Module 12-- Content Analysis for Non-Profits

What does the world and media think about the nonprofit?

Unfortunately, River house Inc. does not have any social media connections. The only thing they have is a face book like page with information about the organization and a crisis hot line.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/River-House-Inc/377582601504?sk=info

Does this match their own messaging?

The only media site River house depends on is there on personal website.  It only matches the websites message because they stated on the site that the website serves the people that are in the need for their services.

What recommendations do you have to improve their communications?

In this day and age, I highly recommend that River house Inc.  sign up for a Facebook and twitter account. This will reach out to so many people that are missing out on an opportunity for help.  This will leave a positive impact on the organization and people will be willing to travel to this organization if their situation is bad enough. You will be surprised.

Module 12- Measurement Plan for Non-Profit

Choose a non-profit and follow the steps in KDP's reading to setup a measurement plan.  In a blog post, explain each step and back up any recommendations you make

In February of 2011, I attended Alternative Spring Break with Lawrence Tech Leadership program. We went to Grayling, Michigan and volunteered at River house, Inc. which is a non-profit agency that serves victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and homelessness. I am going to use this agency to come up a measuring plan.

 Use your mission to define your objectives

Here is River house mission that is listed on their page:

“The mission of River House, Inc. is to provide safety and services to survivors of domestic and sexual abuse and the homeless population while promoting empowerment through education and advocacy. River House, Inc. has been serving local communities since 1986, by providing crisis counseling, emergency shelter, group counseling and support, as well as legal advocacy and community education.”

Based off of their mission, an objective might be to have the right professionals to provide the right type of counseling to make a positive impact on all of the victims that uses River house facility. They might want to incorporate advertisements that publicize their strengths and there specialty services.

Identify and prioritize your audience

Audience may be geared towards anyone that knows someone that is affected by domestic, sexual violence, and homelessness. River house may also want to partner up with other firms or through other programs that support these types of victims. They also might want to publicize at schools, churches, and even on city council websites in the surrounding area.

Establish a benchmark & Metrics

I think the best approach for this particular organization is to compare its progress from last year. These types of non-profit organization are all working towards the same purpose. These things could also be used as metrics. The things that they would compare to the previous year would be:

·         How many victims did they get on the right track with an success story?

·         How many victims returned after they left?

·         Victims can only stay for 6 months, how many asked for an extension?

·         How many new victims registered each year?

Pick measuring tool

Simply keeping logs of victims, the amount of children registered, and how effective the programs are can all be great measuring tools for these type of non-profits.  We also can measure donations from the outside community and other firms to help support our non-profits. We can also can measure the effectiveness of the website because the website is supposed to help with support of the victims.

“Our website is designed to serve victims and survivors, volunteers willing to help victims and those looking for information about domestic and sexual abuse services in the region served.”

Module 11- BCBS

Discuss how BCBS could measure the results of their communications plan. 

This is where the consumers have an impact on the communication plans. So in this case, I think that BCBS should measure consumer responses and feedback of the plan.  This will help decide which direction to go in so that communication is more effective through various channels.  BCBS should also get an overall scope of how the communication plan impacts every sub group of the Company (organizational, employees, consumers).

How could BCBS-NH measure their communication effectiveness with their own publics?

Just asking for general opinions, I have seen company’s do either door to door survey’s, phone calls, or emails just to see what they want to see out of a company.  Putting on community events, sponsoring and doing health fairs and getting some responses from events like that. BCBS will definitely get some feedback from that especially by BCBS being in the healthcare sector just to keep everyone engaged 

How can BCBS-NH measure the relationships it has with local offices? Be specific.

As far as local offices are concern, we should focus on things like competitors in the success of their productivity, operations, what is the rate of community & public involvement etc.  We should also focus on the areas we lack because all of these have an impact based of communications effectiveness.

Module 11- Communication Across The Sales Channel

Pizza Hut Franchise

I used Pizza hut as my chosen franchise.  Pizza hut basically leaves everything up to its customers.  On the franchisee website it states that:

 “You’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself. Pizza Hut provides innovative approaches to customer engagement and continues a long history of brand awareness with consistent marketing and advertising. “

From those initial statements, our focus points will be on marketing and advertising and customer satisfaction. These are the crucial factors for pizza huts success nationally. I have been to various pizza hut restaurant over my lifetime and I must say that there is reasons as to why they are one of my top favorite restaurant for pizza and it goes beyond the taste. That shows that Pizza hut holds its brand to what they make it out to be. They are serious about advertising and customer satisfaction.

Advertising and Marketing

Each pizza restaurant I have been to be doing well in the advertising and marketing side of business individually. They are very active in their community, good quality commercial’s, billboards/ ad’s, online marketing, and  they have the willingness to do sponsorships for different business and individuals, and the employees play a role in advertising and marketing too based of the image they hold as an employee. I have received great service and Pizza Hut really does make everything about the customer. 

Customer Satisfaction

The customer experience at each pizza hut restaurant in my region has pretty much been the same. The employees are very respectful and welcoming, my food is always fresh, and the service is done in an acceptable timely manner.  Customer engagement is key with this company.  Like any other pizza restaurant, Customers are allowed to mix and match specialty pizzas and pizza hut would actually advertise it. Pizza hut has had different contest and customer can receive prizes. The local pizza hut customer involvement has been a success overall. It seems the communication chains are working properly so I would advise Pizza Hut to keep doing what they are doing.

Module 11- PR Crisis

PR Crisis

My response is going to be rather short and straight to the point  due to the small amount of content I found about the Best Buy scandal. 

So, The Company I choose was Best Buy obviously and the short term crisis they suffered was based off The Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn. The biggest issue was that Brian Dunn left the company. The reason for him leaving was because he had an inappropriate relationship with a female employee there. Richard Schulze, Chairman of Best Buy confronted Dunn about the situation between him and the female. Richard did not report the situation to anyone else on the corporate level which later caused everything to be misconstrued.  Best Buy did not explain the reason why he left which caused assumptions, rumors, and misconceptions to flair up. Words that could be sensitive to an organization like “scandal” and “misconduct” began to spread amongst the organization and to the public which eventually blasted into the media. As time went on, no one really tried to clear it up or giving reasoning as to why Dunn left which made Best Buy look suspicious as if they were trying to hide something. Reporters decided to dive deep into the situation and later found out that Dunn left because of the negative relationship with the female employee. This really placed a negative effect on Best Buy's brand because of the rumors and misconception.

 Best Buy really did not handle this situation properly. When the CEO is involved, I feel that they should have taken every proper measure possible to clear up an issue like this so people can know what is going on. The issue was not even that crucial, Dunn leaving the company was just a proper business decision he decided to take to cease any prolonged conflict with another member of the company. Something like that they just could have come clean with. They could have watched communication amongst the social media to make sure the brand is protected.  They also could have measured and analyzed how sales were affected during this period of the scandal. Most of the resolutions and measures could have been regulated amongst the organizations corporate level. They should not have let it get this far to the point that people are creating misconceptions about the company simply because of the sake of the company’s brand.