Sorry it has been longer than usual since my last update. School has been taking up most of my time and the other few moments I have are spent looking for jobs post-graduation and dusting off my resume. I wanted to give everyone an update before I head out for Spring Break. The reality is I have not gotten done as much as I would have hoped but I am still comfortable with where I am.
Tap Project
World Water Week is approaching fast and our class is doing the best it can to get more restaurants signed up. The fact is, we weren't as efficient as we should have been out of the gate, but we still rank in the middle of the pack among our competing cities. Not bad for the second smallest city helping UNICEF out. To date we have 56 restaurants signed up and our guess is it will reach 100 by March 16th. Anyway, I was invited to speak on our behalf with Rick Boyko, Director of the Brandcenter, for a VCU PBS program. Click on the picture for the full interview.
Path 101
Charlie and I have decided on a date to present my findings and recommendations to him. Unfortunately, I have not gotten the type of feedback I expected to related to Startup Company's Marketing Best Practices or College Career Offices and their technology use. In any event, I am happy with where I am. I received a great amount of feedback from young professionals who seem to be the main target for this audience. For the project, I also have to write a thesis paper. Here is the outline:
Title:
Me.
I will briefly describe the assignment as well as the motivation why I reached out to Path 101. I will go into detail of my initial communication with the startup and its founder, Charlie O’Donnell. This will be a great way to begin to tell what Path 101 does and its goals for the future. I will outline the company’s short history, its current employee count and some goals it has already achieved. In this section, I will explain what anti-stealth means, what the Resume Genome Project is and any other interesting things the company has done to this point. I will end this section with the purpose of this paper and project. Some other elements that I plan to include are:
- What is the general issue or problem involved?
- Why is gaining a better understanding of this problem important?
- Briefly, what is known about the problem?
- Where is there a gap in knowledge about the problem?
- What is the purpose of the research presented in this paper/thesis?
Review of relevant previous experience:
One of the reasons I was excited to work with Path 101 on my Independent Study was because of the content is offers. This type of service is something that I could have used when I was graduating in college. In fact, one of my ambitions was to start a magazine geared toward showing young professionals blueprints of successful business people. While Path’s mission is a bit different than the magazine, its overall goal – to help people figure out a better career path – is inline with the magazine idea. In this section, I will go into detail about my experience with my friends and their unhappiness with their jobs. I will try to provide some context into the strategy young professionals go through when approaching their careers – all based on previous experience.
Research Methods:
This is where I will detail both the primary and secondary research methods I conducted. For the primary research methods, I will thoroughly discuss my survey tactics and questions asked to young professionals, entrepreneurs and college career officers. I will explain the process of reaching out to the audiences above. Here are some of the key questions I will answer:
- What is the type of information that is sought?
- What method is used to obtain that information?
- What specific steps are used to perform the method?
- How can the research help solve the problem?
- Why were these audiences surveyed?
- How accurate are these answers?
Aside from the surveys I conducted, I will go into detail about the other primary research I conducted. This includes:
- Personal interviews
- Shadowing a College Career conference
- Visiting College Career offices
I will also detail the secondary research that I conducted. I will include the Blogs, Websites, and competitors I looked at. I will answer these questions for my secondary research:
- Why were particular Blogs or other Websites chosen over others?
- What information was specifically sought out?
- How was research conducted?
This section will also be used to look at how the target audience uses media. I will point out the different studies I looked at and what I was trying to accomplish.
Results:
In this section, I will show the results to my research. Specifically for the surveys, I will include graphs, charts and any other visuals that helped guide my research. I will work toward my insights; highlighting what research I used to arrive at the specific insights. Those insights will be constructed by looking at patterns from my research. In addition, this section will be used to compare the competitive set of Path 101. Features that will be compared include:
· Content
· Sign-up processes
· Marketing
· Community tools
· Overall feedback
· Contact information
I will also reveal any patterns I find from my secondary research. Besides pointing out career discovery information, I will highlight the media usage that the target audience uses. This information will be extremely valuable and a good way to introduce the recommendations for Path 101.
Results + Previous knowledge = Recommendations:
Based on the research results as well as my previous experience with the issue, I will give a 10,000 foot level view on some recommendations I will offer. In this section, I will detail some of the recommendations to give the reader a better sense of why it makes sense, what issue it solves and where it can fit in with Path 101’s current mission and vision.
Integrated Marketing Plan + Product Development:
In this section, I will include my presentation slides. I will also include any speaking points that I will have prepared that will not be included on the specific slides. The presentation should be able to be understood without my being there.
- Presentation Path
- Objectives:
- Research Analysis
- Situation Analysis – Include Comparative Analysis
- Target Market Analysis
- Research Revisited
- Positioning Recommendation
- Integrated Communications Plan – Include Creative Brief, tactics, media plan, financials, performance budget
- Start-ups Marketing Habits Study
- Revisit Communications Plan
- ROI
- Business Recommendations
References:
Self-explanatory.
Appendices:
- Survey’s written out
- Complete survey results
- Personal Interviews
- College Career Office visits
- Notes, Emails, etc
Jacob and I continue our research. We have reached out to our two main targets and are putting together a survey that will give us the necessary insights to guide our recommendations. We already have some great ideas and will continue to work hard after break. We look forward to presenting our findings to Chris.
Job Search
I will begin to update everyone on that note when I get back from Spring Break. Here is where you all can reach me.
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