Creating a marketing plan

1. Creating a marketing plan FOLIO: Maximising the Impact of Your Service Course Andrew Booth

2. Marketing is not a function, it is a whole business seen from the customer's point of view"       - Peter Drucker

3. What is a marketing plan? • A Marketing Plan describes how an information service will promote itself and exploit identified opportunities. • A Marketing Plan usually addresses the entire marketing activities of the information service. However individual plans may be created for the launch of a new product or service.

4. Why plan marketing? • Effective marketing ensures that your services or products are in step with user needs within a changing environment. • You will need to monitor changes regularly and undertake activities in response to them.

5. Question One • Q. In addition to Your Services and Your Users’ Needs what else must you take into account when planning your marketing strategy? • HINT: Suppose Your Services and Your Users’ Needs remained constant what other factor could impact on demand for your services? • Note down your answer and then proceed to the next slide

6. Answer One. The External Environment • E.g. Your Users still need clinical information, Your Service still supplies this information. A new search engine WHOogle starts to offer this facility. The continued success of your service will now depend upon promoting some aspect of your service that is of added value over and above the WHOogle facility.

7. Start thinking “Marketing Plan” • Compare what management would like your information service to achieve three years from now with what it will actually be doing if nothing at all is changed. • In forecasting the “no change for my service scenario” you need to assume that the external environment will change e.g. competition, technology, availability of finance, labour performance, customer demand etc

8. Question Two • What do you consider to be the main changes that will take place in the external environment over the next three years that will impact upon your library? • Note down your answers and then proceed to the next slide

9. Answers Two • Here are some suggestions: • Personalisation • Miniaturisation & Portability • Digitisation • Integration with Electronic Health Care Records • Seamless delivery between Health and Social Care • Increasingly sophisticated consumer demand

10. Why is it important to have a marketing plan? • Marketing is expensive and resource intensive. Just because marketing planning takes time and effort doesn’t mean it is a waste of time. Time spent planning can be time and expense saved later. • In agreeing the issues and how they are to be resolved you gain momentum in moving forwards. By planning you avoid needless time firefighting. You can plan for contingencies. Success is more likely to occur where staff share a common vision and are dedicated to seeing it through. • The Marketing Plan must relate to the objectives and goals articulated in the organisation’s business plan.

11. Marketing plans and health libraries 3 Marketing and promotion The library and information service actively markets and promotes services to its clients. InterpretationThere is a marketing plan for the library which informs and alerts clients to the resources and services available. Promotional programs and materials are developed and disseminated and their impact is regularly evaluated. Guidelines for Australian Health Libraries http://www.alia.org.au/policies/health.libraries.html

12. Marketing plans and health libraries 3 Marketing and promotion Criteria3.1 There is a written marketing plan or schedule of presentations which is regularly reviewed and updated as required. 3.2 There are promotional materials and programs available which describe and promote resources and services. These may include, but are not limited to: • Newsletters • committee participation • electronic or other bulletin boards • library week/month celebrations • open houses • information booklets/brochures/pathfinders • presentations Guidelines for Australian Health Libraries http://www.alia.org.au/policies/health.libraries.html

13. Key areas in your marketing plan: • Aims - Aims are the key ingredient and hold the marketing plan together. What is your mission? • Analysis - Undertake a SWOT analysis to identify your service strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. • Goals – After identifying your overall mission goals build on strengths to take advantage of opportunities, while building up weaknesses and guarding against threats. • Strategies – Chosen strategies will depend on affordability and efficiency.

14. Key areas in your marketing plan: • Objectives - Objectives should be timely and indicate progress toward goals. • Timescales - Assign a timescale and responsibilities for the achievement of each goal. • Communicate - Organise the findings of your plan and ensure it is distributed throughout your service.

15. Four Steps towards creating a Marketing Plan • STEP 1 - What are you trying to achieve? • STEP 2 - What specific steps are you going to take? • STEP 3 - What is the timescale? • STEP 4 - How will you measure the outcomes? • We shall now go through these steps in turn 

16. STEP 1 - What are you trying to achieve? • In one page or less, list your information service's marketing goals for the coming year. • Make your goals realistic and measurable so that you can easily evaluate your performance. • "Increase book loans" is an ineffective goal. You will be better able to gauge your marketing progress with a goal such as, "Increase loans of books 1 percent in the first quarter, 1.5 percent in the second quarter, 1.5 percent in the third quarter and 1 percent in fourth quarter."

17. STEP 2 - What specific steps are you going to take? • Set Specific Measurable Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound (SMART) Objectives • STEP 2 makes up the largest part of your plan • Give an overview of your marketing strategies and list each of the corresponding tactics you'll employ to execute them. • Here's an example: You run a primary care current awareness service. Your goal might be to increase numbers of staff on the distribution list by 20 percent. Your strategies might include personally delivering a bookmark advertising the service to all members of a different GP practice every fortnight.

18. Question Three • How many different mechanisms can you think of to promote your information service? (e.g. posters) • Hint: Think of mechanisms that drug companies or other commercial organisations might use for marketing within a hospital or surgery.

19. Answers Three – Publicity mechanisms • Flyer Window posters Poster Prize draw Mega phone Stickers Signs (large) Hospital radio Hassling people Pay slips Intranet On lockers Email Bugs Newsletters Postcards Car stickers Hospital badges News Paper plates Post-it notes Loo roll Bookmarks Mouse mats Banners on roof Bags Videos Napkins in canteens Paper cups Coasters Banners Screen savers Pop-up messages Branding hospital trolleys/equipment Floor mats

20. And there’s more! • Door handles Open days Meetings Drop-in session Cut out librarian (talking) Mobile demo Courses Induction packs Gate-crashing meetings Billboards Quiz Cascade effect Invite important people Committees Education and training position Add to overdue letters, etc Plastic bags Cardboard theatre Stickers in BNF Stickers on all envelopes Chat rooms/discussion board on internet Stands at conference Press releases Presentations Faxes Journal club Roadshows Payslip note

21. Resource Break Take a look at the DLNet list of marketing approaches used for NeLH Awareness Week: http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/dlnet/activities/awintro.asp Which of these approaches would be most useful for your library or information service?

22. STEP 3 - What is the timescale? • You compile a time-specific action plan that includes all the deadlines and milestones you plan to take for advertising, media contacts, mailings, roadshows and special promotions. • E.g. 10th November - contact local newspapers with details of NLH Awareness Week. • Stick to your schedule and follow it through.

23. STEP 4 - How will you measure the outcomes? • Outputs measure effectiveness of the work done. Information services regularly measure outputs through routine data. How many extra loans did we have? How many new borrowers did we register? etcetera. It is thus relatively easy for those delivering a service to measure outputs.   • Measuring Outcomes, which in turn contribute to Impact, is what information service managers should seek to do.  

24. Measuring Outcomes • An information service will usually seek to measure the following ‘Outcomes’: • Did we create greater awareness (i.e. what new information was received)? • Did our audience comprehend what we were communicating (i.e. did their level of understanding increase from what it was before)? • Did we change attitudes (i.e. what do they believe and feel that they didn’t before we began communication)? • Did our target audience change their behaviour as a result of our communication (ie what did they actually do that was different from before)?

25. Now check your understanding • Successful marketing is based simply on a good understanding of your business TRUE/FALSE • It is not possible to develop a marketing plan for a single service or product TRUE/FALSE • “Increase uptake of training courses” is an effective marketing goal TRUE/FALSE • It is more important to measure outputs rather than outcomes TRUE/FALSE

26. Further Reading • Bangs, DH. (1998) The Market Planning Guide: Creating A Plan To Successfully Market Your Business, Product, Or Service. Dearborn Trade; 5th edition. • Cohen, W.A. (2001) The Marketing Plan. Wiley, 3rd edition. • Hiebing, R.G (1997). How To Write A Successful Marketing Plan : A Disciplined And Comprehensive Approach. McGraw-Hill, 3rd edition. • Nykiel, R.A. (2003). Marketing Your Business; a Guide to Developing a Strategic Marketing Plan. Best Business Books. • Westwood. (2002) The Marketing Plan; a Step-by-step Guide. Kogan Page, 3rd edition. • Wood, MD. (2003) The Marketing Plan; a Handbook. Prentice-Hall.