Practice of Professional Marketing - Essay Example

Questions You are the marketing director of a non profit organization focused on promoting healthy eating habits of young school aged children. How would you do this? One of the first priorities when having to promote a non-profit organization’s plan is to identify the resources required. The cost of the plan’s realization should be estimated in advance – even at an average level – ensuring the completion of the plan within a specific time framework – as set in the plan – is feasible. The estimation of the specific project’s cost led to the assumption that the organization can respond to the financial needs of the project – at least for a year. After that period, the project should be reviewed and re-evaluated. At the next level, the people who will work on this plan’s realization need to be identified and appropriately trained. The research for the staff required for the completion of an organizational plan begins within the organization. If specific competencies are involved in the particular project, then individuals with the required skills need to be identified. At this point, there is the following problem: is the organization involved able to respond to the financial needs of such initiative? In current case, the financial status of the particular (non – profit) organization is rather satisfactory – at least for now. However, the organization is not able of hiring staff; for this reason, volunteers will be asked to participate in the particular project – supporting the organization’s permanent staff. The various aspects of the specific scheme – of attracting volunteers – need to be carefully reviewed: a) volunteers will be treated like the permanent staff, b) the tasks allocated to volunteers will be checked – in accordance with the skills and the competencies of each individual, c) the time period of the volunteers’ participation in the project will be strictly defined – each volunteer will be asked to participate in the project for a short period – not more than a month – in order to guarantee the quality of the work provided but also the availability of volunteers, d) the performance of volunteers will be monitored – ensuring that volunteers who highly perform will be rewarded for their efforts; non-financial rewards could be provided to volunteers aiming to enforce their motivation. When the financial and the non-financial resources required for the specific project have been allocated – in the context described above – then the practical implications and challenges of the project should be identified and evaluated. First, the phases of the project need to be presented: a) in terms of location, the project will be developed across the schools of the greater region, b) the forms of the project will be the following ones: b1) seminars will be held in schools – under the permission of the school-administrators; pupils and their parents will be free to participate and state their view, b2) events will be also held at the local community centers, b3) a blog will be developed providing info on the specific project – the details of the blog will be made known to the pupils of the region’s schools – advertisements on the specific ideas and suggestions will be published in the newspapers of the region’s schools – where there is such case. 2. Would you ever use spam as an e mail strategy to promote a fundraising effort for the Cancer Society. Why or why not? The fundraising efforts of non-profit organizations can be based on a series of policies; normally, the character of these organizations as non-profit is expected to be an advantage in regard to the people’s response to such initiatives. However, the expansion of the recession worldwide has negatively affected the fundraising plans of organizations of all types; the chances for success of the funding schemes developed by non-profit organizations have been limited. Therefore, it is necessary to identify those strategic tools that could help to develop a successful fundraising plan. Spam can be such tool; in fact, it is considered that spam could significantly support the fundraising efforts of Cancer Society; the reasons for choosing the specific strategic tool are analyzed below – supporting by appropriate literature. At the first level, the group of persons addressed by the spam should be decided; the characteristics of this group are depended on the relevant criteria set in the particular organization’s fundraising scheme. Four could be the potential resources of funds for the specific organization: other foundations, corporations, the government and the individuals. In the first two categories, the e-mail addresses available for communication would be most easily acquired compared to the other two categories – the government and the individuals. In the case of government, the use of spam would rather be avoided; such messages would be deleted – automatically – while a risk of consequences against the sender – no matter the messages’ purpose – would exist. Moreover, in foundations, the decisions on funding are likely to delay – since funding boards only meets once a year (or twice under certain circumstances); so, the chance for success of spam in these organizations would be limited. On the other hand, the e-mails of individuals would be difficult to be accessed; a first source of such addresses would be the newsletters of foundations and non-profit organizations operating in similar sectors. If there was no restriction in the fundraising scheme of the Cancer Society in regard to the spam recipients, then spam would be used for promoting the organization’s fundraising scheme to corporations and individuals. Due to its form and its process, spam can be effectively used as a tool for approaching people belonging in the categories mentioned above; in other words, as of its potential recipients, spam can be characterized as an effective fundraising tool and it would be preferred for the promotion of the fundraising effort of the Cancer Society. The rest of the advantages of spam in regard to the common fundraising policies should be also reviewed and evaluated; these advantages should be further compared with this strategic tool’s disadvantages aiming to justify why spam would be appropriate for supporting the fundraising efforts of Cancer Society. One of the most important advantages of spam – compared to the traditional marketing tools is its cost – which is extremely low; moreover, spam is focused – referring to the targets set in each particular marketing scheme; additionally, spam – like direct mail – is easily accessible. On the other hand, spam may have certain negative aspects; the recipients may not welcome the spam especially if their e-mail address was retrieved through a location which is irrelevant with the spam (Schryen, 2007, p.361); moreover, more aged people/ recipients may be more hostile against the spam – compared to the young recipients (Grimes et al., 2007, p.318). Also, the completion of the relevant process – sending the spam to its recipients – may face delays in case that the server involved is not appropriate – in terms of its operational characteristics and capabilities (Hu et al., 2010, p.8557). The above problems could be faced through the following policies: a) the e-mails of recipients would be retrieved through databases of organizations that are relevant with the specific sector, b) younger recipients would be preferred and c) the servers involved in the specific project should be reviewed as of their capability to respond to the needs of this initiative. Through the above measures the performance of spam as a tool for promoting the fundraising efforts of Cancer Society would be significantly increased. 3. The museum where you work has been offered a large sum of money for a new wing if the donor can be assured that the wing will house something that will greatly increase attendance. What would you suggest? In order to identify a plan that will help to increase the museum’s attendance it is necessary to review the conditions under which this plan will be developed; also, its chances for success should be estimated taking into consideration the resources available. The museum is a services firm; therefore, its marketing should be based on a comprehensive marketing plan (McLean 1997, 202); moreover, the museum’s employees should be aware of all aspects of the specific plan and they should be willing to develop a ‘customer – focused attitude’ (McLean 1997, 202). In this context, the marketing plan chosen for the specific museum would have more chances to success if it was actively supported by employees. On the other hand, the marketing plan introduced for increasing the attendance of the museum should refer to all aspects of art - aiming to attract the interest of visitors. This issue is highlighted in the study of Moore (1994) who noted that ‘the museum can increase the value of the artefact to the public by making its preservation more accessible to them’ (Moore 1994, 240). Lord and Dexter (1997) developed a similar assumption; the above researchers noted that ‘museum marketing is closely connected to audience development’ (Lord and Dexter 1997, 120). Before developing the museum’s marketing plan, it would be necessary to identify the audience that this plan would address (Sandell and Janes 2007, 345); in the specific case, the characteristics of the museum’s audience vary; people of all ages are likely to visit the museum – both for entertainment and for educational purposes. For this reason, the marketing plan suggested should be able to respond to the demands of people of different ages and backgrounds; thus, a theme that would be welcomed by the majority of the museum’s visitors would be chosen. The simultaneous existence of educational and entertainment elements would be the criterion for choosing the theme on which the specific wing of the museum will focus. It is suggested that the specific wing is used for the exhibition of books, documents and graphical representations of objects related with philosophy; reference can be made to Plato and Aristotle but also to other philosophers that influenced the development of the particular science up today. In other words, this wing will be a presentation of the history of philosophy from its first appearance up today. This theme is expected to attract the interest of visitors – both of those that seek for entertainment but also those who like to be informed on the historical development of the specific science. Moreover, the attendance of the museum will be increased including natives, tourists but also schools, educational institutes and academic researchers. Bibliography Brinckerhoff, Peter. Mission-Based Management: Leading Your Not-for-Profit In the 21st Century. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2009 Burnett, John. Nonprofit Marketing Best Practices. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2007 Grimes, Galen, Hough, Michelle and Margaret, Signorella. ‘Email end users and spam: relations of gender and age group to attitudes and actions.’ Computers in Human Behavior 23, no 1 (2007): 318-332 Hu, Yong, Guo, Ce, Ngai, E., Liu, Mei and Shifeng, Chen. ‘A scalable intelligent non-content-based spam-filtering framework.’ Expert Systems with Applications 37, no 12 (2010): 8557-8565 McLean, Fiona. Marketing the museum. London: Routledge, 1997 McLeish, Barry. Successful Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations: Winning in the Age of the Elusive Donor. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2010 Moore, Kevin. Museum management. London: Routledge, 1994 Renz, David and Herman, Robert. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2010 Sandell, Richard and Robert, Janes. Museum Management And Marketing. London: Taylor & Francis, 2007 Schryen, Guido. ‘The impact that placing email addresses on the Internet has on the receipt of spam: An empirical analysis’. Computers & Security 26, no 5 (2007): 361-372 Wymer, Walter, Knowles, Patricia and Gomes, Roger. Nonprofit marketing: marketing management for charitable and nongovernmental organizations. London: SAGE, 2006 Read More