In my two years as the District PR Director overseeing 64 Clubs in Melbourne and Regional Victoria (Australia) one of the biggest problems I saw that was many clubs did not have a Marketing/Public Relations Plan. (Marketing and Public Relations are different and the differences are a post for another day but for the purpose of this article they can be interlinked as the points I outline below are relevant for both.
It’s a common refrain that “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” With respect to marketing and public relations, if you are not planning you will not have set goals. If you don’t have set goals you won’t know what tactics to implement. If you don’t know what tactics to implement then you will end up haphazardly throwing a number of tactics into the air but you won’t have any way to measure results. If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you have got there?
The concept of integrated marketing communications planning is a simple one. All marketing and communications are “integrated.” Offline & online – once you’ve worked out your goals you can work out what tactics will help you achieve these goals. (Chances are you will utilise a combination of online and offline tactics and we will cover a number of these tactics over the coming days and weeks – you should sign up to my newsletter to be kept up to date when these posts are published but I will also share with you a number of great resources to help with your marketing and communications planning.)
Marketing and PR tactics don’t work well in isolation. They work better in combination. A major reason for this is the Mere exposure effect. The mere-exposure effect suggests people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. What this means is the more people hear about your Club and your good work, the more likely they are to draw positive associations with your Club. The more positively they feel about your Club, the more likely that your local Community are to join your Club, help out with a Project or donate funds.
Here are the steps in your Marketing Plan
Identify target audience – When creating a marketing plan you need to know who it is you are speaking to. Your target audience may be people you want to donate, to volunteer or to join your Club. In some instances it may be inactive Club members.
Determine objectives – You need to set goals. Make sure you set SMART goal – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound.
Design communications – It’s now time to start designing your Communications Strategy. Are the messages you are sharing with your audience emotional or are they rational? If you are seeking donations, an emotional appeal may be most relevant. Any message you create also needs to be branded. There’s no point putting out a message from your Club if no one knows that it is coming from your Club.
Establish budget – There are a number of ways you can calculate a budget for marketing if you were a business but this doesn’t necessarily work for your Club. You need a budget so your should get your Board/Committee together and set a budget. Without a budget you won’t know what tactics you are able to implement.
Decide on the media mix – Now you can start thinking about tactics. This can be paid advertising in local papers, it can be social media, it can be flyers, it can be writing press releases or it could be running an event. Possibly it could be getting your members just to talk to their friends (the most effective Marketing and Public Relations package.
Measure results – For each tactic that you choose, you need to make sure that it is delivered in a way that can be measured. You need to be able to track whether tactics are helping you move towards your goal. If one tactic becomes more effective than others you should concentrate on this tactic and stop using tactics that aren’t effective.
Manage IMC – Your Board should have someone responsible for Marketing and Public Relations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they need to “do” all of the work related to the Marketing but they need to make sure everything gets done.
There are many aspects of this article that require further explanation. Over the coming weeks I will create further articles and resources to help you achieve your goals. We will cover different aspects of the Marketing Plan and different tactics that your Club may use to achieve their goals.
Biography – Hamish Jones is a Communications Professional, A Rotarian, and Activist and a Board Member of an Elite Sports Team in a niche sport. Over thousands of conversations he’s seen that the biggest problem many face when thinking about Marketing and PR is choice paralysis – they feel there are too many options and don’t know where to start. Hamish creates easy to understand educational material to help volunteers understand how to create a marketing plan, set goals and implement tactics to achieve their goals. Sign up to his newsletter and receive a copy of Hamish’s one page marketing plan checklist.