Forced Ranking System (Segmentation example)

In a few cases, I used a “forced” ranking technique to help me zero in on my priorities.

For example, under segmentation I wrote down 25 different ways I could segment. To deal with this complexity, I first wrote my goal for segmentation, which had multiple criteria (criteria 1, criteria 2, and criteria 3).

Then, I created a measurement system to rank each one as (N) neutral, (S) Strong, and (W) weak.

My process was to go through the 25 different segmentation possibilities I wrote down and compare them to my goal criteria. In segmentation, my goal had three criteria, as shown above. The ranking process looked like this:

• Segmentation idea 1 (segment by industry): N1, S2, W3
• Segmentation idea 2 (loan product): S1, N2, S3
• Etc.

My goal measurement system (N, S, W) evaluates how the segmentation idea satisfies the goal criteria in a neutral way, strong, or weak. I selected the ones that had the highest ranking. Then, I picked two out of the 25 to simplify my marketing messages.

I have no doubt that I’ve picked the right segmentation strategy. If you don’t do “forced” ranking when you have more than three items, you’ll spend a long time trying to figure it out or you’ll really make a huge mistake. It’s not necessarily intuitive when you have that many choices as I had.

I feel that my segmentation strategy will set me apart from my competition as many of them use the segmentation strategies I eliminated, because I let my marketing goals drive my decision-making. Instead of following the leader, I focused on my core values to lead me to the answer.

I’m so excited because I can see by doing this planning; I’ve shaved off hours of guessing, rework, and eliminated problems I resolved in the planning process. By sharing a bit of my planning process, I hope it’ll give you some ideas and motivate you to stop “slacking” and get on your “JOB”! That’s a friendly push.

I did all of this work in about 6 hours of planning. It will take me a few more hours to complete my business and marketing plan for 2010 and the first quarter of the year. I’ll add a few more sub-plans as I move forward in the planning process. But, if I stopped here, I’d have some very powerful actions to act on in 2010!

I wish I could show you all the details in my plan, but I want you to let your planning process be driven by your own core values and goals.

Do you have any questions about my planning system? You can use the comments section below to ask questions.

Sign-up today for your free business and marketing planning consultation if you’d like help on your 2010 planning process. Take advantage of my years of marketing and product management experience too. Who knows, you might learn some powerful ideas about finance!

Sign-up for my free “Business Survival” report to the right. Be better informed than most real estate and financial professionals about your financing options and strategies. Happy Planning!

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