Communications Objective

I've been struggling with several of the possible communications objectives since our last social marketing class.

First I considered Basic Awareness because Gift of Life definitely needs to increase their general brand awareness. I am conducting a survey to find out how many transient Michigan students recognize the brand, but my guess is that the answer will be 'few'.

I threw out Top of Mind, mainly because the book points to this as an option for brands that are already well-known and well-understood. It spoke of needing commercials and advertisements that could hold the audience's attention - I am leaning toward more of a fact-based advertising method for Gift of Life.

A Behavioral Objective seemed ideal in class, but I realized later that I was wrapped up in the 'call to action' concept. The truth is that Gift of Life needs more registered organ donors, but this can't happen until they are better understood by the target audience. Awareness and education must come first. And while these objectives can include a call to look at their website, other communications objectives are a better match.

I've settled (for now) on an Information Objective. I'm stuttering a bit in selecting which piece of information to use, the book suggests there be only one, but I think it will stem from the value of 'trust' I've been highlighting. This objective is used most frequently to disseminate specific information, but I can also use it to enhance the perceived importance of that information - this is critical in my opinion.

Now, on to execution.

Target Audience (Take 2)

My new target audience description is below.

My target audience is Lucy Darance. Lucy grew up in Texas and recently moved to Ann Arbor to attend a graduate program at the University of Michigan. Lucy spends her weekends walking through the arb and speaks to her grandmother twice each month. She studies most weeknights, and she tries to make time to read the paper three times each week. She is aware of organ donation, but has never been affected by it directly and has never spent much time thinking about becoming a donor herself. She still has a Texas driver's license, and won't need another one until 2012.

Project Update

After last week's class I determined that I need to focus on acquisition/stimulate demand. 'Stealing from the grave' is a push. I also decided that the main value my organization needs to promote is trust. Gift of Life has a great network, plenty of explanatory information, incredible technologies to track donors and those in need with, expert staff and lots of historical data to offer. These features filtered up to benefits of ease of mind, safety, anonymity and knowledge.

When I look at the organization's website and marketing materials I see lots of information, and testimonials that re-iterate the group's mission to help people, which is critical, but I don't feel that it's geared enough toward trust. This is where I'm hoping my marketing plan can focus.

Because I've selected acquisition/stimulate demand, I'm prioritizing the non-user opportunity. This is somewhat obvious, as there are no competitors to my organization in the state and once you've elected to become an organ donor in Michigan you can't really do it again.

My target audience is Lucy Darance. Lucy is a 29 year old graduate school student in the University of Michigan's physics program and is from Texas. Lucy spends her weekends walking through the arb and speaks to her grandmother twice each month. She studies most weeknights, her preferred beer is a blonde at the Arbor Brewing Company, and she tries to make time to read the paper three times each week. She is aware of organ donation, but has never been affected by it directly and has never spent much time thinking about becoming a donor herself. Having moved to Ann Arbor two years ago she still has a Texas driver's license, and won't need another one until 2012.

5-Box Positioning Statement:
Current Do: Reads the occasional article about organ donation, has never taken action
Current Belief: It's an okay thing to do, doesn't know much about how or where to "do it"
Consumer Proposition: Organ donation is a generous gift; Michigan's GoL program is a trustworthy organization where you can learn more and register
Desired Belief: Organ donation can save many lives, is anonymous, safe, and free
Desired Do: Registers to become an organ donor in Michigan

Perception vs. Importance
I will work to raise the importance of organ donation as well as the perception that Gift of Life is a trustworthy, safe place to find out information and register to become a donor. (I will focus primarily on importance but through the perception of trust for my organization).

Logo Thoughts

My social marketing strategy is one based around awareness and education. This said, I've been thinking about the importance of branding, and logo recognition - attached is a 'grab' of the Gift of Life's logo..... clearly the words below the image describe what the group does, and even the name of the organization speaks to it's mission.

I came across this article in some of my digging and thought it was interesting.

http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/archive/acov/acov02/acov0245.html

Clearly a logo is not a brand, especially in this case, but it's the stamp of one perhaps. And while it may be antiquated, this one heads for the mark. Whether it is 'as good as it can be', on the other hand, is up for debate.

Variables

Variables are easy to get confused about. My definitions are broad - my goal is to get more people in Washtenaw County to sign up to be organ donors. I could really go after nearly anyone, Gift of Life's website clearly states that almost everyone is eligible, and that no donation goes unnoticed. This is not helpful in my quest for main and dynamic variables.

This might seem like the easy way out, but I got stuck this weekend on these questions, and felt like without the answers I couldn't go forward.

Which segments of the population are already likely to donate?
What marketing efforts are already in place, and therefore will capture what portion of what markets?

There is demographic and behavioral segmentation - I think in my case it will be much easier to start with the latter. The demographics of donors can run the gamete, but behaviors - maybe not. The 'testimonials' I've read suggest that most donors are:

Volunteers in one organization or another
Closely tied to others - have partners, kids, living parents, etc.
Healthy
Active in their communities

..... or maybe these are the characteristics of people who like to give testimonials. I suppose both include a time/effort donation...


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Another amazing while I'm at it:

"An average organ donor provides 30.8 additional life-years distributed over an average 2.9 different solid organ transplant recipients, whereas utilization of all solid organs from a single donor provides 55.8 additional life-years spread over six organ transplant recipients."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095511

Outline through 4Bs

Here's my basic outline of what I have so far up to the 4Bs, and I'll write up my brain-notes for this week in another entry.

Gift of Life

ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVE
Fundamental Entity: Gift of Life (Michigan's federally designated organ and tissue donation program)
Core Competence: Data and relationship management (Main liason between donors, hospitals, transplant centers)
Goal: To keep all info correct and confidential, and to respond quickly to concerns and the requirements of clients

MARKETING OBJECTIVE/SOURCE OF VOLUME
To increase the number of donors in Washtenaw County in 2010
Aquisition either way, stimulate demand or steal share is still negotiable (see both below)

Stimulate demand for organ donation

• Customer definition: people not aware of organ donation, or those who would be but haven't researched enough to understand the issue
• Other players: none (in Michigan)
• Bodies Q: Why are people staying out of my category? lack of information, or belief system
• Bodies #: **Still unknown, scheduled call with organization for later this week
• Beliefs %: Number that can be converted with education, should be able to see trends based on upcoming call
• Behaviors Changed: Same as above
• Key Metric: Number of donations after campaign
  

OR Steal share from the grave

• Customer definition: people aware of organ donation who have opted out but may be willing to change their minds
  
• Other players: black market organ sanctuaries (kidding), grave
  
• Bodies Q: Why are people staying out of my category? lack of information, or belief system
• Bodies #: **Still unknown, scheduled call with organization for later this week
• Beliefs %: Number that can be converted with education, should be able to see trends based on upcoming call
• Behaviors Changed: Same as above
• Key Metric: Number of donations after campaign

Because these are pretty similar, I think my best bet is with stimulate demand for organ donation, but it's hard to know the difference between the results I could see with this and with 'stealing from the grave' without some numbers to back up my assumptions. My call with the organization this week should help me better understand the market, and which of these approaches would make more sense. (Although again, they aren't too dissimilar).

endless info

I'm working on a social marketing plan for Gift of Life, the primary organ and tissue donation program in Michigan.

Getting sidetracked from the assigned portions for this week I looked closer at the different metrics I could use to predict the outcome of my marketing plan: there are a lot more to choose from than I expected. I could use dollars raised, organs donated, organ donors registered, awareness increases (but thought I would need survey data before and after). I eventually found this statistic and thought it'd be the obvious place to start:

"In 2008, a record 327 organ donors provided 922 organs to waiting recipients in Michigan."*

But the truth is that the number of organs actually donated isn't within my (or my to-be-brilliant marketing plan's) sphere of influence at all. For example, the 2008 Michigan Traffic Crash Facts organization reports that 980 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2008. This number has reduced since last year - had it gone up it would have contributed to more organ donation (assuming the percentage of people on Michigan's organ donor list is normally distributed and had remained equal over the two years).

I'm less interested in dollars raised than the other options, even though I can see the value in that approach. It seems too similar to the business plans I've thought through in the past - so next I considered 'donors registered' which might be a viable way to measure awareness efforts. I think this is where I'll stay - education, awareness and ease-of-access are three of the main places I think the organization needs to focus.

"In Michigan more than 800 people became tissue donors."*

Things I am still curious about:

What are the trends of people who become donors?
If this is more or less than in the past?
How do they monitor how many people leave the state of Michigan each year? (You need to register each time you move to a new state.)
How does Michigan compare to other states? Especially in donors as a percentage of residents?


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*: These quotes are from the following website:
http://www.giftoflifemichigan.org/understanding_donation/facts_figures/