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The marketing manager should also be alert, to other sources of secondary information, including federal sources such as the Statistical Abstract of the United States published annually by the Bureau of Census; productivity measures for selected industries published by the U.S. Department of Labor; U.S. Exports published by the U.S. Department of Commerce; other publications by U.S. Government agencies such as the Small Business Administration; statistics and other information available from local Chambers of Commerce; studies done by trade associations such as the Direct Marketing Association, the American Marketing Association, or American Management Association; studies done by various trade journals' and magazines such as Sales and Marketing Management's annual survey of buyers index for both consumer and industrial buyers; and research studies that have been accomplished and then syndicated and available to other firms that seek to purchase these studies such as Findex.

Full utilization of primary and secondary sources, marketing re search, and marketing information systems available in the company will result in more complete information for marketing plans and better marketing plans that require fewer changes once implemented due to incorrect earlier assumptions.

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The Plan for Planning

Since the marketing plan requires bringing together a great deal of complicated information to evolve strategy and tactics to reach set objectives and goals and involves many individuals, both within and without the firm, it makes sense to devote some time in developing a plan for planning. Naturally, such a plan may be designed in different ways and may be further tailored to fit the needs and characteristics of a particular firm including its culture, its people, its product, and its normal policies and procedures. But despite consideration of so many variables, all such plans for planning should endeavor to be both simple and systematic.¹⁴

In Figure 3-6 a flow model for a marketing planning procedure is illustrated. Note that it starts with the assignment of responsibility for the marketing planning and then to setting objectives, analyzing the situation, forecasting the environment, developing marketing programs, issuing a management review with approval or rejection, formulating derivative plans, developing a system of control at the same time of execution, then returning control and feedback to the marketing objectives.¹⁵ An alternative model is illustrated in Figure 3-7. With this process it is assumed that the assignment for marketing planning responsibility has already been made. It then proceeds to establishing marketing objectives, assessing the opportunities and stating assumptions, generating strategies, selecting the best strategy, proceeding to a marketing mix, and then going on to product communications and distributions programs integrating the programs and coordinating them, choosing the plan, reviewing it, revising and approving, distributing and implementing the plan, and then auditing and adjusting, which corresponds to control in the first model.'⁶

Desirable Planning Characteristics

Certain planning characteristics were found to have a significant effect on an organization's effectiveness. Figure 3-8 shows these desirable planning characteristics and their frequency of observation in six different firms, A through F. The relative effectiveness of each firm as measured by the following objective and subjective criteria is also indicated: recent trend of increasing sales and market share, recent history of successfully introducing new products, rate of profitability, and reputation of the organization's marketing expertise.¹⁷ Note how the firms with the desirable planning characteristics listed tend to be more effective.

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