Direct Marketing Brief - Case Study Example

Direct Marketing Brief Table of Contents Overview 3 The Analysis 4 Identification of Key Target Audience 7 Explanation of Campaign 7 Rationale 8 Implementation Plan 9 References 11 Overview Pomegranate Cafe is a community cafe primarily established by Philomena Johnson located at Woodhall. The cafe is operated by the volunteers. Pomegranate Cafe is fundamentally a non-profit seeking concern that makes about £1000 per month which covers overheads and enables them to break even. The cafe provides an affordable meal for the local community so that customers can enjoy the food even if they are unemployed, retired and lonely. The cafe is renowned for its assistance in order to rebuild the self esteem of the people as it provides job to the unemployed and the uneducated. It often offers basic cooking skills and training to people who left their home, widowers and young mothers. The aim of the paper is to make an analysis of the present scenario of Pomegranate Cafe which includes evaluation of the needs and the expectations of corporate supporters, identification of appropriate local business and/or organisation as well as an evaluation of current promotional materials for the organisation. Furthermore, it comprises identification of key target audience for the development of an appropriate campaign. Various options will be evaluated with full rationality with the purpose to implement a plan for the organisation. The Analysis a. Evaluation of the Needs and the Expectations of Corporate Supporters Pomegranate Cafe is financially in unstable and risky position as its financial income is irregular. The organisation earns a moderate amount of revenue that assists them to cover their overhead costs. However, the cafe aims to increase its financial income in order to purchase new advanced equipments along with making replacement of old and/or broken equipments. It wants to invest in expanding the service of the organisation in other places of the United Kingdom. Presently, the organisation earns revenue from variety of sources such as donations from local churches, occasional donations from the district council in terms of equipments and by selling drinks, snacks and meals to customers. It generates its revenue from their adjacent halls that cover almost 25% of the total revenue. Moreover, it provides a buffet for the children’s parties and for funerals in order to generate extra income. With this concern, Pomegranate Cafe can increase its revenue in order to meet its objectives by the use of following resources such as UK government, National Council for Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) and government organisations of the UK among others. b. Identification of Appropriate Local Business and/or Organisation Pomegranate Cafe can adopt merger process in its business culture with a purpose to increase its revenue. It can also direct the organisation to create sustainability in its financial position. From the generalised point of view, it is believe that the cafe is associated with adjacent halls along with buffet business for the children’s parties and for even funerals in order to generate extra income for the organisation. With regard to this aspect, it can merge its business with the event organisations of the Welwyn Garden City. This merger can reward it with an opportunity to effectively enhance its business in the marketplace in order to achieve its objectives and goals. The organisation can provide its buffet service in those events which in turn would help to increase its revenue. In the similar context, it can merge with the organisations that are primarily associated with the canteen business in different schools and colleges in Welwyn Garden City. Consequently, it has been identified that Pomegranate Cafe makes available it products in affordable prices. Thus, it can benefit the organisation to generate more revenue in order to take the organisation in the path of sustainable growth (DePamphilis, 2011; Shone & Parry, 2004). c. An Evaluation of Current Promotional Resources Pomegranate Cafe can apply different promotional activities in its operation in order to effectively enhance its business in the marketplace and as a result it will increase its revenue and assist the organisation to achieve its desired objective (Bruch, 2006). The promotional activities encompass the variety of promotional methods such as advertising, publicity, sales promotion, public relation, personal selling and direct marketing (Stavros, n.d.). With due consideration to this factor, the organisation can use direct marketing approach for its promotional activities as it is a non-profit seeking concern. Thus, it can communicate to its customers and/or the corporate sponsors who might assist to raise its funds, directly with the help of the advertising tools and/or materials such as e-mail, interactive consumer websites, online display advertisements, SMS, flyers, promotional letters, and catalogue distribution among others. It can direct the organisation to address the target customers in an efficient way with the help of direct marketing that incurs quite less amount in terms of expense (Meisner, 2006). Moreover, Pomegranate Cafe can obtain the help of Direct Marketing Association of the UK which can provide the organisation an appropriate way to promote its products and services effectively and efficiently in the marketplace. Direct Marketing Association can provide credibility to Pomegranate Cafe as it is one of the reputed organisations in the UK and is very much experienced in the field of promotion. It can benefit the organisation by saving time and money in terms of operational expenses. Similarly, when an organisation is new to induce any concept such as direct marketing in the field of using promotional activities then it is better for the organisation to take the assistance of an establishment like Direct Marketing Association which would direct it to avoid the initial mistakes, which in turn can help the organisation to move in the path of success and development (DMA, 2012). Identification of Key Target Audience It can be stated that the key target audience for Pomegranate Cafe would be the stakeholders that encompass fund raisers as well as customers with a purpose to increase its revenue. As a result, the organisation can find it easy to achieve its objectives and goals i.e. purchasing of new materials, replacement of old and/or broken materials as well as diversification of services across the Welwyn Garden City. The fund raiser would include the UK government, National Council for Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) and government organisations of the UK among others. In the similar context, the target customer would be the teenage group such as school going and college going people (Pride, 2007). Explanation of Campaign Pomegranate Cafe can effectively use the direct marketing campaign which would help the organisation in order to target the different organisations. This campaign activity can support Pomegranate Cafe financially which consecutively would assist the organisation to achieve its objectives and goals. There are a number of factors included in the direct marketing campaign such as e-mail, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, flyers, SMS, promotional letters, and catalogue distribution among others. However, Pomegranate Cafe can use direct mail campaign which is considered as a single most critical factor in a successful campaign for an organisation. It can be conducted through an accurate mailing list which makes it simple as well as inexpensive in nature. This comprehensive list provides a way for contacting existing and potential corporate sponsors as well as customers with flyers, brochures and price lists. With this concern, Pomegranate Cafe can generate a mailing list which comprises the basic information of different organisations such as name of the organisation, address, state, city, zip code and telephone number among others. Therefore, the direct mail campaign can assist the organisation to achieve its objective as it is simple and inexpensive way to create a marketing campaign (Wolfe, 1998). Rationale The direct marketing is considered as one of the most simple and inexpensive ways to achieve the objectives and goals of an organisation as it is directly associated with target audience which assists in order to achieve the desired objectives of an organisation (Wolfe, 1998). Similarly, Pomegranate Cafe has the objectives and goals i.e. purchasing of new materials, replacement of old and/or broken materials as well as diversification of services across the Welwyn Garden City for which it needs funds from the different organisations and/or companies. Subsequently, the direct marketing campaign can help the organisation to achieve its objectives as it can help to get directly associated with the corporate sponsors through which the organisation desires to raise its funds. An appropriate mailing list through direct marketing campaign can help to target the existing and potentials corporate sponsors in order to raise its funds. The mailing list can be obtained by the organisation through list brokers, news articles, magazines, organisational membership lists, trade list and internet. However, the list should be appropriate and according to the plan or else it would be considered as a waste of time as well as money (Wolfe, 1998). As it has been observed from the generalised point of view that the target audience for Pomegranate Cafe includes the UK government, National Council for Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) and government organisations of the UK among others, therefore the campaign selected can assist it to raise its funds and achieve its desired objectives. Implementation Plan It has been observed that the Pomegranate Cafe is suffering from the financial difficulties for which it needs the corporate sponsors in order to raise its funds that in turn would help the organisation to achieve its desired objectives. Thus, the organisation can find its potential corporate sponsors with the use of news articles, magazines, organisational membership lists, trade list and internet among others. The target audience would be the UK government, National Council for Voluntary Organisation (NCVO) and government organisations of the UK. Afterwards, Pomegranate Cafe can use the direct marketing approach as a part of its promotional activity as it is a non-profit seeking concern. Thus, it can communicate to its customers and/or the corporate sponsors who might assist to raise funds, directly with the help of direct mail marketing. It can direct the organisation to address the target audience in efficient way with the help of direct marketing. This endeavour would also incur quite less amount as an expense. Moreover, Pomegranate Cafe can obtain the help of Direct Marketing Association of the UK which can provide the organisation an appropriate way to promote its product and services effectively in the marketplace. References Bruch, M. L., 2006. Promotion Strategies. Objectives. [Online] Available at: http://cpa.utk.edu/pptpresentations/adverpromotions_mb_7-06.pdf [Accessed March 10, 2012]. DePamphilis, D., 2012. Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring Activities: An Integrated Approach to Process, Tools, Cases, and Solutions. Academic Press. DMA, 2012. Home. Channels. [Online] Available at: http://www.dma.org.uk/content/welcome-direct-marketing-association [Accessed March 10, 2012]. Meisner, C., 2006. The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing: Creating Breakthrough Programs That Really Work. Kaplan Publishing. Pride, W. M., 2007. Marketing. Cengage Learning. Shone, A. & Parry, B., 2004. Successful event management: a practical handbook. Cengage Learning EMEA. Stavros, C. No Date. The Promotional Mix. Billparr. [Online] Available at: http://home.mira.net/~billparr/006Promotion%20Mix.pdf [Accessed March 10, 2012]. Wolfe, K., 1998. Planning a Successful Direct Mail Campaign. The University of Tennessee. [Online] Available at: http://cpa.utk.edu/pdffiles/adc9.pdf [Accessed March 10, 2012]. Read More