Targeting Your Audience
Consider two main audiences: a) parents and carers (including lone parents) b) decision makers such as school heads, community groups, parish/town/city/county councillors, funding bodies and MPs. Communicate regularly with them to build relationships and help them understand what is important to you and why you are doing such a good job.
Parents may enjoy coming to an open day and meeting staff and carers. An MP may like to read a brief newsletter article about your plans to extend a building, while the town or parish council may be interested in hearing in detail about it and feeling involved with it at a community level.
By carrying out various marketing activities your setting can reach a defined audience as part of a Marketing Activity Plan. Focus on your key selling points to promote your “brand” using logo, photographs and selected promotional items like posters.
Think about distribution of promotional items – where will your audience read your message? How long will they have to read it and how often will they see the message repeated? Queues often form in petrol stations, doctor’s surgeries, post offices, shop windows and police, fire and ambulance stations, offering captive readers a good long look at information such as a poster. Larger employers such as hospitals and offices may also let you use their noticeboards.
1. Creating a marketing plan
The plan itself should be practical to use and should set our clear objectives which will highlight and promote your services.
You may choose to have different mini-plans which cover specific areas for example, pricing or promotion. These would join together to provide the overall plan.
A template for the marketing plan is available here.
2. Marketing Activity Plan
Your setting may have the best Ofsed report in Dorset and you may have highly motivated staff and excellent facilities – but what use is that if you don’t do any marketing and nobody knows about it!
By creating a simple annual Marketing Activity Plan you can remind yourself of what you need to do and share out the jobs. Brief, regular meetings can provide feedback on results, updates on current issues and a chance to plan ahead.
Sample Marketing Activity Plan (Year)
|
Activity |
Action Dates |
Who is Responsible |
|
Update Photo Album |
24-Jan |
Betty Iro |
|
News release - children plan new playground |
05-Feb |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Newsletter - Spring |
08-Mar |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Design new logo |
03-Apr |
Betty Iro |
|
Finalise new logo |
19-Apr |
Betty Iro |
|
Update Photo Album |
23-Apr |
Sarah Detory |
|
Produce publicity leaflet |
02-May |
Betty Iro |
|
Order t-shirts with logos |
07-May |
Sarah Detory |
|
News release - teddy bears' picnic |
26-May |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Newsletter - Summer |
01-Jun |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Attend parish council meeting |
15-Jun |
Betty Iro |
|
Update photo album |
02-Aug |
Sarah Detory |
|
Update poster |
07-Aug |
Sarah Detory |
|
Develop new website |
12-Aug |
Betty Iro |
|
News release - new building signage |
14-Aug |
Eddie Torreal |
|
New building signage |
18-Aug |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Newsletter - Autumn |
24-Sep |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Update photo album |
04-Oct |
Sarah Detory |
|
Finalise website |
21-Oct |
Betty Iro |
|
News release - Christmas play |
03-Nov |
Eddie Torreal |
|
Update photo library |
09-Dec |
Sarah Detory |
|
Newsletter - Winter |
14-Dec |
Eddie Torreal |