Marketing Report Gnn Has Several Objectives That

Marketing Report GNN has several objectives that need to be addressed in the immediate future if they wish to continue to have success. Some of their marketing is currently problematic, and they wish to: Increase their revenue by 7% in the next 12 months. Attract new and younger members (12-21 years) Make optimum use of both direct and internet marketing to drive on and offline marketing activities that will be used to achieve their first and second goals.

Reactivating members that have allowed their memberships to lapse and involving existing members in more activities and fund raisers are also important goals. For these purposes, the following direct marketing plan is suggested. First, one of the main considerations is retaining the customers that GNN already has. There are several ways that this can be done but one of the easiest is to insure that those customers know that they are valued and appreciated (Hoffman, 2004).

Direct marketing to these individuals who already belong to the organization with promotional deals, letters of thanks, and discounts or other gifts that can be offered on various goods and services in their immediate area will help to keep these individuals feeling good about their membership. GNN may be able to contract with companies in the area to provide some of these goods and services at a discount and therefore pass this savings on to the individuals that belong to the organization.

Naturally, not all individuals will take advantage of these types of offers and they will not be offers that everyone can use, but they will be another way of showing that GNN appreciates what many of these people are doing for it and recognizes these customers. These types of promotions and letters of thanks go only to individuals that already have memberships and it is also important to be careful when these things are delivered.

Customers and others that belong to organizations must not be inundated with direct mailing information or it will begin to make that individual feel that they would receive a lot less junk mail if they would simply stop belonging to a particular organization (Hoffman, 2004). This can actually drive customers away instead of keeping them and this is not something that GNN or any other company wishes to do, especially when that company relies on memberships and donations to continue operations.

By being careful and assuring that these direct marketing messages do not arrive too frequently, the idea of retaining customers in this way will be much more likely. It is also possible that some of these types of offers and marketing ideas can be sent to individuals that the company wishes to get help from or wishes to have belong to the organization.

Invitational letters can be sent to those that do not already have a membership, since GNN cannot afford television advertising to contact these people and ask for their support. Another strong concern for GNN is to create new communication that will appeal to the new target market, which is between 12 and 21 years old. One of the best ways to determine what will appeal to this target market is to do research into this age group (Fishman & Schwartz, 2000).

Likely, there has already been a great deal of advertising research done into this particular age group when dealing with various items. What GNN needs from these people is somewhat different than what many advertisers look for when they are selling goods and services, however, because GNN needs active participation and help from its members instead of simply trying to sell them something they can use.

It is for this reason that GNN should look at doing its own research into the target market and what type of needs and wants this particular market has as opposed to looking only at what has been done in the past. Once this has been done, a campaign can be developed that will look toward what will interest these individuals within this age bracket and cause them to want to be involved with GNN and what it does.

Naturally, GNN cannot expect to get everyone in this age group interested in what it is that they do and even many of those that become interested in the company will not be active participants. This is one of the most significant problems that GNN is facing right now, in that they have enough members, but they do not have enough members that are actively participating in what is going on with the company.

If they had active participation from all of their members they likely would not need to work so hard at a direct marketing campaign that will look for other individuals to help them out. As to this new target market, what should be developed should go off of what was discovered by researching this age group and determining what it is that they are interested in and what type of marketing fascinates them.

Until this is known based on studies that are conducted by GNN it is quite difficult to give specifics about what type of direct marketing would work the best. Once this has been determined, however, these types of direct marketing should be delivered right around the time that schooling will be getting out for vacation time.

This is due to the fact that many of these young people in this age bracket will still be in school and therefore they will be looking for something to do when they have vacation or holiday time. It is during this time that many of these individuals will be most vulnerable to joining a new organization or belonging to something that will provide them with something else to do while they are not in school.

This is the best time for GNN to market to individuals within this age group. When GNN conducts this research it might want to look to the type of target markets that it is considering. In other words, these younger members are important but there are likely other markets that GNN would like to get into and other individuals that they wish to contact.

Their characteristics have to be studied, and this includes not only the demographics of how old they are, what gender they are, and other specifics, but also the lifestyle that this target market leads. GNN, in needing active participation, would not want to look toward individuals that have a sedentary lifestyle and have no desire to change this. They would also be wise not to look at individuals that are already working 60 hours a week and have large families.

Much of this has to do with the fact that the sedentary individuals would not be interested in being active participants of GNN and the individuals who works such long hours and have large families to take care of would also likely not be interested or would not have time to spare even if they were interested in what GNN does.

Many of these types of individuals would also not have money available to help contribute to the expenses and other issues that GNN must deal with on a daily basis. Looking at the target markets and the desired base of younger members shows that there are many different ways that these individuals could be targeted and marketed to. Direct mail is only one of these ways. The Internet and other promotional methods are also very important and GNN should make use of these in any way that they can.

The Internet is particularly important because so many people access it today (Hoffman, 2004). It was not that long ago that computers were still relatively scarce in individual homes, but in the last several years there has been quite a surge of computer buying from the public and it is surprising to find an individual that does not either have a computer in his or her home or have access to a computer through someone else or through a library or educational institution.

Because of this, most people are connected to the Internet in some way and have e-mail addresses and other ways of being contacted other than the direct mail or telemarketing phone calls. The telemarketing phone calls are probably not the way to go with GNN's business because most people are tired of being interrupted when they are doing something else by an individual who is trying to sell them something or convince them to join a group. Direct mail is better for this.

Even though individuals may simply throw the mail away many of them will at least stop to look and see what GNN is about and what the company is asking for. By being able to do this on their own time when they feel like looking at it, rather than being interrupted and accosted over the telephone, the percentage of individuals that looks at GNN's information positively will be much higher.

This does not mean that these individuals will join the organization but they will not have negative feelings about the organization either, and this may cause them to be willing to join the organization in the future. The Internet is extremely important because it provides so much information to so many people so quickly (Hoffman, 2004). By sending out e-mail to people who are interested in GNN's organization, the company will keep itself in the forefront of many of these people's minds.

However, it is important not to send e-mail messages to individuals that did not ask for them (Hoffman, 2004). Most of these simply get deleted and sometimes they get reported to authorities because these individuals do not like receiving unsolicited e-mails (Hoffman, 2004). The best way for GNN to market their e-mail messages only to those who are interested is to do some work on their web site so that it is more user-friendly.

By allowing individuals to have more interactive experiences through the web site and by providing information about what they do in a fun and interesting way more people will be receptive to the web site and this will also help to target the 12 to 21-year-old market that they are interested in. Most young people of this age like interaction and stimulation on their web sites and when they do not receive that they will likely go somewhere else. They will see GNN as a boring organization and not be interested.

GNN's web site should also provide a place where individuals can leave their name and e-mail address if they wish to be contacted with special offers, promotional information, newsletters, or anything else that GNN might be interested in telling them.

When GNN does this they will likely get some people to sign up but they should take care to ensure these individuals through means of a disclaimer on their web site that the information individuals provide will not be sold or offered to anyone else and that the information will be kept in strictest confidence. GNN should also not ask for anything that individuals may find offensive such as their race or their financial status.

If GNN wants individuals who are capable of helping them as actively as possible and if GNN wants individuals that will provide them a great deal of money it is important to ask these types of questions. However, this is something that can be done once a relationship with that customer is cultivated as opposed to right away, when the individual may feel as though too much information is being asked for from a company that has no established relationship with them as of yet.

Lifetime Value Plan One of the things that GNN should look at very seriously when they are considering what type of marketing plan they wish to create is the lifetime value idea. Individuals that join a particular organization want to know what they are going to receive and for how long they will receive it (Fishman & Schwartz, 2000).

GNN should work to assure these customers that they will be receiving something that is very valuable for the rest of their lives because the company is established and will not be to going away or changing their structure greatly within that individual's lifetime. Another reason that these individuals are getting lifetime value is because when they are active members of what GNN is doing they keep themselves physically fit and remain aware of environmental and other wildlife conservation issues.

Most people do not understand how important these types of issues are but endangered species of plants and animals are everywhere in the world. It is very important that companies like GNN cultivate a good customer base and keep these individuals coming back and renewing their memberships. Some of this has to do with the fact that membership renewal provides these individuals with a way to help GNN without being actually asked to make donations to the company.

Many people will pay for a membership to a particular organization but when they are solicited for donations they will simply throw the solicitation letter away or delete the e-mail because they do not like being asked for money (Fishman & Schwartz, 2000). This is different when they have a membership because they are getting something back for the money that they are giving (Fishman & Schwartz, 2000). Perhaps GNN could offer a lifetime membership at a discounted price for individuals that wished to belong to the company permanently.

This membership would be nontransferable and would be good for the life of the member. It would also be nonrefundable so if the individual decided in three years, for example, that he or she no longer wished to be a member his or her membership could be canceled but the money that was paid would not be refunded.

How much money an individual would pay would be based on that individual's age bracket at the present time and the statistical proof of the average life span of an individual in that country. When this was determined the mathematics could be conducted that would indicate to GNN how much that individual would pay if he or she purchased yearly memberships all throughout his or her life.

Once this figure was determined it could be discounted an agreed-upon percentage so that a lifetime membership would actually be less expensive provided the individual remains a member and lives to the statistically average age. By providing this type of discount plan and by showing individuals how much healthier they will be when they are active members of this organization it is relatively easy to show members that they will be receiving a lifetime value for the money that they are paying today.

This particular lifetime value model would be very useful for an organization such as GNN, but there are also some limitations as many people do not wish to pay for a lifetime membership in any type of organization when they are not certain whether they will wish to continue their membership or whether they will live to be a statistically significant age to where they have recouped the money that they have spent.

There are ways around this but GNN must handle it with tact and proper etiquette in order to ensure that individuals are not made to feel uncomfortable if they decide not to become lifetime members. There must be low to no pressure on these potential lifetime members, or they may choose to end their affiliation with the organization permanently. Nielsen's Criteria In order to help determine Nielsen's criteria, three web sites for various charities were examined.

It is important to understand that not all web sites are the same but that there are some specific components that charity web sites generally have in order to solicit the most that they can from other individuals without making these individuals feel uncomfortable, or without sounding as though getting money from others is all that they are concerned with. Charity web sites that appear too greedy are.