4. Marketing & Fundraising

This section comprises

– Market trends

– External market economics

– Marketing activities

– Barriers to entry

– Customer characteristics

Market trends

– Trend for people to move out of the countryside and into cities, which means humanity is gradually losing touch with and understanding of nature.

– Trend for mental health problems – stress, depression, anxiety have reached epidemic proportions, and are now the leading cause of people taking time off work, costing businesses billions of pounds annually. Also huge loss of mental wellbeing & peace of mind.

– (See above point) – the fact that the trend now is for everything to be communicated in economic terms shows our society’s viewpoint is skewed. We live our lives at a frenetic pace. Most people wake up with a huge ‘to-do list’ and add to it throughout the day! Life is spent rushing from one thing to the next.

– Climate change, deforestation, habitat loss and species loss are not slowing down yet despite scientists consensus that it is now a global emergency and time is running out. Human beings, just one species, have taken over the planet – 33% of all animals on the planet are human, and over 60% comprise animals we farm for our own consumption. That means that only 5% of all animals on the planet are not either human or exist for us. We have taken everything for ourselves. The human population continues to grow (in some parts of the world), and other species continue to decline across the globe.

External Market economics

Click to open

1. People are likely to have more leisure time in the future as many jobs become increasingly mechanised.

2. With food security and affordability possibly affected by climate change in the next few years, there will be an increasing demand for learning self sufficiency … or at least how to make gardens productive as well as ornamental.

3. City centre families and children have very little access to proper natural spaces. Our commitment to being within 100 miles of London will make WM accessible to the densest centre of population

4. There is an urgent need for wild corridors and more wild habitats, the UK is currently one of the most wildlife depleted countries in the whole world.

5. As discussed elsewhere, there is still widespread ignorance of the climate emergency and what ordinary people can do, meaning there is an urgent need for increased awareness among the general population of issues affecting humanity today

6. Recidivism remains at an unacceptably high level, and prison capacities stretched – costing our economy millions of pounds every year. Also our knowledge of emotional intelligence and the enormous impact it has on people’s ability to control their behaviour has not been fully exploited, nor adequate data gathered.

7. There may be capacity for research to take place here, in conjunction with CAT and/or universities, to increase our technological understanding, improve humanity’s relationship with nature.

Marketing activities

There are many options we can take for free marketing and publicity.

Some of these include (click to open):

– The whole Wild Magic story will be widely publicised on all forms of social media.

– Road signage on highways nearby

– Working with local council, prison service, undertakers, for some services

– Celebrity input – we will be requesting endorsement from well known environmental enthusiasts such as George Monbiot, Jonathan Porrit, David Attenborough, Joanna Lumley, Emma Thompson, Leonardo do Caprio, Alan Titchmarsh, and others (hopefully some younger celebrities as well)

– Press releases on a regular basis sent to local and national mainstream media – newspapers, radio stations, magazines. Maybe a TV channel.

– Free publicity eg articles of interest in a variety of magazines (eg invite Beekeeping magazines to cover the beekeeping retreat, press releases for any events or campaigns, invite well known gurus to visit or lecture)

– Regular newsletters

– Invite motivational speakers and anyone who has overcome great adversity to speak to the ex offenders (without charge, ie as an act of charity) and those will invite public interest from their fans or followers. Also invite famous spiritual masters from death row to speak over Zoom eg Jarvis Masters (still on death row) and Damien Echols (now released).

– All nearby towns will have brochures and leaflets in all restaurants, coffee shops, and tourist information centres

– Once people come for one thing, there will be so much more to discover they will be excited to stay longer, explore, return, bring friends and family, and recommend to others.

– The website will be a real resource, interactive wherever possible, where people can browse, discover, and subscribe

Barriers to entry

Barriers include (click):

– Cost of a suitable site. Minimum of 100 acres of land (ideally 200) within 100 miles of London is likely to cost well over £1m, and with a dwelling that figure would probably triple. While funding is available once the land is secured, money to actually procure it in the first place is not so readily accessible.

– The attitude and cooperation from the local council where the land is situated – buy in and support from many sources is crucial, especially the council.

– Putting it on the map as a real day out attracting lots of families, is incompatible with unspoiled nature. Thorpe Park is over 495 acres and attracts 2m visitors per year. CAT attracts 55,000 visitors per year. To attract 200,000 visitors per year (March – October) would mean having 2,000 visitors per day at weekends and 500 per day on week days. Capacity would need to be carefully managed if we were to aim for a large number of visitors to access everything WM has to offer. NB This will be much easier when there are more sites, once the demonstration project ha been successful.

Customer characteristics

(Is this necessary?)

Characteristics of our visitors (the general public)

– Families with children of any age incl adolescents wanting a fun day out with activities and beautiful surroundings

– Couples and individuals, looking for a lovely pleasurable day out – eg those who like plants, gardening, spending time in nature, enjoying the surroundings or atmosphere, later when we have refreshments to offer these will increase

– Anyone interested in nature / wildlife in general, or gardening, or in Wild Magic in particular

– Schools, as it is an entry point into nature and provides guidance to encourage appreciation.

– Students (under or post grad), for research purposes etc

– People wanting to learn retreat subjects (further research into demand)

– Anyone with an interest in the subjects we cover, as our presence becomes more widely known

– People looking to buy something eg looking for a natural burial plot, or looking for a wildlife rich garden, etc

Our trainee customers

– Anyone who is absolutely committed to changing their life and leaving crime behind for good – this may mean most trainees will be over the age of 26 at first (see Appendices for more about ex offender characteristics)

– They would go through an application process to ensure they are totally ready and keen to leave the past behind, put in the effort to heal themselves, and are receptive to the services on offer.

– Anyone wanting employment and/or to learn a trade

– Anyone with an interest in personal development,

– Anyone who wants to carve out some space or time out, explore their spiritual sice, or develop an interest in religion (over time we will build a library of books and audio books for personal study)

– At some point we will open out to other vulnerable groups

Customers buying a service- including ...

– Councils

– Funding bodies, eg charitable trusts, ‘pots’ designated for a particular purpose that we fit

– Those who invest via a crowdfunding platform (donors from the general public)

– Those private individuals who donate to a good cause and choose us, with or without rewards (see website for details of rewards and levels)

– Those who really want our rewards, eg exclusive videos, our WM gifts, etc (see website for more details)

– Those who purchase items from our online shop

– Investors

– Corporates looking for CSR opportunities or ESG

– Landowners who would like to give something back to nature – because Wild Magic has several elements, anyone willing to give some land to nature could leave out any elements they wish, eg the ex offender element, or opening to visitors. When funding is available Wild Magic will be able to cover the financial costs so landowners need only supply the land.

– Anyone willing to open their garden to the public and give the Wild Magic message we can develop their garden for free

– Any organisations with tender opportunities for us to tender, once we have a trained team ready for this aspect of the enterprise

– We hope in the future to bring a wild element to many different patches of land – eg care home gardens, land around blocks of flats, school grounds, university land, public parks, gardens open to the public, etc

– We also hope in the future to explore the possibility of installing vertical wildlife gardens on the sides of buildings in cities

Another title

What You Get

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