Marketing Strategy Assignment: Strategies For Increasing Blood Donor Rates In Australia

Question

Topics for Consumer Insight Report:
Topic 1: ‘There will be blood’- encouraging new and repeat blood donation

Topic 2: ‘Take the power back’-Encouraging households to purchase solar panels and home batteries.

Recommended Structure for Report: For the report, you must follow the detailed structure provided. You should use these headings as a basis for your report, and ensure that it does not exceed the 1,750-word limit.

1. Introduction

• Overview of Topic: -Explain why your topic is interesting and why it needs to be investigated.
• Target Market: Explain and justify what target market you are selecting and why you are selecting that particular market segment for this report.
• Problem/Opportunity Statement: Provide a statement which summarises the problem/opportunity which is the focus of this report.

2. Literature Review & Framework

• Overview of literature on topic: Provide an overview as to what previous research and literature has investigated on your topic
  You wish to use tables here to summarise common points across different sources
• Theory/framework/Concept: State what theory/theories you will use to investigate your problem/opportunity (a maximum of two theories can be used however, one is sufficient)
  Provide an overview of the theory and justification for your selection
  Link this theory/framework/concept back to your topic

3. Marketing Strategies

• Marketing Strategy 1
• Marketing Strategy 2
• Marketing Strategy 3
  Ensure you explain how each of your strategies relates to your chosen theory
  Also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of your strategy

4. Recommendation & Conclusion

• Recommended marketing strategy (Pick one of your three suggested and provide justification)

5. References

Topic 1: ‘There will be blood’- encouraging new and repeat blood donation
Globally, the need for blood products for both elective and emergency procedures is rising with the donations supplied by volunteers not matching the required demand. Recruiting and retaining donors is a well-documented ongoing issue. The Australian Red Cross Blood Donation service needs to understand more about what they can do to encourage people to donate blood, and importantly, donate more regularly. This information can be used to ensure they tailor their marketing strategies for donor recruitment and retention. How can the Australian Red Cross Blood Donation service better understand the motivations to donate blood and in turn, increase donations using consumer behaviour theories?

Readings to assist:

• Bednall, T. C., Bove, L. L., Cheetham, A., & Murray, A. L. (2013). A systematic review and meta-analysis of antecedents of blood donation behavior and intentions. Social Science & Medicine, 96, 86-94.
• Chell, K., & Mortimer, G. (2014). Investigating online recognition for blood donor retention: An experiential donor value approach. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 19(2), 143–163.
• Ferguson, E., France, C. R., Abraham, C., Ditto, B., & Sheeran, P. (2007). Improving blood donor recruitment and retention: Integrating theoretical advances from social and behavioral science research agendas. Transfusion, 47(11), 1999–2010.

Answer

1. Introduction
a. Overview of the topic: This Marketing strategy assignment outlines the demand for blood and blood products in most of the countries are continuously increasing due to the rise of human life expectancy and the evolution of new surgical methods that require large amount of blood and blood products. There is the need of more efficient way for the blood supplies. There are various factors that would motivate people to become blood donors (Komljenovi? & Komljenovi?, 2012). For this report, the selected topic is ‘There will be blood’- encouraging new and repeat blood donation. This report explores the contribution of marketing efforts to enhance blood donors in Australia. The report provides some important and useful insights on contributing the factors to enhance the blood donor rates in Australia.

b. Target market: For the blood donation campaign, target people will be those in the country who are living active and healthy lifestyle. Those can be anyone i.e. adults, young people, men and women. The target market will include all the citizens who are aged between 18 years and 60 years and are able to donate safe blood on the continuous basis in Australia. For the campaign, target market will be selected based on the demographic and psychographic segments.

c. Problem statement: Currently, the problem is that there is the need of more blood and blood related products due to human life expectancy and the evolution of new surgical methods. But it can be seen that people do not donate their blood easily so, there is the need of effective strategies and tactics to make people agree about the blood donation (Thanika & Juwaheer, 2016).

2. Literature review
a. Overview of literature on topic: People do not focus on the blood donation due to their misperception about what will happen to them if they donate. This misperception can be reduced by educational communication and convincing the donors about their safety during the blood donation. It is observed that 46% of people are not aware about blood donation and its process. So there is the need to educate on safety and need of donation by the blood centers. There are various factors affecting the decision of donors in the society and those are as follows:

Information about need for blood donation: The information can come by regular donors, mass media and messages sent by blood centers. People should generally be informed by the mass media in which important points should be mentioned like need for blood when it is required, stories about those people who were saved due to blood donation and about those people who are seriously in need of certain type of blood. This information will be very helpful to influence the behavior of blood donors to donate the blood on regular basis. There are various factors that affect the perception of people to donate the blood (Schiffman, Kanuk & Hansen, 2012).

Social standards: In the society, some people donate their blood some purposes and reasons and on the other hand, others do so because of moral obligation or desire to help others who are in need. These social standards impact the behavior of blood donors in the society. Certain situations and circumstances facilitate people to take decision to donate the blood.

Reference groups: Next, reference groups also have significant impact on the donors of blood. Among the reference group of potential blood donors, there might be some people who have ever donated the blood or donate it on the regular basis. These people are able to solve the concerns of non-donors i.e. donating is greater to save the lives of human being.

Social networks: There can be various social networks like Twitter and FaceBook on which the campaigns of blood donations can be run. Blood centers can use various social networks to create awareness about the importance of blood donation in the society so that healthy people can donate their bloods on regular basis (Kazmi, 2012).

There are some internal factors that impact the decision making process of blood donor i.e. personal experiences, attitudes, motivations, situations and perceived risks. Those factors are discussed below.

Personal experiences: This factor includes the experience of those people who have donated the blood before. Based on that experience, they can be regular donor or non donor. If they had experience of bad psychological or physical experience like loss of consciousness, weakness, dizziness and extreme thrust then there will be lower chance of that person to return for blood donation. Sometimes, the fear of being excluded is so high that they will not try to donate again. Along with this, some people have concern of being medically disqualified so they do not ready to donate the blood. On the other side, if the experience of first blood donation was successful then people will consider it in the routine action (Aldamiz-echevarria & Aguirre-Garcia, 2014).

Motivation: The motivation factor varies on the people i.e. they are first time donors or regular donors. In case of first time donors, they have desire to help others and this is the reason of their blood donation. On the other hand, humanity is the key reason for the regular donors. The humanity or altruism can be affected by various environmental aspects but it is very difficult to motivate it by marketing efforts as it is inbuilt to the person. If people are able to fulfill their physical requirements then they can always donate the blood and satisfy their altruistic motivation. Literature suggests that there are motivations like positive experiences with the donations, empowering self-esteem, social causes, recognition, curiosity about donation and personal benefits.

Perceived risks: Based on various types of uncertainties related to consequences of donation, possibilities of blood donations will be bigger or smaller. So, it can be clearly seen that perceived risk is directly associated with the behavior of donor i.e. bigger the perceived risk, smaller the probability of donating the blood. Lack of proper information and fear of needles are the reasons for not donating the blood. Next, another perceived risk is associated with lack of education and communication as people are unaware about the need of blood and uses of blood. These fears can be seen among non-donors and first time donors (Yusuf, Fatih & Hayrettin, b2013).

b. Framework: Theory of planned behavior: By the literature review, it is observed that Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has efficiency to predict the behavior of donors in case of blood donation. This theory can be used along with other behavioral theories to understand the behavior of people regarding blood donation in Australia.

This theory reveals the primary intentions of individuals and predicts the behavior. The study supports and shows the intentions of someone that are reasons to perform the behavior. The intentions of the individuals are influenced by their attitudes toward the behavior, behavioral control and subjective norms of their behavior (Ivkovi?, Jeger & Ham, 2015). In case of factors of attitude, the overall opinion of person impact on the performing intentions in terms of blood donation. Further, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms are also significant factors affecting the intentions of blood donation (Filho & Giacomini, 2010).

3. Marketing strategies
In order to attract and retain people for blood donation in Australia, it is important to adopt effective marketing tactics and strategies by the blood centers. There are varieties of marketing tactics by which people can be motivated to donate their blood on regular basis (Kotler & Keller, 2012). Some of the effective marketing tactics are as follows:

a. Marketing strategy 1: Message strategies : In order to raise awareness and increase the knowledge of blood and blood donation campaign and motivate people, blood donation messages need to be designed so that various target audiences can be covered. For making people understand about blood and blood donation need, messages need to be distributed on the continuous basis (Ferrell & Hartline, 2011). To inform audiences about the inadequacy of blood supply, it is important to present various information related to this. Informal messages should be prepared for the general public of the country. There should be incentives for blood donations and that should be included in the message (Wood, 2009).

b. Marketing strategy 2: Media strategies: By the media strategies, informal and motivational messages related to blood and blood donations will be delivered among the people. In the multiple media platforms, there will be controlled, uncontrolled and personal channels. Various media channels i.e. brochures, posters and catalogues, along with mass media such as radio, television and newspapers will be used to make people aware about the blood donation (Levy, 2012). Media strategies will have effective message i.e. ‘There will be blood’- encouraging new and repeat blood donation so that people can be motivated for the blood donation in the regular manner.

c. Marketing strategy 3: Social marketing: This is one of the most effective marketing strategies in current time. Social media campaigns are very effective today as people are very active on social media platforms. By ensuring donor’ satisfaction, the rate of blood donation can be increased. Social media is very helpful in sharing information, ideas and content related to blood donation (Meng & Chatwin, 2012). FaceBook, Twitter, Google Plus and Instagram are helpful in this manner as creating campaign with hash tag like #therewillbeblood will be effective to attract the individuals. Social media will be helpful to encourage youngsters to donate the blood and ready them to be future donors.

4. Recommendation & conclusion: Based on the above three marketing strategies, social marketing is the most effective strategy as it will include message and potential to reach and target the customers. The reason for selecting this strategy is that people are more active on social media sites as compared to any other media tools. So, it would be easy to attract people on these channels. Social media channels are responsive and effective in sharing the news and information in less time. So, this marketing strategy would be selected to motivate people for blood donation.

Based on the overall discussion, it is observed that there is the need of more efficient way for the blood supplies in the society. There are some factors like Personal experiences, Information about need for blood donation, Social standards, reference groups, motivation and Perceived risks that impact the decision making process of donors to donate the blood. Further, lack of proper information and fear of needles are the reasons for not donating the blood. In conclusion, it is observed that there are varieties of marketing tactics by which people can be motivated to donate their blood on regular basis. In the marketing strategies people who are living active and healthy lifestyle will be targeted effectively.

5. References
Aldamiz-echevarria, C. & Aguirre-Garcia, M. S., 2014. A behavior model for blood donors and marketing strategies to retain and attract them (online). Available from: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rlae/v22n3/0104-1169-rlae-22-03-00467.pdf (Accessed on 8th June 2018)

Ferrell, O. & Hartline, M., 2011. Marketing management strategies, New York: South-Western

Filho, W. D. L. & Giacomini, L., 2010. Strategies to increase recruitment of voluntary and habitual blood donors. Acta paul. enferm. 23 (1)

Ivkovi?, A. F., Jeger, M. & Ham, M., 2015. The role of subjective norms in forming the intention to purchase green food. Journal of Economic Research, 28 (1), 738-748

Kazmi, S. Q., 2012. Consumer Perception and Buying Decisions. International Journal of Advancements in Research & Technology, Volume 1(6)

Komljenovi?, A. & Komljenovi?, B., 2012. Marketing planning of consumption of blood and blood products. Procedia Economics and Finance, 2, 167 – 170

Levy , S., 2012. Marketing management and marketing research. Journal of Marketing Management, 28(1-2), Pp.8-13.

Meng, S. and Chatwin, C., 2012. Measuring E-Marketing Mix Elements for Online Business. International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 3(3), Pp.13-26.

Schiffman, Kanuk & Hansen, 2012. Consumer Behaviour: A European outlook. USA: St .Johns University, Newyork

Thanika, D. & Juwaheer, 2016. Social marketing efforts to boost blood donor rate in developing countries – a case study of Mauritius. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2(6)

Wood, M., 2009. The marketing plan handbook. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education.

Yusuf, A., Fatih, G., & Hayrettin, Z., 2013. Examining Perceived Risk and Its Influence on Attitudes: A Study, 9(4)