For best marketing, Recreation and Parks Department, City of Palo Alto, California, Minka Van Der Zwaag, accepting. This is a great one-year marketing plan. This is the table of contents (right). The plan was comprehensive, including Operational Objectives, Budget and Benchmarks, Timeline, Marketing Plan Team.

And here’s a page from the plan (left). What we also liked about this excellent plan was the benchmarks. Not just broad objectives, but very specific targets by division. Target goals like: cancellation rate; average participants per class; average fee; and percentage of new programs. When you get down to that level of detail, you’ve got a plan. And execution is much easier.