Mission Statement:
To establish DavidMorrissey.net and "Performance Marketing" as the premier organization
for Public Relations and eBusiness in the community.
Business opportunity
Many organizations have a need to connect people with service and resources, but
lack the business expertise to broker such connections on a sustainable basis. Organizations
increasingly need to provide targeted services with limited resources, raise funds, earmark funds per donor requests, participate
in conferences, maintain centers of excellence, accept donations and offer premium gifts online, maintain knowledge databases
for the use of field workers and manage vendors. In this process, the integration
of the right IT systems and people can be a daunting task. The need for outside
consultants increases exponentially as the number of donors, volunteers and vendors increases.
The growing need is to have the ability to deal with the public while also handling
the mandate. Contact management systems need to be optimized for campaigns, “data
mining”, and list brokering. Public relations need to be maintained in
print as well as in-person. Advertising campaigns need to be managed.
Operations
Organizational structure
The organization will be a virtual company, so networking with talent as needed
will be crucial. Relationships are already in place with talented professionals
in technology (web designers, database managers, on-site tech crew), entertainment (for trade show, fundraisers, training
in PR, improvisation), design (set design, graphic design). This should allow
delegation to take place dynamically.
Core operations
Through online listings, customers will be made aware of services available Services will be provided in person or electronically, and will be billed hourly. Services will be electronically delivered wherever possible.
Industry Environment
Overview of the industry
Consultant services are often used where volunteers leave off, and can be broadly categorized as 1) IT systems and
services, 2) strategic fundraising campaigns and 3) special project logistics.
IT systems and services often involve special training, mailing services, lockbox, call center, database management. There are many levels of outsourcing
available in combinations of services.
Strategic fundraising campaigns involve a lot of marketing, including creative development of marketing pieces, managing
the marketing mix, recommending the coding to use in the IT system to track response rates.
Often the campaign managers deal with IT managers on the appropriate technological responses to campaigns, particularly
when this involves major donors. In some cases, the major donor is dealt with
only in-house. Grant-writing is another aspect of fund raising initiatives.
The last category, special project logistics requires close work with designers, architects, artist renderers and the
like. Such projects are often government-related where there exists a policy
mandating the organization to forgo interaction with multiple businesses. This
often results in an additional need for a consultant, on an ongoing basis, to manage payments to the vendors involved in the
organization’s projects.
Projected position for the future
The trend toward internet technology is going to continue toward a paperless work environment. At the same time, there will be more personalization and customization of contact with all parties (vendors,
donors, volunteers).
Potential customers
Any organization with a critical mass of volunteers, donors and vendors where they find themselves overwhelmed
could be a candidate for my services. Of this group I seek those with pending
initiatives and growth targets that require brokering of specialized expertise in data mining, creative marketing, strategic
planning and event planning.
Direct competitors
There are many competitors in all three general areas, but financials are not available, as the consultants are generally
small businesses that are privately held.
Marketing
Business opportunity
There is a need for the ability to establish a strategy for a dynamic presence on the internet. We must create awareness of what the company offers such as accepting electronic donations and adding other
functionality that can be integrated utilizing tools available via online web services.
The combination of creative design and technical expertise is rare, and should be highly marketable.
Company impact
The company’s public relations marketing of articles in business journals, development of the DavidMorrissey.net
website, listing on search engines, creating brochures, and providing mailings to organizations. The web address DavidMorrissey.net will be prevelant on all of the marketing materials. Followup telephone contacts will encourage an in-person meeting.
Current business contacts will be contacted regularly to determine potential contracts.
Company strategy
DavidMorrissey.net will use a “focused differentiation” long term strategy to distinguish itself from the
many other consultants that are out there. The company will stress excellence
in public relations, integrity, global awareness and industry knowledge. The
approach will involve engaging clients in a variety of methods to create effective strategies to enhance corporate image,
web-presence, develop motivated volunteer and donor bases, and to thereby enable excellent services to their communities.
We will provide a creative and inspiring mix of special event management (outings, banquets, etc.), creative campaigning
(letter writing, working with ad agencies) and technological work (establishing or mining databases, outsourcing selected
IT & related services as required).
