Business Planning, Part III by Ruth King Determining Your Marketing Activities for 2006 For those of you who are doing your business plan a week at a time, last week you should have answered the overall marketing questions. These answers will help you create your simple marketing plan. First, the marketing plan doesn't have to be an elaborate document. In its simplest form, the plan is a single sheet of paper on which you have planned the entire year's activities and look at every month. It can be posted on the wall as a reminder. I suggest that you create it in a spreadsheet program such as Excel. If you are using your business plan to obtain a line of credit or additional funding this sheet can be made part of the plan and verbiage written to explain your activities based on the sheet. The marketing activity sheet is created by putting ALL of the activities that you will do for the year along the Y-axis and the months of the year along the X-axis. Divide the marketing activities that you plan to do into four groups: residential prospective customers, commercial prospective customers, current customers, and employees. Some activities such as newsletters, you may use for both prospective and current customers. Here are some suggestions for your marketing activities.  This is not a complete list of every marketing action you can take. It is simply meant as a guideline to help you plan your activities. Residential prospective customers: Seasonal postcards,  referral programs, yellow pages, radio, network television,  cable television, daily and weekly newspapers, billboards,  public relations activities (press releases, articles for the media, donations to charitable organizations and schools, etc.), web pages, e-mail notices, manufacturer coop programs;  telephone follow up. Commercial prospective customers: Service contract letters, seasonal postcards, referral programs, public relations activities (press releases, articles for the media, donations, etc.);  telephone follow up. Current customers: Newsletters, calendars, flashlights (commercial customers), magnets, open house, referral program; telephone follow up; e-mail messages. Employees: Service agreement and replacement sales contests; company gathering; bonus or profit sharing program. Place an "X" under the month that you plan to do each activity. For public relations activities or media purchases in radio, television, or newspaper, it is helpful to put the planned action or source's name on the X-axis as a reminder to you. There are some activities such as telephone follow up or yellow pages that you will have an "X" under every month. That is ok. Once the marketing sheet has been completed you can put it on a wall to remind you of what you have to do each month. Or, if you delegate this responsibility to another employee, it is a quick way of reviewing activities and the results of those activities. The homework assignment for this week is to do the simple excel spread sheet listing your marketing activities. Next week I'll write about Business Planning - Part IV To contact Ruth King call 800-511-6844 or send an email to ruthking@hvacchannel.tv This article is reprinted with permission from the Dec. 11, 2005 issue of Contractor Cents.