After reviewing the original marketing plan, we are taking into consideration a few concerns that arose with Oxford Homeless Pathways. The consensus after the client presentation and question-and-answer session was that the charity is currently lacking the personnel and the resources to keep up with the campaign that was originally recommended. Funding and legalities will also prevent the client from executing the original guerilla marketing plan. The only portion of the campaign that the clients felt was achievable was the social media portion of the campaign, and even then, time was still a factor in the decision process.

Lesley Dewhurst indicated after the initial campaign presentation that the original budget of £700 was only an imaginary figure, and not really an accurate depiction of the funds available. It was said that there was very little money at all to work with and that any money spent on marketing would have to have a high return on investment in order to be justifiable.

Presently, the charity still receives 90 percent of its income from government run programs. In this time of recession, it is a concern, as funding may soon be reduced or even cut from the program. Compounding this issue is the fact that Oxford Homeless Pathways has grown over 75 percent in the last two years. It is still the objective of Oxford Homeless Pathways to gain more donations and volunteers, but the immediate concern is to develop an income strategy that will enable the charity to become more self-reliant; mitigating the effects that government funding has on the operation of Oxford Homeless Pathways.

The charity is still at the same position as in the original campaign. Oxford Homeless Pathways currently relies primarily on word-of-mouth promotions, although there is a limited internet presence via their webpage, oxhop.org.uk, which is linked with their newsletter. There is still no social media presence, although as mentioned before, this is still under consideration.

TOWS Analysis

Threats

Expectation large reductions in public funding
Removal of supporting people ring fence and reduction in OCC funding (Spenle, Oxford Homeless Pathways Funding Strategy 2011/12, April 2012)
Local and regional charities competing for same funds
Lack of security of PCT funding long-term
Legal limitations prevent marketing campaign ideas
End of Big Lottery TEA (Training, Education and Activities) Coordinator contract (Spenle, Oxford Homeless Pathways Funding Strategy 2011/12, April 2012)

Opportunities

Oxford City Council has started a campaign in support of ending homelessness in Oxford, increasing awareness within the community (Whittaker, 2012).
The Oxford City Council, in conjunction with the Oxford Police force, have created campaigns encouraging citizens and tourists to refrain from donating to beggars on the street and suggesting that they instead donate to the charities, helping limit the sale of drugs on the street (Whittaker, 2012).
National focus on employment, training and activities will strengthen TEA funding
Other homeless shelters and charities within the Oxford community have started their own campaigns, increasing public awareness on the issue.

Weaknesses

Oxford Homeless Pathways is heavily reliant on government funding
Limited incoming donations has restricted the marketing budget, leaving little room for innovation
Oxford Homeless Pathways has no established fundraising or public relation conduits.
Recent rebranding of Oxford Homeless Pathways from Oxford Night Shelter may cause a devaluation of the brand, as it can be assumed that it is a different, newer charity
There are few people available to initiate and maintain any type of marketing campaign

Strengths

Excellent reputation as Oxford Night Shelter and good public profile
Reasonable reserves and investments
Good local partnerships
Rebranding the charity to capitalize on the new unique selling point (USP) of rehabilitation, which stems from the excellent TEA program
Strong internal system and structure

PESTLE Analysis

Political:

Government funding can change drastically with different policies and politicians (McDougall, 2012)
Big Lottery funds are supposed to come back shortly after Olympics but may not be available for another decade (Sawyer, 2012)
Government policies force staff cuts (McDougall, 2012)

Economic

England went into a ‘double-dip’ recession (Oxlade, 2012)
Unemployment rate at a high for 2012 between 8.2-8.4 per cent (Trading Econimics, 2012)

Social

Increase in homelessness by 25 percent (McDougall, 2012)
Donation Fatigue (McDougall, 2012)
Overall attitude about homelessness is negative (McDougall, 2012)

Technological

Growth and dependence on social media
Smartphones technology improvements as well as pricing decrease

Legislative

As a government-funded entity, it needs to adhere to specific laws, such as limitations on raffles, lotteries, printed materials, etc. (Spenle, Oxford Homeless Pathways Fundraising pack, 2012)
Charity Act 2006: allowed charities to administer themselves; improved regulation on charity fundraising (Cabinet Office, 2010)

Environmental

Shelter demands increase dramatically during the colder months (McDougall, 2012)

Competitor Analysis

Charity	Description	Product	Place	Promotion (Donations)	Rating
The Gatehouse (Home: The Gatehouse, 2012)	Homeless shelter that provides shelter like OxHop; However, does not have medical services	Homeless Shelter	Oxford	£ 81,000	2
The Porch Steppin’ Stone (Home:The Porch Steppin' Stone Centre, 2012)	Similar to OxHop in terms of educating and/or counseling the homeless in addition to providing shelter	Homeless Shelter	Oxford	£71,445	3
Parasol Project (McCallum, 2012)	A charity for disabled and disadvantaged children and young people who could be at risk for social exclusion.	Support group for disabled and disadvantaged people	Oxford	£152,122	5
Oxfordshire Association For The blind (Home: Oxfordshire Association for the Blind, 2012)	A charity for the blind or partial sighted for children and adults	System for the blind or partial-sighted individuals	Oxford	£173,659	7
Sobell House Hospice Charity (Home: Sobell House Charity, 2012)	A charity that offers hospice for individuals who are facing bereavement or death	Hospice	Oxford	£1.46 million	9

Objectives

Fundraising, creating brand ambassadors, and brand awareness within the community

As stated in the situation analysis, Oxford Homeless Pathways is currently 90 percent dependent on the government for funding. In light of the recent double recession, it is imperative that the charity grow its current means of fundraising. It is also imperative that the charity reach out into the community not just for donations, but for brand ambassadors to help carry out the fundraising and increasing awareness of Oxford Homeless Pathways.

To quote Justin Reay from a private discussion, “Oxford Night Shelters, had a bad reputation five years ago due to one of the staff selling drugs to homeless people in the area,” (Reay, 2012). Since they have changed their name they need to convey that they are focused on rehabilitation not sheltering and they have a new name to convey that message but a new name is not enough. When speaking to Justin he was not aware of Oxford Homeless Pathways, but he was aware of Oxford Night Shelter and their bad connotations. Justin’s unawareness shows that in the community there is a lack of brand awareness and need for Oxford Homeless Pathways to assert themselves as being different (Reay, 2012).

Creating brand ambassadors and increasing brand awareness in the community will naturally increase the amount of unsolicited donations to the charity. Justin Reay’s lack of knowledge is an example of how little is known about Oxford Homeless Pathways. Justin considers himself involved in the community and with its charities. It was a shock to him that Oxford Homeless Pathways was such a pioneer in the rehabilitation of homeless people and yet he knew nothing about it. If Oxford Homeless Pathways is so unknown within the community, it stands to reason that increasing brand awareness is a viable tactic and will increase unsolicited funds proportionately.

Generating awareness within the small business community

Oxford Homeless Pathways should also look to become involved with small business owners in the area. This is an abundant source, not only for brand ambassadors, but can create partnerships with other businesses to help create brand awareness and credibility within the community.

Generating awareness within the small business community will also create the opportunity for Oxford Homeless Pathways to generate beneficiaries to help to gain funds to help initiate fundraising.

Generate conversation via social media

As with any public relations and awareness campaign, the key is to generate awareness. As awareness grows, people will begin searching for more information about the subject. 86 percent of people will search online for information about a purchase first; 40 percent of those who search online will start on a social media site first (Rubin, 2011). Therefore, it is essential that the charity be able to be found via these means. The lack of presence will discount the credibility of the charity, resulting in fewer donations.

Strategies

Oxford Homeless Pathways will accomplish their objectives by executing the following strategy. The community of Oxford has participated in a ‘Sleep-out’ campaign for the past fifteen years; the Oxford Sleep-Out has rose over £160,000, their first year in 2002 raised almost £24,000. In 2011, the sleep-out suffered a significantly lower income, about £8,000 less (Kanoun & Scotland, 2011). The 2012 Sleeping-Out awareness campaign will be vastly successful (over £25,000) because it will be supported by public relations via different media outlets such as radio, newspaper and television. This campaign will model Sleeping-out campaigns that have been done in Oxford in the past. With the high media involvement, the support of social media, and the integration of small business support, the Oxford Homeless Pathways can make the 2012 Oxford Sleep-out a success.

It is recommended that Oxford Homeless Pathways first start networking with local small business owners, to gain some notoriety in the area as a charity, as well as beginning the chain of brand awareness though word-of-mouth promotions. This will also create beneficiaries who will act as investors in the charity to help initiate the sleep out. This will also keep with the theme of investing within the community rather than donating out of empathy.

With all the public relations within this campaign, it will be essential for an optimized and strategic social media presence be created, so that the charity may be found and referenced within the digital world, lending credibility to the cause and guiding people to the main website.

USP:

The key element in the success of this plan will be to optimize the charities unique selling point (USP); working not just as a night shelter, but as a rehabilitation center for homeless people. By offering services such as a medical center, rehabilitation services, work placement and workshops and classes that help them develop their own training, education and activities in order to become independent and successful (Oxford Homeless Pathways, 2010).

Tactics

The current research has proven that the most popular way for homeless shelters in the UK to fundraise is to have a sleep out. A sleep out consists of volunteers sleeping on the street to raise awareness for homelessness. Sleep-outs are very cost effective and require one or two simple signs to state the purpose of the charity and their USP with a few statistics about homelessness and the facility. Other donation campaigns usually only collect donations once. A sleep-out can consist of long-term fundraising, such as sponsoring a person volunteering for the sleep-out, and asking for immediate donations to the cause as the sleep-out is occurring.

Compared to other campaigns this is one of the cheapest and most effective. This campaign also aligns with the budget for marketing and promotes Oxford Homeless Pathways’ unique selling point. All that will be required to use money from the budget is the signs promoting the event and pamphlets and support badges that can be passed out when asking people for donations.

To begin the process of promoting the charity and subsequently the idea of the 2012 Oxford Sleep-Out, Oxford Homeless Pathways is encouraged to network with the local small business owners. This can be accomplished by joining networking clubs, like the Oxford Business Wealth Club, or asking to be involved as a guest speaker. They can ask to pitch the idea of the 2012 Oxford sleep-out. This will enable the small business owners to volunteer to be beneficiaries. Oxford Homeless Pathways will then create business alliances with other successful businesses in the area, creating paths for both monetary donations, product donations for prizes and raffles, and generate support within the community.

A relationship can be further instated with the use of mutual advertising. When a company makes a donation of any kind to the Oxford Homeless Pathways cause, the company will receive a window sticker that pronounces them as investors in the community (keeping with the theme from the previous marketing plan) and a sponsorship place within the social media platforms used by the charity, and a place on the charity’s website. This will incentivize the business owners to joining the cause, as it will allow their businesses to be placed higher in the minds of their customers, and create traffic flows to their sites.

After Oxford Homeless Pathways has generated some money from their sleep-out, It is suggested that they hire a marketing company to set up a Facebook page and LinkedIn account that is highly optimized while conveying their unique selling point and keeping the theme of investment in the community. This is money that will create a greater return on investment because, as stated earlier, it enables the charity to become ‘searchable.’ A well-developed digital presence will allow people to find the charity on various platforms, lending credibility to the cause and creating traffic flow to the main website.

This campaign can be advertised by calling the most popular television networks in the United Kingdom, like the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). Since they are primarily funded by the government and donations, “The BBC is not permitted to carry advertising or sponsorship on its public services” (The British Brodcasting Company, 2012) . The BBC also have a show that they put on called Charity News and Appeals who does specials on different things happening in the United Kingdom and they offer charity appeals and grants. “BBC Children In Need's appeal in November raised a record £46million to help change children's lives in the UK while the BBC also broadcast appeals for 63 charitable causes via its weekly BBC Radio 4 Appeal and the monthly Lifeline television appeal, and one appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee for the famine in East Africa. Sport Relief in March raised £50.5million on the night, with more money still coming in,” (The British Broadcasting Company, 2012).

Other research concluded that the most popular radio station in Oxford is the BBC radio2 with an average of 14.6 million listeners (mediaUK, 2012). They are also required to have a certain amount of their time dedicated to public service. This same tactic can be applied to local newspapers in Oxfordshire to promote the Sleep-out.

Once the public relations campaigns have been obtained and outlined, Oxford Homeless Pathways can begin asking for volunteers for the sleep-out, who can easily opt-in on the main website. To increase awareness within the community, Oxford Homeless Pathways can ask that any volunteer raise a certain amount of money in order to participate in the sleep-out and then rise to different levels within the campaign. People can then donate on behalf of the volunteer on the main website.

This strategy is modeled after the Ride for Roswell volunteer program. The Ride for Roswell asks each rider for a minimum pledge of $150 in order to participate in the event, and has incentives for the riders to reach the ‘Extra Mile Club’ or a pledge of over $1,000 (The Ride for Roswell, 2012). The status of a volunteer can be posted on Facebook, celebrating the accomplishment of the volunteer, encouraging others to join, and creating awareness within the community.

Actions

It is recommended that this campaign be executed over a 4 month timeline, aligning it with the date from the previous sleep-outs performed in Oxford.

Timeline

Month one:

Join small business networking clubs and begin creating relationships
Print window stickers to pass out to donating companies
Create basic Facebook Page
Create Sponsors section of the page with ranking of donations

Month two:

Using initial donations or asking a marketing agency to donate time, optimize Facebook, LinkedIn and main website and prep for Sleep-out.
Reach out to local TV stations, radio stations, and Newspapers to get them interested in the cause and ask them to donate ads space or time to support the cause.
Ask small businesses to donate to the cause or donate prizes for the volunteers

Month Three:

Begin spreading word about sleep-out and asking volunteers to begin pledging
Print signs, pamphlets and support badges and stickers
Continue promotion sleep-out via public relations outlet
Release prizes for different categories, i.e. most money raised by single person, most money raised by group, most unique fundraising method, general drawing, etc.

Month Four:

Continue pushing awareness with public relations and social media campaigns
Perform Sleep-out
Collect donations on-the-spot towards the rehabilitation of the homeless

Control

It is recommended that Oxford Homeless Pathways use Facebook analytics to measure the web page traffic. The caution to that recommendation is that Facebook Analytics only gives statistical data after the page has 30 likes or members. Facebook also has the possibility of making this a purchased aspect of the group pages in the future.

The opt-in nature of the campaign and the data collection though the volunteering and donations on the website can be used for easy data collection and analysis.

Oxford Homeless Pathways can also judge the success of the campaign on how many brand ambassadors are created and by the amount of donations that comes back to the charity. If the funds generated increase the margin of donations over the current 10%, it will be deemed a success. An increase in the amount raised by previous Oxford Sleep-Out campaigns will also be deemed a success.

The sleep-out campaign would be deemed a success as long as they are able to beat the £25,000 mark, beating the most successful sleep-out to date.

Google Analytics and surveys about brand awareness can also be used, but are not recommended, as they often cost money to initiate. This may be assisted with the companies who donate time and ad space in the initial agreement, and they can also share their analytics with the charity in the end.

Bibliography

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