BU-08208     2005  

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Best Practice: Integrate Marketing into Your Planning Process

Background

Marketing is essential to successful programming. Regardless of the high quality of your event, you will gain more participants if people hear about it or want to attend. Marketing processes help you design a program that meets participants’ needs, effectively informs them of its existence, and explains why it is important to them. A well-planned marketing campaign can make your existing programs more effective, leading to more participation and even allowing you to generate more revenue.

Most field days events will employ direct marketing techniques, or marketing geared toward getting participation from target audiences. Essentially, you want them to sign up for your program. Luckily, the process for planning a direct marketing campaign closely parallels organizing educational components of your field day. If you consider marketing problems before and during program design, you will gain a better understanding of your audience’s perceptions, values, and needs. A program based on these characteristics will be more effective and successful.

“We are always looking for something new and exciting,” scout leader Cheryl stated. “It’s great when the kids can come to these events, meet scouts from other towns, and learn new things.” When asked why she decided to bring scouts to the Nature by Night field day, Cheryl added, “Our district rep gave us the brochure at the monthly meeting. The event just sounded so neat. Kids get to spend the night. The brochure talked about calling owls, stalking insects of the night, and meeting a bat. Our scouts really liked the bat picture in the brochure.” Event organizers, urged by increasing light pollution in the region, developed a theme, Some animals need the night. While teachers were unlikely to attend the evening event, they thought it might be attractive to scout groups. “We’re just so happy to see a Friday evening event,” Cheryl explained, “because most of us work during the week and the kids have homework. This worked just perfectly.”

What the Experts Say

• Identify a need for any program that includes a problem, people involved, and consequences of the problem (Liepold, 1992; Stern, G.J., 2001).
• Get to know who your audience is, where they live, what they value, and how they behave (Kerin et al., 2003; Liepold, 1992; Stern, 2001).
• Set measurable goals for marketing that consider available resources, revenue, and education targets and competition (Bly, 2002; Kerin et al., 2003; Liepold, 1992; Stern, 2001).
• Budget for marketing materials that ensure you reach more potential participants more often (Ogden, 1998; Tonning et al., 1998).
• Ask people to review your marketing materials prior to using them (Bly, 2002; Kerin et al., 2003; Liepold, 1992).
• All publications should follow a motivating sequence that grabs attention, identifies a need, and positions your program as the solution (Bly, 2002).
• People generally read posters and brochures in the same way they read books – left to right, top to bottom (Nelson, 1987).
• Follow design principles to make sure your promotional materials focus peoples’ attention where you want it (Nelson, 1987).
• Use language that audiences will understand without clichéd artwork and fonts including templates, clipart, picture cutouts, picture tilts, fancy text, and vertical text, etc. (Nelson, 1987).
• Use a lot of high quality pictures to convey messages (Nelson, 1987; Tonning et al., 1998).

Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of Minnesota Extension.

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