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Communications Plan

Designed for:

Executive Summary: 

The aim of this public relations plan is to gain community awareness and increase the customer base of the agritourism business, Laughing Buck Farm.  This is an educational farm for children located in outer Fort Collins.  Because of this the primary audience being targeted are parents living in the Fort Collins area.  Facebook will be a major part of this campaign because middle aged adults make up a large portion of Facebook users.  

 

This campaign will strive to increase Facebook and Instagram to better reach out to the audience.  Part of this will include replying to comments and commenting on others’ posts.  This will help build a relationship with potential customers.  In addition one of the main focuses is creating a video.  Facebook has become very video centered and utilizing this type of media will be beneficial to the farm and help gain more attention.

 

Press releases, fact sheets, and a bookmark will also be used to help bring in more attention and awareness.  Laughing Buck Farm recently started offering after school classes, so that children who attend public school can come to a class in the evening.  The farm is growing and so must the public relations outreach.  By applying new ideas, this will hopefully grow awareness and the customer base of Laughing Buck Farm.             

Strategies: 

  1. Reach out to the audience through social media and create a relationship with followers through interactions. 

  2. Use new forms of media on social media to reach out to audiences and gain attention.

  3. Highlight farm classes to grow customer base.  

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths: 

  • Uniqueness: Laughing Buck Farm is a unique business that gives children the opportunity to play and learn in an untraditional, hands-on experience.

  • Customer Satisfaction and service: costumers appear to have a high level of satisfaction and offer good reviews. In addition the management builds a strong relationship with these customers. 

  •  Strong Management: Strong leader and team that keeps operations running smoothly and efficiently.

  • Social Media Presence: Business has a strong social media presence and effectively communicates to the customers through this source.

Weaknesses:

  • Small Customer Base- Business targets a smaller demographic (homeschoolers), so large growth could be difficult.    

  • No Marketing Plan: Business does not have a written, strategic marketing plan at this time.

  • No Videos- Business has not utilized trend towards visual promotions such as video through their social media.    

Opportunities: 

  • Expanding Market: There is an expanding market and it’s “in” to learn where food comes from.

  • Expand Marketing: Expand outreach to customers and experiment with new ideas (video).

  • Grow Target Customers: Target children that go to public school by offering an after school class.

Threats:

  • Animal Loss: Loss of animals by death (mainly horses) could put business in a precarious position. 

  • New Market Entry: Growing market could attract others and create more competition.

  • Market Demand: Demand for programs could change because of new trends or changes in preferences.  

Objectives:

  1. To increase awareness of Laughing Buck Farm in the community through the course of 3 months.

  2. Gain social media following and interaction by 2% in 3 months. 

  3. To achieve at least one hundred video views. 

Audiences:

The primary audience would be parents that live in Fort Collins.  The focus will be on homeschool parents, but also keeping in mind parents that send their children to public school.  These parents might value knowing where their food comes from or have some connection to agriculture.  They potentially focus on eating healthy and obtaining natural foods.  The audience may also have a respect for the outdoors and spending time in nature.        

 

The secondary audience would be focused on targeting the children of these parents.  They may influence their parents in the decision to come to Laughing Buck Farm.  These children would generally enjoy playing, learning and spending time outside. 

Tactics:

  • Create and post a video on social media pages to gain attention of the audience. 

  • Reach out to press by press releases and gain attention of the media.  Write a press release about the Artisan Fair.

  • Create a fact sheet to inform the audience about agricultural education.

  • Expand social media by new targeted postings.

  • Create bookmark to hand out at events and reach out to the audience.   

Calendar:

September 29    Artisan Fair Press Release 
October 4          Client Fact Sheet 
October 18        Comprehensive Press Release 
November 5      Start Social Media Posts (two a week)
November 12    Finish with video and post it
November 19    Finish with slideshow or infographic
November 28    Wrap up PR Campaign 

Budget:

Item                           Costs
Hours                        $300
Gas/trips to farm       $50
Camera                     $500
Tripod                       $50
Computer/software   $700
Total:                         $1,600
 

Evaluation:

To evaluate how well this plan worked, it is best to compare the end result with the objectives.  The first objective was to increase the awareness of Laughing Buck Farm in the community.  This objective can be difficult to measure, but it could be done through surveys.  A survey could be conducted before and after the campaign to judge how community awareness grew.  The second objective was to increase social media.  This can simply be evaluated by comparing social media analytics before and after the campaign.  The third objective was to gain three hundred views on the video created.  This can be evaluated by reviewing the amount of views the video achieves.      

Conclusion:

This plan is centered around building awareness of Laughing Buck Farm on the community and increasing the customer base.  This will be done primarily through social media.  Expanding social media works well for Laughing Buck Farm because it’s a free, simple way to interact with customers and start to form relationships.  The farm itself naturally will bring in attention on social media.  This is because it is a unique program and involves cute kids and animals.  This generally has a heartwarming affect and will draw people in. 

 

While the farm primarily targets homeschool children there are growing opportunities for children that attend public school as well.  The after school class and summer camps offered by Laughing Buck Farm is a way for the farm to expand and grow a larger audience.  It is important to make others aware of these opportunities.

 

Social media is a great platform for Laughing Buck Farm.  Creating a video for Facebook will be a great way to gain more attention because Facebook is becoming so video oriented.  A video of cute animals and kids has potential to get a good amount of attention.  Press releases will hopefully gain attention of media outlets and even more people will be exposed to Laughing Buck Farm.  One press release will be about the Artisan Fair where all members of the community can come to the farm and be exposed to it.   Through this plan Laughing Buck Farm will work to grow and become a greater interest to those living in Fort Collins.   

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