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MARKETING |
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For learners, they need to buy-in to their program and stick with it until they have successfully exited. We hope that partners will work with us for as long as the relationship is mutually beneficial, perhaps for many years. We put enormous amounts of time and energy into seeking and training volunteers and therefore we want their buy-in to last a long time. Certainly we need our funders to buy-in and remain committed to supporting our programs. Finally, we look to our communities to buy-in to our literacy agency and see it as their own. In each of these circumstances there is the point at which the decision is made, papers are signed and the official relationship begins. This is the buy-in. However, how we maintain the relationship and ensure that our markets remain committed is more about customer service. Having a “customer service” attitude towards learners, volunteers, partners, funders and our community will ensure that we remain alert to the inherent marketing relationship we committed to at buy-in with each of these groups. A good example of this attitude is given by the regional network, Literacy Link South Central, based in London. Literacy agencies are the main stakeholders of LLSC. Accordingly, this innovative regional network decided to celebrate and honour the literacy practitioners and volunteers working in their various stakeholder agencies. With their own resources and time, LLSC planned a celebration event for practitioners. This was a great way to show a stakeholder group that they matter! The buy-in is the culminating moment of all of our reflection and research, targeting, and marketing mix to this point. If you have ever confused sales and marketing in the past, the marketing circle should convince you of the importance of all the activity that takes place prior to the sale, or in our case, the buy-in. Without all the steps that precede the sale – without all the tasks involved in fitting the product to the market in terms of features, price, packaging and distribution (or availability), and without all the effort involved in developing awareness and interest through advertising, publicity, and promotions – without these, even the best sales effort stands only a fraction of a chance for success. Small Business Marketing for Dummies, 2nd edition We can also apply this principle to our learner intake procedures. Targeting our marketing and developing the best marketing mix will ensure even greater success in the intake and retention of new learners. Questions for Reflection
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CLO gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided by the Ontario Government under Employment Ontario and the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES) and the technical support provided by the National Adult Literacy Database in developing this web site.
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