Sample Campaign Plan: Campaign Plan for College Whiz's Get Ahead Of The Curve

College Whiz is an online college preparation company offering tutorials and guidance to high school students to help them increase their chances of getting into the college or university of their choice. The company was founded as a response to the high level of stress experienced by this generation of high school students, as well as the increased use of technology in education (Winter, et al., 2021). College Whiz’s online-based college preparation program is comprised of online videos tackling specific skills or subjects, activities and exercises where students apply and refine what they learned, and one-on-one counseling with a tutor who will recommend the appropriate classes for them and guide them through the college application process. This is a convenient and affordable option for students to maximize their potential.

The following document is a campaign plan for College Whiz’s campaign entitled “Get Ahead of the Curve,” which will serve as the campaign that will introduce the company to the country. The promotional campaign will involve multi-channel promotions all communicating the key message that students need to prepare for college admission tests as early as possible to minimize stress. 

SWOT Analysis

College Whiz recognizes that it has both strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats, that are influenced by internal and external factors (Pratt, n.d.). An environmental analysis has been conducted, specifically through SWOT analysis, to gauge the environment in which College Whiz shall launch itself.

Strengths

The main strengths of the company are its convenience and the personalized services it offers. College Whiz’s services are available solely online—through the mobile app and website—so students can access it anytime they are available. This is a major strength that the company believes will appeal to students since they are busy and often have various responsibilities or extra-curricular activities after school. 

Another strength is that the target users of the services are the younger generations who not only have a need for convenient online preparation services, but also are technologically savvy (Namugenyi, Nimmagadda, & Reiners, 2019). They are, thus, comfortable with services that are only accessible online, so they can maximize the program. 

The format of the program is another advantage for College Whiz. The company offers pre-recorded videos of lessons targeting practical skills and knowledge that will help students with college admissions tests and essays. These materials that students can study on their own are complemented by the guidance of tutors, which makes the program personalized for every student. Studies have shown that personalized learning improves students’ understanding of subject matters and facilitates skill acquisition (Pane et al., 2017). Thus, by employing personalized learning as its pedagogical framework, College Whiz has a higher chance of helping students learn and improve.

Weakness

As a new company, College Whiz’s weakness is the potential mistrust of parents and students. The company does not yet have a strong reputation, so clients may perceive availing of the services as a risky move. The lack of trust may be compounded by the fact that the company operates solely online. Potential clients may hesitate about the quality of services because of the fear of falling into financial fraud. These are all concerns that College Whiz must mitigate in the promotional campaign. 

Naturally, the company has to produce excellent results from the beginning. However, College Whiz’s performance relies heavily on the commitment of the clients or students. College Whiz has professionally-designed resources and highly trained tutors, but they cannot help a student who does not take the time to study. This is a major weakness for College Whiz, but it must find ways to encourage students to regularly study as well as keep them engaged while studying. This weakness may be confounded by possible scheduling issues between tutors and students. These issues, however, can be addressed through hiring sufficient tutors and adding features in the app and website that encourage or remind students to study.

 Opportunities

There are a few opportunities that College Whiz can take advantage of to propel it to success. The company offers a relatively unique service. Although there are a lot of established college prep services, they are mostly offered offline or in person, and rarely online.

In addition, the target demographic is already technologically savvy and already familiar with learning online. Furthermore, more Americans now, regardless of generation, have become more comfortable with using online services (Perrin & Atske, 2021). This is an advantage since parents are more likely to be open to the idea of paying for an online college preparation program this year than in previous years. This is, thus, an opportunity that could be taken advantage of with a seamless user interface and an effective marketing strategy that would increase trust in the company.

Aside from that, the company may take advantage of the wide online presence of the target demographic. In particular, these individuals trust the recommendations of bloggers and influencers on Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube. This poses an opportunity to mitigate one of the weaknesses, particularly the lack of trust in the company as a new entrant.

Threats

The main threats for College Whiz are the established college preparation services or academies, some of which are also offering online services. Both offline and online services are a threat since they have established reputations that parents may prefer. 

Campaign Goals

This campaign will introduce College Whiz to the market, so it has a few goals to achieve.

• Promote the Company’s Products and Services

Since College Whiz is new, the main goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of what it does and offers. The advertisements should be informative, and by the end, the audience should be familiar with the company’s products and services. These goals will be measured through organic traffic to the website and app, conversion rates, SEO performance, and social media engagement.

• Build Brand Awareness

Along with raising awareness of the company’s products and services, the company also aims to build brand awareness through this campaign. As mentioned earlier, one of the weaknesses of the company is that it is not an established brand yet so it may not be as well trusted by its target market. Thus, to increase trust in the company, the campaign must communicate the brand’s identity and values. These efforts will ideally increase social media engagement, direct traffic, referral traffic, and backlinks. The company will also directly ask target customers about their awareness of the brand and what they think are its values.

• Lead Generation

The main call to action in the promotional materials is a call to sign up. As people sign up for the website or app, the company will have access to clients’ or potential clients’ e-mail addresses which is another outlet for marketing. The success of this goal will be determined by the total number of leads brought in, which should include both marketing-qualified leads and sales-qualified leads; cost per lead, which ideally should be low; and conversion rate.

• Target Audience

The campaign targets two sets of audiences: high school students and parents of high school students. The company will not target specific year levels since the common practice today is for high school students to start preparing for college admissions as early as their sophomore year. Thus, all high school students in the US, regardless of their school and year level, shall be targeted. 

The campaign shall also consider market segmentation, particularly psychographic segmentation. For students, the company targets those who are academically conscientious and want to get into a college or university, especially those with high competition. These are students who are likely achievers in their school and are, thus, willing to exert additional effort to excel. For parents, the company shall target those who are in the working class or higher. Educational level shall not be a determinant since most parents want their children to get into either the best or an affordable college regardless of their own educational attainment. A more important consideration in terms of psychographic segmentation is the parents' involvement in their child’s education. The company shall target parents who are invested in their children’s education but perhaps do not have the time nor the skills to teach their children on their own. These demographics will likely look for external assistance and be willing to pay for such services long-term (Gajanova, Nadanyiova, & Moravcikova, 2019).

Key Campaign Messages and Promotional Offers

College Whiz’s “Get Ahead Of The Curve” campaign acknowledges the college admission stress brought about by the intense competition, and thus offers a solution for it. The campaign shall emphasize the necessity to start preparing for college early in order to gain an advantage and increase a student’s likelihood of getting accepted.

Budget

The estimated budget for the entire campaign is at $205,000 and covers the salary for the marketing team, payment for the outsourced production team, the production costs, advertising costs, and affiliate marketing costs.

Conclusion

The preceding campaign plan details the “Get Ahead of the Curve” campaign that will introduce College Whiz to the market. The campaign emphasizes a major pain point for high school students which is the stress of preparing for college admissions and then presents College Whiz as a solution to this problem. The campaign will not only inform the audience of the services offered by the company but also of the various promotions available.

A campaign plan is one of the many components of a marketing plan. This is an important document for marketing teams as it directs them in the right direction. Creating an effective campaign plan is a must. If you’re not sure about how to create a campaign plan, CustomEssayMeister can help. 

References

Gajanova, L., Nadanyiova, M, & Moravcikova, D. (2019, March). The use of demographic and psychographic segmentation to create marketing strategy of brand loyalty. Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, 66(1), pp. 65-84. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/saeb-2019-0005

Namugenyi, C., Nimmagadda, S.L., & Reiners, T. (2019). Design of a SWOT analysis model and its evaluation in diverse digital business ecosystem contexts. Procedia Computer Science , 159(2019), 1145-1154.

Pane, J. F., Steiner, E. D., Baird, M. D., Hamilton, L. S., and Pane, J. D. (2017). How does personalized learning affect student achievement? Rand Corporation . https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9994.html

Perrin, A. & Atske, S. (2021, March 26). About three-in-ten U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/26/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-are-almost-constantly-online/

Pratt, M. K. (n.d.). SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis). TechTarget. https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/SWOT-analysis-strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-and-threats-analysis

Winter, E., Costello, A., O’Brien, M., & Hickey, G. (2021, April 28). Teachers’ use of technology and the impact of COVID-19. Irish Educational Studies, 40(2), pp. 235-246. https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2021.1916559