Inclusive M&O Planning & Development

You have program goals – how do you get there as quickly as possible?

Marketing and Outreach planning is the blueprint for multiple internal teams to follow.

Marketing and Outreach (M&O) planning should ideally include staff from Programs, Customer and Community Engagement, Data Analytics, Call Center Services, and Marketing & Communications. Your department or team titles may vary, but each of these teams work at crucial intersections of the customer experience with your organization.

M&O planning should be inclusive - include team members who understand the voice, info channels, sensibilities, and priorities of the customer groups your program is designed to reach. Before adding lots of data into fancy templates, first talk through all aspects of the program goals.

Here are general examples of collaborative conversations with Program, Data Analytics, Marketing, Call Center, and Community/Customer Engagement teams:

Data Analysis: If you’re launching a residential program who is the program applicable to?

  • Single-family, multifamily, income-qualified, medium income or no restriction customers?

  • Who is producing the customer lists and is the specific data readily available?

  • Are you screening for customers in arrears or on bill-savings programs?

  • When must the data be ready for initial review and for refinement? When must the final reports be ready?

  • Do you have Call Center customer-inquiry stats to assess needs by region?

Marketing: Who is creating the right tone for the different end-user groups and what process is in place to review first drafts for tone and message?

  • If your review process goes quickly to upper management, do they possess the insights to understand how visual and text content will be received by different communities or commercial sectors?

  • Do you have ERGs or CBO partners who can offer more insightful feedback?

  • Are you matching your social media channels to reach each of these groups? Based on languages spoken, do you have insights into their trusted information sources?

  • How will your messaging reach individuals with diverse-abilities?  Have you researched the timing of messaging to ensure it doesn’t compete with other events, holidays or seasonal production schedules?

  • Have you informed in-house or external customer service reps, and will you inform your local jurisdiction(s) or other 3P partners about the program launch?

  • Have you produced comprehensive FAQ’s for internal staff?

  • Will your customer-facing teams be augmenting/supporting the program messaging through 1:1’s, CBOs, or other interest groups? And does everyone understand the goal timelines?

Note: templates can force creative thought into limited data cells. If you start the planning process in a fixed template without talking through potential barriers and customer sensitivities, you are accepting minimal results. 

Climate Forward Solutions brings short-term, cost-effective guidance to Customer Engagement, Marketing, and Program Development teams:

Program Implementation Planning: We work with you to develop comprehensive Marketing and Outreach plans that include tasks required from all relative internal collaborators. We’ll help you set clear activities (across departments), timelines and KPIs to keep you on track.CFS brings decades of experience and learning from successful and failed program implementation to help you create the foundation for ongoing and successful M&O planning and implementation.