PowerPoint Presentation for St. Bonaventure's Integrated Marketing Communications Thesis by Katie Essner December 2010

1. The Girl Scouts of the USA
GIRL ZONE WEBSITE
Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
Presented by Katie Essner

2. THE GIRL SCOUT PROMISE
On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my
country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout
Law.

3. OVERVIEW
• Girl Scouts completed the Core Business Strategy in 2009
• Retention dropped 8 percent over the last 10 years
• Need to develop a loyalty among girls to the Girl Scouts

4. OVERVIEW
This integrated marketing communications plan seeks
to create an online world for girls that blends
the physical and virtual lives of girls today.

5. SITUATION
ANALYSIS
• Girl
Scout membership dropped from 2009 to 2010 by
approximately 70,000 members
• Girl
Scouts gained more than 8,000 adult volunteers from
2009 to 2010

6. COMPETITION
Sports
Clubs
Other after-school
activities

7. RESEARCH FINDINGS
• 93percent of girls age eight to 11 play online games (M2
Research)
• 95
percent of parents and 86 percent of teens who use social
media have Facebook profiles (Lightspeed Research)
• Parentsmay not be giving enough useful advice to girls about
the Internet (Girl Scout Research Institute)

8. RESEARCH FINDINGS
• The most play of online games
among 13 to 17 year-olds is on
social networking sites such as
Facebook (Roiworld)
• More than one-third of those
surveyed who use Facebook said
they played games while on
Facebook 50 percent of the time
(Roiworld)

9. RESEARCH FINDINGS
Half of teens age 12 to 17 surveyed by Princeton:
• Send50 or more text
messages a day
• 1,500 texts a month
• Onein three teens send
more than 100 texts a day,
or more than 3,000 texts a
month

10. QUICK!
GRAB YOUR CELL PHONE

11. TEXT 573-450-0840

12. OVERALL STRATEGY
In order to increase retention of the Girl Scouts, the
organization must become more relevant to the girls’
lives, as well as communicate and connect with them
on a personal level to build a loyalty to the organization.
Girl Zone will create a safe, interactive and relevant
website for the girls to play games, network and use as
an educational resource.

13. OVERALL OBJECTIVES
• To increase retention of the Girl Scouts membership by 5
percent
• To increase Girl Scout activity by 20 percent from the launch
of Girl Zone to the completion of the first year
• To obtain 40 percent of Girl Scout users on Girl Zone
nationwide one month after the launch
• To make 5,000 media impressions nation and worldwide
during the campaign execution

14. TARGET MARKET
Girl Zone is targeted at
girls in the third through fifth
grade (age eight to 11)
who risk dropping the Girl
Scouts in the fifth
through sixth grade

15. SECONDARY
TARGET MARKETS
• Troop Leaders
• Parents
• General Public

16. KEY MESSAGES TO GIRLS
• The Girl Scouts continue to build courage, confidence
and character in girls, even in an ever-changing society
• The Girl Scouts allows girls to discover, connect and take
action both with their troops and online
• It is fun and trendy to be a Girl Scout

17. KEY MESSAGES
TO SECONDARY
TARGET MARKETS
• TheGirl Scouts provide a safe, entertaining
and educational online resource for girls
• The Girl Scouts are relevant to girls today

18. GIRL ZONE WEBSITE
• GoGirls Only does not provide
enough variety
• Girl
Zone is a log in based
website that offers a gaming
center, monitored chat rooms
with Girl Scouts from across the
country, a learning center and
quizzes.

19. BUILDING GIRL ZONE
• TheGirl Scouts of the USA will hire a web team for
development and maintenance
• Crisiscommunications plan will be utilized should any
issues arise
• Girl
Zone testing period with 10 troops, approximately
300 Girl Scouts

20. GIRL ZONE LOG IN

21. GAMING CENTER

22. QUIZ PAGE

23. EDUCATION PAGE

24. SAFETY
• Girlswill sign the Girl Scout
Internet Safety Pledge
• Parents will receive an instructional
brochure explaining the site’s
safety and topics to discuss with
the girls
• TheGirl Zone web team will
monitor the site for suspicious
behavior

25. PUBLIC RELATIONS EFFORTS
• News release announcing Girl Zone launch
• Packets to councils:
• First online badge requirements
• Log in information
• Informational brochures for parents
• Reference manual for troop leaders
• “Get Online with the Girl Scouts” flier

26. PUBLIC RELATIONS EFFORTS
Webinar training sessions for
councils to explain website
Councils will train troop leaders
Troop leaders will schedule “Get
Online with the Girl Scouts”

27. SOCIAL MEDIA
• Facebook will focus on
creating discussions
• Troopleaders will be
encouraged to create
Facebook groups

28. SOCIAL MEDIA
• Twitterwill be targeted
towards parents and the
general public
• Hashtags #girlscouts and
#girlzone

29. SOCIAL MEDIA
YouTube will house instruction videos
and Public Service Announcements

30. ADVERTISING
Two print ads will run in
Girls Life magazine
Readership is 97.6 percent
girls ages nine to 14

31. PRINT ADVERTISEMENT

32. PRINT ADVERTISEMENT

33. TIMELINE
The Girl Zone integrated marketing communications
plan runs from January 2011 to April 2012

34. EVALUATION
• Compare membership numbers to see if the 5 percent
retention was obtained at the end of Girl Zone’s first year
• Google Analytics will be recorded each month for the
website’s first year to monitor usage. The analytics will be
compared at the end of the year to see if girls’ activity online
increased by 20 percent

35. EVALUATION
• One month after the launch, count the number of girls who
signed up to participate in Girl Zone to determine if the 40
percent membership was achieved
• Monitor
Google Alerts and the media to determine how
many media impressions were made

36. CONCLUSION
• Girl Zone creates a bond and loyalty to the Girl Scouts by
cultivating and encouraging relationships, physically and
virtually.
• Girl Zone allows the Girl Scouts to be present on all
platforms.
• Ifthe Girl Scouts do not find a way to be present and
relevant in all areas of girls’ lives, they will simply fade away.

37. In a society of text messaging, instant messaging and
social networking, connection is key – and Girl Zone
is where these connections convene.

38. Thank you for your time
QUESTIONS?