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GOAL Mile Marketing Plan

The GOAL Mile Marketing project was one I was really looking forward to as GOAL is a very worthwhile charity. We could see from the outset it was going to be a challenge as the task was to market an event rather than a tangible product  which we had mostly covered in class.

When we first met, we discussed marketing ideas and opportunities while considering what would be the greatest challenges for a charity. We each took a key section to work on separately, and on meeting up again we would ensure we had covered all marketing challenges and solutions.

I was happy to take the situation analysis, as I felt comortable in that area coming from within the charity and INGO sector. I began by looking at the five C’s of marketing and used that as my framework going forward. This gave a full-scope analysis into the macro and microenvironment GOAL is working in.

The challenge for me from the outset was that I immediately cast my net too wide, and even armed with the framework, was really trying to capture a lot in the situation analysis. As this is a topic I am generally interested in for my own work, I deleved in quite deep into fundraising trends which were not really necessary for the topic. The area I found particulary challenging was the competitor analysis, as I was only too aware of how many competitors there were for an organisation like GOAL and an event like this. From my own experience in working in the sector I felt that supporters usually have an affinity with a cause over an organisation, as in general, the organisation is supposed to fade into the background. For that reason it seemed that domestic charities with events in December seemed like a bigger threat that other INGOs. When consulting with the team we all agreed, but if the project had more of a scope it would have been interesting to consider competitors, Trocaire and Concern more closely.

It was very useful to pull in frameworks that we had looked at in Contemporary Management. The VRIO and PESTEL analyis were particularly useful, and I felt I had an even greater understanding of the principles than I had in previous projects.

As I worked through the research, a lot of my work was in editing to reflect only relevant aspects for this project. When we met again, we worked through everyone’s written pieces to make ensure we had done what was asked, and there wasn’t anything superflous.

I think we would all agree though if we had more time we would have been more thorough in covering all aspects of the plan. As it was, there were some parts that were neglected such as the Controls secton, which suffered because no one had taken full ownership of it. While I created a table of key indicators, we should have been more specific about measures we would put in place to change ensure targets were reached.

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