5 Creating a Marketing Plan

Provide a brief description of what your marketing project/ campaign will be.

Making the case for your open education marketing campaign starts with outlining why there is a need for action. What challenge(s) are you facing on campus that open education can help solve? What efforts are already underway, and why is that not enough? For most campuses, this will start with textbook costs, but be sure to think through other challenges open education can solve.

What is it that you want to achieve through open education? Close your eyes and envision what open education on campus would look like if you could waive a magic wand. Missions are meant to be broad and longer term, so your project will at most be making a step in this direction, as opposed to achieving it completely.

What are the specific outcome(s) you are trying to achieve through your marketing project? A helpful formulation of goals is “X in order to Y by Z” where X is a concrete action, Y is a measurable outcome, and Z is a timeframe. Goals should meaningfully advance the status quo closer to your vision, and can be both short term and long term. Examples might be, “run an awareness campaign in order to flip at least 1 major intro course to OER before fall book orders are due.” or  “increase the amount of inquires about OERs from faculty”.

What is your theory for how each goal’s proposed action (X) will achieve your desired outcome (Y)? For example, why do you think an awareness campaign will lead to adoption? Do you have any evidence to back that up? If you have trouble explaining your theory, revisit your goals.

Now that you’ve made sure your project idea aligns with your vision, it’s time to flesh out what it looks like. What will your project actually do? Write down a list of key activities. For each one, ask yourself whether it fits in with your strategy and goal. For example, if you’re raising awareness in order to flip a high-enrollment course, reconsider activities that focus on faculty not teaching high-enrollment courses.

The first step is to define the scope of your marketing project. In most campuses, this will be your campus, but some marketing campaigns may have broader scopes that might include your state, legislation, or a specific consortium or network.

Stakeholders and target market are the people who are affected by your project. Some examples include: students, faculty, deans, librarians, curriculum committee, bookstore manager, etc. Think through which groups are the stakeholders, and who are key opinion leaders in each of the groups.

Who is an ally? This can include potential partners who will actively be involved in supporting your work, and also high-level administrative supporters who can provide clearance or endorsement. Some allies may come from your stakeholder list, but not all of them. Also think about whether there is anyone who might oppose or work against you.

In what ways does your marketing project align with broader initiatives relevant in your context? How does it fit into your institution’s mission? Are there specific opportunities coming up that your project could take advantage of?

What are the biggest barriers or threats to success you could face? What steps could you take to mitigate risk of failure? If any of your potential challenges seem insurmountable or too risky, consider revisiting your goals.

What policies or norms affect your project? These could range widely from copyright policy to tenure and promotion to rules for how stipends can be provided. Discuss how your project will account for these. If your project’s success depends on policies or norms changing, explain your theory of change.

Who will be involved in your project? At the very least it includes you, but think about who else might be involved in implementing your project—both formally and informally. This could include an advisory committee, other library staff, or partners, library’s social media team etc. Will these people need any kind of professional development or training? If so, how can you help provide it?

What kind of resources are needed for your project to run successfully? This could include funding, time release, or other in-kind support like event space, graphic design, etc.

How will OER will be involved in your project—i.e. will you be building it, adapting it, or curating collections?  Think through your plan for where the OER will come from, and what kind of technical tools or expertise is needed. If you are publishing it, think about where and how. Also be sure to consider Accessibility.

What kind of open education practices will your project involve? Will faculty be continuously improving OER? Will students be engaged in creating, annotating, or updating OER? What kind of professional development or training is needed to implement these practices, and how will you provide it?

What are the key audiences who need to be aware of your effort while it’s underway? What channels can you use to make them aware? Think about presentations you can make, communications you can send, and other ways of creating buzz. Think not only about how you are communicating information, but also how people can find and reach you.

Think back to your goals. How will you measure if your project is a success? Think about ways that you can measure outcomes, both in terms of collecting feedback, and also more quantitative measures. Brainstorm specific metrics that can define whether you have met your goal, and how you might measure them.

Equally important as measuring success is to communicate about it. How will you make sure campus is aware of the impact you have when the project is complete? How will you celebrate champions and reward those involved? How can you make sure the appropriate entities (your supervisor, etc.) are aware of YOUR accomplishments?

Consider what comes after your marketing campaign project. If you see your project as the initial phase of a larger effort, describe it here. If your campaign project will be complete by the end of the semester, consider how you or others might build upon your work.

Going back to the first section where you outlined the status quo, how does this project fit into the larger changes you hope to see happen? Are there programs or practices that need to carry on, or policies that need to change? How do you see your work feeding into building a culture of openness on campus long term?