TGB Project Objectives

2019

MKT 4300

11/17/2019

Road Runner Tuesday: Food Pantry
Marketing Plan

1 | P a g e

I. SWOT Analysis

Internal Environment

As the internal environment focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the organization

which are the “controllable elements inside a firm that influence how well the firm operates”, the

Roadrunner Food Pantry must accentuate their strengths, identify their weaknesses, and strive for

improvement (Tuten & Solomon, 2015). The goal for this year’s event is to make the target

market more aware of the event in an effort to increase the number of donors and thus monetary

contributions. To accomplish this goal, it is crucial for the Roadrunner Food Pantry to optimize

their social media usage. As the mission of the pantry is to mitigate food insecurity among MSU

Denver students, it is essential to raise awareness of how prevalent food insecurity is among

students. This can be done through displaying food insecurity statistics and information within

their social media content. If the target market is aware of the prevalence of food insecurity,

which affects almost half of the students at the university, they would realize how pressing the

need for donations are and be more motivated to make a contribution. Also, along with food

insecurity awareness, the content posted on Instagram and Facebook should be frequent,

relevant, engaging, and exciting. Each of these aspects encourage the success of the event and

focus on the target market.

The corporate culture of the Roadrunner Food Pantry can also be leveraged and

represented within their social media. As the corporate culture of an organization refers to their

beliefs and behaviors, the Roadrunner Food Pantry can market their transparent values and goals

on social media. This not only creates trust within the target market, but also creates awareness

for the pantry’s goals and missions.

2 | P a g e

The monetary resources of the Roadrunner Food Pantry are limited as the budget for

social media ads are $25. This $25 must be maximized by a strategic approach that creates word-

of-mouth buzz and excitement within the target market. Also, in to maximize resources,

volunteers can be recruited to help create and plan social media posts across numerous

platforms.

One of the weaknesses of the Roadrunner Food Pantry is creating and maintaining a

strong social media presence. For example, Twitter is currently not utilized to the full potential

as it is seldom utilized. The main sources of promotion are through Facebook and Instagram.

However, last year there were only 3 posts, 5 shares, and 32 likes collectively. In to be

successful and observe an increase in donors and dollars from previous years, it is essential that

the pantry creates more posts highlighting their successes, promote their social media profiles,

and effectively translate the demanding needs of their core mission through all social media

platforms. Lastly, in to be internally prepared for social media activities and to effectively

fulfil the pantry’s goals, the Roadrunner Food Pantry should consider attracting and retaining a

volunteer well versed in social media who is passionate about the social causes of the pantry.

External Environment

As the Roadrunner Food Pantry is an agency partner of a non-profit organization, Food

Bank of the Rockies, the customers are divergent from those of a traditional profit-making

cooperation. A non-profit organization must simultaneously support two customers: their clients

and donors. Non-profit organizations wouldn’t survive without the support of donors and the

organization wouldn’t have a purpose without their clients. It is essential for the Roadrunner

3 | P a g e

Food Pantry to represent an adaptive marketing plan, focusing on the force of social media, to

adhere to both customers and encourage their core mission.

The MSU Denver social media platforms are already tailored towards the target market:

MSU Denver alumni, faculty, and previous Food Pantry donors. It is currently utilized to

announce and promote events for alumni and encourage event attendance. In regard to

Roadrunner Tuesday, contests and giveaways were advertised to increase awareness last year.

As a non-profit organization, the competitors for Roadrunner Food Pantry are other non-

profit organizations. All non-profit organizations fight for not only their donors, but clients as

well. As the Roadrunner Food Pantry is based in the heart of Denver and many students

commute to campus, other food banks in the greater Denver area and beyond are all competitors.

An example of a competitor is Care and Share. Their “mission is to provide food, partnering

opportunities, and education to fight hunger and food insecurity in Southern Colorado” and their

“vision is a hunger-free Southern Colorado” (Mission & History, 2019). Care and Share also has

a Facebook where there are videos, reviews, recommendations, and even the ability to start your

own fundraiser to help Care and Share. Another example is Metro Caring. Metro Caring meets

“people’s immediate food needs while addressing the root cause of hunger: poverty” and they

“provide nutritious groceries to neighbors, and also offer comprehensive anti-hunger resources

so that families can break the cycle of poverty” (Food is What We Do, 2019). Metro Caring also

has a Facebook page where they host events such as “Community Open Mic Night”. Both Care

and Share and Metro Caring act as competitors due to their demographics and strong social

media presence and promotions.

There are a multitude of environmental factors that can affect social media marketing for

Roadrunner Tuesday. For example, political stability, economic stability, taxes, emerging

4 | P a g e

technologies, and social attitudes are all crucial aspects to consider. When there is greater

economic stability, political stability, or tax relief, it is easier for donors to contribute

financially. Additionally, when there is greater insecurity regarding economic and political

stability, there is going to be a greater demand for the products at the Roadrunner Food Pantry. If

laws revolving around non-profit organizations or food pantries change, the Roadrunner Food

Pantry must adapt accordingly. As the Roadrunner Food Pantry is going to focus on the social

media aspect to obtain their goals, technology is one of the largest external influences that can

affect social media marketing decisions. For example, as the Roadrunner Food Pantry mainly

focuses on the use of Instagram and Facebook, any changes made to these applications can affect

how the pantry makes decisions and even how much traction their posts receive. The

environment of technology is rapidly changing. Newly emerging social media applications can

affect how the customers interact with the existing social media. This unstable aspect of the

external environment provides not only potential opportunity, but potential challenges and

uncertainty as well. Therefore, as the external environment of the Roadrunner Food Pantry is

dynamic in nature, the Roadrunner Food Pantry must comply with an acclimatized marketing

plan.

5 | P a g e

SWOT Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

Established Event

Visible, Physical
location in Tivoli

Partnership with
Food Bank of the
Rockies

Favorable
macroeconomic
conditions
currently

Relationship with
local news outlets

Small budget for
boosted posts ($25)

Decline in
contributions from
initial year

Underutilization of
current social
platforms

Smaller social
following than other
competing nonprofits

Leverage a current food pantry
employee or volunteer who is
familiar w/ social media to
plan and organize posts

Ability to post on social
platforms that have been
underutilized in the past. Ie
Twitter or LinkedIn

Holiday
season
spending

Other
nonprofits/
fundraisers

Brevity of the
event
(single day)

MSU Denver
Day of Giving
event
(alternate
event)

II. Objectives

This year marks the 5th year that the university will be promoting Roadrunner Tuesday as

a day of giving through their social channels and alumni networks. Roadrunner Tuesday is

inherently an online effort, much like Giving Tuesday, making it imperative that MSU Denver

leverages all of their social media platforms in an effort to create awareness, garner interest, and

increase donor numbers and dollars raised for the program. Because the Giving Tuesday event is

confined to a 24-hour period, it is important that MSU Denver creates a social buzz leading up to

and on the day of the event.

6 | P a g e

The primary objectives for this year will be to increase the number of donors, increase the

dollar value raised through the event, and increase the overall awareness for the event. These

objectives can be categorized as promotional objectives for the event and social channels. As

mentioned earlier, the funds raised this year will go towards supporting the MSU Denver Food

Pantry that relies on donations to sustain their offerings and support for students on campus

facing food security concerns. Our task as marketers is to increase awareness of Giving Tuesday

through utilization of a strategic social media marketing plan for the 2019 event.

Based on the stats for the event, RR Tuesday has been unable to reach both the dollar

value and number of donors that the event experienced in its initial year. If you reference the two

graphs below that compare dollars raised and number of donors over the years, you can see that

the numbers do not follow a steady increase as we would like to see.

* Objectives for 2019 listed in red.

It would be safe to assume that part of the reason for the higher figures on the first year of

this event are a result of the initial zeal of launching RR Tuesday. However, as we can see from

the previous couple of years, the event has not hit the figures that it is capable of. This year, with

a sound and actional social media engagement plan, we feel confident to set an objective of 130

7 | P a g e

donors and $7,500 dollars raised. From last years figures that would be a 10.7% increase in

donation dollars and a 26.2% increase in number of donors.

The metrics for tracking our objectives for donors and dollars raised for the event are

fairly straightforward by comparing this years final figures to previous years. The last objective

of increasing awareness for the event and brand is somewhat trickier to track and quantify. Some

metrics that may be applicable to track awareness are reach of the campaign per day, and

engagement, measured by likes, shares and reposts. According to the Facebook analytics for last

year’s event, the boosted Facebook ad experienced 46 likes and 3 shares. For this year, we hope

to see the likes increase to 60 (30% increase) and the shares increase to 6

(100% increase). An additional analytic figure we were given access to was Instagram. Last year,

there was one organic Instagram post for the event that gathered 11 likes. This year, our

objective is to have the Instagram likes increased by 82% to reach a goal of 20 likes.

The timeline for our listed objectives is between November 27, 2019 and December 3,

2019 (day of the event). More detail on the timeline and activation plan can be found under

section 6 below.

III: Target Audience

1. We should be targeting donors within our geographic location. Posting on any social

media platform and appearing on local channels will prove unsuccessful if it is out of our

geographic area. By targeting this segment, we are able to get more donations and volunteers that

are located in the Denver area and the outlying towns.

2. The relevant demographics are current students, staff, alumni, Denver locals, and

previous food pantry donors. Our psychographic target market is donors who are interested in

8 | P a g e

helping out any way they are able to. Whether that be volunteering time or giving food and/or

money to the food pantry. The behavioral characteristics desired in our target audience are

empathy, compassion and those that donate for a tax break. Our social media outreach will

impact and grab the attention of those who possess these behavioral characteristics within our

geographic location.

3. To reach our target market and segments, media habits must line up within reason. Our

preferred media habits of our target audience are: a keen awareness of local events, checking

social media account one to two times a day, and consistent consumption of local news. Road

Runner Tuesday has a social media presence and has been featured on local news channels.

Recently, RR Tuesday had a segment on Channel 4 and Channel 7 news, that highlighted all of

the work they do. All of these habits will reach our target market and segments successfully and

efficiently. To be able to expand and welcome new donors, our media habits should effectively

accomplish this goal.

IV: Social Media Zones and Vehicles

The social zones of social media consist of 4 different zones. Social community consists

of platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Social Publishing consists of

blogs such as Blogger, Blogspot, and Technorati. Social publishing also consists of Media sites

such as YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, SmugMug, SlideShare, and Scribd. The last two zones are

Social Commerce and Social entertainment. Social Commerce consists of Facebook,

LivingSocial, Groupon, Snipi, VideoGenie, TripSdvisor and Payvment. Whereas Social

Entertainment consists of Come2Play, Second Life, MySpace, Zynga, and uGame.

9 | P a g e

Although advertisements should be implemented on any platform that students, alumni,

previous donors, and new donors have connection with, we believe that the Social Community

zone is the one that should be chosen for Roadrunner Tuesday’s Food Pantry marketing plan. In

the past, this social zone was chosen with the advertisements being made through Facebook at a

$25 budget. With the results and the following statistics, you can see this is still a good choice

for the advertisement portion of this philanthropic effort to reach the numbers that they are

looking for in donors this year.

45% of North America’s population use social media; that means about 3.484 billion of

this population uses social media. To go even further, Facebook alone has an average of about

8% monthly of post reach and page likes. Although this may not seem like a lot, 8% of 3.484

billion people is still a whopping 278.720 million people (Chaffey, 2019). In Fall of 2018, the

student demographics for Metropolitan State University of Denver reached a growth of 20,011

students. That is just the number of students that have attended MSU Denver in the past year and

does not account for people who have already graduated or potential donors in the area (MSU

10 | P a g e

Denver, 2018). By leveraging paid advertisements on the right social media platforms, and

reaching the right target market, this social media marketing plan would not fail. In to

reach the standards needed for Roadrunner Tuesday, they must build a relationship with their

community, along with picking a desired approach toward social networking.

The approach toward social networking is the most important when it comes to

determining which approach will be the best fit for the community, as well as, the employees or

volunteers of RR Tuesday. The approach will not only determine the number of donors there will

be at the food pantry this year, but also the relationship that will develop after this measure is

considered. The approach can be broken down into 5 different types; brand maintenance,

community building, influencer marketing, thought leadership, and big splash (Lazarus, 2013).

• Brand Maintenance- This is a low maintenance of the brand, having a small presence and

responding to those who mention them. This is a passive method used by those who are

new to social media.

• Community Building- This brand is involved in creating communities of people with

similar interests or passions.

• Influencer Marketing- Using key influencers that impact their category or brand. This is

generally done through LinkedIn and Twitter, but not Instagram.

• Thought Leadership- This brand proactively creates and shares content to reinforce their

reputations and minimize the impact of crises. It gives a good reputation or favorable

light by enhancing what the company is good at.

• Big Splash- The approach has companies create programs designed to garner widespread

attention. This approach is a way to try to become viral, which is not always easy to do.

11 | P a g e

Although each one of these approaches are a good way to bring attention to Road Runner

Tuesday’s food pantry event, the approach of thought leadership stands out above all others. In

the past, Road Runner Tuesday’s has had a more laid-back approach toward social media. They

had a presence, but the presence wasn’t making a big splash. As stated above, the big splash

approach is extremely hard to achieve, but the thought leadership approach is not.

With this approach, RR Tuesday will need to share content with their community that is

not only related to the content of the Food pantry, such as the benefits of helping the community

or the statistics behind how much food pantry was able to help the community in past years.

They will also need to share content that captures attention. They could show the people you

were able to help in the past and how it helped them. They could show statistics on how many

people are hungry around the world and in need of our help. Bringing attention grabbing content

toward a cause brings in more attention. This can be done through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

or Instagram. The content that is posted is very important to gain that first impression, but the

response time and customer service you have toward the comments people make are just as

important.

RR Tuesday’s responses toward their target market that respond to their content needs to

be friendly, professional, meaningful, and contain information that benefits everyone.

Relationship building is important for companies to build on their brand image. In to gain

that reputation, they will need to capture their audience’s attention. For companies to achieve the

best response time with the best information that they can, a company needs to work together in

to build on the attention-grabbing content. The best route would be working as a brand

character. The company will get to work together in this sense, but they will also be able to make

one character that has one mind and one set of attributes. These types of brand characters are

12 | P a g e

known for sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness (Dos Santos, 2014).

The best way to look at this is using our college mascot, Rowdy the Roadrunner. A mascot is a

good example of a brand character. They are excitable, sincere, and fit the role that MSU and RR

Tuesday want to achieve.

With the use of a brand character RR Tuesday will be able to publish new content that

will provide people with excitement and also information. Sharing information with the audience

is a great way to build relationships. Companies tend to not provide people with the information

that they need, therefore, leaving them in the dark. This can lead to people not trusting

companies when information comes out that they do not agree with. It is always best to be open

and provide people with information that will benefit your cause. The approach that RR Tuesday

should take is attention-grabbing content that is informational, excitable and shows that you care

about your community.

Providing information in small amounts on social media is great when it is catered toward

one particular question. However, when people have questions that exceed the amount of space

you have room for, or time to respond with, directing them toward the blog will provide all the

information, thus allowing them to come back with more information. The only downfall of

social networking is the lack of ability to provide people with information that doesn’t

overwhelm them. There are many times when people will pass over a post that have too much

wording or too much information in it that they have no intention of reading. Simply providing

an attention-grabbing post and a link to the blog that provides them with more information is a

good use of the blog because it gives people the choice on whether they want to read for more

information or not. Making sure that the blog is linked to the school so that you are giving the

school’s website as well as RR Tuesday’s website page those click throughs is also a benefit.

13 | P a g e

Deciding which social media places are the best to represent company or post your

content is very important. With the previous information that was provided on the statistics of

social media, the approach that should be taken, and the brand character, the social media

websites that would provide RR Tuesday with the ability to make the most attention-grabbing

posts would be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. With Facebook you can create

groups or pages that show what RR Tuesday is all about. Facebook is a great source to use for

Facebook advertisements, like RR Tuesday has leveraged in the past, as well as building and

making a presence. Twitter is good for quick, attention grabbing posts with a nice photo or video

that provides links to information that people can read further about. LinkedIn will grab the

attention of alumni or companies around the community that may have the means to provide

support to the food pantry. Instagram is great for providing those attention-grabbing photos and

using hashtags to give people the ability to look through past posts quicker.

Facebook and Instagram are two social media sites that are linked together in that when

you post on Instagram it can post the same content on Facebook minutes later. This provides you

with a shortcut way to provide content to your target market without needing to make separate

posts. Providing links to the blog, or to RR Tuesday’s website in the posts that are created as a

“look here for more information” are great ways to link your social media to owned media

accounts. In a more customer service-based approach, providing people with the ability to email

you with their comments and concerns is another way to link to your owned media accounts.

Adding these posts will not only bring up the click-through rate of RR Tuesday’s website, but

also their affiliates. Consumer’s need to be provided with information for them to know what

they are looking for, so providing links to owned media will increase the chances of getting more

donors than in past years. RR Tuesday has done a great job with this by providing content

14 | P a g e

through YouTube and news outlets to gain attention that they need to bring in new donors. This

is the type of content that could be provided on other social media platforms to show just how

important RR Tuesday’s food pantry event is. It shows the students that are in need and how this

philanthropy helps them, which can also lead into what social entertainments would be best for

this marketing plan.

Social entertainment is the digital forms of media that are otherwise addressed by the

entertainment industry. Some examples of this would be art, music or games (Tuten & Solomon,

2015). With RR Tuesday’s food pantry event having entertainment such as games, music or art

to show as an incentive to giving back would bring in more donors. Showing that you are having

these events on social media would make the event gain more attention in general. When it

comes to how you can promote this brand in a game of its own, we believe there are ways of

doing this, but the games alone would not bring in enough attention for RR Tuesday in to

bring in more donors. The development of a game alone is a process and can take months to a

year before it is even ready. Placement of an advertisement into a popular game is perhaps a

choice that could be made. Instagram is a social platform that has many advertisements on app

games that you would enjoy and cater to the apps that you have downloaded in the past.

Promoting your company in a popular game that you know most people will play is a good

option, but for an event such as this, it does play as a plan b on the marking plan.

First and foremost, RR Tuesday’s focus should be on their social media accounts and

gaining as much attention as possible. Advertisements on social media platforms is where this

company will succeed the most. They need to not only focus on their social media platforms, but

on ones that are the most used social media platforms. Although social entertainment platforms

such as Myspace, SecondLife, Come2Play, Zynga, and UGame are great social entertainment

15 | P a g e

programs, most of the population does not use these platforms as much as they have in the past.

Myspace, for example, is a website that was once a huge social media platform. Since 2003, it

was able to gain over a billion users, but in recent years the numbers have dropped down into the

millions. 50.4 million to be exact, with most of these people being over the age of 35 (Smith,

2019). Although this sounds like great numbers, Facebook has over 2.45 billion monthly active

users (Noyes, 2019). Twitter has over 330 million users (Lin, 2019). Myspace may have been a

good choice in the past, but to stay relevant and build on your relationships with this digital area

you need to be able to develop with the times. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking

websites are the best route with it comes to advertising platforms.

With the chosen content, posting content that could be considered a little on the

controversial side is not always a taboo. By sharing the statistics of how students are struggling

in the economy we live, we can bring a new perspective to the community around us. Most

people never know how much someone else is struggling through their day-to-day life until it is

shown to them. Providing these statistics in posts and posing questions toward the community on

how we can do better, is a great way to provide opportunities for growth within the RR Tuesday

community. Asking questions gives you the ability to build relationships and have consumers

comment and feel they are being helpful. Surveys, questionnaires, and polls are a great way for

you to learn more about the community, about your students in need, and about how you can

make RR Tuesday’s food pantry event even better. Asking for reviews from students who have

used the service, or from people who have donated in the past, on what motivated them to donate

are great ways to add value and prospective toward what needs to be done in the following years.

You can even ask for reviews and ratings on how the website could be developed more.

16 | P a g e

The brand’s website, or app that is developed for the company, can bring in an increase

of 87% of views. This not only increases the attention to the website, but also can increase word

of mouth advertisement by 78%, engagement with the brand by about 53%, and increase

spending on the store of 67% (Barnhart, 2019). The use of social retail departments of social

media has been growing over the years and companies have benefited greatly from the use of

social media as their selling points. The use of retail for social media can help you to reach new

and previous customers better than using your own website. Over the years the world has

become more and more technologically advanced. Brick and mortar stores are going through

bankruptcy and less people are willing to go into stores to shop. In to stay above the rest,

you need to have a presence on the internet and not only just on the internet but also on more

places than just your own personal website. Stores such as Wish and Overstock.com may not

have the best of brands but people know about them because of their marketing abilities. People

scroll through their Facebook and see ads for stores and events near them every few posts.

It is important to spread your business across many different platforms in to reach

your target audience completely. If you focus on advertisement in just one area, you are risking

not being able to reach more people who may not be part of Facebook, but are a part of Twitter.

Facebook does offer a great source to show just how many people in your target area you are

able to reach with the advertisements you are developing. If you can advertise on many different

platforms, that amount of people could increase by threefold, if not more. You need to advertise

often …