Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational

Business Marketing

2009 NCHI Golf Tournament Strategic Marketing Plan

Developing a strategic marketing plan for the 2009 NCHI Golf Tournament and an accompanying market/submarket and environmental analysis needs to first center on how to gain the greatest number of sponsors to ensure the costs of the tour can be covered, in addition to promoting the event to local charities who gain 100% of the revenues from ticket sales. Nationwide has structured the event to uniquely benefit local charities, yet has seen limited response to this offer. There are also 80 different agents in the Columbus, Ohio area that can be called upon to promote the event as well.

Strategic Marketing Plan

With 4 months and $15,000 for the budget for the strategic marketing plan to be executed, the following strategy is proposed. Each component of the strategy is described below.

Primary Market Segment: Corporate sponsorships are critical for the success of the entire series and as a result, corporations located in the Columbus. Ohio areas with a strong track record of philanthropy are essential. AT&T is one of the leading corporations in the area and has a strong record of philanthropy and needs to be concentrated on as part of the overarching strategy.

Additional Market Segments: Creating a Champion for Children Program for the many philanthropic organizations in the Columbus, Ohio area needs to be used as an incentive to get them to sell more tickets for the event. These philanthropic organizations need to be given a competition of giving to get this aspect of the program going.

Marketing Strategy: Combining a series public television broadcasts in Columbus, Ohio which can potentially be donated in conjunction with full-page advertisements in the Columbus, Ohio newspaper, along with a dedicated website for the event is essential. Further, getting the e-mail addresses of everyone that attended in the previous years and sending them invitations is also critical. A full PR plan that relies on social networking technologies is also critical (Bernoff, Li, 2008). Appendix I: Web 2.0 Technologies provides an overview of the social networking applications that can be used as part of the marketing strategy. As part of the social networking marketing strategy, a Facebook page will be created, blogs created by touring golf professionals who will be playing, and a Twitter account to update those following the event online.

Budget:

Marketing Strategy Component

Costs

Website and Facebook Development

$3,500

Series of advertisements in Columbus. OH newspaper

$3,000

Production of 60 second commercial for public television

$4,000

Champion for Children Program Sponsorship Strategy

$3,500

Banner Advertising on Local Columbus, OH Sites

$1,500

Totals:

$15,000

Explanation

Marketing Strategy Component

Website and Facebook Development - Using local web developer Wolf Creative (Cincinnati) to create a Facebook page and microsite to promote the event in addition to having Twitter, Friendfeed, and e-mail updates. Expected time to produce is 3 weeks.