To: Ashley Mercer and Donald Pate , Marketing and Finance Department (MMA)
From: Ashley Graf (Senior Analyst)
Date: December 4, 2004
Re: Considerations for 2005 Currently, there is a state of affairs that needs to be addressed. After reviewing the case of MMA, I am inclined to relay a few ideas on how to generate revenue and not end up in the negative margin for the 2005 year. First, I will point out a few things and work these ideas in as we go. We know that out of the members’ categories, we have 2: personal and corporate. Each membership has different amenities according to the dollar amount paid per year, ranging from $50-$5,000 to even $10,000 per year. This hosts a number of opportunities. First, to generate some sort of revenue, the museum could implement an Incentive Program. Since it becomes harder and harder to keep members, it would only be proper to come up with a plan of action, where, say the already members are given a sheet to fill out with the names, telephone number, and email address of at least 5 people they would deem good leads in regards to gaining memberships. If these cards are filled out and returned, with said member’s information, they should receive a discount on their annual renewal, or perhaps a free lunch (up to a certain dollar amount). This in turn will also allow people to see the restaurants as well. Next, after analyzing the data given as per dollar amounts spent on marketing and advertising, we can see that the return from the advertising is a meek 1.03%. Instead of spending so much money on mail solicitations, it’d more likely be profitable to hire a team of people to be brand ambassadors for the museum. They would go out with an energetic and positive attitude and try to gain corporate memberships as well as personal memberships. This can be done cheaply as you’d only have to employ 4-8 people at minimum wage to get the word out as well as generate foot traffic in the building. The more populated the building looks at any given time, the more interest it will gain of the public eye. This in turn will get the word out, and it shows involvement and interest in the museum that may not be achieved by a single letter. It’d be better to collect the leads personally than to send a semi-personal letter. The ambassadors would be able to answer any and all questions regarding money issues and policies. Using social networks would also improve the amount of memberships gained. Right now, Myspace is on the brink of being the largest and most widely used website in the world. We can target our area and demographic in a tighter manner, and for next to nothing. There is another website that is taking off as of February this year, which only allows college students to access it, called “The Facebook.” We would be able to target schools a lot easier, and perhaps come up with a new membership category. Since we have personal and corporate memberships, perhaps at a discounted rate, but offering the same amenities as corporate memberships, we can implement school memberships, where each school district pays an allotted amount per year to enjoy being priority on all museum trips, and perhaps dinner with the director. There schools can even help set up specific events in regards to the periods of time they are working on, and bring out the parents of the students. This, again, brings in more foot traffic. This can all run alongside holding fundraisers, private events, galas, etc. Since it is hard to get membership renewal, it is time to start looking for other outlets, and I hope these plans will be implemented soon, as a lot of Fortune 500 companies have already jumped on board.