Marketing Plan. Table of Contents. What is Greetings From? How does it work? Basic marketing questions. Who would buy Greetings From?

Transcription

1 Marketing Plan Table of Contents What is Greetings From? How does it work? Basic marketing questions Who would buy Greetings From? Teachers Competition References

2 What is Greetings From? Greetings From is an international, kid-centric postcard service that, unlike traditional news sources, is written by children from around the world. The product is available by subscription. The service s subscribers digital postcards 2-3 times per month. The content of these postcards is collected by nongovernmental organizations working in proximity to the children. For example, a 9-year-old living in Rio de Janeiro would be contacted by an NGO on the ground in Brazil that he has previously interacted with and asked to write about his/her experience in relation to the 2016 Olympics. The NGO would then collect his/her writings and send them along with photos, video, audio or other multimedia to us. We would package the child s writing, along with any additional media, into a postcard that would be sent to classrooms, subscribers, families across the world. These end-users would then be able to experience Brazil s preparations for the Olympics through the eyes of a child living through the process. In addition to the basic postcard service, the password-protected website has educational features, such as an archive map that pins previously received postcards onto their locations. Other features include music, videos and photos. This service aims to increase global awareness and inspire interest in global issues in classrooms and among subscribers. Additionally, in an effort to create a socially responsible business, a portion of subscription fees would be redirected to partner NGOs.

3 How does it work?

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5 Basic marketing questions What is the product? Our product is a postcard service that communicates worldwide current events to subscribers. Children throughout the world write about the current events that are occurring in their countries. Children are contacted by NGOs, and these NGOs will submit the information to our service. The personal experiences and general news will be communicated by the children. Users, such as subscribers and teachers, will receive this information and learn about the news through the kids first-hand experiences. What need is it filling? What are the benefits? News is being communicated from the first-hand experiences of children in different countries throughout the world. Our unique service will provide international news to subscribers, and this news is written by kids. The users of the service, including teachers and students, will be informed of the news by learning from children s personal experiences. The additional benefits of the service include: 1. The connection to the Common Core Standards. Many educators throughout the country are to comply by these standards. Parts of these standards are associated with making education more innovative. Additional technology as well as interactive and collaborative learning are to be incorporated into lessons. Our product can help comply

6 with aspects of the Common Core Standards. 2. Teachers can use supplementary materials to enhance their classroom lessons. These may include materials such as maps, which would allow students to understand more about the country that they are learning about. 3. Our target market includes public, private, charter, and alternative schools. This diversity allows us to serve a variety of needs in these schools. Why isn't it already available? Although there are examples of news articles and blog posts that have been written by kids, these are not provided through one full postcard service. People are learning about international news, but they are not primarily reading news that has been written by children. There are also postcard services that are available, such as postcard applications, but these services are not focused on the fact that children would be writing the news. Many of the professional news organizations that have news written by kids, such as Time for Kids, have this news available as news articles and newsletters. The idea of a postcard is unique to this product. Kids are currently not the primary writers of international news, so this service is not available with this aspect.

7 What is your advantage(s) or unique selling proposition over your competitors? The advantages over our competitors include: 1. Children are writing the news from their first-hand experiences. 2. We are working with NGOs. NGOs can benefit with the development of the product, and they can help distribute the news. NGOs will be one of the contact sources with the children. 3. Our product can be connected to the Common Core Standards. These Standards must be met by teachers in the United States. Forty-five states, Washington D.C., and the Department of Defense Education Activity have adopted these Common Core Standards. 4. Our postcards will have unique designs on a variety of templates. Our postcards will be the primary source of communication for the news. The website and/or mobile application will not be the main part of the service. The use of a postcard to share the news written by kids helps to make this product unique.

8 Who would buy Greetings From? We would have two types of subscription fees: from classrooms and from the public. Public subscribers would be able to purchase this service for $5/month, or $60/year. Classroom subscriptions would cost $15/month, or $135/year, no matter the number of students. Classrooms Part One Who is our Market? Educators are a key component of the overall market for our product. Educators within public, private, and charter schools throughout the world can improve education by sharing our postcard service with students. Many teachers are aiming to promote technology in classrooms, collaboration, teamwork, and high-quality learning, especially those who are creating startup companies in the educational technology industry or are interested in injecting a global perspective into their classroom. Our overall market of educators will span from 1st grade teachers to high school teachers. According to the National Center of Education Statistics, in the school year, there were an estimated 3,850,100 teachers in elementary and secondary schools in the United States.

9 About 3,385,200 taught in public schools and about 464,900 taught in private schools. The distinction needs to be made between public, private, charter, and alternative schools because each has different sets of budget, practices, and experience with implementing technology in the classroom. Why are they are Market? From our NC survey, teachers see a need in their classrooms for global awareness and want a way fill this need and meet their set teaching standards. Nationally, teachers are displaying their interest in digital communication and interaction. Part Two Narrowing it down Our target market is younger teachers. They are interested in the Common Core Standards and incorporating technology into education.these teachers are aware of technology s influences and capabilities. Within the target market, we have public, private, and charter school teachers. Each of these segments has its own characteristics, but they all have the same goal of educating young lives. Fact to consider In , the average base salary of regular full-time teachers was higher in public schools

10 ($53,100) than in private schools ($40,200). The percentage of regular full-time teachers who earned additional pay from their school system for extracurricular or additional activities during the school year was 42 percent in public schools and 29 percent in private schools. The average amount earned for these activities was $2,500 for public school teachers and $2,700 for private school teachers. More data needs to be gathered on charter school educators. Connecting Greetings From with Common Core Forty-five states, D.C., 4 territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity have adopted Common Core Standards. Common Core Standards can be associated with our service. These standards focus on real-life application of the knowledge that students are learning in K-12 schools. These standards include English/Language Arts Standards and Mathematics Standards. Our product can appeal to educators and show them the coordination for these standards, especially since the products leads to projects, teamwork, and technology usage within classrooms. Teachers are becoming interested in interactive and collaborative learning, which can be associated with the Common Core Standards. epals Global Community is an example of a program that connects students through . Students collaborate on projects, learn about culture, connect digitally, and can share their work internationally. The slogan is Where Learners Connect, which implies that this type of product appeals to teachers. The Millennium Development Goals focus on universal primary

11 education, and these can also be a way to appeal to our target market. Common Core Standards and Millennium Development Goals, including their collaborative and interactive aspects, are ways in which we can advertise and promote the product to educators. Part Three Unique Foundation One of the key aspects of our product is that kids are the writers of the news. Kids have the ability to tell stories in a creative lens, and they can share details that adults may not see. Kids can help to convey a complete news story based on their accounts of events. Our service provides personal experiences and general news written by kids, which can appeal to many other kids as well as to educators and their students. Our product provides a news outlet with kid reporters located throughout the world. Advertising Strategy In order to target technology users and educators, our digital product will be advertised primarily to school districts and through the Internet, particularly social media. We will be using school newsletters, banner advertisements, newsletters, social media, such as Facebook Ads, and search engine optimization. Since our segments include public, private, and charter schools, we can customize newsletters and our strategies for each type of school. The product will be promoted through nonprofit organizations as well. Nonprofit

12 organizations are a key part of the sharing of postcards. They will have Internet in their international locations, and they can provide the local advertising within their cities and towns. They can send press releases and use marketing strategies to promote the product, while also sharing news of their own services. Nonprofit organizations can be selected by the potential customers as well. These strategies can personalize the information and allow information to be transmitted more easily. Part Four Tasks to market the product and the costs for each action include: Creation of monthly press releases - Hiring writers and designers for the postcards, communicating with nonprofit organizations (Internet/ and telephone charges), and printing the press releases Collaboration with nonprofit organizations for press releases and marketing strategies - Communication costs (telephone costs, monthly fee for Internet/ , etc.) Creation and maintenance of Facebook Ads and Facebook Campaigns (social media marketing strategies) - Costs for Facebook Ads and for Sponsored Stories on Facebook (possibly have a campaign on Facebook) and Internet costs Development of a blog within the website to use keywords for search engine optimization - Hiring writers and designers and Internet costs

13 Communication with teachers and school districts to share the product and inform others of the product - Communication costs (telephone, Internet, etc.) Public subscribers Who is in our market and how big is it? To determine who might use this product for personal use, we thought about what characteristics might increase a consumer s interest in international news, particularly children s issues. Based on these characteristics, we developed four types of subscribers. We surveyed people who we believe fell into one or more of the following descriptions: Spiritual Sally Beth One of our segments is religious people. As described in Arthur C. Brooks 2006 book, Who Really Cares?, religion is the largest factor to determine whether a family will donate to charity. These people care about kids because they are parents or even grandparents. A large portion of this segment, as described by Brooks, are conservative Christians. These people believe it is their spiritual duty, not the job of the government, to take care of the less fortunate. Consequently, they donate money both to their religious organizations and secular organizations that they trust to make a difference. One challenge we might face with this segment is that they may not agree with the missions of all of our partner NGOs. This will be especially problematic if we choose a different charity to donate part of the proceeds to each month. It is also

14 unclear how this segment would respond to news that is generated by kids. They may be skeptical of influence by NGOs or whether the kids are qualified to speak for their communities. A second segment is people who are culturally connected to other countries. This can be divided into two subsections: a connection due to heritage and a connection due to experience. Immigrant Ivan These subscribers will have a connection to one or more foreign countries due to their heritage. According to the 2010 census, 13% of the United States population is foreign-born. Our market would include this demographic as well as their children and grandchildren. Whether or not they were born in their country of heritage, this subsection feels a strong connection to that country s culture and therefore cares about it current events. This subsection may be dissatisfied with the coverage of their heritage countries in traditional media. Stories and visuals from their heritage country may provide a source of comfort and nostalgia to them. They may also appreciate a translation feature. The opportunity to respond to the cards may be especially attractive because it would provide further contact with the country. We may face challenges with this subsection if they feel we are misrepresenting or exploiting their heritage countries, particularly in areas of conflict. Active Alice The subsection is composed of Americans who have extensively traveled, whether to

15 one country or many. Their experiences have led them to feel that part of their heart lies in another country. These people are missionaries, teachers or medical personnel. Many are college-aged or recent graduates. Many have recently returned from work with the Peace Corps or an NGO, or they may be students with plans to go back after graduation. This group has contributed many hours in their home-away-from-home countries to volunteer work because they see great potential in this country s population. They believe their countries are not only underserved but also underreported. A project like Greetings From would tug at their heartstrings. The challenges we face with this subsection are similar to those described in the heritage subsection, just to a lesser extent. Sustainable Sarah A final segment would be people who are forward-minded. These people live in cool cities of technology and/or tolerance, like Carrboro, Durham, San Francisco and Portland and are generally liberal. They believe technology can be a valuable tool to promote values like environmental consciousness and peaceful interaction between countries. They are young adults or middle-age and may not have children. They work at forward-thinking institutions, like universities and technology companies. They are dissatisfied with mainstream international news coverage, particularly of countries in conflict. They would view a child s perspective as a much-needed source of honest news coverage. The biggest challenge with this group would be a potential worry that Greetings From may (unintentionally) exploit the children we work with.

16 Who would pay for it? Though each of the above groups expressed interest in the product, when asked how much they would pay for it, there did not seem to be a correlation between these answers and the responder s assigned market group. We would like to conduct a further study to learn more about the types of people who would pay for this product. However, we were able to set a monthly subscription price based on these answers.

17 Competition Postcard Creator (and other postcard/pen-pal services): It is a classroom tool to involve children in reading and writing excerpts about their lives. It can be virtual or printed out. Teachers are supposed to use the Postcard Creator to combine words and images to share experiences from faraway places. Although the postcards can't be sent through the mail on their own, children can place them in an envelope or hand deliver them to friends or family. This product competes with us in that is is an already-in-market template for the type of product we are trying to create. Their target market is classrooms ages kindergarten through eighth grade. The interesting thing about this product is that it is sponsored by the Thinkfinity Verizon foundation and partners with the International Reading Association. Through this sponsorship, the product and all like resources are free for teachers to access and use. Time For Kids (and other kid-generated news): TIME For Kids is a weekly classroom news magazine that strives to motivate kids to

18 read. Issues cover a wide range of real-world topics. The Digital Edition supplement to the TIME For Kids print subscription, and they provide more features to the TIME For Kids product. Used as a teaching tool, TIME For Kids builds reading and writing skills and is easily integrated across a curriculum, including social studies, science and math. TIME For Kids is committed to helping teachers meet National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies and National Science Education Standards. Since its founding in 1995, TIME For Kids has been one of the most authoritative and informative guides for kids as to what is happening in the worlds of health and science, politics, business, society and entertainment. What their product provides is kids in the US reporting on news in the US and international profiles on international children. We differ from Time because even though we are also trying to use kid reporters, our reporters are the children across the world submitting excerpts of their lives. According to their media kit, each week, TIME For Kids reaches over 3.2 million students and 136,000 teachers in grades K-6 nationwide. Time For Kids prices (teachers):

19 Public subscribers: $30/year References US Census Teaching Abroad Time for Kids Postcard Creator eator-a html

20 CNN Student News CAMP p