ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we saw how public services can come under pressure to become responsive to the needs of the public. We agree with Walsh1 that some marketing techniques can help managers to get closer to the people who use public services and that marketing skills can play a part in the design and development of services that are user-friendly. However, many marketing techniques are inappropriate, irrelevant and inapplicable to public services. We only describe in detail the marketing techniques that we think are helpful – market research for example. Box 4.1 shows the components of a marketing plan. As we suggested in Chapter 3, marketing is closely allied to strategy. Mission statements set out what an organization is trying to achieve and for whom. They define priorities. These priorities are broken down into strategic goals. Objectives are defined. Tactics are selected in order to achieve these objectives. These ideas are written down in a business plan (Chapters 9 and 10). A business plan should be based on a marketing plan. A marketing plan describes how people in the organization intend to interact with clients or customers. We will cover the role of organizational audit in Chapter 5 and financial planning in Chapters 9 and 10.
