GKG Digital Campaign Plan and Media Schedule - Report Example

GKG DIGITAL CAMPAIGN PLAN AND MEDIA SCHEDULE A Digital Campaign Plan and Media Schedule Background Information For close to ten years now, Get Kids Going (GKG) has focused its energy to providing children with manual wheelchairs so as to enable disabled children to engage in the daily lives inhibited. With such wheelchairs, these children are able to play with their friends as well as participate in other chores at home, school and in sport. GKG is also active in promotion participation of children and young people in sports activities among disabled. It has a well-organized programme for the disabled children who are up to 26 years old. The sports currently being promoted include athletics, badminton, cycling, football, judo, swimming, wheelchair basketball and a host of other sporting events. The support is not only in terms of wheelchair, but also extends to provision of grants, which may be anywhere between £500 and £15,000 per year per head (Get Kids Going, 2015). These grants enables the sportsmen to prepare well for various competitions they will be participating in. The situation is even made direr by the government cuts which has affected sports, making these young people and children to depend on donations from friends and families, which sometimes is not forthcoming. Their only option in such circumstances is charities, the biggest of which is GKG. It has to be noted that for a very long time. Disabled children have faced countless challenges in fitting in into the society. In some instances, such children have has to endure horrible levels of discrimination and at worse, have had to give up on their dreams such as in sport and in various professions. Essentially, the plight of these children challenges the conscience of the society to do something to help them lead normal lives. There are countless ways in which these children can be helped. One of these ways is what GKG is involving itself in, provision of equipment. The success of GKG is mainly measures in terms of candidates we are able to enter into Paralympics competition and various other competitions which falls in between these major events. The major forthcoming competitions include the Paralympics to be held in Rio in the year 2016 and the South Korean Winter Olympics to be held in 2018. Through this kind of support, GKG has been able to help countless young people to realize their various professions in sport. The kind of wheelchairs that GKG provides to the children cost a lot of money. For instance, the cost of one lightweight wheelchair, which means it can be transported is around £3,000 while that of a specialist tailor- made wheelchair costs in the region of £ 4,000 (Get Kids Going, 2015). These is a lot of money, especially considering that the the organization relies mostly on donations and aims at reaching more children per year. It has to be noted that in the United Kingdom alone, it is estimated that over 200,000 children are disabled. This means that there are many more children out there who have not been reached by this humble gesture and who would are qualified for this kind of assistance. It means that the company has really needs a lot of funds to have an impact in the community. One way GKG has been confronting this issue is to avoid the wastage of funds, so as to ensure that whatever little is collected, is applied in a way that maximizes the benefit. One way this is done is through recycling the old wheelchairs with other children. This way, the organization does not need to buy many new equipment to serve a few children. It helps the organization to reach more children with little resources as younger children can make use of the old wheelchairs while those who have outgrown theirwheelchairs get to be provided with new ones. The company has two major sources of income. The first source of income which accounts to over 80 per cent of total income comes from marathon runners who attract sponsorship. Besides, GKG relies on donations from individuals and corporates and the legacies. However, given the financial commitments of the organization, and the dwindling cash flow given the intense competition, it has become important to widen the revenue stream. For these reason, the organization is going to going to move into digital marketing. Given the popularity of various online platforms and the fact that many people frequent this platforms and even use them to raise a lot of money, there is a huge chance that a well thought out plan will help the organization to raise good sums of money via this channels. Therefore, this paper is going to present a plan on how GKG is going to approach its digital marketing campaign in a way that will ensure that campaign will be a success. The success of this revenue stream is important because it will ensure that the organization will be able to bridge the revenue shortage that it is currently facing. A Digital Campaign Plan and Media Schedule for Cycling Introduction As noted before, the main aim of the GKG digital campaign will be to widen the revenue base so as to meet its increasing financial needs. At the moment, the traditional means of collection used by GKG has not been promising due to intense competition. In this sense, the objective is actually to raise funds to supplement what the GKG will continue raising through the traditional channels. There are many other options to raise this additional funding. A key area with a lot of opportunities to raise the cash is through digital marketing campaign. Digital marketing basically means the use of a variety of online media to achieve marketing objectives(Berners-Lee, 2000). In this instance, we are going to use various online platforms to raise more money through donations. As noted before, the twitter and Facebook accounts of GKG is still in the embryonic stage while other social mediaplatforms are yet to be explored to market the organization and help raise more money to fund its activities. This is mainly due to the fact that the individual responsible for this responsibility resigned some months ago. The company is thus going to do a number of things to achieve its objective. First, it would not make sense to come up with another website. What is to be done now is to upgrade the current website to be more appealing and interactive (Bird, 2007)with those who visit it. As noted before, this website has been optimized and come among the top two on various search engines. We have to harness this and ensure that it is more interactive than it is now. But again, an interactive Facebook page as well as Twitter will have to be established. A link to the same pages will have to be provided so that individuals who are unaware about existence of the pages get to know and even visit them. This will also be used as a way of contacting the organization.Another area is the running of different blogs on various issues relating to the disabled children and the youth and the role the society can play in helping the children. These blogs will help in encouraging debate on the issue and helping to win over more people so that they opt in and help in the course of the organization. One area that the organization has not majored in is the area of cycling. There are many cycling events nowadays with more propping up almost annually. In essence, these are major media events due to proper marketing and if GKG can harness this opportunity, it can be a major factor in helping raise more opportunity. Having identified this segment, GKG will harness its digital marketing platform to reach out to cycling enthusiast majorly to promote this worthy course. Goals of the Digital Campaign The successful implementation of the digital marketing process will have to attain certain goals so as to realize the overall objectives of the organization which is to raise funds so as to supplement the amounts being raised from the traditional areas. Failure to achieve these goals will lead to non-achievement of the overall objective. Some of the digital marketing activities are discussed below: Website The first goal will be to rebrand and upgrade the existing website. The idea behind this move is to have the visitors to the page spent more time on the site, hoping that they will take be reading information on the site and getting acquainted with the work of the organization. This way, this people are able to share the information with their friends and families so as to either contribute or volunteer in raising the funds. This will only happen if the content, layout and the colour schemes are appealing to the visitors (Berners-Lee, 2000 and Castells, 2000). Apart from upgrading the website, another goal to will be to achieve an increased traffic into the website. This can be achieved in a number of ways. The common way of doing this and which has been done is through optimizing the website. It will be important to ensure that the upgrade done on the website does not compromise this. This will help to ensure that the ranking of the website in various search engines such as Google will be increased(Cocoran, 2007). Another way of achieving more traffic into the site is to ensure to have more links to various popular cycling sites. This will attract charges which the organization will have to pay so as to benefit from this opportunity. Besides, links can also be placed on websites that champion the interests of the disabled or the minority in the society. Above all, we should have more articles shred via Facebook and Twitter. This way, we can have individuals reading article in the website and then go and share their views in those two social networking platforms (Castells, 2000 and McLuhan, 2001), hence contributing to deepening the understanding of the various topics and at the same time help crate interests among those vising the site and contributing on those platforms. Having achieved the above, the next goal on this front will be to give the visitors more options of contributing to the course. In essence, there has to be a portal within the website where individuals visiting the site can make their payments online. This can be none by use of various ways such as use of credit cards and PayPal. Another to do is to have more links about the website. Another way of raising funds in within the website is through allowing others to advertise in the website. A common way is to be paid on the basis of the clicks made by those visiting the sites. This way, the organization can raise more money. Blog As noted before, another activity the organization will make itself known and understood is by running various blog. The importance of these blog is that it will create an interest on the activities and events and help explain the same. In the same vein, a proper understanding of a subject helps turn the visitors from mere spectators into active agents who can help raise the funds and even pass on the information to their a wider public. Basically, the blogs will cover issues on various cycling activities of which GKG will be participating or sponsoring participants. It will aim to not only create awareness but go further to create interest around the events and participants. It will also encourage debate by giving the opportunity to visitors to react and in so doing help spread the knowledge and facts(Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). The goals to be achieved here include to get more comments on the blogs. More comments on the blog, whether positive or negative, is an indicator that the organization is achieving its objectives. To achieve, it is important to understand that there will be a need to have more people reading the online blogs. To achieve this, a number of thing will have to be done to this blog. One will be do have links to the blog. This way, even those who are not aware of the existence of the blog will come to know about it and make an effort to sift through the information posted and even react. Besides, the comments can be an important point of learning the feel that the people have and seeing if there is anything that can be done as we move along (Cocoran, 2007 and Tungate, 2007). Besides, there should be option in which visitors to the blog can share the posts and therefore help to cascade the information to many people, out of which we can have contributions. Facebook As noted above, the organization will have an operational Facebook page. It has to be noted that Facebook is one of the largest socio media platforms with following across the world. Through Facebook, the organization will be able to get out its information out to the public. The Facebook page should be designed in such a way that it is appealing to the visitors. Weber (2000) notes that the page should be regularly updated with upcoming events with in-depth coverage of ongoing and past events. However, all this may amount to nothing if certain goals are not achieved. First, it will be important to get more fans into the Facebook page. With increase traffic into the website, the organization will be in a good position to convert the visitors into agents of change who are ready to do something for the course (Weber, 2000), most importantly to raise money. Therefore, another key goal will be to enable fans to contribute directly through the page. Lastly, the goal to be achieved is to to have more likes and comments on the Facebook. This shows some engagement with the fans. If the Facebook fans are not giving comments, it may be an indication that they are note taking their time to read. If the content is interesting, then it is a show that fans are taking their time to read, and by so doing interest is created and contribution may start flowing. Twitter Lastly, an operational twitter account will be operated by the organization. This account will be used to share information about upcoming events and to give a snippet coverage to ongoing and past events in a way that is refreshing and interesting. Key goals for twitter account will be to have more followers. However, to ensure that these fans are finding their experience more enjoyable, the account should aim to get more comments and replies(Wertime & Fenwick, 2008). This is the only sure indication that they are keenly following and enjoying the activities of the group, and as such, a good number of them can be converted into agents of change, to help in raising money through contributing and getting their friends and relatives to contribute. Conclusion Regardless of the media being used, growth will be a major point of concern. Measures will have to be taken to realize growth in all platforms. Growth in number of fans and visitors is an indicator that new people are coming on board, which is good in helping drive the campaign. A stagnant growth or even decline in visitors, fans and followers is a clear signal that things are not moving well. It will therefore be a matter of priority to try and appeal to a larger audience and give information that is more interesting and educative. An understanding of their needs and expectations and working towards meeting those needs is important. Segmentation and Targeting Given the profiles of the online media, it is clear that a majority of people are users of these profiles. However, arguably, the youth are the major users of them all, dwarfing other categories of users (Weber, 2000 andWertime & Fenwick, 2008). It is thus important that the appeal to the youth will inform a big chunk of how the campaign will be approach. Therefore, basically, the approach adopted should be one that aims to appeal to the youth and win this massive market. Besides, it is hoped that the youth are vibrant and will find it easy to volunteer and go out of their course to pass information to their cycle of families and friends and thus help to deepen the reach of the programme. Offer and Messaging The success of the campaign largely depended on the content passed pout to the public via the platforms identified above; the website, blog and the social networking sites. The message will basically be a call to action. Therefore, it will not just be a way of passing information to the people, but at the end of the day, it should probe people to take action and do something that will promote campaign(Wind & Mahajan, 2001). This will be achieved by giving as much information as possible about the statistics of disabled children and young people and the problems they face in their lives in trying to lead normal lives. To give credence to the information, statistics from authoritative sources will have to be quoted (Wind & Mahajan, 2001). On the other hand, the wording of the message should not be condescending, but should be one that make them feel that they are comrades in a wider struggle and should thus do something about the existing situation. Above all, the message and graphics should be appealing to the eye and well balanced to give an act of creativity and help the visitors, fans and followers to align their expectations with what they are seeing Media Plan for the Year ITEM MAR APRIL MAY JUN JULY AUG SEPT OCT NOV Website 10 Laptops Recruitment and training of Digital Marketing Team Salary for Digital Marketing Team 10 Assistants Office Expenses for the year Salary-web designer 1 Blogger Web administrator Links/marketing SEO Optimization . Recommendations for Developing the Website Given that the website will be a key promotional tool in this campaign because those who come to know about the campaign through the blogs and networking sites will definitely visit the site, it is important that the site meets certain guidelines. Of most importance is that the website should be user friendly and interactive so as to appeal to the visitors to spend a bit of their time there, get to read and become part of the campaign. To this end, the information on the site should not be kept to a minimum, built without compromising the quality. In any event, the use of various links will ensure that the homepage remain with fewer graphics and information (Wind & Mahajan, 2001) so as to ensure that visitors will not have difficulty navigating the website. Another thing to consider is that the graphics on the webpage should not be too large. Large graphics will take the visitors more time to load (Web, 2000), and this waiting time is something that can put off the visitors. Hence, as much as possible large unnecessary graphics should be avoided. What this means is that visitors will be able to easily access information on the site and thus have an interesting time on the site. A research done a few years ago found out that slow internet is one of the things that are most annoying (Wertime& Fenwick, 2008). Therefore, on the part of GKG, measures would be taken to ensure that various information on the site wouldn’t take long to load. The information on the website should also be balanced and appealing to the eye. The aesthetics of the site should be taken seriously. This goes ahead to include the types of colors used, the background, and graphics. All this should built a coordinated picture in the mind of the visitor; that of an organization that knows what it is doing. There should be a consistent image in the mind of the visitors between what the organization is claiming and what people meet in the website. If they perceive the website to be of a lower quality, they may not reconcile with the message and as such may fail to take the organization seriously and tis may hamper the campaign. Therefore, the decision of what information to be included and how it should be covered should be a tasked to be undertaken by a special team, led by the wed administrator. Besides, after each article, there should be a comments section where the visitors give their comments about the story. This way, it becomes easy to follow the feelings of the visitors and to keep the activities at the site with coverage that resonates with the visitors and therefore help maintain the traffic to the site, and if possible grow it. It has also to be noted that an e-mail address should be left there as one of the ways individuals can contact the organization on any issue. This way, it becomes easier to get comments and information concerning matters unrelated to the stories covered in the site, and respond to such. Most important may be with regards to the site itself and tis may help in further improving it. Database As noted earlier, one of the major ways the organizationraises money is through the sponsorship that players are able to earn on behalf of the organization. To achieve this, it is important that the organization maintains an updated database of various players so as to keep in touch and give them information about upcoming events, which they can participate and earn through sponsorship, some money. To reap maximum benefit, it is important that the organization maintains an updated database. This will be done through keeping tabs on the players and being able to understand what competitions best fits their needs at each particular points. For instance, the needs of players who are just starting off will be different from those of seasoned players who are keen to build their profiles and therefore keen on big events. Already, a database for other sports exists, and this time round, given that the organization is venturing into cycling, it will have to build a database of cyclists who will be roped in into the programme the organization is trying to run. As noted earlier, there are many cycling events per years across the United Kingdom and the whole world, and it will be important to give this information to the players through mails. Importantly, players on the database may which to know a variety of information regarding particular events. Such information includes the course, weather conditions such as temperature, and the level of competition. The database being built by the organization will eagerly be that of players and the calendar as the organization may not have information regarding sponsors, to conduct them. One of the key requirement will be that the database will have to be updated continuously to capture the changes happening such as the progress and change in interest of the players. This will put the organization in a better position to give the cyclists information they will find valuable. It is important that the information collected should be as much as possible so as to give the organization a wider spectrum on each of every issue and thus make informed decisions. Apart from having enough data, it is important that the data collected by relevant. Irrelevant data, however much, will be useless for the purpose of giving out information to potential cyclists who opt into the campaign. Relevance of data is a tricky issue and it is important that care be taken in determining what is collected and how it will be analyze to give the required information. Budget EVENT DATE ESTIMATED COST PROJECTED EARNINGS Wiggle New Forest Spring Sportive  15 April £2,000 £3,000 Tour of the Roses 25 May £ 3,500 £ 6,500 Para-cycling Road World Cup, Maniago, Italy 5-7 June £ 8,000 £ 17,000 Balgay Park Circuit Races, Dundee 21 June £ 3,000 £5,500 Para-cycling Road World Cup, Elzach, Germany 10-12 July £ 9,000 £ 20,000 Para-cycling Road World Championship, Nottwil, Switzerland 28 July-2 Aug. £ 7,500 £16,000 Youth/Junior Paracycling Challenge Matches, Manchester 3-7 Aug. £2,500 £ 4,000 Matlock CC Circuit Races, Darley Moor 23 Aug. £ 2,500 £4,000 US Open (Super Series), St Louis, USA 31Aug -6 Sep. £ 20,000 £ 45,000 BC National Para TT Champs, TBC 4 Oct. £ 2,000 £3,000 Total £ 60,000 £124,000 Bibliography Berners-Lee, T., 2000. Weaving the Web: The original design and ultimate destiny of theworld wide web,. New York: HarperCollins. Bird, D., 2007. Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing. 5th ed. London: Kogan Page. Castells, M., 2000. 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