Practice
Exercise #2: What's the Plan?
A local art
institution has decided it would like to undertake a new series of initiatives.
Namely, this non-profit in the art space
has decided that it needs to address the following:
(a) increasing event offerings (b) expanding their target audience.
The organization's CEO sets up a meeting with the PR team on Monday; they want
your team to dive into creating an event this Friday for the art institution.
The public relations team urges them to wait so the team can best put together
a proposal based on the initiatives' goals. The CEO states the following:
"Listen, we need to get
people in the door immediately. Increasing our events and reaching new
audiences is critical to expanding our pool of donors and regular visitors to
our organization. I need you all to get on top of this asap. Just throw
something together quick."
This is an example of what
flaw in the planning process? State how you would address this situation with
the CEO to encourage them to allow you time to plan out this initiative.
Based
on the points you provided to the CEO, they have decided to give your team the
month to firm up a plan to achieve the goals set for the organization. You realize to create effective events; you
must first determine the best audiences. This is because events that don't
represent the interests of the audience you are trying to reach will not be
effective.
Through your research, you learn that a group of individuals (men and women,
between the ages of 23 - 45 within a 50 mile radius) are looking for new ideas
for activities with friends, date nights, etc. These individuals are not strict
art enthusiasts but have demonstrated they believe it is important to connect
and engage with local community organizations, organizations that expand and represent
the cultural needs of the region, and ultimately are seen to keep the community
growing and thriving.
When examining approaches to publics, what types of
criteria are present? Please list the category as well as the detail from above
that addresses this content area.
Example:
Category – Demographics (Age, provide specific age range indicated)
**This is a partially provided answer for this submission. Please note that
there are additional categories that need to be included for students to get
full credit for this answer)
After
examining these initial areas, you determine greater depth can be gathered
regarding these audiences as it pertains to the situational theory of publics.
Namely, the information you have learned about your new target audience tells
you that 45% of these individuals are very active on bills, petitions, and
other local actions that demonstrate that items pertaining to many areas, including
art, are very important to them. 30% of your newly identified audience are
interested in engaging in community activities once they hear about it through
specific media platforms like iHeartRadio commercials or posters at local
coffee shops like Uncommon Grounds. The remaining individuals do not see art or
local community organizations as something they need to engage with as it does
not affect them. They are only in Albany for limited points of time, and when
they come to the area, they have specific goals or events in mind (shows at The
Palace, etc.)
Based on the information
above, state what situation sets are present and the audience's percentage
within each identified situation set.
Then determine which of these situation sets you should focus your efforts on
and why.
Now that you have determined who your expanded
audience is and who you should focus on targeting, you need to work on the
other aspect of the CEO's goal, getting people to attend events held at the art
institution. To do this, you know you need to create a program objective to
determine whether your efforts work once you have implemented your plan.
After careful consideration, you decide it is not enough to have just one
objective. But instead, you want to have two objectives. This will allow you to
examine benchmarks that you believe are valuable for the organization. One is
increasing how many people know about the events, and two, how many people are
attending the events. You want to increase the number of individuals who know
about the events by at least 30% in the next three months. Additionally, you
want to see at least a 10% increase in attendance to the art institution within
that time frame.
State which two types of program objectives this
would represent and write an effective program objective for each type based on
the information provided.
Now that you
have determined your objectives, you need to start planning how you will make
all of this happen. Specifically, you need to think about the financial
elements associated with any actions you want to implement going forward.
List four important considerations
(or factors) associated with budgeting and at least one question for each
consideration area that you would want to address with your CEO as you continue
this planning process.