Words: 4133
The organization was founded by Pamela Hope, Kevin Craig and William O’Connell nearly a decade ago, and holds its headquarters in Huntington Beach, California. The organization attempts to reunify mothers with heir children and helps to service struggling women. These women are typically housed and serviced for six months, though they have the option of extending their lease beyond the initial period.
Five ACH Case Managers currently oversee about ten families each and assist clients with various aspects of life skills management, including obtaining employment, saving nearly 80% of one’s income, setting up primary physician and dental care, identifying personal goals, addressing relapses and overall becoming more independent. Requirements for the women requesting service include: must be homeless, must be sober with a clean drug test, must obtain a Job within thirty days and must be ready to make major life changes.
Currently, ACH receives most of its funding through various governmental organizations, such as Housing and Urban Development (HAD), Community Development Block Grant (JDBC), and Emergency Housing and Assistance Program (APP), though these resources and grants are becoming increasingly limited. Core members of ACH participate in various local organizations and grant committees to gain recognition and support, including HOB Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis Club, Prop 63 Committee, HOB Coordinating Counsel, Arbor Education and Training and
Sober Living Coalition. The major challenges facing ACH include: lack of education on homelessness in local communities of the Orange County area, lack of available affordable housing in the county, inability to provide permanent housing to all of the homeless population due to under-funding, cutbacks in CB and other funding organizations and an overall community attitude of “not in my backyard” (NIMBI) where communities do not approve of sites and mass shelters being built in their cities. A.
Integrated Marketing Communication (MIMIC) Strategy An integrated marketing communication approach is necessary in order to ordinate a promotion mix which creates a clear, consistent and compelling message about ACH. Currently, the organization does not have a dedicated marketing team member. By following the proposed promotion mix that includes strategies for personal selling, direct marketing, advertising, sales promotion, publicity and events and word-of-mouth, ACH can improve the expansion of their vision and mission to both clients and contributors.
Through the implementation of an MIMIC strategy, ACH will be able to more clearly convey to the Orange County communities their message of “providing homeless single women and mothers with hillier a safe home and nurturing environment where they obtain the support and services needed to achieve independence and self sufficiency’ (wrong-headedness’s. Org). 1 .
Client Currently, ACH has reached a position where they lack the capacity to service all clients in need. In 2007, over 2,000 women called in requesting services provided by unfortunate situation where contributed amounts and support provided by government funding and organizations are not sufficient in fully supporting Koch’s operation. Due to the current situation where demand is exceeding the supply, a demarcating strategy is necessary for Koch’s clients.
This does not mean avoiding the homelessness issue among mothers and their children in the Orange County region is the solution, but merely limiting the organization’s marketing strategy to a “reminding” status will serve as a temporary fix and help to limit the demand for the organization’s service. Once the marketing strategy is fully implemented and underway for the contributor segment, ACH can then refocus marketing efforts on the client segment. 2. Contributor ACH is in a current situation where funding is insufficient in supporting the organization’s potential service opportunity.
The MIMIC marketing efforts need to be soused on the contributor segment, primarily individual contributors rather than government and grant support organizations. The reason for this is the opportunity for government support is decreasing and such organizations from which ACH primarily relies its support are experiencing major cutbacks. In addition, opportunities from grant organizations have been a major resource for ACH and are also becoming more difficult to obtain. ACH needs to focus its marketing strategy on individuals, businesses and organizations within the Orange County local communities.
The proposed MIMIC strategy will allow ACH to focus on the “informing” ND “persuading” stages of their promotion methods. The Orange County communities are highly unaware of the severity of the homelessness issue in local Southern California regions, which makes educating the communities and differentiating the ACH organization a high priority. B. Personal Selling In the case of ACH, personal selling can be used to inform others (I. E. Government entities, businesses, high-net worth donors) of its mission and to generate dollars through federally sponsored grants, local governments and individual donor contributions.
Informing others of Koch’s mission and goals through personal selling revised the following: a high degree of attention through one-to-one communication, the prompt answering of questions and the ability to convey need and value. ACH currently does not have a dedicated business development resource or team that is solely responsible for prospecting and qualifying potential donors or attending public meetings and events. Presently, personal selling is done through various members of its board of directors on an as-needed basis.
This group possesses the in-depth knowledge of their mission, history, target market and offered services for homeless mothers. Currently, the main source of funds for ACH comes in he form of grant money from the government agency, Housing and Urban Development (HAD). In order to further grow the individual donations segment, additional individuals and businesses will need to be contacted. In order to accomplish this task, a qualified prospect list will be needed. 1. Prospecting and Qualifying A qualified prospect list is a list of people who may be willing to donate to ACH.
Developing such a list can be done through search and information gathering on the Internet at zero cost to ACH. Cold calling individuals and businesses within the local businesses and individuals that have donated in the past can be accomplished wrought a search of local city websites. This information costs nothing to access and provides great leads. Gathering brochures from local community events can also provide great leads for future leads because this type of media typically includes a list of corporate and personal sponsors.
Once a prospect list has been developed, this list of potential targets should be split up into groups onto a spreadsheet. Common group names for these contacts include: individuals, small businesses, large businesses, local government and federal contacts. Each group should have a unique set of attributes associated with it. Common attributes shared among all groups include contact name, phone number, email address and best time to call. This list should be sorted in descending order with the highest potential donor dollars and/or importance at the top.
It is at this point where research should be done on the individual or entity to learn as much as possible. This information can be used in the development of a specific strategy, if necessary, for the personal selling process for this particular contributor. 2. Pre-approach During the pre-approach stage, the goal of sales is to learn as much as possible about the prospect. The Internet is a great, cost-effective tool which can be leveraged when performing research on individuals and businesses.
The results of such research can be used in the development of a specific strategy for a particular customer, where certain needs and desires are targeted over others. At this time, determining whether the potential donor is contacted via phone or in-person should be decided. Generally, the size of the donation being elicited will dictate the method of contact. In-person meetings are ideal for large donations greater than $1,000 and phone calls are suitable for anything lower. 3.
Approach Koch’s sales approach towards individual donors should focus on listening to potential donors and determining their needs, rather than delivering a sales pitch. Once the potential donor’s needs are understood, it is imperative for ACH to then demonstrate how the donor’s support will help to achieve Koch’s goals and to emphasize the organization’s core values and offered benefits. Typically when dealing with non-profits, individuals are concerned with the honesty and integrity of the non-profit enterprise and need to see that the organization uses the majority of its dollars for its proposed core cause.
By providing information specific to ACH, the customer can read more on Koch’s alumni, the positive impact their shelters have had on local communities and accounting records which explain in detail where dollars are allocated. Emphasizing the high quality of work and services provided can be done by providing specific links to www. Wholeheartedness’s. Org. 4. Presentation and Demonstration For federal grants, it is recommended that ACH establish contact with the designated contact person for new and existing grant programs, in order to maintain some type of awareness at that particular agency.
Many of the stages of personal selling do not apply when dealing with grant approvals because they are submitted in writing and approved by an individual or committee within the federal government. Due to the complex nature of grants, a member of the board of directors should be assigned the communication responsibility. This will prevent any miscommunication or grants. When participating in public speeches and events where community stakeholders and local government officials are present, personal selling needs to be aggressively pursued.
The story of ACH needs to be conveyed along with its goals, deeds and values. Personal sellers during these events will most likely run into objections and psychological resistance. Such objections need to be overcome in a positive manner where the salesperson proposes questions that will allow the potential donor to answer his or her own answer. When making the initial contact with individuals and potential contributors, the salesperson must secure the potential donor’s attention, elicit interest, generate desire and garner some type of action from the potential donor.
For phone calls, securing attention will be more difficult in comparison to an in-person conversation. Depending upon the background of the individual or business, generating desire will vary depending on whether the individual has a past track record of donating or not, and taken actions will vary among potential donors. The generating attention, interest, desire and action steps all need to be followed when selling to potential donors. 5. Overcoming Objections Due to the nature of personal selling, potential donors have the ability to object certain statements from a salesperson.
Koch’s sales team must be able to successfully overcome these objections and barriers by questioning the person in a ay that will require him or her to answer their own objection. Each member of the sales team must be a skilled negotiator and possess the ability to overcome objections. A list of the top ten objections can be compiled and distributed throughout the sales team with a scripted answer that fully handles this objection in a positive manner. This list should also be kept as a resource for those attempting personal sales calls over the telephone. 6. Closing Closing is critical in the personal selling process.
In the case of ACH, closing means that a person or business has made a commitment. Such commitment can come in he form of a donation, a meeting at a later date, accepting information on women’s homelessness in Orange County or agreeing to a future meeting that could possibly lead too donation. 7. Follow-up For individuals, and particularly high-net individuals, keeping a record of previous calls and a list of things last talked about is useful. This information can be referred back to, by the caller, when speaking with the potential donor and will assist in establishing a positive rapport with the caller.
Not only will the potential donor maintain ACH in a good light, but this will also increase the chances for a donation ointment. Calls to individuals should be infrequent and occur every six months at the most, in order to prevent potential donors from getting annoyed or disenfranchised with the idea of donating to non-profits. The personal selling strategy will differ from target customer to target customer. The same strategy should not be used for every contact; otherwise, this could lead to potentially adverse effects.
If utilized properly, the personal selling strategy can produce awesome results. 8. Sales Management Sales management should be centered on continuously growing a high-quality respect list and ensuring the sales team is regularly adding to the bottom line of is most effective when used to generate local buzz throughout the local community. Members responsible for personal selling need to motivate themselves and infuse their work with passion for supporting more women, building new shelters and indirectly bettering the lives of their children.
Since there is no available compensation for top sales performers, ACH can use other methods of sales incentive. For instance, ACH can dedicate a wall within the office of its daily operations where it can list each sales member and the total amount of donations elicited for the current month. At the end of each month, the top selling sales member can earn non-material based prizes, such as funny Job titles and having a specially decorated cubicle. C. Direct Marketing For ACH, direct marketing refers to direct communication with carefully targeted individual contributors to obtain an immediate response.
Different from general marketing, direct marketing refers to selling via direct contact with the prospective contributors with the use of marketing middlemen. Direct marketing largely depends on the use of customer databases, which makes it a more personal type of promotion n comparison to general advertising. Direct marketing often carefully selects the targeted individuals who will receive promotional efforts. If successful, these targeted individuals will provide a direct response to the promotion, in the form of a donation or referral.
By developing a history of offers and responses, direct marketers acquire knowledge of their prospects and customers, resulting in more effective targeting. Direct marketing is usually associated with mail order, but it also includes a variety of promotional media such as face-to-face selling, catalog arresting, telemarketing, direct-response television marketing, kiosk marketing and on-line marketing. For ACH, the direct marketing focus is to generate more donations from individuals, businesses and other interest groups to better serve the homeless women and children in Orange County.
Due to Koch’s limited marketing budget, the organization has not had the opportunity to fully implement a direct marketing promotion, though in the future, the right amount of publicity and promotion will be necessary. In order for ACH to assist all clients in need of service, ACH can plan to increase its promotion budget and draw in the attention of more donors and contributors. 1. Direct-Mail Marketing Direct-mail marketing involves sending an offer, announcement, reminder or other item to an individual. It is a very popular marketing tool because it permits target market selectivity and can be personalized.
Although the cost per thousand people reached is higher in comparison to mass media, the individuals reached through direct-mail marketing can prove to be more targeted prospects. With regard to cost effectiveness, ACH can eliminate additional direct-mail marketing costs by identifying he characteristics of prospects that are most able, willing and ready to donate and contribute. Prospects most likely to donate can be identified through the historical data in donation lists. Those individuals that have donated in the past are more likely to continue to give back to the community and donate again in the future.
Prospects can also be identified by various demographics and on the basis of such variables as age, sex, income, education and previous mail-order purchases. As for ACH, special interest groups provide a good point for segmentation. Those more receptive audience. Obtaining mailing lists from other non-profit organization or collecting information at non-profit events, are great methods of building up an effective target mailing list. Slimming down the target list of prospective contributors will assist in keeping the cost of direct-mail marketing low.
After successfully establishing a targeted mailing list, the next step is to define the specific factors of the mailing itself. Direct-mail marketing efforts should always include a call to action, where potential contributors can easily access and contact ACH. Featuring a toll-free umber and website URL will take care of any further questions and suggestions. Donation reply forms can be included in the mail, along with a postage-free reply envelope. Providing a convenient donating process will help increase the response rate of the direct-mail marketing effort. 2.
Catalog Marketing Catalog marketing requires companies to send full-line merchandise catalogs, specialty consumer catalogs and business catalogs. Facts tell us that catalog marketing is a very successful marketing tool – 71% of Americans shop from home using catalogs by phone, mail or through the Internet. Many businesses find catalog arresting to be a very effective way to introduce to their prospects and customers the products and services provided. ACH can use catalog marketing as a way to educate the Orange County local communities about the issues of homelessness and also to introduce the organization itself.
Catalog marketing can prove to be an effective, yet expensive tool, which may mean ACH can utilize this method in the future when printing and mailing costs can be more appropriately factored into the marketing budget. 3. Telemarketing Telemarketing allows companies to take new orders, maintain current customer legislations, generate and qualify new prospects and provide customer services. Compared to mail order, telephone-based ordering has the advantage of being more personal and interactive. It is an effective two-way communication medium that enables company representatives to listen to customers.
Telephone conversations allow representatives the opportunity for up- and cross-selling. For instance, in a selling situation, while customers are on the phone, it is more likely to increase the size of their purchase or introduce them to other products available by offering them additional choices right then and there. ACH can develop a telemarketing system by starting with a toll-free number. With a toll-free number provided to the general public, ACH may experience a substantial increase in number of incoming calls from possible prospects.
When prospects are first introduced to ACH and want to know more about the organization, the toll-free number will be provided them with an incentive to explore the organization. When the volume of incoming calls increases, the organization has a much better chance to sell itself to the public and to receive additional contributions. The challenge in telemarketing lies in the ability and effectiveness of the telemarketers. If financially feasible, ACH may carefully select and hire their telemarketers and provide quality training and performance incentives.
ACH can also use phone calls as an outbound telemarketing tool, where the focus should be placed on the business contributor segment due to the high cost of hiring and maintaining telemarketers. Ideally, talented volunteer telemarketers would be given performance incentives to make outbound calls to local businesses. Different from general television commercials, direct-response television marketing includes 30- to 60-minute infomercials which attempt to combine the sell of immemorial and the draw of educational information and entertainment.
Advocates of this format point out the advertisements greater in length give the advertiser the opportunity to build a relationship with the viewer and enables the advertiser to overcome any initial viewer skepticism. Longer advertisements accomplish this while presenting a convincing story, which spells out specific product features and benefits in detail. Infomercials are very costly and are mostly used to sell products that are complicated, technologically advanced or simply require a great deal of explanation.
Due the sky-high cost associated with direct-response television marketing, it is not recommended ACH adopts this type of advertising tool during the initial stages of the MIMIC marketing launch. 5. Kiosk Marketing In direct marketing, a transaction may take place at any location and is not limited to storefronts or fixed places of business. The transaction may take place in the consumer’s home or office via mail, over the phone, on the Internet or through interactive television. It may also occur away from the home or office, at a kiosk, for example. A kiosk is a small building or structure that might house a selling or information unit.
ACH can utilize such a tool during special events or at specific locations, while avoiding the high costs associated with permanent structures and buildings. 6. Online Marketing The growth of technology, especially computer-based technology, has also played an important role in direct marketing. A fully functioning website is critical for ACH and serves as a great way to reach the public in a broad and fast way. Although ACH currently has an existing website which provides general information to the public, the website can benefit from additional attraction and increased interaction with web rowers and prospects.
In order to increase the number of public visits, ACH should set up an affiliate program with other similar non-profit organizations in the Orange County area. Link building is a great online tool to use, where websites of all affiliate program members’ websites provide reciprocal links to each other, and all members end up with a version of free advertising and increased targeted traffic. For instance, when a browser visits one of the affiliates website, the browser can easily find a list of links to other non-profit organizations in the area, which of course will include Koch’s URL.
Other great ideas for online promotion include search- related ads and sponsorships from sponsors’ websites. If a web viewer wishes to donate to the organization, Koch’s site should provide easy and instant access to a contribution or donating method. Currently, ACH accepts donation by mail, phone or directly by the headquarters located in Huntington Beach. In today’s Internet- dependent world, the current donation process may seem inconvenient and may drive away many potential prospects who are willing to donate, but unwilling to spend the extra time and energy to do so.
Therefore, an easy online donation service s needed urgently. People should be able to donate to ACH immediately when visiting the site by way of credit card, bank account or Papal, so long as the method of transaction is secure. Providing recognition to contributors will encourage future donations. It is important to establish an entry list for all donations received, every single individual helps and supports ACH and also provides the public with a clear view and understanding of the funding trends. The current ACH website can improve its attractiveness for first-time viewers in order to entice visitors to repeat their visits.
Uploading success stories and videos is a very effective way to develop links and increase traffic generation. Also, by consistently updating the site with news, events and fresh content, the website will further encourage repeat visits. D. Advertising The advertising goal of ACH at this stage of its 10th year of operation is informative advertising. The social enterprise is at a point where creating brand awareness and knowledge of services offered is a key component of obtaining support from the local community and contributors.
The current situation presents a circumstance where local communities in Orange County lack much needed education on the homelessness issue. Not only does the local public lack awareness of the problem in local communities, but the situation is exacerbated by a “not is my backyard” (NIMBI) sentiment, where local communities that are aware of the severity of the homelessness situation, do not want to partake in resolving the problem if it means having shelter sites developed within their own communities.
It is important for ACH to send out an informative and educational message. Published success stories along with the support of the local community can serve as an instigator to achieving an increase in contributions. 1. Plan: Media Types There are many media types available in the Orange County area which would benefit ACH.
Newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, outdoor advertising, Yellow Pages, newsletters, brochures, telephone and Internet are all media types available to the organization to utilize in order to attract contributors, both individual and organizational. ACH can gain much exposure through local advertising and has the opportunity to effectively send out a strong message educating the general public and local communities on the issue of homelessness. The advantages and limitations on each media type are explained in the following comparative chart.