Millennial Marketing Communications Plan
In our efforts to target a new demographic of Millennial consumers, we have experienced challenges maintaining a consistent voice across media channels. We want you to assist us in updating our branding in a way that clearly differentiates us from our competitors and serves our target Millennial market.For this project, you will need to:Understand our brand and mission.Conduct research on our users, stakeholders, and competitors.Analyze our competitive landscape.
Market Expansion Research
We are ready to take our business to the next level. Presently we only exist in one market but it’s time to grow! Our company requires some assistance is assessing our customer landscape outside of our current territory. We want to learn more about customer’s expectations and behaviours in suggested new regions. It is important for us to stay up to date on industry standards to ensure that we research new locations fully and completely before choosing to enter. We have some ideas of where we would like to go but we need to make sure that we consider all available options before making a decision.
Business Administration
The primary focus for the student will be: (Remove any that don't apply)Strategy - Develop an implementation plan for entering a new market; develop a go-to-market strategy; identify new funding and grant opportunities, write proposals.Operations - Recommend process improvements or redesign processes; develop improvements to supply chain processes; introduce quality assurance into our internal processes.Marketing - Complete a full customer, competitor, market, and environmental analysis; complete a marketing strategy review; design a new marketing strategy (product, place, price, and promotion); Sales - Design a new/improved prospecting process for our sales team; design a new/improved pricing or service structure.
Security & Penetration Testing of Web Application
Our company has a website / technology product. A standard practice for web based tools is to conduct what is known as penetration tests.We would like a group of students to design and perform a pen test on our application, involving:Students become familiar with our product and understand generally how it works.Students should spend time conducting research on state of the art pen testing technologies. They should look into common vulnerability lists such as OWASP Top 10, and common security tools such as Nmap, Burp Suitar, Nessus, and Wireshark.Students are free to attack our product as per the presented plan.Students submit a final report of any findings.
Data Entry
Our company does research in the medical field and we collect a lot of data.We would like to collaborate with students in data entry.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Familiarizing themselves with our database structure.Transferring data into our databases efficiently.Verifying the accuracy of the data in our databases and making relevant updates.Organizing and retrieving data as requested.Bonus steps in the process would also include:Providing assistance in creating new databases.
Sales Process Audit
We want you to investigate our sales funnel to help us understand why prospects are falling off and what changes we should make to increase sales. You will have access to our Sales Manager for information and we will provide all current sales collateral for review. You will also be provided high level data, but not individual account information.
Establishing a Project’s Cost of Capital
Our company has recently taken interest in starting a new project, however, we believe this may be riskier than our typical operations. As a result of this, we believe using our regular Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) would be unwise, as we could accidentally take on a project that is too risky. We hope to establish another discount rate that is specific to this project to hope us decide if it is worth investing in.Tasks may include:Researching companies and their Weighted Average Cost of Capital using the pure play approach to find a peer group.Calculating each company’s respective beta in the peer group, and using the average to calculate the return for that level of risk using CAPM.Establishing a second WACC using the subjective approach.Creating a report with all calculations and research conducted, including comparisons between each method used and recommendations for which rate to use.
Digital Content Creation
Our company advertises thousands of products online. We hope to revamp our social media and email marketing content to attract more customers.We would like students to help us create content that is aligned with our vision, mission, and sector.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Familiarizing themselves with our company’s products, marketing goals and target market.Researching factors affecting the quality of digital content.Recommending changes to existing digital content and designing new social media posts and emails.Recommending and designing new digital content not already used by our company.
Financial Business Plan
We are looking to launch a new venture and we want to know how we could achieve it. The plan should include:Sales forecastingExpense budgetIncome projections (conservative and aggressive)Assets and liabilitiesBreak-even analysis
Website Development
We need help revamping and creating a new website. We would like to work with students to develop a website that is best suited for our company. Students should be prepared to:Conduct a needs analysis to determine which platform is most suitableCreate a design proposal including wireframes or low-fidelity mockups for our company's review.Build a fully-functioning website, with our assistance in providing content and copy.Provide training on updating and maintaining the site.
New Product Marketing
We would like to revamp our marketing as we have recently developed a new product.Together with our marketing team, we would like students to design new promotional material for this new product. Based on our insights and additional research, students will develop promotional marketing materials for our existing media and make recommendations on alternative media to consider.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Familiarizing themselves with our target market, products and services.Assessing our existing marketing strategy and efforts.Recommending marketing tactics to promote our new product such as exclusive previews and introductory offers.Designing promotional material for various media.Making multiple versions of marketing materials and testing them for comparison.
Diversity & Inclusion Strategy
Our company has dozens of employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We want to create an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued.We would like to collaborate with students to create a diversity and inclusion strategy.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Identifying areas for improvement based on our diversity audit data.Defining diversity goals and objectives for our company.Considering new diversity and inclusion training initiatives.Recommending ways to communicate diversity and inclusion initiatives to employees.Bonus steps in the process would also include:Recommending a timeline for evaluating our diversity and inclusion strategy.
SEO and Social Media Strategy
Our team is looking to take our social media presence to the next level in order to drive traffic to our pages. To do this, we hope to improve our search engine optimization, and create an optimal schedule for our social media posts to be uploaded.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Researching keywords to determine the most relevant terms that our customers search for.Researching Search Engine Optimization requirements for us to rank on the first page of Google.Constructing a content calendar to upload social media content for the maximum possible traffic .Creating social media content using the most efficient keywords for our target audience while following the content calendar.
Foreign Marketing
Our company advertises thousands of products online. We would like to revamp our marketing as we have recently expanded into a foreign market.Together with our marketing team, we would like students to design new promotional material for the foreign market. Based on our insights and additional research, students will develop promotional marketing materials for our existing media and make recommendations on alternative media to consider.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Researching the foreign market where we have recently expanded.Assessing our existing marketing strategy and efforts.Recommending new marketing tactics.Designing promotional material for various media.
Chat Function - App Design & Implementation
Our company advertises thousands of products online. However, we currently rely on slow modes of communication with our customers. Users have requested the functionality to contact sellers directly via a real-time chat function.We would like to work with students to create a general chat application that can be easily ported to any other existing system.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Researching technologies being used for chat applications.Selecting the best technologies for creating a real-time application.Producing a wireframe or mock-up of the resulting system’s user interface.Creating a product roadmap for the system and an implementation plan detailing possible interactions with the system.
Analyzing Industry Data
Our company would like to analyze medical data. We believe we know a lot about our consumers and target consumer base, but we need to look beyond the buyer and examine our industry.We would like to collaborate with students to identify key market trends and assist in our go-forward plans.This will involve several different steps for the students, including:Familiarizing themselves with our products, target market, and industry.Analyzing growth trends, stagnation patterns and decline analytics.Identifying areas of promising innovation and areas that are slowing down.Bonus steps in the process would also include:Recommending strategies to best position our company.
Research Assistant
The research assistants will support the research initiatives under the guidance of research faculty. Areas of inquiry including: Examples: political economy, immigration and labour markets, international trade, healthcare, urban development.