[Marketing] Marketing Plan

[Daniele]

Dear Dave,

I would like to thank you very much for your valuable comments. The 
Marketing _Outline_ is a way to start *organizing* our marketing 
thoughts in a *structured* way and it will be fantastic if everyone 
could contribute to make it better. So if you have ideas, please feel 
free *modify it, improve it*. As a Wiki, that is the “modus operandi”. 
Anyway, I have a good reading suggestion that might also help, Shelli 
Bischoff has great small, straight to the point article called 
“Nonprofit Marketing with a Purpose: Developing a Strategic Marketing 
Plan to Engage New Audiences” it summarizes the steps a non profit can 
take to make a marketing plan. If you have the chance to read it, you 
will see that the outline on the wiki covers most of the topics she 
talks about... great reading, really!


And about the commercial enterprises, YES!!! OSGeo is *not* one of those 
and it is _*extremely*_ important to point that out. But is it possible 
that a user that *PAYS* for a service wouldn't like to _*save up*_ using 
a compatible (and sometimes better) *FREE* version? Maybe... _*If they 
knew about it*_ (here come the marketing and promotion again). So why 
not compete with companies that offer commercial products as well? Well 
that is something to be discussed.

And as for another important thing you pointed out, using the term 
“customers” (as it was on the wiki) is not the best term to describe 
people who use OSGeo's services, what would an appropriate term be: 
Clients, Users, Targets? Great... the discussion is heating up... let's 
get OSGeo in peoples heads and mouths!!!

kind regards,

Daniele.



Dave McIlhagga wrote:
> One question that pops to mind .. obviously OSGeo is not a commercial 
> enterprise delivering software/services etc.. to customers, and in 
> fact has to be particularly sensitive to not compete with 
> companies/individuals who are providing commercials products/services 
> with OSGeo software. However, the marketing plan outline that is shown 
> below is very much along the lines of a typical commercial 
> services/software company.
>
> Is there a better template out there specific to non-profit 
> organizations / foundations for marketing purposes? This would seem 
> like a much more useful starting point.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> On 25-Nov-07, at 11:19 PM, Daniele wrote:
>
>> Dear Marketing Committee,
>>
>> I have sketched an outline of a possible marketing plan 
>> (http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Marketing_Plan). The reason for it 
>> is so that every one in the committee has a clear idea of the 
>> components of such a plan. I think the part about *promotion 
>> *(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Marketing_Plan#Selected_Marketing_Strategy) 
>> is also quite important at the moment as I felt that many of you need 
>> print material to promote OSGeo in events... so we can create a wiki 
>> for that). If you have time, please input your Ideas on it. Note that 
>> it is an outline so the final Plan may look quite different.
>>
>> Warmest regards,
>>
>> Daniele.
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>