The marketing planning process is a cycle that begins with creating goals and developing strategies and ends with evaluating the results of them. The evaluation process is necessary to understand how well the plan worked while providing important information for future plans. For the Campus Health Dental Education Program at IU Indianapolis, the evaluation will focus on two main areas: tracking important metrics and planning for unexpected situations. These elements will help measure the program’s success while preparing for potential challenges that could arise.

 

Metrics for Evaluating Success:

To determine if the program is working, we will be tracking different types of metrics. Those metrics will measure if the program is reaching its goals, and if they are not to their full potential, ways that we can improve them.  The first metric used will be through customer feedback, by way of satisfaction surveys and interviews from parents, teachers, and children. The surveys of parents will help us understand if the program is helping their child learn about oral hygiene, and if they are likely to encourage those healthy habits at home. The response of the teacher’s feedback will help us understand how well the program’s lessons worked in the classroom setting. We will attempt to gather feedback from the children in a way that is appropriate to their age and understanding. By collecting this feedback from each participating group, we will determine how effective the program was. 

 

Next, we will track the number of children enrolled in the program to see how many people are interested in it. A higher enrollment would suggest that our marketing efforts have been successful.  By keeping track of the sales of our related educational materials, like toothbrushes or hygiene kits, we can measure how popular the program is and how well the marketing campaign is doing.  In addition to tracking the materials, we will also track the people.  The goal of the program is to improve oral health and educate children on the importance of maintaining it.  By tracking the number of pediatric dental appointments made at IU Indianapolis we can measure how effective this portion of the program was. If more children appoint to the dental clinic after participating in the program, we know we have successfully raised awareness and educated thoroughly about the importance of dental health.

 

Another tool we can use to measure is through our social media platforms.  By way of social media likes, shares, comments, website traffic, and other online interactions, we will provide a scope of how involved our surrounding community is with the program. A high level of engagement shows that our marketing messages are reaching people and generating interest among them.

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Contingency Planning for Unexpected Events:

We have learned that metrics are important for understanding success, but it is equally important to be prepared for unexpected situations that may potentially affect the program. For example, to name a couple of potential obstacles; changes in the market, shifts in public interest, or other various unforeseen challenges could cause the plan to not go accordingly. Our contingency plan below is put in place to jump ahead of some of those potential situations.

Occasional changes in the market or other competition can affect the success of the program. If another local program is offering a similar service, it could reduce the number of enrollees for our program. To address this, we will adjust the marketing messages to draw attention to what makes our program stand out from others, such as the collaboration of IU Indianapolis’ dental school professionals readily available.  We will need to be mindful and flexible to adjust, should this type of situation arise. 

 

Health crises or environmental changes could impact the success of our program.  The Covid-19 pandemic is a prime example of that. It was not something anyone expected or really knew how to navigate at the time.  To avoid similar unexpected changes that might impact the event or classes from occurring in person, we can easily move the program to an online platform or develop digital resources to carry on with the program. We will do this by preparing online materials in advance, even if in-person activities must be temporarily halted.

Lastly, if the marketing budget is reduced or certain promotional tactics do not provide the expected results, we will find other cost-effective strategies. Instead of relying heavily on paid ads, we could focus on community outreach, word-of-mouth marketing, or partnerships with local schools. This will help ensure that the program continues without over-relying on expensive advertising methods.  Collectively, all these evaluations will help build the overall success of our program.