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ISO Makes a Strong Business Case

Whether you manufacture a product or are in the service sector – a private organization or a government agency – ISO is a fundamental business model. It is the foundation from which to build an enterprise. It focuses attention on organizational processes, your customers (internal and external), competency-based training, and continual improvement. That translates to improved business results.

ISO-based standards rely on eight quality management principles that can be used to lead and improve any organization. A pragmatic approach, however, is essential. It should ensure needed checks and balances, and a framework for operating efficiently and effectively. When your ISO initiative is integrated into your strategic business plan, it links strategy to execution. Attention is focused on doing the right job – right the first time.

ISO Benefits Abound

ISO helps an organization see itself from the customer’s perspective. And it makes a strong business case. It provides the framework for discipline and a formal, strategic approach to continual improvement. “So what,” you say. Consider this. Surveys have conclusively proven that organizations that adopt a formal and strategic approach to quality management:

Outperform their industry sectors in profitability
Outperform their industry sectors in shareholder value
Enjoy higher levels of customer satisfaction & loyalty
Experience reduced operating costs
Enjoy lower rates of staff turnover
A recent five-year study conducted by UCLA, University of Maryland and Universidad Carlos III in Madrid concluded: US publicly held companies, traded on the NYSE that received ISO 9000 registration, show significant improvement in financial performance, compared to those companies that have not pursued the Standard. Not only did the ISO registered firms improve their performance, but the Study further concluded that the firms which failed to seek registration experienced substantial deterioration in return on assets, productivity and sales. Registered companies avoided such declines.

This presents an interesting paradox. There are typically three primary drivers for ISO 9000 registration. The first is customer and regulatory demand (about 45% of survey respondents). The second is the resultant quality benefit (about 30% of survey respondents). And the last significant driver is securing a competitive advantage – increased sales and market share (about 15%). Other categories account for the difference. Draw your own conclusions.

Marketing Overview

Although you may have embarked upon an ISO initiative because of external pressure, or simply to improve quality, leverage the certificate to improve business results. Since the “competitive advantage” driver is a distant third behind “quality benefits,” any organization that earns this registration should market it aggressively to accelerate growth of sales.

The key is to gain market visibility. Broadcast it to the world and they will come. The more clients and prospects who are aware of your achievement, and what it conveys in terms of product or service quality, the better your odds of capturing new business. And by its very nature, ISO registration is like the “Good Housekeeping Seal,” but better, since it is recognized around the world.

Respect ISO Guidelines

Be careful to follow ISO guidelines for promoting your registration. The ISO logo itself cannot be directly used in marketing promotions. Ask your Registrar if they have a logo you can use, or create one yourself. Be sure it includes the full ISO designation, such as “ISO 9001:2000 Certified.” And remember, only your quality management system (QMS) or environmental management system (EMS) is certified, not your entire organization – or your products/services.

Marketing Activities to Promote your Registration

Here are some proven ways you can get marketing mileage from your ISO registration:

Display your ISO certificate in your lobby. Also, hang a banner inside your building, or fly an ISO flag. Your Registrar can also provide you with multiple copies of the certificate.
Promote your ISO registration in all communications, such as email signature blocks and stationery. And let your customers and prospects know of your ISO registration via direct mail or email campaigns.
Modify your organization’s logo to include reference to your ISO registration, and create a graphic promoting your ISO QMS or EMS registration.
Write a press release about achieving your ISO registration. Send this to local and industry publications. Distribute it online, too, for maximum visibility, and don’t forget to include a link back to your Website.
Publish an article about how ISO registration is expected to benefit your organization, and your concerted effort to gain customer loyalty. Later, prepare a case study about how ISO registration has benefited your organization or helped you grow your customer base.
Promote your ISO registration in newsletters and on your Website. Likewise, promote your ISO registration in print, or online pay-per-click advertising. Make sure your marketing collateral materials contain the proper ISO designation.
Use banners to promote your ISO registration at tradeshows, and include your ISO graphic in handouts.
Train your sales people about how to leverage ISO registration to win more business in competitive situations.
If you think about it, you can probably identify other opportunities to let your marketplace know that your organization takes quality and/or the environment seriously. Also, clarify how this translates to direct benefits for those choosing to do business with you.
Marketing Assistance is Available

A few customer-centric ISO Registrars now offer marketing assistance and guidelines to help customers promote their registration. Some management consulting companies take marketing assistance even further. Change Management Consulting (CMC), for example, develops a free press release for each customer who earns ISO registration. Strategy sessions, to leverage the ISO certificate, are always part of the ISO implementation process. Additionally, CMC offers exclusive access to discounted marketing services through an affiliate company.

Be Proactive

One thing is clear – you must be proactive in promoting your ISO registration. Unless you develop and implement a marketing plan, your organization will not gain the full advantage of this strategic initiative. So, incorporate ISO registration into your brand identity and broadcast it to the world. Make ISO part of your organizational culture.

Once you begin to promote your ISO registration to the marketplace, you will be surprised how quickly the word spreads. Organizations just feel more comfortable working with a company whose QMS or EMS meets rigorous ISO standards. And satisfied customers give the best referrals. In short, ISO registration gives you a unique value proposition.

Choose a management consulting firm that not only has practical implementation experience, but also, an established firm that has a proven track record in helping organizations leverage their certificates. The hand that guides must be steady and sure. Change Management Consulting has helped hundreds of organizations accelerate short and long-term growth of sales, and build a sustainable competitive advantage. That’s the CMC difference.

The good news is that leveraging your ISO registration for competitive differentiation doesn’t cost a lot of money. All it takes is your imagination and staying within ISO guidelines. With the right consulting partner, and a little creative work, your organization can enjoy improved earnings, enhanced customer loyalty, and a sustainable competitive advantage.

Stanley Cherkasky is the Managing Partner of Change Management Consulting, Inc. (CMC). Founder of the firm, Stan is the principal architect of the Performance Improvement Breakthrough methodology, and the Six Sigma Lean Advantage – innovative and proven strategies that accelerate ROI and net income improvement, build customer loyalty, and create world-class recognition.

Stan has more than three decades of business and consulting experience, in both the private and public sectors, in the United States and abroad. Stan specializes in building high-performance teams, and working closely with senior leaders to achieve breakthrough financial, organizational, and operating improvement. He has been quoted in many business publications, including Fortune, Business Week and the Wall Street Journal.

Human Resources is a term used to describe the employees of a company and the management of those employees. A human resources department usually handles the day to day management of employees such as pay cheques, contracts, resolving internal disputes and the hiring and firing of employees as well as other administrative duties. Human resources departments are there to insure that an employer gets the most out of his employees by keeping them happy and supplying them with what they need and to reduce the risk of financial loss through disgruntled employees.

So why the need for human resource consultants?

Human resource consultants are often used by organisations or businesses to help improve internal processes and to provide training seminars. This is usually done by analysing the entire organisation from the top down by interviewing all of the employees. This enables the consultant to find out what the boss thinks is going wrong within the company and then compare it to the employees opinions. Often what the boss perceives to be the problem differs greatly to what the employees perceive as being the problem. The consultant can then analyse the results from all employees in order to work out the strengths and weaknesses with in the organisation and by looking at the organisation from the employees view can go about producing a report detailing where things are going wrong and provide recommendations. The recommendations are for where change is necessary, these can be changes to things such as communication systems, assessment methods, retention strategies and staff scheduling.

Human resource consultants will also analyse the skills of the work force and look at where skills need to be developed amongst employees as well as providing associated performance reviews that allow improvements in operational efficiency. Employee surveys are set up so employees can regularly express their feelings about work. These are useful as they help to produce recommendations to improve employee motivation, performance and reward strategies.

Human resource documentation such as new employee induction packs, staff handbooks and manuals, company policies and appraisal forms can all be provided by human resource consultants to aid efficiency within an organisation.

IT consulting companies, known for recruiting young people and professionals, are in increase due to the boom in the IT sector. With a huge growth in software development and ecommerce development, there is a huge demand for young talents and experienced in these fields. Few IT consulting companies place ads for professionals or trainee levels in different medium to fill the vacant positions. These companies not only arrange interviews, but also would conduct first and second rounds of written tests to check the communication and software skills before finalizing the list of engineers that has to be sent to the actual software development company. Few IT consulting companies not only offer normal services but also expertise in strategy management, change management etc, though the number of people working in it would be less than the lowest double-digit, in most cases. Most of the IT consulting companies help in steadying the growth of small businesses also. They concentrate more on services selling than product selling, which helps in gaining more business and good profits.

These IT consulting companies help in bringing two unrelated fields together. For example, an ordinary consumer products selling concept has no relationship with computers or Information Technology. However, with the advent of ecommerce solution for businesses, even a small scale businessman is able to setup a website using the web page design and ecommerce software given by the software development companies offering custom software development services. If an individual or companies selling consumer products are interested, a software development company can help in creating a professional webpage with shopping cart software embedded in the website.

With more customers preferring the online virtual market, Internet is bombarded with websites offering ecommerce solution. These websites save money, time and energy of the customer. They also help an individual with limited knowledge of computers in navigating the website with ease. Also, since most of the customers using these websites are not techies, they are amazed at the working of these ecommerce packages. New models of businesses are catching the Internet and various ecommerce packages fit in those models to make them a big success.

If the businessman is interested in creating a wonderful ecommerce web site design, he should not only display the products list or catalog but also display the pictures of the products, the customer wants to buy along with the price tag, so that the customer is not unhappy about the product or pricing later. Most of the ecommerce packages are used in order to help the customers in tracking the product they have ordered for. They can easily know the place the package is in at that particular point of time.

It is important for a small business entrepreneur to choose an IT consulting company after deciding the services he wants for his business. One has to decide the temporary goal, apart from looking at the niche market, and type of services expected from an IT consulting company to achieve the goal. One should understand at least what is happening with his business after choosing an IT consulting company.

Proven ground projects are absolutely necessary before contemplating signing any kind of long term agreements for computer online consulting. This project is the very first project that any computer online consulting professionals must complete with their new upcoming clients, that have not yet became a client. At this point is where the online consultants are proving themselves to their possible clients, showing them that they are not just talking the talk, they can indeed, walk the walk. They want you to trust that they are completely capable of providing you with the services that you would expect.

If in the end, everything goes good between the online consultant and their hopeful client, then you will know that you are on the right track towards success. By successfully completing the proving ground projects,you can rest assured in knowing that you have yourself a new steady client. This is the point in time in which you know that you have became a professional computer online consultant. You have nothing to look forward to now, other than just getting better and better with your online consulting services that you can provide for your potential clients.

Many of the times a online consultant does not pay enough attention during the proving ground projects and ends up in a long term agreement with someone that sooner than later, turns out to become quite a nightmare of a client. Do not get so caught up with the fact that you are a computer online consultant,that you do not see the horrible potential client, sitting right in front of you.

There are many great occupations available to you and online consulting is no doubt one of those. However, getting started in online consulting can be quite difficult but by doing the proper research available to you, you will be able to find many helpful ideas on helping you be a success with your online consulting career. The best way to get started with your online consulting is by simply asking other people about what they would expect from a online consultants services. Those people have the ability of giving you the very best advice and the most honest suggestions that would help benefit your online consulting business.

When you are talking to others about your online consulting business, always remember to be very specific when providing them with available services that you have to offer to them, for whatever purposes they may have. Noone is going to hire you as their online consultant if they do not know for sure what it is that you can do for them. For your businesses sake, please make sure that you are detailed with the information that you provide to the potential clients when speaking with them about your businesses services. In the beginning it would be a really good idea to offer some services for free, just to get the word of mouth out there to all of the potential clients.

You are basically attempting to sell your services to these potential clients, just as you would try to do with any other type of business or products.

When it comes to marketing a general practice in Australia, it is important to have a strategic plan in place. A healthcare marketing plan should include tactics to reach your target audience, goals for what you want to achieve, and strategies for how you will measure success. In short, it is one step towards successful general practice business development.

Without a plan in place,Guest Posting it can be difficult to know which marketing efforts are working and which ones need improvement. For many in the medical profession, marketing may not be their forte, hence getting the services of a practice management consultant from a professional and experienced medical practice consulting firm may be the best way forward.

What is a healthcare marketing plan and what does it include?

A healthcare marketing plan is a detailed strategy that outlines how a healthcare organization will reach its target audience and achieve its marketing goals. The plan should include specific tactics that will be used to engage potential patients, as well as strategies for measuring success.

Some of the key components that should be included in a healthcare marketing plan are outlined below.

A description of the target audience.
An analysis of the competition.
Strategies for building awareness and generating leads.
Tactics for engaging patients and promoting loyalty.
Methods for tracking results and assessing progress.

It is important to remember that a healthcare marketing plan should be tailored to the specific needs of the organization. Every healthcare organization is different, so each plan will be unique. However, the key components outlined above are essential for any successful marketing strategy.

Who creates a healthcare marketing plan, and why is it important?

A healthcare marketing plan is created by a team of marketing professionals, typically in conjunction with representatives from other departments within the organization such as clinical staff, IT, and operations. The marketing team is responsible for developing and executing the plan, while other departmental representatives provide critical input on what will and will not work within their areas of expertise.

The creation of a healthcare marketing plan is essential because it ensures that all aspects of the marketing effort are aligned towards achieving common goals. It also allows key stakeholders to have a clear understanding of how their efforts contribute to the overall success of the organization.

How does a healthcare marketing plan help to improve patient care and services?

There are many ways that you can improve patient care and services. These include such things as:

Improving communication and coordination between departments.
Improving the patient experience by providing a more coordinated and streamlined process.
Developing marketing materials that are accurate and informative.
Creating a branding strategy that will help to differentiate your organization from others.
Developing targeted marketing campaigns that will reach your target audience.

These are just some of the ways that a healthcare marketing plan can help to improve patient care and services. By developing a well thought out plan, you can ensure that all aspects of your marketing efforts are working together towards common goals. This will result in improved outcomes for both patients and the organization as a whole.

The better the service you provide to your patients and the better patient care you provide them with, the greater your chances of building a strong brand that will attract new customers. A good plan should take all aspects of this into consideration in order to develop an effective marketing strategy for healthcare. By taking a holistic approach to marketing, you can increase the number of individuals who come through the doors and reap rewards from their experience.

What are some common goals of a healthcare marketing plan, and how can they be achieved?

Some of the goals outlined in a healthcare marketing plan include:

Increasing the number of patients who visit your practice.
Promoting quality patient care and satisfaction with the services provided.
Gaining referrals from existing patients to new ones (and vice versa).
Improving visibility on search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo.

These goals can be achieved through various marketing activities, such as online and offline advertising, public relations, website design and development, and content marketing.

When creating your marketing plan, it is important to consider who your target audience is. This will help you determine the most effective way to reach them with your message. For example, if you are targeting patients in their 20s or 30s, social media may be a good option for you, while if you are targeting seniors, traditional print media may work better for you.

Once you have determined your target audience, it is time to decide what channels you want to use for marketing; print media (print ads, billboards), social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, or even radio spots if there is a local radio station in town that serves the demographic of patients you are trying to reach out to.

No matter what channels you choose to market your practice through, always make sure that your messaging is consistent across all platforms. This will help create a positive brand image for your practice and boost patient confidence.

What challenges must be considered when developing or implementing a marketing plan for your general practice?

Formulating a good marketing plan is not easy. Here are some of the challenges you may face when developing or implementing one:

You will need to identify your target audience first and foremost. To do this, consider who they are (age group, gender) as well as what their needs might be. For example, if your practice specializes in paediatrics then it makes sense that most patients will likely come from families with children under 18 years old.

If there is no time for research into demographics before starting out on planning an effective marketing campaign then start by looking at current trends like which social media platform is more popular amongst people within age groups? It could also mean doing simple things like keeping track of how many people ask about certain health issues during office hours, as well as keeping tabs on what patients read about in the waiting room.

A healthcare marketing plan is important because it sets the stage for all of your marketing efforts. It establishes what you want to achieve and how you will measure success. A good plan should be tailored to your specific organization and include:

A SWOT analysis
An overview of your target audience
Your messaging strategy
Your channels and tactics
Measuring progress and adjusting course as needed

Creating a marketing plan for your general practice can seem daunting, but with the right professionals helping you, you will surely success in creating an effective and accurate plan for the future.

A business plan guide is a great place to start when you are getting ready to write your first business plan. Perhaps you have found a book about writing business plans,Guest Posting or are following a template, but chances are, these materials will only focus on the steps necessary to create your business plan and will fail to point out the critical mistakes that most new business owners make. So let’s ignore the step-by-step tutorial for a moment and focus on the real world mistakes you need to avoid.

1. Don’t Put it Off.Yes, writing a business plan can be a monumental chore. It’s easy to procrastinate while you focus on the more exciting processes of your business. Many new business owners will wait until the day before their scheduled meeting with the bank — and then frantically try to write a plan overnight. You can imagine the results.

Don’t wait until you have more time. There will never be more time. You need to clear your calendar for a week and make your business plan a top priority. Or if that isn’t feasible, schedule a certain period of time each day to work specifically on planning. No doubt you have heard the old saying: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”.

2. Don’t Confuse Profit With Cash Flow.Unless you have an accounting background, you are very likely to define the success of your business in terms of profits. A simple definition of Profit would be Sales minus Expenses equals Profit. But in the business world, profits do not equate to cash. Your profit formula does not take into account the amount of cash you have tied up in production costs for products that have not yet sold, or the customers who still owe you money for sales that have already been made. Your business can look quite “profitable” while your bank account is over-drawn.

Make sure your business plan includes a table that addresses cash flow. Ideally, you should detail the monthly cash flow for the first two years of the business and annually thereafter.3. Don’t Fall in Love With Your Idea. Too many business plans blabber on for pages about the “newness” and “uniqueness” of the idea. But the truth is, investors want to invest in people, not ideas. It is only the people who can execute the systems necessary to bring the idea to life.

Instead of waxing poetically about your business idea, focus your energy, and your reader’s eyes, on the ways you plan to implement this great business idea.

4. Don’t Succumb to Fear and Dread. If you have never written a business plan, the process may loom like Mount Everest. But, like most new challenges, writing a business plan isn’t as hard as you have imagined it to be. You aren’t writing a doctoral thesis or the next great novel. If you have invested in a business plan guide, use it. You can easily find helpful resources such as books, software programs and templates. Remember, you eat an elephant one bite at a time, so start chewing.

5. Don’t Over Sell. Skip the vague and meaningless business phrases such as “best ever”, “highest quality” and “unsurpassed customer service”. You will lose your reader’s interest and respect if you engage in hyperbole that isn’t supported by measurable facts. Remember that the objective of a plan is its results, which require tracking and follow up. Focus your goals on specific dates, management responsibilities, budgets, and measurable milestones. Think fewer words and more numbers.

6. Don’t Engage in One-Size-Fits-AllBusiness plans can have many different purposes and they should be written to reflect the specific purpose at hand. You may be using your plan to start a business, or just run a business better. Your purpose may be simply to sell an idea for a new business to one particular business partner. Your plan may be intended to secure a small business loan, or it may be needed to secure millions of dollars of venture capital. Each of these purposes would require different information, presented in different ways to meet the needs of different readers. Keep a picture of your intended reader firmly in your mind and your business plan will stay focused as well.

7. Take Off the Rose Colored GlassesOptimism is a wonderful resource. Without it, a business owner would find it difficult to summon the energy necessary to launch a new venture. However, this is not the time to engage in unbridled projections. If your company’s growth chart is based on an “industry average” of 15% annual growth, you should certainly be prepared to prove that assumption. When in doubt, be less optimistic.

Why You Need A Business Plan BB Lee (C) 2003 500 wordsA business plan is critical to the success of your … Despite this many business owners delay or do not take the timeto draw up a well thou

Why You Need A Business Plan
BB Lee (C) 2003

500 words

A business plan is critical to the success of your business.
Despite this many business owners delay or do not take the time
to draw up a well thought out business plan.

Consider This!
Successful business owners know the majority of their good fortune is
due to writing a well defined business plan. A good business
plan is like a blueprint to the foundation of your business venture.
Without strong support/planning your business will crumble and fall flat as a pancake.

Purpose Of A Good Business Plan!

A business plan will help the owner of the new business determine if the idea is feasible and profitable in the long run.

A business plan is an important factor in raising capital from investors or in applying for a loan from lending institutions.

A business plan will show lenders that you are a careful and
an organized planner,Guest Posting important character traits for any successful
entrepreneur.

A business plan helps to check the growth of the business and
determine if you are reaching your forecasted goals on schedule.

A business plan will help you to clarify your own thoughts about the business, who you are, who your best customers are, where your strengths and weaknesses are.

According to leading business plan experts, an effective plan will contain:

- A resume of your background.
- A description of your product or service;
- An analysis of the current marketplace situation;
- Problems and opportunities facing your company;
- A market analysis showing your targeted customers.
- Realistic objectives relating to sales, market share and profits.
- An explicit statement of marketing strategy.
- A detailed plan for carrying out your marketing strategies.
- Budgets and projected profit and loss statements;
- Integration of manufacturing and financial plans with the marketing.

As you can see the content of your business plan is crucial to your overall success. It will determine how well you manage, plan, and reach your projected goals.

If you are determined to start a successful business that will
be around for the long run NOW is the time to start working on
that new business plan!

I. Summary of a marketing plan
The marketing planning (concretized in the marketing plan) is an essential organizational activity, considering the hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to perform profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in a difficult way to evaluate. A marketing manager must understand and build an image upon these variables and their interactions, and must take rational decisions.

Let us see what do we call a “marketing plan”? It is the result of the planning activity,Guest Posting a document that includes a review of the organization’s place in the market, an analysis of the STEP factors as well as a SWOT analysis. A complete plan would also formulate some presumptions on why we think the past marketing strategy was successful or not. The next phase shall present the objectives we set, together with the strategies to achieve these objectives. In a logical sequence, we will further need to evaluate the results and formulate alternative plans of action. A plan would consist in details of responsibilities, costs, sales prognosis and budgeting issues.

In the end, we should not forget to specify how the plan (or plans) will be controlled, by what means we will measure its results.

We will see how to build the marketing plan, what is its structure: after we will see how to build the traditional marketing plan, we will take a look at the e-marketing plan and see how the unique features of the internet will require some changes in the approach of writing a marketing plan.

But, before we continue, we must understand and accept that steps of the marketing plan are universal. It is a logical approach of the planning activity, no matter where we apply it. The differences you meet from a plan to another consist in the degree of formality accorded to each phase, depending on the size and nature of the organization involved. For example, a small and not diversified company would adopt less formal procedures, because the managers in these cases have more experience and functional knowledge than the subordinates, and they are able to achieve direct control upon most factors. On the other hand, in a company with diversified activity, it is less likely that top managers have functional information in a higher degree than the subordinate managers. Therefore, the planning process must be formulated to ensure a strict discipline for everyone involved in the decisional chain.

II. The general marketing plan

The classical marketing plan would follow the following scheme of 8 stages:

1. Declaring the mission: this is the planning stage when we establish the organizational orientations and intentions, thus providing a sense of direction. In most cases, this is a general presentation of the company’s intentions and almost has a philosophic character.

2. Establishing current objectives: it is essential for the organization to try to determine with preciseness the objectives to be reached. These objectives, in order to be viable, must be SMART. SMART is an acronym and stands for “Specific”, “Measurable”, “Attainable”, “Realistic” and “Timed”. The objectives must also convey the general organizational mission.

3. Gathering information: this stage is based on the concept of marketing audit. After performing the audit of the macro-environment by analyzing the STEP factors (social, technologic, economic and politic), we should turn the focus upon the immediate extern environment (the micro-environment) and analyze the competitive environment, the costs and the market. Finally, we will conclude with the SWOT analysis, by this way we will have a general view upon the internal environment compared to the external one. The SWOT analysis combine the two perspectives, from the inside and from the outside, because the Strengths and the Weaknesses are internal issues of an organization, while the Opportunities and Threads come from the outside.

4. Re-formulating objectives: after the close examination of data gathered in the previous stage, sometimes it is needed to re-formulate the initial objectives, in order to address all the issues that might have come up from the previous stage. The distance between the initial objective and the re-formulated objective will be covered by appropriate strategies. We must ensure the re-formulated objective is SMART as well.

5. Establishing strategies: several strategies are to be formulated, in order to cover the distance between what we want to achieve and what is possible to achieve, with the resources at our disposal. As we would usually have several options, we should analyze them and chose the one with more chances to achieve the marketing objectives.

6. Plan of actions: consists in a very detailed description of the procedures and means to implement the actions we want to take. For example, if the strategy implies a raise in advertising volume, the plan of actions should establish where the advertisements will be placed, the dates and frequency of the advertising campaigns, a set of procedures to evaluate their effectiveness. The actions we plan to take must be clearly formulated, measurable, and the results must be monitored and evaluated.

7. Implementation and control: consist in the series of activities that must be performed in order to run the marketing plan in accordance to the objectives set by the marketer. At this stage, it is critical to gain the support of all members if the organization, especially when the marketing plan is due to affect the organization from its grounds.

8. Performance measurement: constitutes the last but not the less important stage of the marketing plan, since we can achieve only what we can measure. In order to measure the performances achieved through the marketing plan, we need to constantly monitor each previous stage of the plan.

The marketing plan that has a feedback cycle, from 8th stage back to the 4th. That is because sometimes during the planning process, we might need to perform stages 4 to 8 several times before the final plan can be written.

III. The e-marketing plan

The e-marketing plan is built exactly on the same principles as the classical plan. There is no different approach, but there might be some formal differences given by the uniqueness of the internet environment. Many of these differences come from the necessity to ensure a high rate of responsiveness from the customers, since the e-world is moving faster and requires faster reaction from its companies, compared to the traditional offline marketplace.

Even though it is perfectly acceptable and is a common practice to use the 8-stage classic model for the e-marketing plan as well, you might want to consider the simplified version proposed by Chaffey, who identifies four major steps to build the e-marketing plan:

1. Strategic analysis: consists in continuous scanning of the macro- and micro-environment. The accent should fall on the consumers’ needs that change very rapidly in the online market, as well as on surveying the competitors’ actions and evaluating the opportunities offered by new technologies.

2. Defining strategic objectives: the organization must have a clear vision and establish if the media channels will complement the traditional ones, or will replace them. We must define specific objectives (don’t forget to check if they are SMART!) and we must also specify the contribution of the online activities to the organization’s turnover.

3. Formulating strategies – we do that by addressing the following essential issues:

- develop strategies towards the target markets;

- positioning and differentiating strategies;

- establish priorities of online activities;

- focus attention and efforts on CRM and financial control;

- formulate strategies for product development;

- develop business models with well-established strategies for new products or services, as well as pricing policies;

- necessity for some organizational restructuring;

- changes in the structure of communication channels.

4. Implementing strategies: includes careful execution of all necessary steps to achieve established objectives. It could refer re-launching of a website, promo campaigns for a new or rewritten site, monitoring website efficiency and many more.

Note: a common strategy to achieve e-marketing objectives is the communication strategy. The steps to built a coherent communication plan will be presented within a further article.

IV. The e-marketing plan (sample titles)

1. Executive Summary
a. overview upon present conjuncture;
b. key aspects of the strategic e-marketing plan.

2. Situational Analysis
a. characteristics of the e-market;
b. possible factors of success;
c. competitors’ analysis;
d. technological factors;
e. legal factors;
f. social factors;
g. possible problems and opportunities.

3. The e-Marketing Objectives
a. product profile;
b. target market;
c. sales objectives.

4. The e-Marketing Strategies
a. product strategies;
b. price strategies;
c. promotion strategies;
d. distribution strategies.

5. Technical Issues
a. website content;
b. website “searcheability”;
c. logging security (for customers and staff);
d. customer registration procedure;
e. multimedia;
f. autoresponders;
g. order forms and feedback forms;
h. access levels to online resources;
i. credit card transactions;
j. website hosting;
k. website publishing;
l. technical staff (size, requirements)

6. Appendix

7. Bibliography

You can choose your repayment plan depending on what kind of student loan you have taken.

There are two kinds of loans: private student loans and federal student loans. Rules are different for both the loans.

Private student loans not being a federal fund, has very fewer repayment options.

You can choose your repayment plan depending on what kind of student loan you have taken.

There are two kinds of loans: private student loans and federal student loans. Rules are different for both the loans.

Private student loans not being a federal fund,Guest Posting has very fewer repayment options.

Further there are two kind of federal loans:

Federal family education loan (FFEL): These loans are provided by private lenders that are guaranteed by federal government. This means lender gets reimbursement from federal government, if you default.
Federal Direct loans: They are given directly by federal government.
How repayment plans work?

Repayment plans helps you to reduce students monthly payment, by providing them various multiple repayment programs from which they can select the best that suits. You can even change repayment plans at any time, that too for free!

Private student loans have fewer option of repayment as compare to federal student loan.

Some of the options for private student loan repayment plans are:

Refinance private student loans

The best option you can look for is refinancing and consolidating your private loans. You can refinance your private loans with different banks.

However consolidation of federal loans is done automatically, but it’s not the case with consolidating private student loans. You have to apply and get the approval. On the basis of your credit score approval will be decides.

Forbearance

If repaying student loan is problem for you, you can seek your lenders help. Lender can offer you a few forms of limited relief. You should be aware of the fact that forbearance is short term. In fact, forbearance is subject to lenders approval.

Unlike private student loan repayment plans, federal student loan has many repayment plan options. Student can choose wisely the best for them.

Here are the repayment plan options for students with federal loans:

Standard Repayment Plan
This plan is for all federal subsidized, unsubsidized and consolidated loans.

How It Works: The enrolment in this plan will be done is automatically if you do not opt for another one. You need to pay fixed monthly payments of minimum $50 for up to 10 years. It is best for the one who can afford high monthly payments.

The Pros: You will save on your money as the loan will be repaid sooner than other plans, as a result ending up paying less interest.

The Cons: as compare to other plans, you will have to pay high monthly payments.

Graduated Repayment Plan
How It Works: At first your payments will be lower and will gradually increase usually every two years.
It is best for students who are not able to handle higher monthly payments immediately after graduation but are confident that their income will increase progressively

The Pros: It allows you to pay off your loan within 10 years.

The Cons: as compare to standard plan, for graduate plan -you will end up paying more interest for the loan.

Extended Repayment Plan
How It Works: This plan allows repayment to be made for up to 25 years. The repayment window for this plan is up to 25 years. The borrower can choose you pay fixed monthly payment or graduated repayment option, where the monthly payment increases over time. The borrower who is having a loan of more than $30000 is eligible for this plan.

It is best for the borrowers, who want to reduce their monthly payments.

The Pros: You will get relief as the monthly payments amount would be smaller, as the loan repayment period is extended up to 25 years.

The Cons: there will be constant burden of payment as the plan is for longer period of time as well as you will end up paying more interest.

Income-Based Repayment (IBR)
How It Works: Your monthly payments will be 10 percent of discretionary income. Payments are recalculated each year and are based on your updated income and family size up to 25 years. To take benefits of this plan your debt amount has to be sufficiently high so as to justify repayment period of 25 years.

The Pros: if you payments are regular then any remaining debt after 25 years will be pardoned. Your debts can be forgiven after 10 years if you work in public service.

The Cons: if you fail to provide all the income annual documentation to your loan servicer, you will be enrolled automatically in standard repayment plan, which means huge monthly payments, not only this but you will also have to pay income tax on the amount of debt that is forgiven after 25 years.

Pay As You Earn Repayment (PAYE
How It Works: under this plan, the monthly payment cannot be more than 10 % of your discretionary income. The readjustments in your payment will be done base on your income readjustments.

The Pros: Regular payment will have you forgiven debt after 20 years and if you work in public service, debt is forgiven after 10 years.

The Cons: this plan is only available for the students who have received loan disbursement on or after 1st October, and whose loan amount is high.

Income-Contingent Payment Plan
How It Works: under this plan your monthly payments are decided on one of the two factors, either up to 20% of your discretionary income or a fixed amount based on a 12 year repayment plan. People can only apply for this loan if they don’t qualify for IBR or PAYE plans.

The Pros: the remaining loan amount will be forgiven after regular payments for 25 years.

Income-Sensitive Repayment Plan
How It Works: your monthly payments will be decided on the basis of your annual income. The income-sensitive repayment plan is an alternative to the income-contingent plan. The borrowers who do not qualify for the latter apply for Income Sensitive repayment plan. It is best for the person with low income and who wants flexibility in their repayment terms.

The Pros: your monthly payment would be from 4 to 25% of your monthly gross income.

The Cons: the availability of this plan is only up to 5 years, after that you need to switch to another repayment plan, under which you have to repay your debts within 10 years or more. This plan needs reapplication every year and there is no assurance that you will be enrolled in this plan.