Dozens of Marketing Links to Click

My list of marketing links, newly updated, is a great starting point for anyone writing a marketing plan. It's in the header above, just click to check it out.

Whether you're researching the marketing environment, looking for the latest ideas in mobile and digital marketing, researching competitive trends, or analyzing the global marketing situation, you'll find authoritative sources in this list.

One of the most recently-listed links is to Issuu, a site where you can browse magazines according to topic. My link here is to business magazines.

Also, at the top of the list are three links that are the most popular, year in and year out:

• Glossary of marketing terms (from Pearson's Marketing Plan Handbook site)
• Sample marketing plan (also from Pearson's Marketing Plan Handbook site)
• Competitors are stakeholders (and why)

Newly Updated! Links to Resources for Marketing Plans

Developing a marketing plan? Looking for background info on market trends, competitors, channel options, social media marketing, social responsibility, retailing, and more?

Click to my newly updated list of marketing links, which has more than 75 resources, organized by subject matter (see excerpt above).

With more than 4,600 views, the marketing links page has been a popular starting point for researching and formulating a marketing plan.

Also included in this list, at the top for handy reference (see red arrows), are links to (1) my glossary of marketing terms, from my Marketing Plan Handbook; (2) my sample marketing plan for the fictional product "Sonic 3D+ SecurePhone;" and (3) my summary of reasons why competitors are stakeholders. 

Please go ahead and take a look!

Key Marketing Terms Defined Online

From derived demand to SWOT analysis, segment personas to neuromarketing, you'll find many key terms defined in the glossary on my Marketing Plan Handbook website. Click and see definitions such as:

• customer churn Turnover in customers during a specific period; often expressed as a percentage of the organization’s total customer base
• greenwashing Perception that a company’s claim about its product being environmentally friendly is overblown or untrue
• market share The percentage of sales in a given market held by a particular company, brand, or product; can be calculated in dollars or units
• metrics Numerical measures of specific performance-related activities and outcomes
• societal objectives Targets for achieving specific results in social responsibility

Evolution of a Sample Marketing Plan: Sonic

When I wrote the first edition of my Marketing Plan Handbook for Prentice Hall back in 2003, I created a sample marketing plan focused on the fictional product "Sonic Personal Digital Assistant."

At the time, PDAs were hot, and it was fun to create a plan for a new product to compete with Palm, Handspring, and other handheld digital assistants that were taking the market by storm. I used actual market statistics as background for the sample plan, learning (among other things) that growth in wireless-enabled PDAs was far outstripping growth in non-wireless PDAs. Clearly, wireless was the future.

PDAs didn't double as phones in those days, and few were GPS-enabled. So as the upgrade to my fictional product, the Sonic PDA, I planned a cell phone/GPS/PDA with a color display and commands via voice recognition system. Also I added built-in MP3 play/storage functionality, a wardrobe of colorful cases for the fashion-savvy, and celebrity voices serving as the voice of the Sonic. In later editions, I dropped the PDA part and focused the sample marketing plan on a smart phone with so many bells and whistles that it could be a one-man band.

As I look ahead to the sample marketing plan for my 5th edition, that future has become reality: the iPhone's Siri is a mainstream voice command system, even more sophisticated than the one I had envisioned years ago. Phones are routinely multifunction, with way more features and options that the fully-loaded PDA model I thought up 8 years ago. Virtual keyboards, which I included in my sample plan for a Sonic smart phone, are now widely available. I included streaming video and video recording capabilities in a later marketing plan, and now those are also readily available in the real world.

So goodbye, Sonic Superphone, it's been fun but you're so yesterday. I'll be creating an entirely new marketing plan for a new fictional product. Watch for it in the 5th edition.

New Edition on March 1st

Modestly, let me note that the new edition of my Marketing Plan Handbook will be published on March 1st, available in college book stores and, of course, on Amazon.

In addition to lots of new content and dozens of new examples, the new edition features a new PowerPoint presentation and new discussion questions. Best of all, Marketing Plan Pro software is bundled with the book for U.S. students.

New Marketing Plan Handbook

And now for some shameless self-promotion: Amazon recently posted the cover image of my Marketing Plan Handbook 4th edition, to be published on my birthday. Look for expanded coverage of social media, metrics, crowdsourcing, mobile marketing, and much more. Also new: Cases and examples showing marketing planning in businesses and nonprofit organizations around the world.

As in the past, my book will be bundled with Palo Alto Software's Marketing Plan Pro software, ready for use in undergrad and grad courses in marketing, marketing planning, marketing management, and marketing strategy.