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LONDON, UK
-RT MARKETING PLAN-
Year 2016
Mireia Munoz
2
Content
Introduction ................................................................................... 4
Situational Analysis ........................................................................... 4
Swot Analysis ............................................................................ 5
Pest Analysis ............................................................................. 6
Objectives ...................................................................................... 6
Target Market Segments ...................................................................... 7
Competitor Analysis .......................................................................... 10
Marketing Strategy ........................................................................... 12
Marketing Mix ................................................................................. 13
Product .................................................................................. 13
Price ...................................................................................... 15
Communication ......................................................................... 17
Promotion Product ..................................................................... 18
Distribution .............................................................................. 18
Implementation ......................................................................... 19
Conclusion ................................................................................... 20
Appendix ..................................................................................... 21
References ................................................................................... 45
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1. INTRODUCTION
This report wants to assess Charity Challenge’s position within the current market and
the ability of the organisation to meet their objectives together with designing a
marketing strategic plan to promote its position within the market while integrating
responsible community challenges into the company business goals.
2. SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
Charity Challenge is a privately owned tour operator based in London, UK. It was
established in 2000, and markets itself as a leading tour operator, running overseas
fundraising challenges for charity. Charity Challenge pride themselves in having helped
tens of thousands of individuals to achieve incredible personal goals, while raising in
excess of £47,000,000 for more than 1,700 worthwhile causes. The company claims to
have a wealth of experience in the charity sector, the adventure travel sector, working
with individuals, groups, corporate organisations, and have established an excellent
reputation for the quality of the tours that they operate.
The company have currently a portfolio of international challenges, in 23 countries
worldwide. Additionally, in 2015 they started operating running challenges in the UK
with 12 short itineraries.
They offer a portfolio of products mainly focused on trekking, cycling or physical activity
tours with an average duration of 8 days per tour. They are re-launching a new product
line titled Community Challenges. Charity Challenge started with this product line in
2006, and by 2008 it was responsible for generating a third of the company revenue
(Simon Albert, Charity Challenge Director). The target market was corporate customers
who were fundraising for a project with the aim of help on poverty alleviation. The
corporate customers were responsible for recruiting the specified amount of
participants needed to fund the project of a local NGO, in partnership with a UK NGO,
and providing the workforce needed for the development of the respective project.
When the economic crisis in 2008 started to impact the UK, funding cuts by the
corporate customers had a large detrimental effect to this product line and Charity
Challenge were forced to focus their effort on a second product line of overseas
trekking challenges. This enabled them to position Charity Challenge as the UK leader
tour operator in the charity challenge market at that point in time.
During the period of time that Charity Challenge was successfully operating the
community challenge product, they were awarded in the category of a Highly
Commended Company by the Queens Award in 2007. This was for sustainable
development and contribution to poverty reduction by their community challenge
product. Community challenges, were also highly commended at the Virgin Holidays
Responsible Tourism Awards in 2007 (Appendix 1).
Charity Challenge have a strong sense of CSR, and try to adopt sustainable business
practises in the destinations where they operate, following the UNEP guidelines of CSR
for tour operators (Xavier Font et la,2005).
4
Honesty, Integrity and Respect are three of the main values of Charity Challenge
(Appendix 2), and they promote this within their operations and company internal
policies and communications. The company converses their CSR aims through their
internal Responsible Tourism policy (Appendix 3) provided to the audience that visit
their website and the customers that book with them.
Charity Challenge shows a commitment with the communities they operate and pride
themselves to collaborate with local projects. They do this as an inclusion of their
products and it differentiates them from their direct competitors. Almost all of their
products involve a local project within their itineraries, such as including a meal in a
restaurant run by a local NGO which are training street youths enabling them to be
suitably trained and skilled in the hospitality sector or including visits to existing projects
from local NGO´s working in that area. Although this shows their commitment with their
company values, this could be a valuable selling point if more awareness was drawn to
this through their marketing strategy.
2.1. SWOT ANALYSIS
Community challenge product in general
Source: own creation
5
2.2. PEST ANALYSIS
Nepal Community challenge product
Source: own creation
3. OBJECTIVES
One of Charity Challenges’ Values is ‘Respect’, and this has been a key driver in the
company success since its foundation.
“RESPECT: We will ensure that all stakeholders are treated with respect. We will
ensure that our challenges are respectful of the local communities, the wildlife and the
environments where we operate. We recognise that everyone is different and has
different motivations for undertaking their challenge. We are considerate of those
around us and are tolerant of their views, opinions and choices” (Charity Challenge
mission and values, Appendix 2)
We must consider the company philosophy as the strongest driver for planning any
strategy or marketing plan. In line with this value, the primary aim of this marketing plan
is to contribute in poverty reduction, increasing social awareness and benefit for the
stakeholders involved in their product. Marketing the product to the desired target
market, creating positive awareness and communicating the progressive features and
impact of the product, in order to benefit the company with increasing the number of
bookings of Community Challenge’s. In addition improving the ability of Charity
Challenge to approach Responsible Tourism certification bodies, which will enable the
company to strengthen the brand reputation, within the market.
6
Below is a graphical summary of the aims and goals that will follow in the proposed
marketing strategy section of this report.
Source: own creation
4. TARGET MARKET SEGMENTS
Charity Challenge primary market are middle age, working class audience with the
common feature that all passengers travelling with the company have to fundraise for a
charity that they have a connection with, passionate about the work that the charities
does or that they are supporting for personal reasons (graphic 1).
Graphic 1
Source: Charity Challenge internal statistics.
7
For their Community Challenge product, it is evident that the current participant
audience is aligned with the rest of their challenges in respect of the age category.
Also, there is a higher level of engagement with the female audience for this product.
The main difference with the charity challenges product is the pricing structure. The
self-funding option decreases significantly in percentage for this product, due to the
target market focused on corporate customers, offering the challenge primarily as an
exclusive product and eliminating the self funder option to ensure that the project will
be receive the required amount of funds together with making it a responsible tourism
product (graphic 2).
Graphic 2
MS: Minimum Sponsorship. Passengers are obligated to fundraise a minimum target for a UK based charity. SF: Passenger self-funds their challenge.
Source: Charity Challenge internal statistics.
Due to the high value of the community challenge product and with taking into
consideration the factors of the average wage in the UK and unemployment rates being
significantly higher in the young population (Berry, Corder, and Duffy 2015), it is
evident that the target market audience will have to possess a certain level of financial
stability. Although the current target market for the community challenge product is the
corporate sector and this audience is providing good results, it will be important to
identify a new audience profile to market to in order expand this product and avoid a
relapse, if the corporate sector suffers another economic crisis. The below diagram
suggests some initial segments for Charity Challenge to take into account with
marketing this product more effectively and assist with identifying an appropriate
audience.
8
Market Segment
Source: own creation
Volunteerism has different approaches and motivations depending on the cultural
context and age range of the volunteer, Maškarin et la (2014).
Using demographics, personality, personal values as suggested by Wymer (1997,
2003) will enable Charity Challenge to identify homogeneous subgroups for targeted
marketing campaigns (graphic 3).
Graphic 3
9
Source: Sara Dolnicar and Melanie Randle. Table 4. Segment profiles- Socio demographic (Dolnicar and Randle, 2007)
From those segments Dolnicar et la (2007), identified that the profile of the
volunteerism market is predominantly female, married with no children, educated to a
secondary school or university level, employed and have a level of financial stability or
savings. This will be the strongest market audience for Charity Challenge to target
directly alongside the corporate sector with the community challenge product.
5. COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
The below table is an overview of Charity Challenge within the current market place.
The competitors listed here have been selected based on direct competitors with a
core product as charity challenges, having a similar company size, located in the same
region and as possible competitors in offering community challenges.
Table 1
Source: own creation
Table 2
Source: own creation
10
We can appreciate that Charity Challenge’s direct competitors in the market are
competing closely between themselves in regards of product (table 1), however one of
the main USP’s for Charity Challenge is aligned to their company ethics ‘Honesty’. This
is part of their pricing and external communications. They include all the air tax, meals
and program cost in their pricing structure hence alleviating any hidden costs being
charged later in the customer journey, which is a differentiator from their competitors
(table 2).
None of their direct competitors currently have community challenges with the same
characteristics of Charity Challenge community challenges in their product portfolio
(table 3). This provides Charity Challenge with a great opportunity of highlighting this
differentiation (Titens, 2014), through focused communications to their identified target
audience and should form a vital part of their marketing strategy.
Table 3
Source: own creation
Table 4
Source: own creation
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6. MARKETING STRATEGY
Based on the goals described in Section 3, we should focus on the creation of a
marketing strategy with a set of more specific goals that will help achieve the overall
company objectives.
Source: own creation
A key component for Charity Challenge to focus on is how they are different from the
rest of the volunteerism tour operators in the market and effectively using a sustainable
communication piece to their audience. In return this will make the customer aware of
the benefits of the product to them whilst addressing economic, social and
environmental issues (Belz and Peattie 2012). Elliot (2005) suggests that the customer
need to believe that the basic aspiration of a product corresponds with their own
values, needs evidence and lead by example. Charity Challenge should take all this
into consideration and ensure they clearly communicate their sustainable actions
together with providing evidence and leading by example at all stages of
communication. The recommended strategy is:
- Review the current RT policy available to their audience. Charity Challenge
should focus on the company RT actions that can be demonstrated, and where
they can provide examples for each of their actions. It´s important that the
company clearly communicates their leading RT actions and educates their
audience as an example opposed of giving customers a list of instructions while
they are on a challenge event.
Evidencing RT features from each challenge
12
Charity Challenge not viewed as giving participants a list of instructions to
abide by while in country, but softly educating them on how they can make a
difference with being a responsible traveller in that specific destination
Removing any possible “greenwashing” message identified in the RT policy
(appendix 4).
7. MARKETING MIX
7.1 Product
Community Challenges product was created with the personal desire by Simon Albert
(Charity Challenge founder) of making a positive contribution to communities in
desperate need and contribute towards the first MDG’s and poverty reduction
(UNDP,2015). Instead of providing contributions through donations which would be a
short term commitment, Charity Challenge aspired to have a long term commitment
with the communities they support.
A diagram for the Community Challenge product.
Source: own creation
The community challenge product’s aim is putting the local community development at
the forefront for each project, alongside with providing inspiring and life-changing
opportunities for the participants that help develop and motivate individuals and teams.
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Although the profit generation is not the top goal for the company with this product, the
promotion of community challenges will generate an increase in revenue for Charity
Challenge reflecting that “tourism is business not charity” (Krippendorf, 1987, p.
20).The strategy recommended is the company increment bookings using their current
target market from their community challenges in the corporate sector, and to use
concentrated marketing and market segments, for a possible expansion to the open
market.
Due to the limitation of Charity Challenge’s marketing budget and the marketing
strategy for the product being undifferentiated to the rest of their product portfolio at
present, the lifecycle of the community challenge product needs rejuvenating and RT
features need to be used at this stage (Font, 2013/14).
Due to the nature of the community challenges, where the community concerned is at
the forefront of this product and leaving the rest of stakeholders at a secondary level,
this is adversely different to the rest of Charity Challenge’s products. Using Charity
Challenge USP’s with this new product in the market, this plan recommends:
The community challenges product should be completely differentiated to
the rest of products the company have, and communicated in a completely
different manner of their company products (Image 1)
Image 1
Source: Charity challenge website
Adding a specific tab and icon on the product main page to enhance
exposure of the challenge and enrich the user experience on the website
with clear navigation channels (image 2). Provide the target market with an
outline of the benefits to them such as the sustainability experience which
will help strengthen the brand and differentiate Charity Challenge from direct
competitors. Additional benefits such as the positive impact for the
community, the environment, and the long term benefits should also be
emphasised on the website and included in the company’s policies together
with measuring the long term benefits, achievement and impact of the
projects (“Voluntourism Guidelines | The International Ecotourism Society”
2016). Charity Challenge must ensure that clear communications are
consistently maintained to their audience throughout their customer journey
and include the long term goals of the project and sustainability measures,
for instance, once the school has been built, who will maintain it?
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Image 2
Source: Charity challenge website
We also recommend creating an additional tab on the current website as to
the reasons of why to take part plus the inclusion of extra areas which
benefit the respective projects and communities (i.e. extensions, extra
activities...). This will add value to the product, revenue and will contribute to
balance the environmental impact made for the carbon emissions generated
with short itineraries to a long haul destination.
7.2. Price
As mentioned earlier in this report, Charity Challenge offers different payment options
for their products. Due of the nature of this product and aligning it with their corporate
value of honesty and respect, the below strategy is proposed:
The communication of the breakdown for the cost of this product should be
made very clear to the consumer. That way the customer will know how
much of their fundraising target will go towards the cost of their challenge,
and how much will go directly to the project in destination (table 5, image 3).
This will also assist with Charity Challenge meeting their value of being
‘Honest’ with being financially transparent towards the projects they support.
Table 5
Source: own creation
15
Image 3
Source: Charity challenge website
The price should reflect the value for money of the services the customer
will be receive for booking with Charity Challenge throughout the whole
customer journey ie, before they go, during their challenge and on their
return. Adding value to the product through the specific inclusions and not a
generic ones (image 4).
Image 4
Source: Charity challenge website
Offering promotional discounts for Community Challenges is not
recommended as a marketing strategy, since the main aim of this product is
to achieve a set amount of funds for a community project which is the
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primary goal of this challenge. If Charity Challenge wish to promote the
product to reach target numbers, they should clearly outline to the consumer
that the cost of the promotion is being paid by Charity Challenge and it will
not impact in monies for the respective project. This way the company will
avoid putting their reputation in risk of not being aligned with the product
goals.
7.3 Communication
Once the clear message of the project and it’s respective RT features has been
communicated during all the stages of the booking process, the company have the
material to promote their product with online and off-line platforms, as well as using
interactive tools to engage the customers in promoting the product, through their own
experience on the projects they are supporting. The marketing communication should:
Use messages that clearly communicate what the participant can expect to
gain with regards to the experience and perspective alongside the impact of
the volunteerism project.
Avoid all forms of poverty marketing either visual through videos, pictures or
in writing.
Below are some recommendations to enhance the communication process which will
assist with Charity Challenge achieving their objectives.
The creation of a # tag in the community section of the website which will be
used throughout all social media platforms to build momentum & trends,
campaign awareness and create the feeling of empowering people to be
part of an ethical movement #communitychallengewarriors (image 5):
The voice of past community challenges including images and direct quotes
from these people to make it more personal and authentic
Videos section (with visual material of the activities during the volunteering
experience)
Stories from the field (local staff updates, local community stories...)
Blog post link section
Image 5
Source: Charity challenge website
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7.4 Promotion
Using the company social media channels to expand the community
challenge products knowledge and experiences to a wider target market
(image 6).
Creative ideas of promoting early bookings without using discounts. As an
example: “Book your challenge before the 20th April and receive a
handmade leather bracelet made by the association (x) from the community
you will be supporting in Zambia”
Image 6
Source: Charity challenge facebook page and website
Manage and create the full life-cycle of smart, compelling, targeted
customer journeys related to marketing automation for both B2B and
B2C campaigns.
7.5 Distribution
For the distribution of the community challenge products, the company is currently
executing direct marketing campaigns for B2B recruitment in the corporate sector
though they are undertaking some indirect campaigns for B2C marketing. The B2B
distribution channel is providing positive results for the product, therefore a continuity of
growing this database of corporate accounts is highly recommended. In addition we
recommend to increase the B2C marketing distribution channel to build the database
and subsequent growth of this product.
Distribution channels
Direct Customer (B&C) Brochure Website Social media (facebook, twitter, linkdin, instagram,Youtube, blog) E-newsletter
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Indirect customer (B&B)
Public Relations companies Partner charities HR companies Corporate partners Learning and development companies Referrals
7.5 Implementation
Time frame Action Resources Budget
1 month Identification of communication issues (Website, customer facing documents, social media channels
1. All members of staff log into the RT spreadsheet any issues they might see. 2. RT manager to review RT policy
£0
3 months Re-write RT policy and remove all the communication issues found
1. RT manager £150
6 months Creation of communication material for Community challenges
1. RT manager 2. Marketing 3. Sales
£200
6 months Analyzed possible IT website development
1. Marketing
6 months Created the "community warriors" community at the main media channels
1. Marketing and RT manager
£500
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12 months IT website development to add the extra tab for "why to take part"
1. IT 2. Finances
£1500
12 months Recruiting a marketing assistant to help review the content for social media and produce brochures
1. HR 2. Marketing
£1.000
8. CONCLUSION
Charity Challenge presents a big opportunity of achieving the company goals through
their product community challenges without an ambitious or expensive marketing plan,
but based on a realistic and correct usage of their available tools and resources.
This report has presented a marketing plan prepared with a dosage of realism,
structure and converting the weakness the actual product has into a positive guidance.
By following this plan Charity Challenge will be in a position of being consolidated in
the market with an strong and exclusive product line in their market, the continuity of
building up loyal customers and staff, the opportunity of expanding the business to a
wider audience through an improved service, and the reduction of the company legal
liability (graphic 4).
Graphic 4
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