PLAN LOVING ADOPTIONS NOW

Marketing Planning

Marketing Planning Guide

Planning

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M A R K E T I N G A N D C O M M U N I C A T I O N S

Marketing Planning Guide

Plan Loving Adoptions Now McMinnville, OR

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Table of Contents

Introduction to Planning ___________________________________________________________ 1

Vision and Objectives ______________________________________________________________2

Industry and Agency Critical Success Factors __________________________________________3

Information Analysis ___________________________________________________________________ 4

Defining Agency Marketing Processes ________________________________________________5 Agency Marketing Processes ______________________________________________________________________ 6

Prioritize the Marketing Processes ________________________________________________________ 6

Performance of Marketing Processes _________________________________________________7

Defining how the Marketing Processes Work _______________________________________________ 8

Defining how the Marketing Process Should Work ___________________________________________ 8

Opportunity Mapping Marketing Processes __________________________________________ 10

Implementation Plan _____________________________________________________________ 12

Marketing Process Log ____________________________________________________________ 13

1

Introduction to Planning

This planning process includes the development of our vision and objectives for the Agency to set the direction of the rest of the process. It then addresses critical success factors for the Agency and opportunities for action. Once we have defined the opportunities, we will formulate strategies and tactics to achieve our vision and objectives.

here are several concepts that should be helpful as we go through this planning process. As we look at our critical success factors in step 2, it may be helpful to break them into the three values we can deliver to our customers; Operational Excellence, Customer Intimacy, and Product

Leadership. This will help us keep track of the factors that will lead to our successful implementation of the plan and help us make sure we do not miss critical factors. The ability to excel in these values determines how well we can meet or exceed our customer expectations and fulfill our vision and objectives.

Example: A look at each value

Operational Excellence: This means the ability to perform operationally better than the competition. An example of this would be Wal-Mart. They are able to deliver to the market products at a lower cost than their competition.

Customer Intimacy: This means the ability to treat the customer better than the competition. An example of this would be L.L. Bean or Nordstrom. They treat the customer better than their competition.

Product leadership: This means making sure our product is at the forefront of the market at all times. An example of this would be Nike. They actively try to outdate their products with new products before the competition does so.

Marketing processes are going to be defined. In so doing we will be able to focus in on the areas of opportunity where we can get the most mileage as an organization.

When we have vision, objectives, and opportunities defined, we will then develop strategies and tactics to fulfill the above. When we get to the strategic and tactical levels of planning, this should feel quite similar to the planning steps used in the past. The only difference is that we should have a better idea of the impact on the Agency each strategy and tactic will have.

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Vision and Objectives

This step is done initially by the management team. We will meet and work through the definition of the vision and objectives we want to communicate to our teams then work

e first will define what we want the result of the year to look like. What is the message we want to communicate to our customers? What picture do we want to paint for them? We need to then define the objectives we wish to achieve in 1998 through the achievement of the plan.

Example: We are viewed by our customers as a responsive and caring partner in their quest for adding a child to their family.

Consistent message to our customers

Well orchestrated marketing plan with all components working in harmony

Operational excellence: be able to deliver what we promise and deliver more effectively and more efficiently than anyone else in market

Customer Intimacy: Provide better customer relations than anyone else in the market.

Product Leadership: Deliver a better quality service than anyone else in the market.

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Industry and Agency

Critical Success Factors

This step is initially done by the management team for the Agency and then by the team members. "It is 2 years from now. The industry and the Agency is successfully expanding and meeting the challenges of a changing marketplace. As we look back, what specifically has the industry and the Agency done to insure this success?"

We are going to use an affinity exercise with each team to work through the definition of the CSF’s. This will entail each of us putting down on post-it notes every CSF’s we can think of. We will then put the post-it notes on a table and group into like ideas. We will then select the ones we feel are valid as a group.

e will do a separate exercise for the industry CSF’s and the Agency CSF’s. Once we have narrowed down the ideas into what we think is a workable list, we will go through a prioritization exercise to list in order of priority the CSF’s we feel will make the most impact on our success

and the success of the industry. .

Example:

We have, as a Agency done the following to exhibit the success we now enjoy.

Each person in Plan Loving Adoptions Now treat’s our customer like a partner, with true caring.

Each person promises only what he or she can deliver.

Each person insures that every customer understands fully what is to be delivered as a product, service or information both internally and externally.

We have fully leveraged our assets so that we receive the best return on our investments.

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We have researched our customers and markets and have adjusted our services and the information we deliver to our customers and markets.

We have, as an industry done the following to exhibit the success we now enjoy.

We have fully embraced the move to caring child placement. We have worked in partnership with other interests in the market insuring cooperation in creating solutions.

We have improved our responsiveness to our customers.

We have implemented computer and Internet technology to help improve access to our market and educate our market.

We have continued to improve our ability to deliver better quality services in a more efficient manor.

We are working with other agencies to share technology and information.

Information Analysis

After this exercise is completed for the Agency, we as a management team will reconvene and review the results of the exercises. We are going to review this information and review the objectives and vision we initially created and adjust if necessary our vision and objectives to come up with the final draft we can then communicate to our teams. The reason this is important, as we move into defining which marketing process we are going to invest resources into, we will want to make sure they are of the highest priority and we can prioritize once we have clear criteria for prioritization.

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Defining Agency

Marketing Processes

The management team will define the marketing processes for the Agency. For the sake of planning session, we will define a process as how we do what we do.

e will in a brainstorming session define as many marketing processes as we can. We will explore how we go about marketing in all facets of the agency. This will include everything from how we insure customers know what they are getting when they deliver seed to be processed to

how a checker handles a customer at the checkout stand. What do we go through in each process to deliver the value we view as critical to the success of the Agency? All marketing is communication based so many of the processes will involve communication.

Example:

Managing the expectations of adoptive families

Communication of services offered

Choosing events to participate in

Setting budgets for marketing expenditures

Resolving customer concerns

Providing counseling to adoptive families

Advertising

Collateral development

Creating strategic partnerships

Web Page development and enhancement

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Agency Marketing Processes

The output of the management team discussion is a list of marketing. Web page development would be an example of this as well as resolving customer concerns.

Prioritize the Marketing Processes

When we make decisions on the type of improvement we are going to make in marketing, we need to know what impact on our objectives that our efforts will make. With the management team will use the prioritization grid to prioritize the marketing processes. The first step is to take the set objectives for the Agency and weight them. We will do this as a management team. Then we will prioritize the marketing processes.

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Performance of

Marketing Processes

In this step we must define what the process looks like we are now using to deliver the marketing value defined and we then we will define how we believe the process should work. Each process will have a performance rating.

e will take each process and define how it now works. The management team will do the work to define. If we would like to distribute the work a bit more, we can assign different processes to be defined by individuals. At the same time, we will be also defining how we would really like to

have the process work if we could design it just as we wanted it. Once this is done for each process, we will have defined a performance gap between what we have and what we would like to have. The management team will analyze the Agency marketing processes and give each a performance rating on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the worst performance and 10 being the best performance.

The result of this will be each marketing process with a stated priority and a performance rating. On the Marketing Process Log attached at back, each process will be listed with priority and performance rating as well as a suggested improvement strategy. These would include control, streamlining, re-engineering or re-positioning.

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Defining how the Marketing Processes Work

The majority of our work will be invested here. We need to define how we do what we do to create and keep customers. The actions we take to create and keep customers are the marketing processes. The management team will define those processes that are Agency based. The result will be a list of processes with a statement as to how we do that process at this time.

Defining how the Marketing Process Should

Work

It is critical that we invest the time to define how we want to have our processes work. Only in this way will we actually get to where we want to go and know when we are off track so that we can take corrective action.

Example: Sales process at a retail checkout

1. Define the process as it now exists

Customer comes to checkout stand to purchase or ask questions. Checker processes items for purchase. If asked question, an attempt is made to find information in computer, calls for help, or says he or she does not know answer. Customer waits in line until answer if found or decides not to pursue item to purchase.

2. Define the process as we see it should be

Customer comes to checkout stand to purchase or ask questions. Checker processes items for purchase. Checker is trained in bulk and yard stock as a sales person. If asked a question on yard stock or bulk stock, he or she has book to look up answer or possesses knowledge to answer question. If it is a question for another department, he or she states that the department head is the specialist in that area and requests assistance. He or she asks customer to process transaction at the customer service desk with the department head and then handles the next transaction in the line keeping the wait low for everyone in line.

3. Rate our performance

In this case, I would give our checker sales process a rating of 4 out of 10 compared with how we would like it to operate. If we had defined a different desired process, this rating might change. This will be subjective, however, it should give us the rating we need.

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4. Define the type of change that is needed

The change that is necessary in this process goes beyond controlling or streamlining what is being done now, I believe that the change is more invasive and would probably fall into the category of re-engineering the process. It is important to understand what kind of change is necessary, as it will give us a good indication of the resources necessary to create the change.

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Opportunity Mapping

Marketing Processes

We are going to take the information logged onto the marketing Process Log and plot on an Opportunity Map. The marketing processes for the Agency will be done by the management team .

e will take each process and plot it on the opportunity map based on its performance and its priority. The reason we are doing this process is to be able to quickly see which marketing processes need the most work and

which will have the greatest impact on the improving our marketing Agency wide. When we map the processes we will be mapping processes that have been screened through the critical objectives of the Agency and compared with our best guess as to the best designed process. We will be able to quickly see where our energy must go.

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Opportunities Strengths

Who Cares? Nice to do

Performance

Opportunity Map

Value

P=1

S=8

P=2

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P=3

S=3

P=4

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P=7

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P=5

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P=6

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P=8

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P=9

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P=10

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P= Priority 1 through n

S= Strength 1 through 10

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Example: Retail checker sales process

We rated the retail checker sales process as a 4 for performance out of a possible score of 10.. Given this information, we can now place this process in the quadrant one position, which is important, but not performing well.; or in other words, an opportunity for major improvement.

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Implementation Plan

This is where the rubber meets the road so to speak. Our ability to implement is going to determine our success in the planning process. In this step, we will detail out strategies and tactics to help us meet or exceed our objectives and vision as well as make the improvements necessary to our marketing processes. This is a translation step. We need to be able to move to every person in the organization a clear definition of his or her role in fulfilling the plan.

his piece of the planning process is again going to be done by the management team. The allocation of resources is going to be an essential component of the implementation plan. Since we do not want to sub-optimize pieces of the Agency at the expense of others, we are going to

closely look at the resources we have available and make sure we have what we need to get done what we want to do. If we have limited resources, we will explore adding resources or rolling back our planned strategies. In conjunction with the exploration of resources, we will review timelines for implementation. The strategies and tactics will be closely reviewed to insure they are aligned with the vision and objectives of the Agency.

The last piece to the implementation process is to build in feedback loops so that we can monitor the success of the changes we are making.

Example: Strategy and tactics for checker sales process

1. To fulfill our vision and objectives for the Agency as a whole, we will implement the strategy of delighting the customer at the checkout stand.

2. We will re-engineer our checker sales process to bring into line with our newly defined process.

3. Tactics used will be a new product binder at the checkout stand, new procedures or handling customer transactions, an intensive training program, change the hiring practices to bring in higher quality people, change the position pay to reflect the need for higher quality people. We then will market to our customers the changes we have made and the benefits and attempt to bring them in to see the changes.

4. We will survey the customers regularly to see if we are on track with the changes and insure that the changes are making the impact we envision.

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Marketing Process Log

Use for all processes for the Agency as a whole

MARKETING PROCESS PRIORITY RATING TYPE IMPROVEMENT

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% impact on whole % % % % % % % % 100%

Value Targets, Critical Success

Factors, Strategic Initiatives,

Causes

List on the horizontal callouts, on the top, the criteria for selection and then rate each as a portion of 100%. Then list the processes

or solutions that you would like to evaluate on the left and compare with each of the criteria on the top and rank its impact on the

criteria with a scale of 1 to 5. Write that figure to the left of the hashed line in each column. Multiply each by the percentage on the

top of the column. Place that figure to the right of the hash line. Add the weighted totals on each line and place total in end column.

The lines with the highest totals are to be selected.

Prioritization GridP

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