Marketing Planning & MINDMAP

I had the pleasure of interviewing Amanda Larrinaga, a really good marketer from Boise who, sadly, has moved to Montana. Not only is she good at what she does (especially in terms of helping companies do social media using advanced visual aesthetics), but she devotes a lot of time and energy to staying current with and embracing new technology.

Before I get into Amanda's comments on how she uses MINDMAP, here's her map (made for a photographer here in Boise):

If You Don't Think Like Other People, Rejoice...But Find a Common Language
Amanda talks about the struggle some creative people have of taking what's in their heads and making it understandable to others.

“When I’m planning a project—whether it’s for my own business or for a client—there are always lots of moving pieces and parts, I need to communicate a lot of detail. But I have to do it in a way that won’t overwhelm people.”

Part of the reason it doesn't overwhelm people, she says, is that you can control what the staff member or client sees:

“It’s so easy for people to get overwhelmed with information. MINDMAP allows you to show it to them one piece at a time—moving on only when you’re sure they understand the piece before them.”

Clients Got Attention Deficit Disorder?
And I liked her description of how MINDMAP can help you manage clients--many of whom seem to have ADD when it comes to following along with a presentation:

“Sometimes we’ll be talking about one aspect of a marketing plan when the client suddenly starts to fixate on something else. The map structure lets me jump instantly to that part of the plan they want to discuss. Sometimes they just want to make sure we’ve dealt with something that has just popped into their heads."

"I could assure them with words that we’re going to talk about, say, pamphlets. But it’s much more assuring if I can open up the part of the map that talks about brochures and let them see for themselves.”

And she says that when she does jump to another part, it’s very easy for her to change content on the fly to reflect changes in she and/or the client’s thinking.

Tired of Pulling Teeth?

...now that I use mind maps, I never have to push for questions. I get them right away.

One thing she mentioned really struck home for me because I've seen it so many times:

“Even if I’m really probing for questions and trying to really create a conversation, it can just be really frustrating. And as a business owner, it can be a little stressful when the client seems to have nothing to say—because I know they’re usually stewing about something. But now that I use mind maps, I never have to push for questions. I get them right away.”

I remember interviewing someone at Hewlett Packard who told me how, when she used mind mapping with people from another country who were not native English speakers, the rates of participation were always high.

Words of Wisdom from a Self-Confessed TechnoGeek
But probably the coolest thing Amanda said comes from the fact that one of the things she's passionate about is helping her clients find tools that are easy to learn and help them do what they do.

“A big part of my business is making recommendations around implementing different technologies or processes. I pay attention to user friendliness and how intuitive something is. I’ve found that while there is always a range of people’s skill sets, ConceptDraw MINDMAP is one tool that I always recommend, no matter someone’s background.”

Thanks, Amanda!

How One Marketing CEO Uses CD PRO

I've mentioned the name Jenn Neal in the past. She's the CEO of the marketing company Kane & Associates LLC, and someone who loves to try out new technology. She had done some mind mapping years before with pencil and paper, but moved into the present age when she got a copy of ConceptDraw MINDMAP.

When Jenn opened up her new copy of CD OFFICE, she also discovered CD PRO. I have some excerpts from a case study we did about her that explains what happened next:

Jennifer Neal remembers the night well. She had gotten a phone call that day from an upset client—a rare occurrence for her company. Now it was two in the morning and she was wide awake. She knew she’d never get to sleep again until she figured out how to make sure what happened that day never happened again. So she got out of bed, opened up her brand new copy of ConceptDraw PRO, and started thinking.

“I knew the problem was caused by us not having a defined work flow process,” Neal says. “Before, our products were simple enough that we could keep all the steps in our heads. But the things we were offering are more sophisticated now. It was pretty clear to me that we needed a new way to keep track of what we were doing.”

She says ConceptDraw PRO proved to be so easy to learn that even in the middle of the night, even though she’d never used it before, she was able to immediately start creating a flow chart of the Kane & Associates production process. She even added some new steps she thought might improve the process.

By ten o’clock that morning Neal had finished the process flowchart. But instead of heading back to bed, she headed off to work.

“I was so excited about having created the flow chart that I wanted to show it to my project manager right away. I said, ‘OK. Do you agree that chart this represents our process? Do you think these new steps will make sure we don’t have the kind of problem we had yesterday?’”

Once she and her PM came up with a final version, Neal created a cleaned-up process flow chart and gave it to the disgruntled client. Once he could see how many moving pieces there were, she says, he was much more understanding of the problem that had surfaced. Now Kane & Associates provides all clients with the process map.

“The chart helps our clients visually understand our process. ‘This is the first step. This is how long it’s going to take. This is what to expect. These are the deliverables.’ It helps clients appreciate how complicated it is to do something that can look so simple once it’s delivered. And being able to provide this flow chart alleviates a lot of stress for me because, from the start, clients see how many moving parts there are.”

Attention Marketing Professionals: Get Ready Now for 2013

I blog about all kinds of things. But lately, after working with a number of marketing companies, I'm going to try to put a little more focus on using MINDMAP for market campaign planning.

I've touched on this before. But mind mapping is such an exemplary way to plan that, with the New Year fast approaching, I hope to convince at least some of you that a modest investment in ConceptDraw MINDMAP will transform the way you plan your campaigns.

Mapping enables you to visually see your entire marketing or PR campaign on one screen. This is so helpful to strategic thinking. Try it once, and you will wonder how you ever did it before with spreadsheets, lists, or project management software. And with mind maps you see the big picture--and still have immediate access to all the nitty gritty details upon which success hangs.

So if you're in marketing, public relations, or communications, stay tuned to this blog for the next couple of weeks to learn about some interesting ways to work with your clients to get 2013 off on the right foot!

Behold, Ye Timid Mindmappers: Integrated Marketing!

I comped a license of ConceptDraw MINDMAP to a business acquaintance of mine, Jenn Neal of Kane & Associates, a marketing company here in Boise. It was good timing. It just so happened that she was in the middle of rethinking her marketing model.

Sometimes when someone tries mind mapping for the first time (and this was hers), the create some very simple maps. And that's great! I do that all the time. I'll just open up a map when I just want to think a couple of things through. Just getting them down on the page always help me think more clearly.

But Jenn isn't like that. She is, in fact, a maniac. Here's the very first map she showed me, having tried mind mapping for the very first time (click on map to enlarge):

How impressive is that?! I asked Jenn why there were so many relationship lines. Because, she said that that's how she looks at a marketing campaign. Everything Kane does for a client is integrated into everything else or... integrated marketing.

When Kane send out an email for a client, they make sure that the same content gets onto the client's Facebook page and goes out as a Tweet. They put the copy on the company's website--and post about it on their blog. It seems to me that doing it this way really adds a multiplier effect to the message they client is trying to get out.

As you peer closer at the map, you get more of a sense of what she's trying to convey with the map:

Maps like these revive the discussion of a map's intended audience. I think some people believe that a map--any map--should be immediately intelligible to anyone, simply by virtue of the fact that it's a mind map. But maps like this make it pretty clear that while some maps are, indeed, immediately understandable, some have meaning only for the person who made them.

If, for some strange reason, you haven't tried mind mapping yourself, go to www.conceptdraw.com and get a free trial. See if it makes sense to you.

Create Strategic Marketing Plans 80% Faster

Jack Todaro manages business development, sales, and marketing for Oregon Aero, an aerospace company that designs and manufactures products primarily for aviation, law enforcement, and the military.

Todaro says that the success of a small company like his depends on fast, strategic thinking to succeed. He, in turn, depends on ConceptDraw MINDMAP to help him make sense of all the different data points that contribute to his strategic thinking.

Hobie: What kind of strategic thinking are you involved in?
Todaro: My job has a lot of different dimensions. I have to help conceptualize what products we want to develop, analyze what the marketplace is, help engineering develop the product, and then develop the strategies that will help us bring the right product to market and find the right buyers.

Hobie: What are some of the elements of these strategies?
Todaro: They include identifying how we’re going to approach the market—whether it's through trade shows, magazine ads, or direct mail, e-mail campaigns, sales calls, et cetera. I manage how the marketing program is put into effect, and I make sure that we capture and follow up on all of the leads we generate through marketing.

Hobie: You recently worked on a project to develop cushions for helicopters. What was that all about?
Todaro: All helicopters come with standard seats. But a U.S. government agency wanted cushions that would help pilots avoid the physical problems that come from sitting too long in one position.

Whenever we consider creating a new product, we have to think about how large the market will be. I used MINDMAP to assess our opportunities in law enforcement, medical evacuation, and the military. I started by looking at the U.S. market, where I learned that about 200 helicopters were being used by domestic law enforcement. So that’s the first market that we're going to go after.

But I also discovered that there were almost 4,000 of these helicopters throughout the world. So my next step was to map out who owns all of these helicopters, how they’re being used, and the best strategy to sell to these owners.

Hobie: How else do you use MINDMAP?
Todaro: I use it for all kinds of things. We just finished a show in Florida called Heli-Expo. All the major OEMs and customers attend it, so we wanted to have a big presence. I used MINDMAP to design a 20-foot booth, including seating and tables. Then I gave the mind map to the company that would create the booth, and we went back and forth until we landed on the right design.

Hobie: So you use mind mapping for a wide variety of projects. What's the common thread?
Todaro: If I had to choose the top two things I get from mind mapping, I’d say that it’s speed and quality. Mind mapping shortens my thinking time by about 80 percent—and that’s a huge benefit.

It also helps me get new ideas much faster. If I'm presented with a blank sheet of paper, I’ll just sit there thinking and thinking. But with MINDMAP, the ideas just flow. I can see how they all fit together—and that helps me sharpen my thinking. Mind mapping is just an extremely intuitive and fast way to work.

Find out how ConceptDraw MINDMAP can speed up your thinking and planning!