Siebel Marketing User Guide > Planning and Budgeting for Marketing > Process of Creating Marketing Plans and Budget Requests >

Creating Initiatives and Linking Initiatives to Plans

You can create a marketing plan initiative and associate it with your plan to help you track and analyze the success of your marketing plan against overall corporate initiatives. In addition, you can associate existing marketing tactics and funds with the initiative, link to marketing collateral documents, and add notes to each initiative.

This task is a step in Process of Creating Marketing Plans and Budget Requests.

Defining a Marketing Initiative

The following procedure shows how to define a marketing initiative.

To define a marketing initiative

1. Navigate to the Marketing Plans screen, then the Initiatives view.
2. In the Initiatives list, create a new initiative and complete the required fields.

   The following table describes some of the fields.

   Field	Description
   Name	The name of the marketing initiative.
   Status	The status indicates whether the initiative is still in planning (not yet official), active, completed (for a past planning cycle), or is cancelled.
   Planning Period	The period for the planned initiative. This period must align with the period for your marketing plans, marketing funds, and tactics.
   Priority	The priority assigned to the initiative.
   Executive Sponsor	If the initiative is owned by an executive sponsor, then this field allows you to select the name of the sponsor (employee).
   Team	If the initiative is owned by a particular team, then this field allows you to add team members to the initiative.
   Region	If the initiative applies to a specific region, then this field allows you to select it. Regions are organized using a region hierarchy.

Associating a Marketing Plan with an Initiative

The following procedure shows how to associate a marketing plan with an initiative.

To associate a marketing plan with an initiative

1. Navigate to the Marketing Plans screen, then the Marketing Plans view.
2. In the Marketing Plan list, query for the Marketing Plan.
3. Select the Plan Details tab, and then click the Related Initiatives field.
4. Associate one or more initiatives with the plan, and then save the record.

Associating a Marketing Fund with an Initiative

The following procedure shows how to associate a marketing fund with an initiative.

To associate a marketing fund with an initiative

1. Navigate to the Marketing Plans screen, then the Marketing Funds list.
2. In the Marketing Fund list, query for the Marketing Fund.
3. Select the Fund Details tab, and click the Related Initiatives field.
4. Associate one or more initiatives to the fund, and then save the record.

Associating a Marketing Tactic with an Initiative

The following procedure shows how to associate a marketing tactic with an initiative.

To associate a Marketing Tactic with an Initiative

1. Navigate to the Marketing Plans list, and click Initiatives in the link bar.
2. In the Initiatives list, click the Initiative name.
3. From the Initiative form, click the Marketing Tactics view tab.
4. Associate one or more initiatives with the tactic, and then save the record.

Associating Documents and Notes with an Initiative

The following procedure shows how to associate documents and notes with an initiative.

To associate documents and notes with an initiative

1. Navigate to the Marketing Plans list, and click Initiatives in the link bar.
2. In the Initiatives list, click the Initiative name.
3. From the Initiative form, click the Documents view tab or the Notes view tab.