Marketing Communication Plan (Coursework Sample)

Friends from Ireland (FFI): A social amenities tourism volunteering building organization
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Background information and target audience
Fair friends from Ireland is a non-profit making organization that was started with an intention of building basic amenities for countries in Africa, which do not have enough or have serious insufficiencies of those amenities. Its members entail individuals from all social classes of life who are dedicated to in community building project in Africa. Their main aim is to source for materials, including labor from those regions that they work in. the main countries the organization engages projects in include Kenya, Lesotho and Namibia. Memberships are acquired from volunteering individuals, mainly from Ireland and other regions around Europe (Herstein et al 2008). Most of these individuals are those travelling to holiday in these regions, with intent of volunteering, mainly on a short duration, for instance two weeks, according to organization’s requirements.
Among the main duties of those volunteers include brick layering, childcare workers, financial consultants and bankers, teachers among others but in these regions, the organization emphases building and consultant volunteers. Terms of joining are non-restricted and thus all individuals with a passion in helping humanity are encouraged to participate, specifically on their will with an intention of changing the lives of communities of individuals in these regions of Africa.
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Diagram 1: Watamu Secondary School- one of FFI projects in Kenya.
The organization carried out marketing campaigns on getting volunteers from Ireland and Europe, basing on their willingness to take part in those projects. Among the constructions works that they take part in including building clinics, schools and libraries for communities in Africa in order to improve their accessibilities to such facilities, given that they experience serious shortages of these facilities and thus are able to access basic educational, health and exposure needs necessary for taking part in a successful lives (Proctor & Kitchen 2002). Their sources of funding are mainly donations from well-wishers who see fit the necessity to help such communities.
Recently, that is from 2010 to 012, the company has built a school in Lesotho, a clinic in Kenya and another educational facility in Kenya. Plans are underway to build more projects in Kenya and Namibia. Although the organization can be credited for al these achievements, there has been serious shortages of volunteers willing to take part in this purpose. This raises the necessity for the organization to make marketing plans in order to attract more volunteers so that its main aim of helping unprivileged communities can become a success. The organization has been rated as one of the most successful NGOs in the African region, given the short span of time it has been in existence.
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Diagram 3: one of the FFI completed project in Lesotho – secondary school
Target market
While the organization targets the less privileged regions in terms of educational, health, sanitation and water infrastructure, there has been a larger expansion of its projects to include teaching, consultations and other services that are aimed at benefiting these poor regions. Under this scope, the organization ensures that the poorly infrastructure-containing areas are improved and on this point, it has embarked on acquiring human resources, on short terms, to undertake helping activities intended for constructing these facilities and therefore helping the needy individuals within these demographic locations.
In this perspective, the organization is thus always in a seek mode, to establish connective links for more voluntary tourist to join the organization.
For the company, in fulfillment of the objectives, there must be a clear marketing communication models available for defining, planning and implementing their courses of action. In this regard, there has been a serious consideration of advertising to increase the number of volunteer tourisms, who are interested in taking part in these initiatives. Categorizations of preferred individuals are not given any priority and therefore all interested individual in volunteer tourism are highly encouraged to seek opportunity. This advertising will thus improve the scenario at the organization’
Literature Review
Although the organization’s volunteer-provisions create an implication that only individuals on holiday, with a few weeks to spare are eligible for participation, indeed, no restriction is provided to any willing individual. Secondly, this aspect also contradicts with this requirement. Given that those volunteer tourists are encouraged to join from the European regions, participation of those outside the European regions seem to be locked out. This thus limits the level of participation of volunteer tourists. From statistics, it is estimated that the industry has grown to a huge financial industry worth approximately from 1.7 billion dollars to around 2.6 billion dollars (Proctor & Kitchen 2002). This growth indicates the continuous interests of many players in entering this industry. Volunteer financial statistics is thus irrelevant for interested members to this organization. Consequently,
It is estimated that more than ten thousand tourists arrive in Kenya annually, more than five thousand in Namibia a few thousand in Lesotho. In order to understand the industry extremely well, it is imperative that consideration of the SWOT analysis be undertaken.
Strengths
From the prevailing volunteer tourism status situation of the organization, there has been considerable achievement in achieving the company’s vision of providing infrastructure for regions around Africa. This provision has cemented the name of the company, in more than one way as a reliable institution providing services in accordance to its mission, vision and objectives and thus it stands in the best position to draw a lot of local an international attention in fulfilling this (Proctor & Kitchen 2002).
From its achievements, the organization has created a lot of trust both in the regions it provides services and the regions it gets its volunteers from. These aspects have created lot of efficiency in duty discharge an thus continues to promise growth in the present and the future. This is another landmark that builds the organization as one of the strongest volunteer organizations in the region.
Thirdly, the organization does not provide for selective procedures for acquisition of its volunteers. By doing this, it encourages more volunteers to continue making application with a vision to join and contributions and consequently grow the organization in terms of human resource.
Lastly, the organization uses materials readily available from the surrounding environments it undertakes its projects and thus proves as one of the most cost-efficient organizations, whose operations are expense-limited. This limitation encourages both donors and prospective volunteers to engage it taking part in its activities and thus promising to propel the organization towards achieving its vision.
Weaknesses
Although the organization has had a lot of successful attempts in the past in making successful projects and thus steps, its requirement of mainly volunteers from the European regions and specifically Ireland reduces chances of participation of willing volunteers from other regions around the world. Given that it is an NGO, and that there is no expertise required in joining the organization, geographical specificities in its volunteer requirements likely discourages other individuals from taking part in its main projects.
Opportunities
The organization stands to benefit from a lot of opportunities that are available in the volunteer tourism industry. First, given that this is a growing industry, there are a lot of areas that have not been exploited and therefore the capacity for growth is still immeasurable. Secondly, the possibility and willingness of volunteer tourists to join the organization in its efforts of infrastructures provision, there is a high possibility of tapping other regions for human resource purposes and thus achieve its objectives quickly.
Threats
Although there are numerous opportunities and strengths to the existence of the organization, there are main threats such as the continually increasing number of organizations in the same category, which are likely to increase the industry popularities and thus limit the attention the organization will get in its volunteer tourists.
Secondly, the organization does not provide for donor participations, whereby donors participate by getting paid accommodations and services and not always taking part in the physical exercise. This is a factor provided by other emerging and previously existing organizations, threatening to reduce the number of donors willing to pay donations to the organization (Nalca 2009). Most donors would want to know if the amounts of funds donated actually underwent the required purposes. This is a serious threat to the organization.
Communication Objectives
One of the most important aspects of volunteering tourism involves selection of the most suitable individuals in fulfillment of its mission, vision and objectives. From the mid nineties, there has been a growing interest and awareness of voluntary tourism with the intent of helping people with basic deficits in various regions around the world.
Objectives
One big objective for any organization or company is to create awareness of the brand name of...