Revenue at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore often fluctuates depending on state and local economic conditions. When the economy declines, the zoo receives less funding from the state and city of Baltimore as well as less support from corporate and private sponsorship.
However, membership has remained relatively steady. Membership has remained at more than 10,000 members despite spending changes on marketing and communications by the Board of Directors. (See the Maryland Zoo’s Annual Reports for financial details at http://www.marylandzoo.org/publications/)
Assignment:
Your job is to create a marketing plan for the Zoo’s Board of Directors that is designed to increase membership to the Maryland Zoo using a direct mail postcard campaign.
Your final report should include the following:
A. Executive Summary
B. SWOT Analysis
C. Environmental Scan
D. Promotion Strategy
E. A postcard promotion
a. PHASE 1: Market Research
i. SWOT Analysis
ii. Environmental Scan
Refer to material on how to conduct a SWOT Analysis and Environmental Scan and
create your own SWOT Analysis and Environmental Scan for the Maryland Zoo. Make
certain you are using supporting evidence and data with references to support your
analysis.
Sources you may want to consider are the Maryland Zoo Annual Reports,
Census Bureau Date, Maryland State Data Center, Baltimore City Department of
Planning, etc. Your analysis should not be based on your opinion, but on trends and
analysis that you have found in your research.
IMPORTANT: Review the following guidance on how to properly conduct a SWOT
Analysis & Environmental Scan.
SWOT Analysis guidance
https://www.breakthroughpros.com/post/how–to–easily–create–a–swot–analysis–to–
give–your–a–competitive–adantage
Environmental Scan guidance
https://www.breakthroughpros.com/post/environmental–scanning
b. PHASE 2: Recommended Promotion Strategy using a postcard campaign. Now that you
have conducted a SWOT Analysis and Environmental Scan for the Maryland Zoo, you
should have a better idea of the challenges and opportunities facing the Maryland Zoo.
The next step then is to identify the target market segments that would be most
relevant for the Maryland Zoo to promote membership sales. Be specific as possible and
include age demographics, geographic areas, income, psychological influences,
situational influences, and sociocultural influences (see Chapter 5).
Your Recommended Promotion Strategy must include the following:
i. the target market segment.
ii. the marketing messages.
iii. the estimated cost of printing, acquiring target market lists, and mailing the
postcard.
iv. your projections showing how you expect the campaign to perform.
v. and how you will track the results of the campaign to determine if it was
successful.
IMPORTANT: Please review the guidance for conducting a market segmentation
strategy…
https://www.breakthroughpros.com/post/market–segmentation–4–easy–steps–to–
apply–a–market–segmentation–strategy–for–maximum–roi
Here are very good resources for selecting a target market list:
https://marketmappingplus.com/marketing–with–lists/
https://www.dataaxleusa.com/
Here are a few resources you may find helpful when creating your postcard:
http://www.postcardmania.com/postcardmarketingmanual/ten–elements–of–effective–
postcard–design
http://www.businessknowhow.com/directmail/postcards/minibillboards.htm
c. PHASE 3: Create the actual postcard you recommend sending to prospects based on the
promotion strategy described above. You may create the postcard in any format you
desire, but it must be submitted with the rest of the project as part of the final report. In
this phase, you will need to address the following:
i. The size of the postcard.
