BASICS OF HOW TO DEVELOP A MARKETING PLAN

A Primer Developed by NCCED

I.  ELEMENTS OF A MARKETING PLAN

Marketing involves a myriad of creative promotional campaigns—all designed specifically to push your products [or services].  Advertising means paying for space in a newspaper or magazine, or buying time on a radio station, television station, or website.

Today, many non-profit organizations are still making the operational transition to conducting business more like a small business. Yet increased competition among non-profit organizations for public, foundation and private dollars, and calls for higher levels of accountability, demand that community development corporations (CDCs) and community based organizations (CBOs) increase their presence among their funders, clients, competitors and the community at large.  Your marketing plan is, therefore, an integral part of your business plan—the two are interrelated.  
 

 
The range of products and services offered in your community, in an environment where customers are determined to be more selective about where they spend their money or their time, require that non-profit organizations pay critical attention to the difference that could be accrued to their successes and quality of their services.
 
Because it is also important for organizations to understand that marketing is not designated to one person within a specific department but, rather, that every person on its staff—from the receptionist to the Executive Director—is continuously marketing its products and services, your marketing plan should also include an executive summary, which incorporates highlights of all of the major components of your plan including:

1. The mission and vision of your CDC and your target customers;
2. The what and why of the products and services offered by your CDC;
3. Your Board of Directors, Management Team and the organization structure; and
4. The marketing strategies and objectives.

II.  HOW TO DEVELOP MARKETING STRATEGIES AND OBJECTIVES

Before you begin to develop your marketing strategies and objectives it is important that a cross-representation—those with varied skills hired to perform different tasks or responsibilities—of your staff spend some time carefully examining the following:

1. The clarity of your mission—your staff and your clients should know who you are, what you do, how long you have been doing what you do, why you exist, and be able to share this information clearly and succinctly.

2. The products and services your CDC offers—all of your products should be well known by your staff in addition to the unique niche that your organization has compared to your competitors.
3. The target clients for these products and services and their particular needs and expectations—this information may be gained through surveys and small group discussions with the clients you currently serve as well as those you wish to serve.

4. The competitors in your community and the products and services offered by these competitors—to know your competition is to know your opponent and how to position your organization so that you stay a step ahead of that competition.

5. The amount of funds that your organization will dedicate to its marketing strategies and objectives and how you will monitor and evaluate the results of those strategies and objectives—your marketing strategies should be reflected as a line item in your budget.

Your CDC’s marketing strategies and objectives could include some of the following approaches that will allow you to take your services to a broad range of probable clients and the timeframes to accomplish the outlined strategies:

 Branding your organization with its unique logo or motto;
 Keeping your logo in front of the public through tangible promotional items that have a long- and repeat-use life, e.g., coffee mugs, key chains and calendars;
 Designing, enhancing and updating your web site on a regular basis;
 Speaking on your local radio or television station;
 Writing a monthly column in your local community newspaper;
 Sponsoring a sports team at your local school;
 Distributing fliers and other written communications to small businesses and churches in your communities;
 Publishing a monthly e-newsletter for circulation to your customers and residents;
 Hosting an Annual Open House or Holiday Event for your customers, friends, funders and probable new funders;
 Supporting other products and services—authors, artists and workshop presenters by sponsoring events around their expertise at your organization; and
 Staying visible through attending conferences and other networking opportunities to learn about new products and services.

III.   HOW TO POSITION AND PROTECT YOUR BRAND IN THE MARKETPLACE AND THE ROLE OF THE INTERNET

Companies position and protect their brand in the marketplace through what is commonly identified as the 4 or 7 Ps :

1. Product—the value of your product to your customers and how prepared are you to change or adjust your product to meet the needs of your customers. 
2. Price—the price or quality of the product that you offer to these customers and whether or not your price is competitive or the product of a higher quality than that offered by your competitors.
3. Place—where are you situated in relation to your customers and how accessible are you to these customers.
4. Promotion—how do you reach your customers.  Is it by direct mail, incentives, advertising through the yellow pages, or other methods? 

Entities that offer services rather than products are encouraged to add the following three Ps to the above-referenced 4Ps:

5. People—clearly identify your specific target market by demographics—age, sex, income, race and ethnicity (if applicable), geographic location—so that your efforts will not be scattered and you are simultaneously able to identify the right training to your employees and concentrate on your customers’ needs and quality of customer service based on those needs.
6. Processes—the right processes are designed to focus on consistency and dependability of service.  Your customers deserve to know that your service will be available on certain dates and at specifically stated times.
7. Physical Evidence—the appearance of the physical space where your services are offered are as important to your customers as it is to you and your staff.

The Internet has opened a whole new world for nonprofit organizations to strengthen their brand and expand their marketing strategies from local, to national, and international venues.  It is through technology that nonprofits can promote their services to prospective customers, funders and cause-related partners in the for-profit world.   Your monthly e-newsletter, circulated through community list serves, can spread the word on your accomplishments and performance measures and keep your mission, goals, vision and objectives, to improve the community and provide services to its residents, present in the minds of your investors.

Keep in mind, however, that your web site should be carefully designed and updated with fresh information on a regular basis and your list serves—like any other database—purged and updated with new outreach sources.

For some organizations, it is helpful to include support from a marketing, public relations or IT consultant who can assist you in not only positioning and protecting your services in the community but also monitoring and evaluating your marketing efforts.
IV.  TWELVE BENEFITS OF MARKETING
In our role as customers and consumers we know that the best form of marketing is done by word of mouth.  Your customers and clients can support your CDC to improve the quality of services offered and increase the demand for those services if you meet (and exceed) their expectations with not only the service that you offer but also the quality of customer service that you provide. 

Marketing strategies and objectives that are strategically positioned in your immediate and neighboring communities can support your CDC to:

1. Keep your mission and message in front of your current customers, prospective new ones and your competitors.
2. Integrate your organization’s vision with those of the community when your CDC is perceived as an involved agent of change.
3. Expand your leadership role as a stakeholder in the community.
4. Demonstrate your interest and desire to be involved in community needs.
5. Open doors to form alliances, increase existing partnerships and nurture champions for your causes.
6. Coordinate various creative, cost-effective approaches to share your success stories with your community in your own voice.
7. Attract short- and long-term resources to include employees, volunteers, funders, and prospective board members to your CDC.
8. Build community goodwill with small businesses and other non-profit organizations that serve the neighborhoods and communities.
9. Evaluate and improve the quality of the services offered and demand for those services.
10. Allocate information to develop and implement an Opportunity Assessment Plan, which provides the basis for assessing information gained from your marketing to help you decide whether or not to take advantage of new, need-based opportunities.
11. Increase opportunities to generate unrestricted income for your CDC.
12. Generate pride in boost morale among staff within your organization.

V.  MONITORING AND EVALUATING YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS
All work plans and action items require that you put some systems in place to monitor and evaluate your efforts.  One level of monitoring will let you know whether or not you have taken the actions that you outlined and if these were completed within the timeframes established.  The other level of monitoring will let you know whether or not the strategies and objectives you incorporated in your marketing plan are giving your organization the desired outcomes. 
Your CDC may design an in-house tracking system or invest in tracking software for new and repeat customers to determine how they learned about your services and why they have returned to participate in the services provided.  Without a tracking mechanism it is difficult to know what strategies work best and those that should be either revised or not carried forward in the future. 
According to Amelia Kassel, principal of MarketingBASE, “As you get to know your repeat clients better, meet with them for detailed feedback and ask them for ideas and suggestions about how you can introduce your products and services to more prospects who are just like them.”  
 Related Readings:

1. Robert Bacal, Perfect Phrases for Customer Service: Hundreds of Tools, Techniques, and Scripts for Handling any Situation, The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005.
2. Robert D. Hisrich, Small Business Solutions: How to Fix and Prevent the 13 Biggest Problems that Derail Business, McGraw-Hill, Inc., 2004.
3. Jillian Mercer, May I Help You? Great CUSTOMER SERVICE for Small Businesses, Griffin Press, South Australia, 2003.
4. Bob Reiss with Jeffrey L. Cruikshank, Foreword by Howard H. Stevenson, Low Risk High Reward: Starting and Growing Your Business with Minimal Risk, Harvard Business School, The Free Press, 2000.
5. President and Fellows of Harvard College, Harvard Business Review on Nonprofits, Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
6. http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/marketing/plan.html.
7. http://www.infotoday.com/mls/jun99/how-to.htm.
8. http://www.sba.gov/gopher/Business-Development/Business-Initiatives-Education-Training/Marketing-Plan/.
9. http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/sedotcom_home/services-to-business/sales-and-marketing/writing_a_marketing_plan.htm?siblingtoggle=1.