Business Consultancy: The Royal National Institute for Blind People - Case Study Example

 Consultancy Report: The Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB) TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Executive Summary (200 words)……………………………..3 a. Key Findings and Recommendations…………………. 3 II. Part I (1200 words) ……………………………………………3 a. General Role of Advertising & Key Messages to Current and Prospective Consumers (300 words)………………3 b. Specific Functions Advertising Can Perform (300 words)…………………………………………………….4 c. Identification of Market Segments and Target Audiences (300 words)……………………………………………….5 d. Evaluation of Marketing Strategies and Recommendations (300 words) ………………………………………………6 III. Part II (1200 words) ………………………………………..7 a. Evaluation of Print, Broadcasting, Interactive, and Alternative Media Most Appropriate for RNIB (400 words) ……………………………………………………………7 b. Discussion of Choices for Brand, Target Audience, and Communications to Justify Recommendations (400 words) ……………………………………………………………9 c. Identification of Media Cost and Time Estimates For Implementation (400 words) ………………………………10 IV. Part III (200 words) ………………………………………..11 a. Brief Summary and Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….11 V. Bibliography…………………………………………………13 I. Executive Summary (200 words) a. Key Findings and Recommendations The main element that was so key in figuring out how to most effectively campaign for the RNIB was the fact that RNIB had to be very selective in how they launched a marketing campaign. It was decided that RNIB should use a variety of media outlets and various means in order to effectively launch a campaign with regard to raising funds for their organization. In order to do this, the RNIB will have to decide if they want to follow through with these recommendations provided, or find alternative means to solving their budgeting and/or financial crisis. Obviously, the RNIB need donations to stay afloat. How the organization goes about getting that support is as yet unknown, but it is hoped that the RNIB will read these recommendations and take them seriously enough to consider implementing all, if not a few of, the suggested media campaigns. These various campaigns span a wide variety of strategies in order to net the most profitability with regard to how donations are collected. That having been said, it is hoped that several of the strategies to be discussed in this report will be ultimately implemented. Hopefully these strategies will alleviate some key financial stresses. II. Part I (1200 words) a. General Role of Advertising & Key Messages to Current and Prospective Consumers (300 words) The general role of advertising—in other words, the advertising campaign that will be conducted—will be focused on improving the livelihoods of several people who use the RNIB in order to provide them services and materials as blind or partially sighted people. “The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) is the leading charity providing practical support, advice, and information for the one million blind and partially sighted people in the UK” (Jain, 2008, pp. 284). In order to generate revenue, basically the RNIB needs to conduct some sort of marketing campaign, which will be discussed further in other sections. Generally, however, the role of advertising is to convince the public that funds must be solicited, and elicited, in order to keep its platform and variety of services available for the portion of the public which is blind or partially sighted. Some of the key messages that must be presented are that: a) this is a good cause which benefits the disabled or partially disabled residents of the UK; b) in order to continue providing their clients service, they need funds; and c) without additional funding, the RNIB would probably not be able to continue servicing their clients. That is the message to prospective customers. The messages to current consumers of RNIB is that they must get on the bandwagon in order to promote RNIB or there are going to be serious consequences—one of those consequences, namely being, that RNIB could potentially shut its doors forever without receiving adequate support. This would disenfranchise a sizeable portion of the UK’s public. It is so important that current customers continue to make donations and to encourage others and raise awareness about RNIB and the services that this valuable organization provides. Fortunately, there is an answer. That answer is, simply, advertising. b. Specific Functions Advertising Can Perform (300 words) The specific functions that advertising can perform for RNIB include reaching out to its target audience, building trust with the public, and becoming an interactive with its clientele. In order to reach out to a target audience, the RNIB must have a demographic which it is willing to “target,” or corner on its market. Most likely, for the RNIB this would mean people who are friends and loved ones of the people who are either blind or partially sighted. Advertising would be able to also build trust with the public if done in a way that were to be interactive with the community. Usually when people are using social networks, they want to connect with their audiences. In order to connect with their audiences, the RNIB must either assign someone or hire someone to be part of the advertising campaign. Better yet, the RNIB might just want to hire a team, which is comprised of one person apiece for each branch of the media campaign and then have everyone coordinate so that the marketing campaign is properly strategized. The RNIB needs to make sure that on an everyday basis, they are fielding phone calls, answering emails, and answering tweets and updating statuses on Facebook and Twitter. “It is important to raise awareness of visual impairment and blindness and the role of the RNIB in dealing with these conditions” (Varey, 2001, pp. 147). The blind and partially sighted people of the UK need an advocate, but that will not happen if the funds aren’t there. Basically, the bottom line is that if the marketing campaign on behalf of RNIB is not successful, there is going to be a major problem—specifically because the people who need RNIB’s services are not going to be able to receive them, and that is horrible. c. Identification of Market Segments and Target Audiences (300 words) The market segment that advertisers have to go after are people who would be sympathetic to the plight of the blind and partially sighted customers that RNIB serves. Also, employers might be willing to give a certain amount if they knew that this would help their employees, many times where governmental help does not fill the gap. However, “[m]ost employers are unaware that government funding is available to pay for additional help, adaptations and software designed to help a sight impaired person in the workplace” (Lucas, 2010, pp. 172). The target audience who this campaign will be marketed to will include people who are more likely than others to give to the RNIB. These include charitable organizations, philanthropists, the wealthy, the famous, and other notable people of interest who might be willing to donate to the cause of the RNIB. Target audiences that must be cornered include all types of people who would be willing to give to such a worthy and noble cause as the RNIB. Most people, once they hear about the RNIB, might indeed be compelled to donate, considering the fact that many people are only six degrees of separation away from someone who is blind or visually impaired—at least partially. For example, one person in particular may not know anyone who is affected by blindness or partial blindness. However, someone who knows someone, six times removed, is most likely to know somebody who has some significant experience with blindness or knows someone who is blind or visually impaired in some capacity. In that sense, everyone is affected by everyone else in the world even though we may not know it. That is the compelling message that must be understood across the board—that blind and partially sighted people are part of the community deserving services. d. Evaluation of Marketing Strategies and Recommendations (300 words) Marketing strategies are only as effective as they are implemented efficiently. For instance, if the social media strategist on your team is not continually responding to client’s comments on Twitter and Facebook—and basically is not doing his or her job. That would be the worst-case scenario. Another scenario—not bad, but possibly equally as problematic—is that your social media strategist is doing all of the necessary tweeting, updating Facebook statuses, and interacting with clients. However, the problem is not their level of involvement and engagement. Their problem is connecting with the customers so that they will actually want to get involved with your organization. A lot of people don’t want their emails being spammed with updates from your biweekly company newsletter. Therefore, a guerrilla-style marketing approach may work best if done from afar. The main bottom line is that people nowadays don’t like to be bothered. If an organization calls one of their philanthropists (or anyone) on the phone, usually people assume the worst. “Why are you calling me?” they might ask. Indeed, people have begun to realize that they only use the phone in order to alert people of problems. When the phones are silent, people can relax and they don’t feel stressed out or unnecessarily bothered by anything. The marketing strategies, therefore, have to be not only effective but strategies that are non-intrusive. Truly, such strategies must be employed in relation to their respective goals. Each type of marketing strategy has a specific niche which must be conquered by the particular strategist in charge of that issue. For example, a broadcasting strategist will have radically different approaches to marketing than a social media strategist would. These differences will be delineated in the next section. That is where it will be discussed how each strategist will interact. III. Part II (1200 words) a. Evaluation of Print, Broadcasting, Interactive, and Alternative Media Most Appropriate for RNIB (450 words) Print media is still an effective method of reaching people who are literate and read newspapers, magazines, and other various forms of print media. Print media campaigns usually involve ads being placed in the paper. People who might be more likely to read ads that are placed for charities would be older people who can read, who might not use the Internet or other places to find sources of information. Broadcasting media is effective for people who might not be literate, but they can definitely read numbers and will call a phone number in order to donate. Television is still a very popular medium for a lot of people, especially when it comes to the fact that most people—even people living in rather impoverished circumstances—have television sets. This would definitely be an appealing characteristic for a TV ad campaign. The cons of putting out a TV ad for RNIB is that a TV ad tends to be more expensive, depending on how complex the production of the ad is. And then, on top of that, RNIB would have to pay for ad spots of 15 or 30 seconds or more, depending on how long they wanted the ad to run for. There is only so much ad space on television, so obviously whoever has the most money will be able to air advertisements. Interactive social media such as Twitter and Facebook would probably be ideal ways of getting in touch with people without having to pay any money. Twitter and Facebook are both free services, so it doesn’t cost anyone anything to start an account. A Facebook fan page could be started for RNIB, and then RNIB could have an unlimited amount of friends who follow the organization. There might be a cap on how many followers one can have on Twitter, but perhaps there is not. Some people have millions of followers. Alternative media campaigns would include brandishing flyers, going door-to-door, and getting B2B marketing started. These campaigns are slowly but surely dying out, however, with the burgeoning markets of print, broadcasting, and interactive social media outlets. It only makes sense that perhaps alternative media is not considered as high of a priority as social media—for a few reasons. For starters, social media is much more popular than alternative forms of media which have been used in the past, and that is why these forms are now outdated. Of course, no one really wants to admit it, but alternative forms of media campaigns are probably not going to be as successful as they once were. As such, it pays for RNIB to look at print, broadcasting, and interactive social media as the main forms of advertising. b. Discussion of Choices for Brand, Target Audience, and Communications to Justify Recommendations (400 words) Choices of marketing brands Twitter and Facebook are due to the great number of both social media sites’ great amount of users, Facebook being greater than Twitter. The target audience demographic that is being marketed to will basically be everyone—the young, the old—anyone can basically donate to these people. In order to justify these recommendations, it is necessary to realize the importance of social media campaigning. You have to campaign towards every part of the demographic for campaigns like these. Everyone can help the blind, young and old, from whatever race, religion, or background—also regardless of gender, veteran, or disability status. It doesn’t matter who someone is, they can also dedicate some time, money, or resources to help out the blind. Really, all charities must have similar foci. When they realize that worthy causes are worthy causes regardless, people will get more involved. When they see that a good cause has a particularly effective strategy in social media in raising awareness, it will be more of a recognized aid organization, and RNIB will then gain the status that it seeks but lacks charisma to do so—thus far. It is important that RNIB be up-to-date with technology even though most, if not all, the people who are running the organization have visual impairments of some stripe. RNIB cannot afford to waste its efforts on a media campaign that is not going to have any overall effectiveness. Thus, RNIB must be aggressive in the way that it goes about this campaign. Since RNIB is at risk of becoming underfunded or defunded completely, this organization really has nothing to lose. It must realize that its livelihood depends entirely upon the idea that if nothing is done, and no new efforts are being put forth, that it is not going to receive any kind of rewards in return. In other words, RNIB must strive to be the kind of organization that it wants to be itself in the future. If it is going to be effective, its social media strategizing campaign must be equally as effective and interesting. If the company fails to capture peoples’ imaginations and interest level, there is really nothing that is going to help RNIB survive as a company. Without a doubt, it is so important that RNIB continue to make concerted efforts, by using the social media campaigner as the filter through which all the other campaign efforts must pass. In that sense, it is so important that whatever the social media campaign strategist says that the other media strategists must do—including the broadcasting specialist as well as the print media strategist—they must agree to abide by his or her decisions, because everything rests upon the shoulders of the social media campaign manager. They have to coordinate with this person because the social media reflects all of the other types of media combined—and that is why they must all be coordinated with the social media campaign coordinator. These are simply the facts. c. Identification of Media Cost and Time Estimates For Implementation (250 words) Media cost for print will probably definitely be minimal, although, however, there will be fees. Broadcasting media is going to cost the most money, so RNIB should use those resources wisely and carefully—with much consideration to be taken into account about how monetary funds are going to be used. The greatest part about launching a social media campaign is that it takes relatively little money or resources to avail oneself of such services. Sign-up is free, and all you have to do is pay someone—although multiple people operating on the site(s) are fine as long as there is a coordinated, united message or theme. Basically it is important that whoever is doing the social media campaign is interacting with everyone on the media campaign, as well as the other people within their own team. There is no reason why one single person should be doing all the work either. So it remains to be seen what could happen with this campaign. It is hoped that the campaigns, especially that of the social media—will be widely successful both in the UK as well as abroad, should the implementation of the social media campaign happen to stretch much farther than just the UK alone. As opposed to more outdated ways of “getting out the word” to folks through distributing flyers and knocking on doors, which is sort of random--with the advent of social media marketing on the Internet one can effect change with one’s audience, which is recommended. III. Part III (200 words) a. Brief Summary and Conclusion Several forms of advertising campaigns could be used for RNIB. However, it is thought that only certain forms of advertising might be more profitable for RNIB in the long run in order to advocate for services for their disabled and partially disabled customers who are blind or partially blind. Basically, the only forms of media that have been deduced to actually work well and effectively are print, broadcasting, and interactive social media—whereas other types of media that are alternatives are not really deemed as effective. Alternative forms of media involve a lot of face-to-face social interaction, which is not only time-consuming but not necessarily effective in an age where people are increasingly wary of strangers. For this reason, it is thought that the most effective campaign might be one that is less intrusive to customers’ lives. An effective social media campaign will probably incorporate all of these elements, including perhaps some online videos which will definitely enhance the marketability of RNIB. People like watching and hearing videos so that will definitely be effective. In addition, the social media marketing manager should be the point man for all the other types of media, because the company’s social media will delegate. BIBLIOGRAPHY Jain, S. (2008). Integrated marketing communication: trends and innovations. New Delhi, India: Global India Publications. Lucas, D. (2010). Stepping into the dark: a lad from Jarrow battles with sight loss. UK: Fresh Heart Publishing Varey, R.J. (2001). Marketing communication: an introduction to contemporary issues. US: Psychology Press. Read More