BUSN20017

Assessment 1

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Office of the President
Turkey Farmer’s Association
Memorandum
To: Members of the Turkey Farmer’s Association
From: Thomas Wilson
Date: December 11, 2018
Subject: Marketing Strategy to be used for Turkey sales expansion

Introduction
Dear Members of the Turkey Farmer’s Association, our association has been functioning in
Australia for the past 49 years, tirelessly to provide good quality Turkey to Australians. Turkey
has thus been established as a staple for holiday season in Australia since past many decades
now. This has been possible because of the hard work put in by you and trust in the functioning
of this association of yours to guide and forge stronger paths for us as members. Today, there
is need to expand the sales of Turkey and once again, all of us have to join hands to make
chosen strategy successful. The sales of Turkey need to go up and the association already has
a good network of farmers across Australia. With assistance of certain members, there could
be some real change that could be initiated in the field of sales so that all members benefit from
it and we can make Turkey popular even for regular occasions instead of just holidays. This
memorandum will not only shed light on the appropriate marketing strategy that should be
adopted by us as an association, but shall also address some of the common concerns that are
coming up again and again. The issues that have come to my notice is majorly around the
communication problems being faced by members of this association. Both of these issues shall
be addressed and fixed.

Discussion
Problems:
The first issue is this that members not being aware of the decisions being taken. They
complained that their opinions were not seeked and that they only came to know about the
decision when it started appearing on advertisements in media or being talked about. The
number of complaints received in this regard has been more than 35 in the past 1 year. Further
investigation showed that the complaints came in mostly from Western Victoria, Eastern
Victoria and Tasmania. Lack of proper flow of communication has led to decreased
participation from these three important regions which hold 18% of turkey supplies all over
Australia. I understand that this has caused some of the farmers to take a backseat in further
participation in schemes being rolled out by the association as their feelings are hurt and they
feel left out. However, the actual problem could be this that there was lack of proper technology
platform for them to get the information in the first place itself (Baker & Warren, 2015).
The second issue that has come to notice is this that for this campaign, opinions from each
member was seeked individually and they had a month’s time to revert with their consent or
suggestion. Since it was impossible for all members to gather at a single venue at a single point

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of time, they had about a month’s time to respond back to campaign suggestions. This attempt
to gather opinion from all members spread all across Australia was a difficult one to achieve.
After waiting for a month and a half’s time for responses and despite reminders, the response
rate is 65%. Responses are still awaited from most of the members on this. Failure to send in
suggestions or consent often blindfolds the association (Kahn, 2018). The association is for
their members and a collective opinion only helps all members. That should also erase any
chances of improper communication further between members and association (Ferrell &
Fraedrich, 2015). The actual problem here could be this that members do not feel free to ask
questions for clarity to understand the issue itself which is why they choose to not to respond
at all (Dixon, 2017).
The third issue that needs to be addressed is this that members have complained that email
communication from employees of Association were unprofessional. This makes members
think that they are regarded as noncontributory members and feel let down. Owing to budget
restrictions, mostly casual employees and student placements who work unpaid are given
responsibilities of internal communication. On checking the past year data, the instances of
these kinds were almost 58%. This also leads to members thinking that the executive office of
the association is authoritative and does not monitor communication (Remland, 2016). This
has led to increased dissatisfaction of the members with the executive’s office.

Actions to be taken:
For the first issue to be addressed it is imperative that there be left no scope of gap in
communication. It is for this reason, with the help of the technology wing of the association,
an intranet shall be created for all members. Every member shall be provided with their user
name and passwords using which they could login the system from any location with the aid
of an internet connection and computer and go to the forum. This shall be rolled out in the
coming 1 quarter. For communication to be successful, it is imperative that it is made
transparent and clear. It is expected that in forthcoming times, this shall provide a much larger
platform for members to inter communicate, place suggestions, exchange information, place
complaints, track their complaints, requests and so on. This would also not put major pressure
on our budget since this will be completely built using in house resources.
For the second issue, the first solution itself shall remove the barriers of communication. There
would not have to be any delay in communicating important information or provide consent or
suggestions. The single intranet itself shall be the single most platform erasing time barriers
and distance constraints. Every member’s individual login page shall have first page which
shall notify them of important announcements, any important emails that they need to respond
to and, provide timely reminders for them so that they do not miss out on any important
information or action required on their behalf. The forum would be open to all for discussing
common problems and reaching out to others for assistance.
For the third issue to be addressed, appropriate email communication training curriculum is
being put in place for all employees who are working in communications team and, for new
employees who would be imbibed to the association (Driskill, 2018).

Conclusion
As a marketing strategy, suggestion to engage in direct marketing, in-store samples,
establishing a Facebook group would be taken up as the first marketing strategy to increase
dialogue and participation among customers and members of the association. This is the most
budget friendly option to increase the popularity of Turkey and give a boost to its sales.

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However, to make this strategy a success, it is imperative that the communication issues
discussed, such as lack of professional communication when it comes to emails from the
Executive Office, gaps in communication and non-participation from members when seeking
their opinions. To address these issues and also, thinking about how the initiative that would
be launched in coming months could be made more transparent and motivating, a common
intranet platform is going to be launched by the Association in the coming 2-3 months itself
which hopes to erase these communication problems within our esteemed organization and a
communication curriculum as part of training for better inter communication. To make this
initiative successful, complete cooperation is expected on your behalf to excel as an
organization and make the coming year ‘Turkey Happy’.
For any clarity or assistance, please feel free to reach out to my office on (02)-98980009 or
email me at president@tfa.au
Cheers!
Thomas Wilson

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References
Baker, T., & Warren, A. (2015). The Nine Common Barriers to Communication. In

Conversations at Work (pp. 54–74). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137534187_5

Dixon, N. (2017). The organizational learning cycle: How we can learn collectively. Retrieved

from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317022152

Driskill, G. (2018). Organizational culture in action: A cultural analysis workbook. Retrieved

from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429764097

Ferrell, O., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases.

Kahn, K. (2018). WORK & WEALTH. Retrieved from

https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2018/06/2018_ESS_REPORT_WEB.pd

Remland, M. (2016). Nonverbal communication in everyday life. Retrieved from

https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=N36zDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&

dq=bad+communication+gives+a+feeling+or+being+authoritative&ots=NZlLPQnMf2

&sig=PN7ugW_-Uea7FTDautEDE6LZPps