The Communication Marketing Plan for Headspace Youth Program - Case Study Example

HEADSPACE STUDENT NAME PROFESSOR’S NAME COURSE TITLE DATE Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Background Information 3 Service/product 4 Marketing Objectives 6 Target Audiences 7 Target Market 1: High School Students 7 Target Market 2: College/ University Students 7 Target Market 3: Parents, Family and Friends 8 Target Market 4: Institutions 8 Market Segments 8 Media strategy 9 Television Advertising 9 Internet Marketing 9 Promotional marketing 10 Direct marketing 11 Budget 11 Conclusion 12 REFERENCES 13 Executive Summary The communication marketing plan aims to raise awareness of the Headspace youth program. The program aims at providing services to youths who are facing trouble and will address issues that faces young people aged 12 to 25 who are going through a tough time caused by depression, anxiety, bullying and image problems. The marketing strategy adopted by Headspace needs to be affective and targets the entire market segments and target market in terms of addressing audiences and passing information about the services offered by Headspace. Despite being a not-for-profit organization funded by the Australian Government, it is necessary that the marketing plan used utilizes the common marketing platforms such as internet marketing, direct marketing, promotional marketing and advertisement in reaching out to the target market. It also considers the budgetary allocation in regards to managing the entire marketing plan. Background Information Headspace is the National Youth Mental Health Program that targets young people between the ages of 12 to 25 who require and need support to solve their problems. The Headspace program was founded by the Commonwealth of Australia in 2006 and its primary role is focusing on the wellbeing of the Australian people. Headspace provides health advice to young people in regards to health, counseling, mental health, education, employment, alcohol and drugs amongst other health services that target the youthful population. Headspace targets the youthful population that helps someone who is depressed, anxious, has difficulties in coping at school, finding it hard to sleep well, those who are bullied and those who may have a drinking problem or drug abuse. Headspace also focuses on making available information that is substance use disorders, depression and self-harm and suicidal behaviors that affects the youth population in Australia. Headspace is a not-for-profit organization, hence relies more on input regarding the operation of the organization. The organization requires that its service providers give the best practices and care to the young people and the content created for its program is of good quality. Service/product In marketing concepts, market orientation refers to the “culture of an organization that creates efficient and necessary behaviors in order to enhance value for consumers and continued relevancy in the business” (Young and Aitken, 2007). The Headspace is a service oriented organization and it creates value for its customers by giving much needed advice to young people and hence its service is mainly associated with giving guidance and advice. Headspace needs to focus on the developmental aspects of the youth’s evolution into adulthood and support of their transition. Headspace therefore seeks to: a) Recognizing that the youthful age is an integral part or stage in the life of a young person and therefore necessary intervention is necessary in seeing the child coming out as a better person. b) Supporting the development of the youth. c) Finding solution to problems facing the young person through counseling, mental health services and drug and alcohol abuse in society. d) Promote better transition process amongst the youths. Service or product positioning refers to “the perception created in the consumers mind regarding the nature of the organization and its services relative to competition” (Smith, Berry & Pulford, 2006). It is therefore imperative to assess Headspace current market status in regards to the services offered. The current problems facing Headspace is its failure to reach the target audience, the youth and few young people are aware of the services offered by Headspace. The other problem is the inability of Headspace to have specific customers and loyalty to the program as well as referrals as a way of getting more people involved in the program. Situational Analysis A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis gives a general overview of the Australian markets reception and perception about the services offered and any threats or weaknesses in its approach in the Australian market. HEADSPACE: SWOT ANALYSIS Internal Strengths It has the good will and support of the Australian government. Funding from the state Has experienced workers Long-term relationship with the Australians Weaknesses Understanding the Australian market or culture on public support programs Distribution of centres offering Headspace services in Barthurst and Australia. Centralization of management and supervisions Limited scope of services offered in the programs External Opportunities Increasing advertising expenditures is a potential for growth of the organization Use of technology to expand the scope of its services Developing customer relationship through experience and good services Threats Threat of new entrants especially private competitors giving better services Competition from old service providers. Marketing Objectives a) Increase the number of young people who experiencing problems to attend the services provided by the youth programs at Headspace. b) Headspace marketing plan needs to lead to cumulative successes over the next 5 years in terms of helping the people between the ages of 12 to 25 solve their problems. c) It needs to have benchmarks that measure Headspace progress in terms of reaching out to its target audiences, success stories. d) The marketing plan needs to ensure that it addresses and satisfies the needs of the target audiences and that those who use Headspace have a 90% success such that its former clients are able to draw in new clients requiring the services provided by Headspace that is focusing on services that satisfies its clients. e) Market research is important aspects in helping Headspace know how to deal with the changing market in regards to help services. f) The marketing objectives also aim at increasing the awareness amongst the youths that there is help available for their problems. g) It seeks to increase the accessibility of services offered by Headspace online and on their Facebook pages and also generates positive feedback amongst its users and also increase mental health literacy in the community. Target Audiences The target audience based on the current cost of private programs is quite high and there are many influential factors that increase the risk of young people getting caught up in anti-social behaviors. The target audience in this case is the young people those between the ages of 12 to 25 and to an extent the parents of the young people who may need help for their children. The most influential factor for college students and other young people is the quality of the service, experience and recovery from their conditions. Target Market 1: High School Students At the age of 12 and 13 most children are ready to enter high school. During this period, the young people are in need of guidance in regards to the possible problems they face during this time. In many instances, these young people constantly face fears of peer pressure, drug and alcohol abuse and bullying both at school and in the social media. Headspace would target this population since it provides the ideal age that requires guidance especially in terms of growth. Young persons aged 12 and 13 often seek help but seldom find the help they need from parents and guardians and therefore Headspace would grant an opportunity for the young people to deal with their challenges. The young person are at their cusps of adulthood and that the program needs to be tailor made to meet the development needs of a maturing youth. Target Market 2: College/ University Students At the end of a young person teenage years mostly at the ages of 17 and 18, a youth enters college and other institutions of higher learning. This age group is a potential audience for the marketing strategy since Headspace solves young people’s problems. Target Market 3: Parents, Family and Friends Once a young person is facing problems, then the family and parents are the most important person. The marketing plan needs to focus on the family, parents and friends to give them headway in terms of how to help their loved ones find solutions to their problems. Parents, family and friends are also important in marketing since they will inform others on the services offered by Headspace and bring other young people to get the services. Target Market 4: Institutions The marketing strategy needs to focus on the institutions: schools, colleges and universities. The institutions play an important role in shaping the character of students in the school and the teachers are at the centre of its all especially in knowing a student’s behavior and character. Making information available to the teachers on problematic situations; talking with students and events addressing the issues, wellbeing and mental health. Market Segments A market segment refers to “individual consumers with distinct characteristics differing from the population as a whole” (McCarthy, 1960) In terms of demographics, the consumer market targeted is both private and public. These are young people either male or female between the ages of 12 to 25. This market segment undergoing a transitional period into adulthood require life skills that addresses their problems that they have in regards to peer pressure, social issues, bullying and are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors. The most probable subset users of Headspace services include: Bullying: This is a form of discriminatory and antisocial behaviors propagated by students targeting other students depending on race, color, family background or any disorder. Headspace focuses on building skills amongst the young people and to ensure that they participate in non-violent conflict resolution processes. Sexual abuse: Sexual abuses can have a negative impact on a student leading to anti-social behavior and fear of engaging with the opposite sex, suicidal tendencies. Targeting the young populations faced with sexual abuse and giving them a chance to positively lead their lives is crucial in Headspace agenda in promoting the wellbeing of young people in this particular population. Alcohol and drug abuse: Young people often turn to drugs and alcohol as a way of coping with their emotional issues and problems. Headspace needs to focus on giving the young people a chance to share their problems without necessarily engaging in alcohol and drugs. Media strategy Television Advertising The use of television in the marketing campaign strategy is important since it reaches many Australians both at home and in the workplace. Despite the fact that television advertising incurs more costs, it is popular among the youth especially those who prefer being entertained by particular programs (Fitzgerald & Arnott, 2000). Parents of young children also watch television and prefer to listen to interesting issues that concern their children and would be the most appropriate way to ensure that their children get the help they need in regards to facing challenges at school (McCarthy, 1960). Internet Marketing The age of internet marketing is at its highest and most young people are linked to the social media sites and are likely to be influenced by advertisements, pages such as Headspace where they can ask for solutions to their problems (Siegel, 2004). The sites include YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp this will ensure that the young people know about Headspace and that Headspace is available for them to ask questions that touch on their lives and well-being (Smith et al., 2004). Creating a mobile application for Headspace would be ideal. The mobile app will target the young people especially those with smartphones and can give them daily tips about life’s important questions, relationship, drugs and alcohol abuse. The mobile app needs to be user friendly with easy to use features and ability to chat directly with Headspace staff on issues that affect their lives. It is important that the mobile app guarantees anonymity of the users, to ensure that the young people are comfortable in sharing their problems. Promotional marketing Promotional marketing requires the use of word of mouth and creating events in school, colleges and universities to inform the young people about the activities of Headspace. In marketing communication, promotion is an important marketing tool since it passes messages and also part of the media. It forms part of direct marketing and public relations which are used simultaneously to market (Baines et al., 2008). One of the ways in which Headspace can use promotional marketing is by giving the young people information and messages that are customer oriented that is based on the feelings and emotions of the young people (Fill 1999). These may include sponsoring school events that involve counseling sessions, outdoor events, music and other sponsorship activities that would be fun to their young people and at the same time create awareness. In the use of this marketing plan, communication would be achieved since the young people would have taken part in the events while at the same time important message would be delivered since the promotion offers both audience and message the two requirements of communication (Smith, 2004). Direct marketing In consideration of Headspace programs, direct marketing would be ideal in targeting the young people. Direct marketing involves the use of telephone marketing, online marketing and home marketing since it targets specific person rather than the entire public in regards to marketing (Kotler & Armstrong, 2006). In considering options for direct marketing, then Headspace needs to ensure that the young people are drawn into Headspace whenever they require their problems to be solved (Young & Aitken, 2007). This means that headspace must ensure that they have brochures and catalogues that are distributed to young people both at school and cards that contain information about headspace and how they can reach the staff to have their problems solved. Budget The total budgetary allocation is $100000. The highest budget for Headspace goes to promotions that make about 30% ($30000) of the budget since most of the target population’s ages 12-25 prefer getting information through the social media sites, events marketing. The promotions mainly target the youth, which is those who successfully finish the program will get to work with Headspace to change their lives and this will form part of their credit in their school marks. This will ensure that the target age group attend the youth program and go to school. The promotions will go on in schools, colleges and universities since most of the target age group are still going to study in these institutions. 50% ($50000)of the budget set aside for marketing will be dedicated to social media marketing; this is because the internet sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are popular with the young people. Creating advertisements and pages for Headspace will generate enough leads and traffic to the sites, and young people may recommend their friends to try Headspace to solve their problems. 15% of the budget ($15000) will go to television advertisement. Most people in Australia watch television to get informed on current affairs and news. This means that the adult population mainly parents will get informed on places to take their children in case they have depression, suffering from any problems or bullying in school. Parents always desire to have a place to take their children, however without knowing which is the best place, they often end up leaving it to teachers to decide on what to do about the children. 5% ($5000) of the budget will go to direct marketing. This involves printing of brochures and catalogues to inform students directly about services offered by Headspace. This will be distributed in the institutions and schools and made available at counselor’s office if the young person requires extra attention from a professional. Conclusion In conclusion, Headspace being a service dedicated organization targeting young people between the ages of 12-25 it needs a strategy that is specific to this particular age group. The young people are often faced with challenges that they find difficult to discuss it with their parents and a third party that assures them of confidentiality will see them seek advice from the particular institution. The media strategy that Headspace needs to use is television advertisement, internet marketing, direct marketing and promotional marketing to target the appropriate audience that would need these particular services to help their children deal with these issues. The budget plan needs to address the marketing process effectively. REFERENCES Baines, P., Fill, C., & Page K. (2008). Marketing: Case insight. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fill, C. (1999). Marketing Communicat, C. ions: contexts, contents and strategies. 2nd ed, London: Prentice Hall Fitzgerald, M. & Arnott, D. (2000). Marketing Communications Classics. London: Business Press, Thomson Learning. Harker M.J. & Egan, J. (2006). ‘The Past, Present and Future Relationship Marketing’ . 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