SacProNet

1. Developing a Marketing Plan Tuesday March 4, 2014 SacProNet

2. Elements of a Marketing Plan • Mission, reason for organizations existence • What makes us unique among peers • Types of Customers • Peer Group • What value do our customers gain from our services • Triggers – trigger points that get action • Marketing Tools • Media used to promote SacProNet. • Marketing Materials • On line Marketing Strategy

3. Value • “A personal action plan should have both a goal and a timetable. For most people the goal is getting a better job, perhaps at higher income or in a more interesting field, but within a specific time frame.” • “Without a marketing plan you can spend a lot of energy on a series of haphazard actions, trusting to fate that you’ll get the results you want. Planning, on the other hand, brings focus to your efforts and gives you the confidence that comes from knowing what to do, why, and how.”

4. Mission, reason for existence • Mission Statement. • The mission of Sacramento Professional Network is to support professionals seeking employment through education, career development, and networking. • Reason for existence • Provides a service to the unemployed or under employed to improve their abilities in their job search. • SacProNet contributes over $1,300,000 a year to the Sacramento community and saves the State over $400,000 a year in unemployment benefits. This service is provided at no cost to the community.

5. What makes SacProNet unique • Free training and mentoring. Open to the public. • Full day Orientation for new members monthly. This brings a new member up to date quickly. • SacProNet has been in existence for over 20 years. • Web site for content and where members can communicate with each other. • SacProNet conducts free resume reviews at local job fairs for attendees. • Partners with libraries offering Linkedin and Orientations to the public.

6. Target Customers • Potential members. Professionals and college graduates that are either unemployed or under employed and searching for jobs. • Employers and recruiters. • Speakers. • Officials, Media, and Associations. Chambers of Commerce, job coaches, career centers, media, libraries, business and professional associations, government offices an officials, and job fairs.

7. Peer Group • Peer Group. • Professional job search organizations, • Bay Side Church, Job Seekers of America, Professional Edge. • Experience Unlimited Organizations • Out placement firms, Lee Hecht Harrison, Wilcox Miller & Nelson.

8. What's important to our customers • Finding employment opportunities for our members. • Finding candidates for our employers and recruiters. • Keeping members up to date with the best practices in job search techniques. • Keeping members motivated and energized in their job search activities through networking, mentoring, and support. • Keeping members accountable and responsible for job search goals and objectives.

9. Triggers • What will trigger customers to think of SacProNet? • Members. Training, mentoring, and motivation. • Employers/recruiters. • Needing resources, • Laying off staff that need outplacement type training. • Media. Content about job search practices. • Officials. Press on jobs and getting people back to work. • Career Centers / Libraries. Requests for training programs for their customers.

10. Marketing Tools • Website. Home page promoting events and new content. • Blogs. Promoting advice from expertise and specialists. • Speakers and sponsors. • Networking at events. • Press releases. • Social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. • Job Fairs. Promote SacProNet and our events.

11. Media used to promote SPN • Sac Bee. Used to promote all events. • Local newspapers. We need to broadcast all of our events to local papers. • Website. On line searches from people looking for networking. • Linkedin. Most of our past attendance at Orientation has come from Sac Bee advertisements.

12. Marketing Materials • Materials used to promote SPN to current and prospective customers. • SacProNet Brochure. Directed to all types of customers explaining who and what is SacProNet. • Orientation Brochure. Directed toward new members with the next available date. • Linkedin Brochure. Directed toward members and new members with the next available opportunity.

13. On line Marketing Strategy • Keyword Strategy. Identify keywords that attracts our different customer types to optimize our website. • Search Engine Optimization Strategy. Strategies and updates to make to website so it shows up more prominently for top keywords. • Social Media Strategy. How to use social media to attract customer types. • Facebook • Twitter • Linkedin

14. Job Search Clubs • Bay Side Church – Job One, Professional Edge, Job Seekers of America. • Experience Unlimited Chapters in California. • Wilcox Miller & Nelson, • We have been invited to WM&N events. Some of our members have spoken at their events. Need to follow up and make sure we add their events to our calendar. Might add another email client to your account for employers broadcasting events and/or job opportunities.

15. Employers/Recruiters • Employers can join our web site but we are not keeping our resumes updated. • We need to be able to match our members to their job opportunities. • One of our highest rated meetings was when Volt brought 3 of their recruiters for a panel discussion on job market by job classification and what Volt was looking for in a job candidate.

16. Chambers of Commerce • Sacramento Metro Chamber is not being used by our members. • Local chambers such as Roseville, Folsom, Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, Natomas, Sacramento, and others need to be approached. • We need to present a Letter of Introduction to these Chambers for approval. Once approved we can speak to their members at their events about our organization. This will get our name out to the local employers. We need to handout our brochures.

17. Career Centers / Libraries • We need to re-establish our connection with these centers. In the past they were a source of new members and informed us of events that were in our interest. • We need list of the existing career centers after they were down sized. From 9 to 6 centers. • Check if we can send electronically our events to them for distribution. • We need brochures in all libraries and career centers.

18. Media • Our goal is to have all of our meetings and workshops posted in print. • We need to send our events on line and have them posted in newspapers throughout the region.

19. Job Fairs • The Resume Committee conducts free resume reviews at job fairs. We are currently handing out the SacProNet Colored Brochure, Orientation Brochure, and the Linkedin Brochure to every one whose resume we review. • We need to seek speakers among the employers and recruiters at these events. • The 2 big job fairs that we do are the Job Journal and Mellissa Washingtons Job Fair.

20. Government Officials • We need to get recognized among the politicians in the community. They are the people that can best promote and help us. • We need to define a marketing campaign targeted toward the State and County political Communities.

21. Blog Content • We need to promote more blogging. We need to be more consistent about doing it. • We need to develop topics and subjects to write about. • We could blog about weekly meetings or various activities that we conduct such as Orientation and Linkedin Sessions. • We currently write up our metrics and observations at each job fairs. This would be good article for a blog. • We need to develop key words that attract readers as well as help with search optimization.

22. Social Media • Linkedin. Currently we are maintaining our Linkedin Group. All events are being published to the group. • Twitter and Face Book. We need someone to administer and maintain these groups.

23. SacProNet Web site • Our web site has high activity and usually our group is displayed on the first pages for Google searches. Using keywords: • Networking, Sacramento Networks, • We need to define terms that relate to our business and ensure we include these key words in our content. • Check Sacramento Speakers Network for speakers.

24. Marketing Plan • Get info out about our events. Develop a data base of local newspapers and magazines with email addresses and broadcast our activities, meetings, orientations, and other training sessions. • Drop off SacProNet introduction letters and brochures to local chambers and schedule speaking dates. Develop listing of chambers addresses, telephone numbers, key stakeholders, and email addresses.

25. Strengths • SacProNet’s best practices have been identified as web presence, committee structure and orientation training. • SacProNet ranks high in best practices as compared to its peers, the CA EU Chapters and other job search groups. • SacProNet's orientation is a full day of training that immediately gives new members resources to improve their job search and the opportunity to contribute to SacProNet.

26. Weaknesses • Employer/recruiter participation. • Succession planning. Maintained for our high turn over rate. • Need champion to promote SacProNet. • Holding members accountable for their job search activities. • Video Presentations. • Maintaining quality training and leadership. • Retention of new members. High drop out rate. • Tracking member's job positions they seek.

27. Opportunities • Develop outreachprograms. • Chambers of Commerce, SARTA, CEA, Career One Stops, Bay Side Job One, Professional Associations, papers and magazines. • Optimize web site's home and landing pages. • Develop blogging about experiences and best practices. • Market brand to the community and to our peer group. • Web Analytics shows that majority of hits are from Sacramento.

28. Threats • Not meeting members needs. • Increasing number of job search groups. • Session planning must be made a central focus of each committee. • Quality of training and orientation must be maintained. • Complacency of an all volunteer group. • High turnover and low retention rates.

29. The End