Marketing / Communications
Articles
“Practical Marketing Plans for Byways,”
America’s Byways Resource Center; Vistas, May/June 2003
Marketing: Practical Marketing Plans for Byways
Byways start with plans. Plans about the vision for the corridor, plans for work programs, plans for projects. Marketing strategies should be no different. When deciding who to market to and how, it requires careful planning; however, one of the most overlooked aspects of marketing is the plan.
What is Marketing?
Let’s start with the basics of marketing and marketing plans. Many a byway has made the statement, “We don’t want any more visitors, so why do I need to worry about marketing?” Well, the reality is that marketing is part of our everyday lives and is not used for the sole purpose of getting visitors.
Examples of audiences that are as (if not more) important as visitors, which require the same attention and savvy, include:
• Community groups
• Your byway’s membership
• Local political leaders
• Businesses of influence
• Media
• Potential partners
All of these audiences are important to your byway and help accomplish your goals at some point. When looking at your byway’s work plan, it is important to realize the audience that you need and accurately market your ideas to them.
For the purposes of this article, let’s define marketing in the following way: Marketing is about influencing a specific audience to act.
This is different from interpretation, which is informing and educating an audience. The act of marketing strives to use a variety of methods to convince some group of people to do something you want.
How many of the listed groups does your byway wish to influence to help you accomplish your goals?
Remember that Your Project is Not on the Top of Everyone’s Mind
In today’s society, we are confronted with hundreds of messages and images suggesting that we do something every day. Think about all the signs, tag lines, images and jingles you hear and see just on the way to the office. Whether we like it or not, we are a society that relies on messages and images to help us make decisions. There is a great deal of competition out there, too. Do you think that Coke and Pepsi spend millions on advertising and public relations because they like to? The reality is that they have to. Believe it or not, if Coke or Pepsi stopped promoting their messages, we would actually buy something else.
A good rule to keep in mind is that an average person has to be confronted with a message six times before he or she will remember it. How often is your byway’s message heard?
When to Create a Marketing Plan
Create a marketing plan any time you identify a goal that requires involving another audience. A marketing plan is a tool to get to the result after you answer the question, “What do you want to accomplish or change?”
Keep in mind that you may have two, three or even four different objectives that need marketing plans - be prepared to have many working documents.
Are They Expensive?
No, marketing plans are not always expensive. Marketing plans are simply an element of your work plans. In most cases, a committee can create a marketing plan. Depending upon the goal, however, the marketing plan may be more elaborate. If the goal is large and requires research or large amounts of dollars to accomplish, you may want to consider looking for outside help.
Creating a Marketing Plan
The following is a simple outline of steps to take and questions to ask when developing a marketing plan.
Identify Your Market
• Who is interested in your byway and/or your byway’s issues?
• Where do they come from?
• What do they like?
• How do they like to receive information?
Identify Your Brand
• Be realistic
• Have some fun
• Keep your customer in mind
• Learn to laugh at yourself
Identify Your Desired Goals and Outcomes
• What effect are you trying to create?
• Be wild and crazy
• Think BIG
• Think outside the box
• Remember all media available, and try to brainstorm as many ideas as possible for each type (press release, special event, print advertisement, broadcast, website advertisement, contest, special communication plan, promotional material)
Test Your Ideas Against Your Audience
• How well will an idea work with your audience?
• Is the method one your audience would be interested in?
• Is your idea a “slam dunk” with your audience or merely a shot off the board?
Create a List of Partners to Help Get Your Ideas Done
• Financial
• In-kind donors
• Other marketing partners
• Friends of your byway
Rank Your Ideas and Set a Timeline
• Take the best of your ideas and put them in a calendar
• Identify who will get them done and which partners you might use
• Be realistic about the time you have and what you can accomplish
Identify Go/No-Go Steps
• Successful plans have checkpoints along the way
• Create steps in your individual goals that can be monitored, so that you can abandon a project before it’s too late
• Identify a keeper of the plan who can adjust time schedules and monitor success
Crafting the Plan
Now you can finally write it down! A plan should include:
• Audience description
• Goals/outcomes
• Description of specific objectives
• Detailed timeline
• Description of tools and partners
A Successful Marketing Plan Addresses These Topics
Who You Are
Importantly, first define a clear picture of your byway for your audience. One of the biggest mistakes is to assume that an audience sees you one way, but the group actually pictures you as something completely different.
What You Want
Within the larger work plan, what specific goal are you trying to accomplish with this audience? What are your expected outcomes?
Ways to Get There
Look at all methods that will help you to accomplish your goals.
Reality Checkpoints and Evaluation
A must for any work plan is to have ways to measure success and failure - during the project and afterward.