Introduction
The National Trust is a legal registered charity with over four million members. It is an organization known to welcome over nineteen million visitors to its special places and properties, which are open to each individual who is interested. However, there are observable internal and external issues which affect the operation of the National Trust.
The National Trust has achieved in making people within the community achieve a certain level of financial stability. There are business opportunities within the National Trust of which members can easily benefit from. The major shortfall that arises is that the Trust relies on other organizations for its funding in order to run the programs available. The issues affecting the National Trust and other factors are discussed below as follows.
Issues affecting National Trust
One of the major factors that affect the operation of the National Trust is funding of the project. It is estimated that visitors and membership fees only cover a third of the total cost requirement of the National Trust. The trust, therefore, has to go an extra mile and source for more funding from external donations, its commercial activities, and part of revenues obtained from the government. Therefore, there is a need for the National Trust to carefully budget within its capital to ensure that the income obtained is able to cover all the costs of the organization. They also have to maintain the membership fee competitive enough to demonstrate to the members a high value of money. This is a move aimed at attracting visitors.
Promotion of the National Trust activities
In promoting its services, the National Trust employs the use of both Below-the-line-promotion and Above-the-line promotion. The above line promotion is limited to traditional methods of advertising media which include TV, magazines, internet post ads, and radio. People from remote areas who cannot access all these facilities might therefore, miss out the information and chance to join the Trust.
The National Trust use several ways and strategies to promote its activities. The use of different ways of advertisements is employed, such as the internet, advertisements on television on the services and products provided by the company. The public is made aware of the success of individuals who are already in the program in order to attract more members. Other methods of this type of advertisement include the use of bill boards and cinema. The below line promotion employs the use of press releases and news articles. All these are methods used by the National Trust to ensure that they get to customers and market their products and services effectively.
This is a non profit-organisation; therefore, it employs the most effective strategies in order to achieve its main goals. They initiate awareness and attention to customers and non-customers. The strategies displayed by this organization are very effective because they increase the required and updated knowledge on new offers for already existing customers and new customers. This is effective because at the end of the day, the customers are retained and new ones are brought into the Trust.
4ps and AIDA business tools
The 4ps and AIDA tools of marketing ensure that the product is in the right place, in the required quantity and price, and at the right time. In order to put this action into practise, an organization needs to ensure that they create a product that a specific group of people requires. They need to ensure that the product is placed in a position or place where the group of people of interest regularly visit or can easily access the product or service. The price of service or product is supposed to match with the specific value they feel they need to get out and manage all their needs for running the given organization.
In order to achieve this strategy, a lot of effort should be directed to establishing the needs of customers. An extensive research should be done on what they don’t like so as to avoid situations where customers go unsatisfied. A research should also be done on identifying where the customers shop most. There is a need to tell places they like shopping and what attracts them to such places. Customizations can then be made on existing shopping grounds in order to fit the needs of customers.
Use of online social media for promotion
A business can use the online social media in order to promote its products or services. First, these can be achieved by creating a specific website of the company that bears its name. Many people in the modern world use the search engine to get information. By posting a company’s name on the internet, many people are bound to meet and make inquiries about the given organization. The internet can also be made useful to promote services or products by making customers able to purchase goods online. Another useful way is by adding ads on the common pages frequently accessed by people. Pages like face book, twitter, Google, and email pages could bear short links and information of the company. People visiting the given websites can then be able to access the information about a given product or service. This is ideal because it captures customers all over the world effectively.
Short falls of the internet
The disadvantage of the use of internet in making promotions is that there are a good number of customers who cannot access the internet. Such customers are therefore, locked out from accessing these promotions, a set back to the organization of interest. Internet breakdown also distracts the process of promotion.
Conclusion
The National Trust, therefore, has a major role of ensuring unity an peace among people, by helping the community at large. It is not aimed at making a profit, but rather the obtained capital is pumped into useful activities that could benefit both the members and non-members of the Trust.
