Essay: Memo Writing For Turkey Farmers Association Of Australia.

Problems

This assessment is aimed to assess your written communication skills. Students who do not perform well will be highly recommended to consider training with Academic Learning Centre (ALC). The assessment is aimed to ensure that you have an advanced level of writing skills before you proceed into other units in the postgraduate course. The assessment will also assess the integrity of your work. Given all students will do the same assessment, plagiarism will be monitored to ensure that your submitted work is original and not purchased or copied from other students. Where assessments are found to be similar, penalties may apply in accord with University policy.

Task description: In this task, you will write a memo in response to the case study provided below. The memo must be logically structured, free of grammatical errors, professionally styled; in addition, follow the writing conventions for memos as discussed in the lecture and supporting material.

Case study: You are the President of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia, which consists of sole operators, small producers and four big producers who have their own marketing teams. The Turkey Farmers Association of Australia wants to launch an Australia-wide media campaign to encourage Australians to think of eating turkey every day and not just at Christmas, so that turkey producers can expand their sales. Turkey would be portrayed as a healthy alternative to red meat and chicken while being an inexpensive and versatile meal. Each member of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia were asked for their opinions about the ideas for the campaign. Most smaller producers were happy to go along with the others, but the four major producers submitted marketing proposals.

“Company 1: There is so much advertising these days, if we really want people to put turkey on the table they need to see or hear our ads several times so that the message sinks in.
Company 2: Most people do shopping on Thursdays or Saturdays so we should use the budget to run radio ads on those two days so people will hear it on their way to the supermarket.
Company 3: The goal should be to get as many people as possible to see our ad at least once. We should compare the CPM (the advertising bought on the basis of impression) across TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, and pick options that gives us the biggest bang for our buck and then schedule ads evenly across all days of the week.
Company 4: A combination of direct marketing, in-store samples, and a Facebook group would help us develop an ongoing dialogue without customers. Also using those media would make it easier for us to track the success of the campaign” (Sharp, 2017, p. 547).

The solution you decide to implement as the President is entirely your decision, you may choose one of the suggested company strategies above or combine up a maximum of three different strategies due to budget constraints or make an executive decision which uses none of this information. It is the communication from you, as President, to your members that is the important consideration, not the actual marketing strategy itself. Issues you need to address in your memo to your members:
1. Members have previously complained that they were not being asked for their opinions and decisions made by the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia were not communicated to members, as the first members knew a decision had been made, was when members saw the decision being talked about or advertisements were shown in the media. Therefore, the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia has issues of internal communication.
2. Members of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia are located throughout Australia which also makes communication difficult and holding a meeting of all members at the same time almost impossible. However, each member’s opinion was sought for the new campaign and each member had a month to comment and give feedback on this campaign to the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia.
3. Emails sent from the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia are also seen to be unprofessional. Due to budget restrictions, many staff are casually employed and student work placements, where students are not paid for their work, are very important to keep the office of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia running.

With these problems in mind, you undertake research in order to understand these problems more specifically and come up with logical and practical recommendations to solve these problems. As you refine your knowledge of these problems you narrow each one down to one specific issue. So for example for problem one, the issue could be that the members do not understand why decisions are being made. For problem two, the issue could be that members do not feel comfortable asking about decisions made by the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia. As you develop your recommendations you make sure that you clearly link the problems to the solutions (as articulated within the recommendations). Having this information, you now write a memo to all of the members of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia. You will write the memo based upon the following structure. 

The sole objective here is to establish a smooth communication between the members of the Turkey Association and to present the most suitable and profitable campaign idea. For incorporating and making the campaign happen, there is the involvements of monetary factors. Thus, the specific purpose is to address which set of methods can be chosen in order to initiate the campaign and it make it famous among the people of Australia. Secondly, the general purpose is to resolve all communication issues in the internal sphere by making this as the general consideration from the side of the president of the Turkey Association. Members shall have time to express their opinions freely and the final decisions regarding the common shall be taken on basis of that.  

Problems:

It can be said that a combination of the three of the strategies presented by the Company 2, 3 and 4 has to be taken into consideration. As per the proposal of Company 2, customers do shopping on Thursdays or Saturdays. Thus, budgets should be made and strategies to be formed in order to run radio ads on those two days so that people will hear it on their way to the supermarket and buy the turkey. As per opinion of Company 3, CPM has to be compared across different media forms such as TV, radio, newspapers and magazines after every people has seen the made ad for once (Sharp, 2017). Then, opinions have to be picked and ads have to be scheduled and broadcasted as per the solution that has been reached upon by the Turkey association. In combination with the above two, a combination of direct marketing, in-store samples, and a Facebook group has to be used in order to keep a track the success of the campaign (Soysal, Özkan & Gürcan, 2003). However, before these strategies can be arrived upon, some serious problems have been noticed which shall hinder the proper consideration of the decisions related to the selection of the campaign strategy. The issues can be pointed out as follows:

Problem 1: Members do not understand why decisions are being made: It has been seen on various occasions from the past, that the members were not adequately informed about the decision that were taken.  The decisions were not communicated to the members until they came to know about the decisions a long time it was being made from advertisements and billboards across roads.  It was too late and they just could not alter the decisions made. Further, it can be seen that members have not properly been communicated about the reason working behind the decision making procedure or the campaign being arranged (Niggli, Willer & Baker, 2016). The same issue is faced again and the members feel that the campaign is useless and it has no major purpose to serve (as they think that their individual consents and decisions will again not be considered).

Problem 2: Members do not feel comfortable asking about decisions made by the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia: It is rather impossible for all members to attend the meetings that are taken for making each decisions. Thus, many of them remain uninformed and their decisions are not taken into consideration (Ortiz et al. 2007). Many of them belong from remote parts and do not have the proper ability to ask about the decisions that are being made by the others. Thus, in the present year, in order to avoid issues, a month's time is given so that they can feel comfortable to ask about the decisions and lay down their own views on it.

Problem 1: Members do not understand why decisions are being made

Problem 3: Casual employed and unskilled staffs for running the office: Due to lack of proper budget and huge size of the Turkey Association of Australia, regular arrangements of funds for maintenance of the offices is pretty much lacking. Further, due to irregular and inadequate supply of budgetary means, the employees taken are mostly casually employed students who lack proper training, communication and other professional skills (Sponenberg & Bixby, 2007). The mails sent by them are rather unprofessional and hardly they can carry proper message or make the members understand about any programme or decisions. Despite the office being important for the organization, it's improper maintenance leads to rise of multiple issues.  

The first problem can be solved by properly informing the members about the decision related to the campaign. The following issues can be solved by making the members aware about the decisions that are being taken regarding the campaign and ask for their individual confirmation and advice regarding it. This shall help in making it clear to them that for what reason the decision are being made.

The second issue that is members do not feel comfortable to communicate can be resolved by making them easily understand and making an attempt to reach out to them directly and know about their problems and opinions. More time needs to be given rather than a month for the confirmation so that the members living at distant parts can establish communication with the organization and tell their opinions (OAM & Nicol, 2012).

The third problem is related to employing of actual and unskilled staffs. For maintaining communication properly, sending of professional mails, the employees have to properly paid and they need to be trained. Skilled employees with good pay have to be hired by increasing the budget so that the offices can be run properly.

Conclusion:

The memo is roughly based on the study related to the identification of the different problems that have crept in and yet again to come up with the proposing of the decided things related to the strategy of carrying on with the campaign. The issues related to the taking of opinions and communicating with the members of the Turkey Association of Australia has been pointed out along with the issues that are faced by the whole organization. In respect to the problems, recommendations have been made to solve them out.

It can be also said that compliance to the members by the organization and vice versa can bring in different kind of positive results. With better compliance and communication between the organization and all the members, better and accurate decision related to the planning of the campaign can be made. Further, the most economic and effective way can be devalued and no grievances shall remain in the minds of members if all of their opinions are put to vote and the decisions being made. This shall help in maintaining a positive working culture and atmosphere and cooperation from the all the members (Solaiman, Kebede & Aviki, 2010). Further, grievances and problems faced by staffs have to be known and they need to be resolved.

Assistance can be offered by sharing and providing with all details so that, members can easily establish contacts with the Turkey Association of Australia. The mail addresses of the higher administrative and management body have to be provided along with different contacts number. As of now, the contact details can be provided in here.

References

Niggli, U., Willer, H., & Baker, B. (2016). A global vision and strategy for organic farming research. Routledge.

Oam, P. R., & Nicol, M. D. (2012). What Australia offers as a source of world leading genetics and genetic technologies. Routledge.

Ortiz, R., Trethowan, R., Ferrara, G. O., Iwanaga, M., Dodds, J. H., Crouch, J. H., ... & Braun, H. J. (2007). High yield potential, shuttle breeding, genetic diversity, and a new international wheat improvement strategy. Euphytica, 157(3), 365-384.

Sharp, B. (2017), Marketing: theory, evidence, practice, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Melbourne.

Solaiman, S. G., Kebede, E., & Aviki, E. M. (2010). Business Plan, Production Enterprise, and Marketing Strategy. Goat Science and Production, 339.

Soysal, M. I., Özkan, E., & Gürcan, E. K. (2003). The status of native farm animal genetic diversity in Australia and in the world. Australia J. Sci, 1(3), 1-12.

Sponenberg, D. P., & Bixby, D. E. (2007). Managing breeds for a secure future: strategies for breeders and breed associations. Albc.