I use mind-mapping software like crazy.  But in addition to its obvious assistance with brainstorming, I’ve found it very useful in a variety of planning activities I do for clients every day.  I use a Mac-only program called MindNode Pro, developed by Markus Müller, an independent software developer in Vienna.  (Markus also has an outstanding free version, MindNode, that is chock-full of functions and has also developed a version for the iPhone/iPod Touch.)  There are lots of different options out there, but I’ve found MindNode to be the easiest to use and most flexible for what I do.

1)  Survey Development

I design a lot of surveys for my segmentation work.  Typically, they’re big, hairy things designed to accommodate multiple groups (current customers, prospects) and ask lots of kinds of questions (competitive set, purchase behavior, motivations, demographics, message relevance, etc.).  They always involve a lot of skip logic (“if answer is A, skip to Question 23″) and inevitably blocks of questions I want everybody to answer, no matter which group they’re in.

As with any survey, my goal is always to make responding as smooth, fast and easy for participants as possible, while limiting the amount of data consolidation I have to do on the back end.  I have found mapping software to be extraordinarily valuable in developing the flow of a survey and ensuring all questions are asked at the appropriate stage, and in helping me to figure out where skips need to happen so I can redirect respondents appropriately through the survey.

The other great thing about this approach is that it’s much more client-friendly than simply showing them a typical text-based survey document for approval.  It’s much easier for them to follow the flow of the survey, to see how a respondent will move through it, and to ensure that all necessary information is covered (and that unnecessary information is excluded).  Once the map is complete it’s a cinch to code the survey accurately.

Here’s a map of a recent survey I conducted for Spring Arbor University in Michigan (more on Spring Arbor’s segmentation project, shared with their permission, in an upcoming series of posts).  Once the survey’s coded I always return to the map and place the question numbers on each node so I can easily find them later.  Believe it or not, this complex survey took the average respondent only 18 minutes to complete and had a very high completion rate.

2)  Marketing Plans

Let’s face it — figuring out what your marketing efforts should look like for the next year can be overwhelming – especially when that fat written document starts to get really long.  However, marketing planning should really be a logical series of decisions based on what you want to accomplish, and what you need to do to accomplish it.  I have found mapping to be a great way to think through the logical requirements of a marketing plan, which can then be used as the basis for a written document (if necessary).  As this partial example shows, a mind map can make the logical extensions of objectives and strategies easier to work with.

3)  Website Content

I also find maps useful for laying out content for websites.  It can help me try different options for topline navigation, and identify the probable number of pages. Here’s an example of a preliminary site map I did for a client — I find they can more easily understand the relationships of pages to each other when I can show them links visually like this.

I’m sure there are many other uses for this kind of tool, and I’ll continue to share the ones I find.  Are you using mapping tools in your workflow?  Please share!

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