Bostrom Marketing Plan Outline

Association Marketing Plan Outline Realize the full benefits of integrated marketing

Table of Contents Executive Summary............................................................................................1 Situation Analysis ................................................................................................1 Association’s Mission & Strategic Plan Objectives.....................................1 Market Landscape/Environmental Scanning..............................................1 Competitive Analysis....................................................................................1 Member Profile .............................................................................................2 Pricing Model................................................................................................2 Market Segments & Target Markets ...........................................................2 Market Research..........................................................................................2 Branding...............................................................................................................2 Positioning ...........................................................................................................3 Annual Objectives ...............................................................................................3 Program Planning ...............................................................................................3 Non-dues Revenue Generation ..................................................................3 Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy ..............................................3 Public Relations............................................................................................3 Event Planning .............................................................................................4 Web Site Strategy ........................................................................................5 Advertising Plan............................................................................................5 E-Marketing ..................................................................................................5 Program Metrics..................................................................................................6 Action Plan...........................................................................................................6 Sample Budget....................................................................................................6 Marketing Promotional Calendar .......................................................................8

Introduction Bostrom’s marketing plan outline is a guide for organizations to produce annual integrated marketing plans. The plan takes basic integrated marketing concepts and adapts them to trade and professional organizations. The outline itself is found in the bold headings with comments included for additional advice and guidance. Every organization is different and has different member needs. This document is meant only as a guide for your integrated marketing planning purposes.

Executive Summary The executive summary is to condense the marketing plan down into several paragraphs stating the major goals and objectives of the plan, how they support the association’s mission and strategic plan, the main messaging that will be used, the metrics for measuring success, the results you expect and the cost to implement.

Situation Analysis This section of the marketing plan is to describe the association’s environment today.

Association’s Mission & Strategic Plan Objectives Here you want to reinforce your organization’s reason for being by simply stating its mission and vision statement if you have one. The marketing plan must reinforce and support the association’s mission and strategic plan goals. The goals and objectives of the strategic plan listed here should primarily be annual – just the goals the marketing efforts are going to support since this is an annual marketing plan. Many strategic plans span three to five years.

Market Landscape/Environmental Scanning Associations have to be aware of the industry, market, profession, product, or idea it represents. For an association to truly understand its members and their needs it must be vigilant, watching for changes in the related environment. It must also be agile enough to alter its strategies and plans when the environment changes. This can be done through environmental scanning, which is the process of continuous structured data collection and processing on a broad range of environmental factors that affect your members’ and association’s needs. Some organizations have special interest groups or committees dedicated to environmental scanning looking at political and legal, economic, social and cultural, and technological environments.

Competitive Analysis Many associations and most certainly members and volunteers don’t think of competitive threats as they would in a company or for- profit environment. Chapters and regions of organizations could be hurting the association without even knowing it. An example is a region welcoming a competitive publication into its conference with a free booth, free insert in their bags, etc. This threatens the existing publication by exposing a competitor to its members and sponsors possibly affecting subscription and advertising revenue.

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Member Profile Here is where you want to describe the different member and prospective member types and state any member satisfaction or needs assessment research recently completed or needed. You may want to include an analysis of the lifetime value of a member. Member lifetime value is a marketing metric that projects the value of a member over the entire history of that member’s relationship with an association. Use of member lifetime value as a marketing metric tends to place greater emphasis on service and long-term member satisfaction, rather than on maximizing shortterm revenue. In reality, it is often difficult to make such calculations, either due to the complexity of the calculations and/or the lack of reliable input data.

Pricing Model Here you want to state your pricing model for the dues structure and any changes you feel are needed or may arise.

Market Segments & Target Markets Most likely membership growth and retention are annual goals of the association. Here you can identify the market potential by member segments which may be done geographically, by member type, member lifetime value or whatever would make sense for your organization. Once member segments have been identified determine which ones are most attractive to pursue.

Market Research In addition to the member research stated above, you may want to identify any secondary research found that supports your marketing plan, your targets, or your plans for growth and new products and services.

Branding Branding can be a lengthy and expensive endeavor for associations. We’ll define it here in its simplest terms and let you take it from there depending on the current state of your branding initiatives. A brand is all of the promises and perceptions an organization wants its members and market to feel and believe about its product and service offerings. Branding is not solely a marketing function. To be successful, it must be embraced by everyone in the organization. Branding starts with an association’s leadership and staff and follows through to every experience a member, vendor, prospect, partner, or media representative has with your organization. Logo development along with usage guidelines should be included in this section as well.

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Positioning Positioning is the technique used to create an image or identity in the minds of your members and potential members and sets up all of the communications going forward. It is the 'relative competitive comparison' you occupy in a given market as perceived by your members. Positioning is expressed relative to the position of competitors. In today’s association market, there are many competitive forces affecting your success – competitive organizations, member time constraints, mind share and competing messages, etc. This section would be where you want to position your association and its services against competitive forces, identify your sustainable competitive advantage – what is going to keep your members involved and get new ones even with the competitive pressures identified.

Annual Objectives In this section you want to state the main annual objectives of the marketing plan that will be measurable – membership growth, revenue, number of programs, certification goals, international growth, awareness goals such as hits to the Web site and articles placed.

Program Planning As in any product marketing plan you need to identify your products and services that the marketing plan will support. These should support the association’s mission and annual strategic plan objectives. Programs included here could be professional development seminars, webinars, publication sales, industry events, technical training, certification programs, educational seminars, etc.

Non-dues Revenue Generation Identifying non-dues revenue generation activities can help support the marketing plan and organization by showing the possible revenue opportunities available that can also be noted on the budget. These may include the activities listed above as well as: § § § § § §

Banner advertising Classified advertising Subscriptions Conferences Affinity programs (credit card, insurance, car rental, etc.) Research

Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy This section will walk you through the possible plans and programs that associations can use to support its mission, strategic goals and objectives.

Public Relations Here are possible steps or components to building your PR strategy:

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§ Messaging – based on your annual goals, objectives and positioning start to build your messaging statements that will be used in your media programs. If you can support statements with objective, credible research even better. Messaging should support the organization’s positioning statement. § Press kit – make sure your press kit is available through the mail and online. It should include the basics such as an association overview, leadership profile sheet, article reprints about your association or from your publication, contact sheet, logo usage and guidelines sheet, one sheet on your association’s major initiatives and events for the year. § Approved speakers – make sure your leadership and staff knows who is approved (and trained) to speak to the press. § Tiered media list (contacts, editors, writers that receive any announcements or press releases from your association. Top tier media contacts get everything; tier two and beyond could be for subject matter specific items. § PR Event Planning – make sure you incorporate any special PR events you could implement to support other programs in the association. These could be events surrounding a tradeshow, major anniversary, public policy issue, etc. § Proclamations – think about getting proclamations out on special events such as a national xx day or week, preferably from government officials, celebrities, industry leaders or yourselves if you have to! § Article Pitches – work with the editorial board of your publications to see where you can leverage articles for additional pick up. § Speaking Engagements – at industry functions, conferences, major events. Other Tips: § Leverage your newswire service – many services now have free or discounted clipping, free speaker bureau entries, etc. that you should work with your account rep to leverage. § Gather subject matter experts to go to when you start getting the same questions asked over and over by the press and you need an expert who could also represent your association. This is just a start – public relations can go way beyond this depending on your size and scope.

Event Planning For many organizations, conferences and tradeshows represent a large percentage of overall revenue. Event management may be outsourced or completed by a separate department so you need to make sure the messaging, positioning, and promotion of the events are included in your marketing plan to leverage the association’s marketing efforts with the event planners. You may want to incorporate new ideas here for special events that support current programs within the association. Great ideas for new programs come out of committees and this would be a way to funnel it up to leadership.

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Components of this section of the plan could be as extensive as having a full conference and tradeshow strategy and marketing plan for each major event or a simple summary of the annual events in play and how marketing is going to support them – publications, promotions, member communications, etc.

Web Site Strategy In today’s digital and global environment, the Web site has become the key landing point for all marketing communication. It has risen way beyond digital brochures and can now be a major force in how and when you communicate and to whom. It can be your central communication point for your members; it can be the delivery vehicle for your programs and transactions; and it can be a powerful tool for tracking the success of programs and the interest of your visitors. Your web site strategy should include the plans for refreshing your web site, adding valuable technology to service your members better, and delivery information and programs in unique and targeted ways. Elements of the strategy may include: § § § § § §

Navigational updates Graphical updates Search engine optimization plans Blogs Tracking tools Personalization & Security plans – for member only access, portals, leader only access, etc.

Advertising Plan Your ad strategy should be carefully thought out and planned to support the goals and positioning earlier identified. The style and tone of your advertising can reinforce your mission, programs, and services. Advertising can be expensive and difficult to track – for associations with limited funds direct and electronic marketing may be a better method.

E-Marketing Your electronic marketing strategy can be an extremely cost effective and highly targeted method to reaching your audiences. Consider the following in this area of your marketing plan: § Email Service Provider (ESP) – if you do electronic newsletters, promotional emails, and general communication to your members electronically, you may want to look into an Email Service Provider such as MagnetMail or ExactTarget. Deliverability and spam issues have become so prevalent it makes more sense these days to use vendors that work on those issues and have trusted relationships with ISPs. § Blogs § Tracking tools to measure traffic and click-through paths § Web seminar vendors for program delivery to greater numbers of people.

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Program Metrics This section should define the metrics you will use in your marketing communications programs. Examples include: PR – number of article pick ups, number of clippings, quality of media inquiries Direct Mail – number of people who performed call to action, number of leads turned into memberships Web Site – number of hits, time spent on site, search engine placement, downloads completed EMarketing – many email service providers can provide reports on who and when your emails are opened and how many clicks certain links receive within the body of the email Membership – retention analysis, recruitment analysis Events – attendance, post event surveys

Action Plan You may want to build an action plan in a spreadsheet to identify project components, responsibilities and deadline dates. You can use the spreadsheet as a tool to manage the projects and people involved in the execution of the plan.

Sample Budget To obtain in Excel format email [email protected].

Item/Detail

Budget FY06

Actual FY06

FY07

FY08

Web Site Re-architecture/Design Update

$0

$0

$0

$0

Portal interface/Security Update

$0

$0

$0

$0

Annual Maintenance

$0

$0

$0

$0

E-commerce back end technology

$0

$0

$0

$0

Content Management

$0

$0

$0

$0

Web statistics software

$0

$0

$0

$0

Web site promotion Sub Totals

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Collateral Funding Support Material Letterhead & Business Card printing

$0

$0

$0

$0

Industry Brochures

$0

$0

$0

$0

Conference collateral

$0

$0

$0

$0

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Press Kit Folder

$0

$0

$0

$0

Article Reprints

$0

$0

$0

$0

Membership plaques/logo'd material

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Clipping Service

$0

$0

$0

$0

Agency Retainer

$0

$0

$0

$0

~ Press Release Writing/Distribution charge

$0

$0

$0

$0

~ Editorial Calendar Search

$0

$0

$0

$0

~ Case Studies

$0

$0

$0

$0

~ Target Pub/Editor List Creation and Update

$0

$0

$0

$0

~ Article/byline pitches

$0

$0

$0

$0

~ Press kit follow up

$0

$0

$0

$0

Sub Totals Public Relations

~ Speaking engagements (T&E)

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Booth

$0

$0

$0

$0

Booth Graphics

$0

$0

$0

$0

Booth Space

$0

$0

$0

$0

Sub Totals Tradeshows

Booth (T&E)

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Advertising Print Ads Banner Ads

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Email Service Provider

$0

$0

$0

$0

Member Communication

$0

$0

$0

$0

List procurement

$0

$0

$0

$0

Sub Totals E-Marketing

General program promotion Sub Totals

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Market Research Primary Secondary

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Collateral

$0

$0

$0

$0

Welcome Kits

$0

$0

$0

$0

Recruitment programs

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Banner Advertising

$0

$0

$0

$0

Classified Ads

$0

$0

$0

$0

Publication sales

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

Sub Totals Membership Development

Sub Totals Grand Total Non-dues Revenue Generation

Total Revenue

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Net Marketing Spend

$0

$0

$0

$0

Marketing Promotional Calendar Microsoft Office has a wide variety of calendar templates in Word, PowerPoint and Excel that you can use to build your calendar. This is a great tool to put in the member section of the Web or to use as an operational planning tool. Templates are found at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT011653371033.aspx

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