There are many different ways to plan marketing strategies, from word maps all the way to word documents; but there is no doubt – the benefits of visual planning methods make it extremely effective. In addition to making your plan easier to communicate, visual representations allow your brain to process information quickly and easily, so that your planning session is less overwhelming and more organized.
Marketers and advertisers already know this – from digital mind maps to walls with sticky notes, ad strategies are almost always born out of visual creation. Interactive, real-time, visual representations make brainstorming and planning more intuitive and allow for better creativity and easy ideation.
As Rod Sowden said in A Practical Guide to Project Planning: “Sticky notes and a wall are a great way to model outcome – create a note for each of the things you need to achieve and try to put them in some sort of order.”
Key benefits of visual planning
Communication
Visual plans are easier to communicate. When sharing your plan with colleagues, managers, and clients a visual plan can be communicated in a fraction of the time.
Processing
Visual idea generation allows your brain to more easily process information. You save time and energy thinking about what you’ve already decided and what comes next. This energy is highly valuable, not only to you, but to the people you present this information to.
Idea generation
When brainstorming ideas, visualization makes thought generation flow more easily. One idea leads to the next fluidly – hence the popularity of mind maps. Planning and strategizing requires creative and effective ideation, which is made dramatically easier with visual planning tools.
Quick adjustment
A visual plan is easier to adjust as you go because you can easily see other aspects of your plan that need to be adjusted in conjunction. One changing step in a plan has a cascading effect and seeing your plan mapped out makes it easier to understand that impact and how to adjust the entire journey.
Idea implementation
All of this begs the question, if marketers are already planning visually, and see the many benefits, why are they not implementing their plans in the same way?
The answer to this is simple, how do you execute a plan visually? How can you take you visually communicated pathways and translate those into action without further, far less visual, steps?
Marketers have been implementing their strategies in line items for years, and while this works up to a point, it isn’t efficient and it isn’t as visually easy to process. Marketers haven’t been able to plan and execute their strategies the way that they intuitively think.
This is where illumin’s journey canvas comes in. illumin’s technology lets marketers plan and implement their strategies in one, easy to use, visual space. It is a creative canvas that brings the benefits of visualization to mapping, planning, strategizing, AND implementation.
If you want to learn more about how illumin takes visual planning to the next level, reach out for a free demo; one of our team members can show you first hand how this software can help you plan, communicate, and perform your strategies intuitively.
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