Weber State University

B.I.S Capstone Project

(Business Administration, Health Administration, and Communications)

Marketing Plan

By:

Mason Schlange

Marketing Plan

1. Executive Summary

In this marketing plan, I have focused on the areas that could be used to help the

organization Forever Bound Adoption. I will explore the areas in which the organization

can improve, and in areas that could be explored to increase the overall exposure of the

organization. By discovering which weaknesses are at hand and being able to overcome

them is what will make the organization better at the end of the day.

By investigating possible target markets in this plan is important because you

need to know who you will be marketing to. Without a target market you can’t have a

marketing plan. Understanding what these target markets are seeking in terms of services

is key to being able to reach out to these individuals seeking adoptive services. I will

identify the target markets and ways that they can be reached in the most efficient ways

possible.

I will explore how larger adoption agencies market, discussing how they do their

day to day marketing and what makes them a successful adoption agency. This area is

useful because one can take these ideas that are being used and apply them to your own

organization. By being open minded to new ideas on how to adopt could help the

organization grow and reach the sought-after target markets.

A part of this marketing plan that I would like to highlight is the idea of

discussing marketing on the internet, and social media. These are two areas that have a

massive amount of traffic flowing through them and would be a huge missed opportunity

if missed. Being able to operate these two areas could help reach out to those who are

seeking adoptive services, and it opens doors for possible collaborations with other

organizations.

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2. Situation Analysis

SWOT Analysis: (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).

Strengths:

1. A strength that I would like to point out about Forever Bound Adoption is that they

are a local agency that is always looking for birthmothers, and adoptive parents.

2. They offer many services for those who are seeking adoption services, which allows

them to reach a larger demographic of clients.

3. The CEO and employees are delightful to work with. They are very kind, generous,

and offer a large amount of expertise in the field of adoption. They have a strong

sense of caring about every single individual they encounter.

Weaknesses:

1. An internal weakness that Forever Bound Adoption faces is the use of marketing in

the Social Media domain. This is a large area of marketing that is being missed out

on.

2. Website speed, and up to date technology. The website has recently gone through a

revamp, but later in this marketing plan I will display the speed of the website for

those trying to reach it via internet.

3. Overall marketing is a weakness. Marketing can be hard to master in the case of

adoption because of how tricky the subject can be, but with the right ideas and tools it

can be done.

Opportunities:

1. An opportunity that is out there for Forever Bound is that there will always be the

opportunity of finding a birth mother who has been through an unplanned pregnancy.

2. Another great opportunity that Forever Bound has is that there are individuals out

there who can’t have children and would love to adopt. This is the opportunity of

finding adoptive parents.

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Threats:

1. A threat that Forever Bound faces is the loss of clients due to the fact that they aren’t

the only local adoption agency. Facing off against other agencies can be hard because

there isn’t a massive number of birthmothers looking to give their child up for

adoption.

2. In the world today, many women who go through an unplanned pregnancy choose to

either raise their child as a single-parent, or the choose abortion. Both are options for

the birthmother, and they have the right to do what they feel is best for them.

3. Target Market

The target market is those birthmothers who may be considering adoption, and

those who are considering becoming adoptive parents. Typically, the age of unplanned

birthmothers and those couples looking to adopt are on the younger side of the spectrum

of age. Ages ranging from 18-35 is a good range of ages to focus this plan on because

those are the ages that have a higher chance of unplanned pregnancies, and those looking

to be adoptive parents.

The psychographic profile of these target markets is that they are a group of

people who are considering adoption and are looking into it. The precise wants and needs

of a birthmother giving her child up for adoption are that they want what is best for their

child, and what will be the best process for them (the parent). Understanding that

adoption may be hard for some individuals is important to keep in mind when marketing

adoption.

When considering the couples that are looking to be adoptive parents

understanding their wants is also important when marketing a service to them. Adoptive

couples are seeking a child because they may not be able to have a child based on

medical reasons. Understanding that these medical reasons can be a harsh truth but

showing them that adoptive services can ease that pain with the opportunity of adoption

is of upmost importance. Adoptive couples are looking for the best opportunity to adopt a

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child and going through a smooth successful adoption process can be vital when working

with an adoptive couple.

4. Competitor Environment

Competitor: A Act of Love

Strengths:

The strengths that A Act of Love have includes they are a local adoption agency in an

area that could use adoption services, and they are one of the few local adoption agencies, thus

creating more opportunity for them to take clients from Forever Bound. Another strength they

have is that they have strong word of mouth reviews, similar to Forever Bound. The individuals

who have gone through their services praise them for their adoptive services.

Weaknesses:

A weakness that A Act of Love has is that their website doesn’t seem to be appealing to

visit, it has information, but is very bland and not as memorable as the Forever Bound’s new

website. A Act of Love also has to compete with other local agencies with the selection of birth

mothers, and adoptive babies. They also face weaknesses such as abortion, and single parenting.

Threats:

With the competition of finding a birth mother they could miss out on an opportunity

because they are facing others. Another threat they will face is that since there are other local

agencies, birthmothers and adoptive parents may choose another agency over them. They like all

adoptive agencies, will face the threat of abortion and single parenting.

Competitor: Heart to Heart Adoption

Strengths:

Some strengths that Heart to Heart Adoption has is that they offer many services with

their adoption. They will provide financial assistance with groceries, household supplies,

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clothing, and bills. They will also provide housing or help solve the issue of relocating by

providing safe-haven at their rent-free apartments.

Weaknesses:

Like many adoption agencies, they will face the weakness of facing off against other

agencies. They offer many services that other agencies offer also, so a prospect could see their

services, and just go to another one because their services don’t stand out to them because they

could get it elsewhere. Abortion and single parenting is a weakness that is faced, and in most

cases the biggest weakness an adoption agency will face.

Threats:

The threat that is being faces is the ability to lose an interested prospect to another local

agency, or to abortion and single parenting. They are in Salt Lake City which may cause people

who live North of Salt Lake to pick a more local agency.

5. Industry Best Practices

A way to possible reach a higher level of success within the adoption world could be by

evaluating larger companies, and how they go about their day to day business functions. By

doing so you can learn what works for them, and by taking these approaches you could use them

to enhance your own practice. In this section I will be exploring a few of this larger companies

and explaining what they do good, and ways to possible incorporate these tactics into your own

business.

American Adoptions:

American Adoptions is a very large domestic adoption agency in the United States. They

are a non-profit adoption agency that works across the nation of the United States. A strength of

American Adoptions that really stuck out to me was how they are present in 49 states. As you

can probably imagine in terms of marketing this could be huge because you could reach a much

larger demographic. I understand that Forever Bound more than likely has no plans of expanding

on a level like that, but it could be an idea to consider possibly spreading out along the state of

Utah in a larger geographic span.

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Heart of Adoption, Inc.:

Heart of Adoption like American Adoptions is a company that is based around the United

States. Being in 37 states across the nation is a big part of their success because they have access

to all the target markets in their marketing plan though their vast location advantage. Like stating

earlier, Forever Bound is a local agency and probably doesn’t plan on expanding that far but

could possible spread deeper into the state of Utah. Something that I would like to expand on

with Heart of Adoption is the access speed of their website. On the google website speed test

they scored with a 4.1/5 second, giving their website speed rating a “Good Performance”. This is

an important thing because as times change people are using their phones to access these

websites more and having a faster website can result in gaining more exposure to these seeking

services.

6. Marketing Tactics

6.1 Product :

Domestic Adoption: “We help you through every step of the newborn

adoption process: your home study, building your adoption profile,

marketing, matching, placement, and finalization”.

International Adoption: “Forever Bound Adoption is excited to help

orphaned children of the world find caring loving families”.

Embryo Adoption: “At Forever Bound Adoption, we are proud to offer

this unique service to couples struggling with infertility”.

Services Forever Bound offers: Counseling and support, financial support, medical care.

6.2 Price :

At Forever Bound they offer free services to those who are seeking

adoptive services. Through the Forever Bound website they offer many

solutions on how to fund an adoption. They also offer a unique financing

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coach, that can help with the difficult task of knowing how to finance

adoptive services.

6.3 Promotion :

From what I have investigated the best way to promote the services being

offered is through internet marketing (ads), and through social media.

When using social media there is a higher chance of gaining exposure if

used correctly. With the vast number of individuals using social media on

a day to day basis there is a much higher probability of reaching these

potential future clients. By using the internet/social media tactic you can

reach not only new potential customers, but also collaborators, and further

company personnel.

6.4 Place :

The manner in which the key aspects of the offering are delivered to target

customers and collaborators are through the Forever Bound website, and

the marketing that takes place outside of the home office. Marketing such

as hanging flyers up, passing out brochures to the public, and a simple

word of mouth by past clients. A way this area could be improved is

through the reach out through a stronger social media presence.

7. Online Marketing Strategy

1. Keyword Strategy:

When talking about keywords it is important to find ones that will stick

out and bring in the most exposure. Successfully being able to use

keywords in a campaign are essential to developing a search engine

marketing plan. When using keywords, you should involve high-

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performance words that will drive in traffic to a business. There are three

steps that can be followed when creating a keyword strategy. Firstly, you

must research the keywords that are being considered. Second, you must

analyze the keywords and make sure that the words that have been

selected will be worth the time, and effort of marketing them. And lastly,

grouping keywords will help you organize the keywords that have been

selected into phrases and optimize relevancy and overall website traffic.

- Examples of potential keywords: Child Adoption, domestic adoption, affordable

adoption, local adoption, local adoption resources, affordable adoption, ETC.

2. Search Engine Optimization Strategy:

Search engine optimization is following the process of maximizing the

number of visitors to a website by going through the step to ensure that the

website that is being promoted is on the top of the lists of the search

engine. By going about this strategy, you will be able to gain more

exposure due to the idea that the website that is wanted to be used will be

one of the first websites to pop up on a google search, when using the

keywords that are selected to be used for the plan. The website that will be

getting used needs to have a certain relevancy to the topic being searched,

and if it does not it won’t show up when trying to be searched. The quality

of the content of the website is also very important because if they website

is not appealing with the desired content the users will leave. Supplying a

good experience to those who are accessing a website is important because

if they don’t feel the website is a good experience they will be less likely

to return. Site speed is a very large factor when talking about gaining

traffic through a website. In the world today if a page doesn’t load a at a

reasonable time the user will more than likely exit out and try another

source. Therefore, it is important to have a fast, efficient website.

3. Paid Online Advertising Programs:

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Provided are some of the top online advertising programs that can be used

to promote and bring more awareness to the service trying to be offered to

the public.

- Google Shopping/Product Listing Ads (PLAs)

- Google Ad-words

- YouTube Ads

- Google Organic Results

- Facebook Ads

4. Social Media Strategy: 

Today, in the world we live in Social Media plays a massive role in the

day to day lives of millions of individuals. This shows that there are

millions of people out there who may be interested in a product/service.

Utilizing Social Media has become a very valuable tool when marketing to

the public. It gives the opportunity to reach likeminded individuals who

may be seeking a service. In this marketing plan that service is Adoption.

Social Media allows those who are in the conversation of adoption to

interact with one another and gain more insight. It allows businesses to

reach out to these communities within Social Media platforms and provide

a service to their set interests. In the appendix below I have provided

statistics about Social Media and the impact it has and how many

individuals use it on a day to day basis. I am also providing a few tips that

can help improve Social Media presence, especially on Facebook.

Tips: When using Social Media, it is very important to interact with

potential customers, being able to interact with them shows that you are

valuing them, and it will increase the chances of them exploring your page

and website more. Using an Ad Booster on Facebook (application within

Facebook) will boost exposure of a company, and it will show up in the

advertisement panel when individuals are exploring their day to day

Facebook life. This is a good way to get great exposure to a large

demographic of individuals. Being an active user of Facebook is important

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because individuals won’t generally investigate accounts if their content is

out dated and not fresh. Therefore, it is important to be very engaging and

post often, showing the users that you are highly interested in the topic.

Posting often will bring in more traffic to the Facebook page because users

will be attracted to the fresh content, and it will allow those seeking the

page to have something to engage in. Users are more likely to engage in

the content posted if it is relevant to what they are interested in.

8. Collaborators

Collaborating could play a very big role when talking in terms of marketing. If

you are able to collaborate with an organization that has access to the target market you

are seeking there can be a higher chance of reaching these targets with your

service/product. By collaborating the increase of exposure could also open up more target

market segments that were not considered in the first place.

When thinking of organizations to possibly collaborate with I can’t help but think

of local Universities/Colleges. The reason being is because there is a very large

demographic of individuals that go to these institutes. There is a larger range of ages

attending these institutes, and if you are able to market to these places there could be a

very high chance of raising exposure to the adoption agency. By marketing to an area

with a large amount of people, from all different backgrounds you could really get the

agencies name out there, and gain the attention needed to find more potential clients.

Another idea of collaborating could be local healthcare agencies. By partnering

with a local healthcare agency there is an opportunity to reach out to those who may be

going through an unplanned pregnancy, and those looking into becoming adoptive

parents. Being able to market to that group of target market it could be the changing point

of that birthmother, or adoptive couple form choosing Forever Bound over another

agency.

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9. Other Ideas

Aside from what was already stated in the plan above, I feel that there needs to be

a large emphasis put into the social media approach. Being able to reach out to those on

social media will increase traffic through Forever Bound because of the large number of

individuals that are on social media in the world today. Social media also allows

individuals with similar interests to connect with one another, and by doing so they will

be able to connect with agencies and communicate what they are looking for when

discussing the topic of child adoption. Social media has become a very large platform in

terms of marketing, and to miss out on this area can be detrimental in the business world

today.

10. Positioning Statement

When people think about Forever Bound you want them to think about not only

the service that is provided, but the true meaning of adoption. The true meaning of

adoption is about love, it is giving a child a chance that they may never get again. By

providing these services Forever Bound opens the door of opportunity for a child who is

seeking a loving family, and a family they can call their own. Also, Forever Bound is

there for those parents who are seeking to adopt. They are helping them find that child

that they would love to nurture, raise, and give all the love in the world to. Basing a

service such as adoption around love, and compassion is key to success in the world of

adoption services. Showing those seeking service that there is a genuine care about the

subject, and the potential future clients.

11. Appendix

Below are charts, graphs, and other materials that may be helpful to understanding

material in this marketing plan.

Percentages, charts, graphs and other materials are based in the United States.

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These graphs explain the percentages of internet usage.

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These group of charts explains the trend of child adoption, and how much it was searched via internet during certain time frames.

Past 30 days:

Past 90 days:

Past 12 months:

Past 5 years:

2004 – Present:

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The groups of charts, and data below pertain to the speed of the Forever Bound website and how effective it is.

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These charts, graphs, and group of data pertains to the usage of social media, and how much it is used. Social media is very important in marketing in todays world.

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