2014

Hope House
Marketing Plan
Hope House would like to expand marketing and gain more volunteers through
social media marketing.

Diane Baal
Tamara Pukowiec
David Feyen
Patricia Peper

12/12/2014
Contents
Section One-Current Situation Analysis ........................................................................................................ 2
Section Two-Marketing Objectives ............................................................................................................... 3
Section Three-Marketing Tactics .................................................................................................................. 5
Works Cited ................................................................................................................................................... 8
Section One-Current Situation Analysis

Hope House of South Central Wisconsin is a non-profit organization that provides shelter and
assistance to people who are victims of sexual assault or domestic violence.

Hope House has been able to provide free shelter, community education, and services for their
clients in five counties in Wisconsin; Sauk, Columbia, Juneau, Marquette and Adams counties.

Women and their children, who are victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault, who need a
safe place to stay, can reside at the Hope House for up to 30 days. Their current shelter has
nine bedrooms with their own bathrooms, a large kitchen, play areas, and office space.

The Hope House personnel work to empower victims by directing them to resources in their
community, offering support counseling, legal assistance and wellness groups. They also
provide presentation and training to church groups, schools, community organizations and
businesses.

Assessment of Current marketing efforts:

Website: The website looked good. They had links to their social media site, tweets and a
Facebook link on the home page.

Facebook: Searching through Firefox, I did find it hard to find their page. I searched Hope
House, Hope House SCW (which is what is on their letter head) and spelled out Hope House of
South Central WI. The last search is where I found the page. No photos were found, and no
activity, that I can see; there were 5 likes and 1 visit. If you click on the link from their website
using Internet Explorer, a totally different page comes up--with photos and nice content. The
search for that page is Hope House – Baraboo, WI. I did a little research and found when I
opened their Facebook page and website through Internet Explorer everything came up fine,
but when I used Firefox all of the content in Facebook was gone and half the home page on
their website did not come up. So I am not sure if that is my settings or their settings. Even
with the Facebook connection through their website, I only noticed 8 visits. So there was not
much activity.

Twitter: This search came up with the Hope House SCW. I thought that this account was much
better than the Facebook account. Good content, tweeting and the home page has all of their
links and contact information listed.

Pinterest: Hope House had a lot of pins; I am just not sure it really relates to their mission.
Improvements:

I would place the volunteer opportunities on the home page of their website, Facebook and
their Twitter page. I would also link the Twitter page to their Facebook page. I am not sure
how important it would be to link the Pinterest account. They might also consider LinkedIn as
an avenue to advertise for volunteers. This may be an opportunity to attract professional
volunteers. Getting businesses aware of your business, especially larger ones: American Family,
Epic, UW, etc.; even if they are not in your county, could bring some great exposure. A lot of
companies require that their employee’s volunteer a certain number of hours a year. I would
also make the searches more uniform to make them easier to find.

Section Two-Marketing Objectives

The objectives set for Hope House are to increase their visibility and consumer participation on Social
media sites and utilize this as a volunteer recruitment tool.

The target market of volunteers that Hope House is aiming to recruit is individuals at least 18 years of
age falling into the following Volunteer demographics;

Direct Service Volunteers- Volunteers that take on the day-to-day tasks such as; office and reception
work, support group assistance, crafts, and meal planning.

Skilled professionals- Individuals who can lend their professional talents (such as financial planning) to
clients of Hope House. These volunteers create additional value to Hope House clients at no additional
cost to the program.

Indirect service volunteers- These services would include facility caretaking, mowing and any non-client
based services.

In the context of Social Media, we aim to target specific demographics of working professionals in order
to raise the awareness of Hope House’s story, message, and goals. We ultimately attract these
individuals to volunteer their time and expertise to a worthy cause!

According to the Pew Research Internet Project, 74% of all internet users visit social networking sites.
The data can be further broken down into specific demographics which would enable us to more
accurately target the specific categories of volunteers Hope House wishes to attract with their new
social media campaign.
By focusing your social media presence on sites that include the majority of your target audience, you
will increase your visibility and attract the best suited groups of volunteers.

The first approach would be to build a base of social media followers to share events and promote
interactions with the program. Share your volunteer opportunities and increase education about your
mission.

Through daily activities you will raise awareness of your programs and keep your message at the
forefront.

Social media is about building connections and engagement; keeping your followers up-to-date and
invested in your cause. Having a game plan on where to go and who to target is the ultimate goal.

By using different social media sites, you will be able to hone in on the specific demographics and appeal
to those volunteers or followers with a message that speaks directly to them on a more targeted level.

Craft your volunteer opportunities to suit the volunteers you are hoping to recruit and concentrate
those postings on the appropriate social media sites.

For instance, Facebook leads the way with the widest range of users, as well as the most varied. This is
an advantage in that you will reach a greater variety of potential volunteers. Encourage your current
volunteers to share your content and increase “likes” to the Hope House page. Ask them to help spread
your message.

LinkedIn may be the obvious choice for reaching a specific industry user demographic in order to appeal
to those professionals possibly looking to volunteer their time. It also allows you to connect and build a
community of followers on a more professional level as well as achieve business-to-business contacts
with other leaders in the business community.
Section Three-Marketing Tactics

Hope House is an organization that was formed to combat domestic violence and sexual assault victims
in 1983. Many people agree that violence of any kind is unacceptable here in the United Stated of
America, or anywhere. If you ask around, the majority of people are unfamiliar with Hope House. For
example, I walked around Madison College and asked over 50 people about Hope House and no one was
aware of what Hope House is. What does that tell you? It tells me that Hope House has an opportunity
to improve marketing tactics, which in return, could bring in more volunteers and money donations.
With additional money donations and volunteer support, Hope House could expand its operations and
help more people in need.

Currently, Hope House has a solid website that includes links to their Facebook, Twitter, and their in-
house Blog. I see that Hope House has the right ideas of getting the word out, but needs some re-
direction to capture the attention of the masses. Their pages are very basic and they are not active in
posting or keeping information current. For example, only approximately 498 people have viewed their
Facebook page and 70 people are following their twitter page. Why? I would make a more than
educated guess as to say they do not have a person dedicated to social media. I should also mention
they don’t have any social media power houses to spread the word about Hope House. For example,
having our governor on the page to show the powerful connections tied to the organization.

Yes, all the platforms that Hope House is using, should be still used, just with more frequency. How
should they utilize their current social media platforms?

1. Facebook:
 Active posts should be made at least every 2 days to show they are still in fact a
place to help people in need.
 Post photos of volunteers and the professional staff making Hope House appear
more personal.
 Encourage influential members to like their page and show their support.
 Make the Facebook page interactive by having competitions for cover art or
essays relating to domestic violence. This could be a great project for younger
students to get involved and gain awareness of Hope House.
 Include more photographs and videos.
 Pay the Facebook fees to boost web presence and get the word out for victims of
abuse. Getting the word out is the hardest part in this type of business.
 Include more current info and include anonymous victims from victims they took
care of.
 Post volunteer opportunities.
 2. Twitter:
 Appoint an active twitter administrator. The last tweet was a month ago.
 Make the Twitter page more interactive.
 Include photographs and videos.
 Include more current information and include anonymous thank you tweets
from victims they took care.
 Tweet volunteer opportunities.
 Pay the Twitter fees to get the word out with Twitter business for advertising.
For example, with paying the fee you can have more Twitter engagements,
increase followers, and website clicks/conversations by sending people to your
site with hashtags.

3. Blogs:
 Have very active blogs.
 Post volunteer opportunities.
 Make sure the blog is personal with anonymous posters. People will feel more
connected to the victim if they cans empathize with them.
 Simplify the blog. Remove congestion to encourage people to read the blog. The
blog should be compartmentalized in a professional manner to avoid confusion.

4. Pinterest:
 Pinterest account is adequate.
 Keep their information current.
 Followers are only eight.
 Follow more people and get connections through the followers and the people
they follow. Build a network.

5. LinkedIn:
 Create a LinkedIn account.
 Connect and build relationships with professionals.
 Achieve business contacts.
 Make regular updates.
 Advertise volunteer opportunities.

All of these social sites need to be monitored regularly. Each site needs to be active, regular posts and
updates need to be made. By being active on these social media sites, Hope House can expect to gain
twelve volunteers. After six months, the sites should be evaluated to see if the effort put in is getting the
expected results. If results are not what is expected, then the plan needs to be re-evaluated.

The message should be this:

It could be your Daughter or Son!

As shown with this image, a personal connection is made. If you have kids you want be protective and in
return, feel an instant connection to the domestic violence survivors being helped by Hope House. This
graphic can be bedazzled even more if I went into the creative cloud with InDesign and Illustrator.

In conclusion, I am sure if a social media guru was solicited to come in and concentrate on building a
social media presence, someone would be sure to volunteer. This organization does selfless work, but
they have opportunity to improve social media campaigns. If a focus was put into social media, it is
certain to increase the awareness of Hope House and bring in the quality volunteers needed.

Social media can help Hope House attract the volunteers needed to continue to live their mission.
Works Cited

www.hopehousescw.org

www.linkedin.com

www.amfam.com

www.wisc.edu

www.epic.com

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/12/30/social-media-update-2013/

http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/plan/

Trattner, C., Kappe, F. (2013). "Social Stream Marketing on Facebook: A Case Study".
International Journal of Social and Humanistic Computing (IJSHC) 2 (1/2).

How Social Media Is Changing Paid, Earned & Owned Media. Mashable.com (2011-06-23).

Bowden, J. (n.d.). The Impact of Social Media Marketing Trends on Digital Marketing.
Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/impact-social-
media-marketing-trends-digital-marketing