Articles By Topic Alphabetical List of Articles		Don't Start the New Year With the Same Old Marketing Plan By David P. Kowal Marketing plans, like New Year's resolutions, often fail because they are too ambitious in scope. The person who resolves to lose 50 pounds, quit smoking, lead a virtuous life and achieve world peace all in one year is bound to fail. Likewise, businesses don't leap from moderate success to the Fortune 500 in the course of a year. Marketing plans can fail from a lack of ambition, too. It is not enough to photocopy 1995's marketing plan, change the dates and expect it to work in 1996. Most companies completed planning for 1996 months ago. But with the arrival of a new year, it is still a good time to think about how your business has changed over the past year - and about how it can improve in the year ahead. It is also important to think about how the world has changed during the past year, and to determine how these changes create opportunities for your business. Do not make resolutions you won't keep during 1996. But do resolve to take advantage of at least one new technology that will help your company improve its marketing efforts in 1996. If you haven't taken advantage of the benefits of the World Wide Web, e-mail, electronic sales presentations, multimedia, CD-ROM or any other new technology now available, resolve to do so during 1996. From a marketing perspective, technological change was much more profound during 1995 than perhaps any other year. More than anything, 1995 was the Year of the Net. Anyone attending the Internet trade shows and seminars that took place during 1995 would have to marvel at how an industry that barely existed a year ago could grow so quickly. Shows such as the Internet World Conference in Boston attracted tens of thousands of attendees, and the booths were filled with promising new businesses. The Internet is not just a fad. Retail sales via the Internet are still very modest, but the Internet has clearly evolved as a business-to-business marketing tool. If the Internet is your technology of choice for 1996, the following advice can help: Start with e-mail. The graphic capabilities of the World Wide Web are especially important to the real estate business, but e-mail is the workhorse of the online industry. With e-mail you can, for example, provide information about property listings, exchange information with potential clients and receive offers on property. A single message can be sent to any number of people with the click of a button. Use graphics wisely. Most real estate web sites use graphics poorly. Floor plans are reproduced so small the dimensions are illegible. Photos are reproduced so large they can't fit on the computer screen. Many people in the real estate industry balk at paying $1,200 a day for professional photography - and it shows. Photos of boxy-looking buildings and telephone wires won't help sales. If you're trying to sell a multi-million dollar property, professional photography is cost effective. A professional photographer can add warmth and personality to even a plain vanilla building. Register your domain name early. If you're developing a web site, recognize that it can take up to six weeks to register a domain name. Make certain to complete a search first to ensure that your chosen name is not already being used by someone else. Analyze costs and benefits. Don't be blinded by technology. Before investing in new technology, determine how it will be used and estimate your payback period. Investing in an electronic presentation, for example, will not be cost effective if it is not going to be used frequently. Don't be intimidated by technology. You don't need to be able to program to use a computer. Likewise, you don't have to understand HTML (hypertext mark-up language) to benefit from the Internet. It's important to understand the marketing implications of new technology, but that doesn't necessarily require a broad understanding of the technology itself. I use my own lack of technical knowledge as my benchmark for new technology. I recognize that if I can understand and use a new technological innovation, then it is ready for use by the masses. Having used e-mail, surfed the World Wide Web and created electronic sales presentations myself, I know that my clients can also use these new technologies to help their business grow.   David P. Kowal is President of Kowal Communications, Inc. of Northboro, Mass. He can be reached at kowal@kowal.com.  << back to article list   About KC. | .Free advice. | .Links. | .Contact us. | .Home ©1999 Kowal Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.   .