Capstone Individual Marketing Plan

Marketing Program
Monica Ojeda | Marketing 4380.501 | November 30th, 2016

Current Marketing Situation

Internal Situation
Marketing Program Mission:
The mission of the Marketing Program is to deliver a high-quality marketing
education to a diverse undergraduate population. Students are challenged to
think strategically and develop strong analytical skills. The program
emphasizes technological proficiency, global awareness, ethical awareness
and practical knowledge of marketing which is to create, communicate and
deliver offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society
at large. Students are prepared to apply their skills and knowledge toward
solving the complex problems that face business and industry in todays
constantly changing world.
Honors Program Sample Statement:
We are the Marketing Honors program offering professional development
leadership skills and career opportunities to select motivated marketing
students.

Current Offerings:

Access to Internships and Job Leads

In-Class Industry Speakers and Projects A lot of the speakers that the university
have partnerships with happen to be alumni who have graduated and come back

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to share their stories with current students in the same field. Others are
connections the school has made with world class firms due to its great location
with so many big companies surrounding it.

Competitions and Certifications advanced sales program

Faculty Mentoring Program professors also have an extensive marketing

background with real-life examples of textbook work.

Scholarship Opportunities

Business Relationships:
UT Dallas has a Corporate Relations department aimed specifically at developing
relationships with different companies and organizations for multiple purposes including
recruitment, research, education, and engagement. So many big companies such as Texas
Instruments, PepsiCo, GEICO, and Southwest Airlines are regular recruiters at the
university. Besides recruiting, some companies also look to students to help with different
company projects. This allows us to get hands on experience of real-life situations. For
example, last semester Intuit visited my Marketing Research class and tasked us with
creating a survey to understand the needs of their customers. In return, they gave each
student in the class a $200 scholarship.
Previous Results:
Per Professor Haworth, in the past years, enrollment in the marketing department
was drastically increasing by 10-15% each year. At the time, this growth, although

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exciting, was a bit overwhelming. The department was not expecting this capacity and
wanted it to slow down just a bit. Fast-forward a few years later, we have a bigger
building, more opportunities and a nice new landscape, but only growing at about 6%.
We have room for about 600 700 students and right now all we have is 445 students
enrolled in our marketing program.

Fall 2016 Enrollment

1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

% Growth in Degree Plans

80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
-10.00%

External Situation
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Ranked as one of the top 100 tuition values in the United States by Kiplinger's
Personal Finance four years in a row The university is known for its high four-year
graduation rate, low avg. student debt after graduation, financial aid options, and overall
great value which is great during a struggling economy. It is also ranked #3 in public
universities in the state right after UT Austin, and Texas A&M University. Additionally,
UT Austin is ranked as the #1 school in Texas for marketing. Their honors programs
require a letter of recommendation from a teacher, and a copy of their resume. Due to not
having a football team, or being big on sports, UT Dallas can seem like a small commuter
school, but as the years go by, the university is growing increasingly traditional. When it
comes to safety, the school is rated to be better than average with low crime rates on
campus and in surrounding areas. Lastly, being so close to down-town Dallas, students
have plenty of fun options to choose from when they arent working on 10 page papers.
Competitive Situation

Regular programs and degree plan

A fast track
Sales program
Other universities

SWOT analysis
The following analysis reflects the elements of the current marketing department.
(internal) Strengths

Partnerships with world class firms

Access to professors
Networking with high profile alums

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Access to internships and other opportunities through the career

management center
Environment including area, new building structures, etc.

(Internal) Weaknesses

No Marketing Honors Program

Growth in Marketing enrollments is slowing
Not big on sports some students may not care for UTD as it does not

have a football team.

Needs more housing
Parking is always an issue

(External) Opportunities

Companies are moving their headquarters to Dallas (Jamba Juice,

Toyota)
High School graduates in the area looking for a good university.
Multiple community colleges in the area with potential transfer
students

(External) Threats

UT Austin (ranked #1 in Texas in Marketing)

Advanced Sales Program
Davidson Management Honors Program
Students perception of what marketing means
Any other university or college that has a marketing program

Target Marketing, Customer Analysis, and Positioning

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When thinking about segmentation, we first need to decide who we are going to
be targeting. In this instance, some main targets will need to be high schoolers, freshman,
and transfer students. Both segments are great because they are both fresh meat. They
havent had the opportunity to experience UTD, and our marketing department. This
really gives us the opportunity to reach out to them and expose them to all that we have,
to offer. However, because of the differences in need for each of these segments, it will be
best to target them differently rather than just lumping them together as one big group to
target.
Demographics
Average Age: 22
51% Female / 49% Male

Ethnicity
African-American
White

Hispanic

International
Asian-American

Other segments include geographic, interests and income. As a transfer student

growing up in a low-income family, I chose UT Dallas because of the scholarship options

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and the location of the school compared to University of North Texas, which was my
second option.

Objectives and Issues

Financial
As a nonprofit program, financial gain is not an objective in this area for UTD.
Funding will initially come from JSOM and the dean. Plans in the future involve
partnerships with companies for sponsorships, donations and scholarships.
Marketing
When deciding how to market the program, one of the main things we are to look
at is what peoples understanding of what marketing is. A lot of students may have the
perception that marketing is not prestigious enough, or that marketing just means sales or
advertising, when it is so much than that. Our professors can be very important advocates
in helping to establish the honors program, and helping students understand the full scope
of what marketing has, to offer. This can be done in many ways. For example, the
program administrator can set up a time with the professor to visit classes as a guest
speaker to create awareness of the program. Once the program gets established, actual
students can take over the responsibility and even give testimonials. This is something
that the advanced sales program already does for recruitment.
Societal

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Community service is always a key part of any organization or program, and is

also a big question asked in entry level interviews right after college. Recruiters care
about what students have contributed, so the more service hours, or some sort of giving
back aspect, the better. The best place to start would be to pull from companies that we
have partnered with in the past such as nonprofits from North Texas Giving Day, or Intuit
as mentioned earlier.

Marketing Strategy
The overall strategy for achieving our objectives starts with creating a nice brand for
ourselves including an official name, and logo. As discussed, the dean and staff has been
toying with the name Marketing Fellows Program. Per Wikipedia, a fellow is a
member of a group of learned people who work together as peers in the pursuit of mutual
knowledge or practice., in which case the name works perfectly. However, when tested
on about 25 marketing students, only one student liked the name. This was mainly due to
the double meaning of the word fellow, as it can also be used to define a man or young
boy. We also tested the name in a focus group and one student said the name sounded like
a bunch of buds that started a club. Thus, I have come up with a few more program
names, and logos to go along with them. These options have produced better test results
in likeness.
1. Marketing Honors Program

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2. Marketing Scholars Program

3. Professional Program of Marketing

Along with the name and brand, we must also create value for our target market. This can
be done by promoting all the different features and attributes that we are going to offer.
Some of these include partnerships with world class firms, access to professors,
networking with high profile alums, access to internships, and other opportunities. Most
of these are already offered to every student by the university, however as Caryn Berardi,
Associate director of DMHP put it, the goal is not to re-invent the wheel, but to create
differentiation and exclusivity. For example, although Southwest Airlines might come to
a career expo for all JSOM, there may be a dinner and presentation later that night just for
students in the marketing honors program
Indicates how marketing will affect other stakeholders: students, staff, alumni,
community

Marketing Programs
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Product
Per Alex Treece, Director of the Professional Program of Finance, there is a
difference between an honors program and a professional program. Honors programs are
focused on academics and may include either additional classes or more advanced
classes. Professional programs, on the contrary, are more focused on the end goal of
preparing the student for that dream job by giving them the technical skills necessary to
succeed in their field. Thus, our product will be a hybrid on the two definitions. It will be
both the experience and the different features the program should offer. This includes:

Competition opportunities
Scholarships $500 per semester PT / $1,000 per semester FT
Real-life work experience with a company
Social events
Travel opportunities
Free access to creative software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator,

InDesign, etc.
Training on Google features such as Google AdWords, and Google

Analytics
Community service opportunities - Support nonprofit marketing

internship or class project (North Texas Giving Day)

Honors distinction on degree
Mentoring and relationship building within the program

Pricing
The price for this product is not a monetary value, but qualification requirements.
Contrary to the initial plan of the program only being available to Junior and Seniors, I
believe the program should be for every class. This is because we want to attract the
attention of incoming freshman to increase enrollment in the marketing department. We

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also want to be conscious of our internal competitors such as the Davidson Management
Honors Program which recruits high schoolers the summer before freshman year. The
only reason Seniors would be excluded is because they will not be able to fully benefit
from all the features of the program, such as travel, as well as the relationship building
and mentorship aspects. Next, eligible students must have an above average GPA (3.25 or
higher) or be in the top 25% of their class.
Place
When thinking about how, when, and where to market the honors program, we
must remember who we are targeting to. Incoming freshman can be recruited during
visits to high schools and other events such as Scholars Day for high achieving students.
Transfer students can receive an email or hear about it during their orientation. Current
students can also be recruited through emails, professors, and other honors students
during class. Advisers can also be a great channel for all segments.
Promotion
Although place and promotion are relatively the same for this product, a few other
ways to create outreach and promotions besides targeted emails is through social media
platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We can also add a link onto the
university website jindal.utdallas.edu/honors with videos showing students having fun
and all the great things we offer. Next, we can also utilize the JSOM blog to create
awareness. Lastly, what is a promotion without flyers and brochures to hand out during
recruiting events? These documents will have an overview of the program as well as the
products and services we will be offering.

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Service & Internal Marketing

To make sure we have a simple and seamless application process, the website will
have an easy to understand application process as well as an FAQ page, and contact page
for student needs. The point of contact (as of now) will be Julie Haworth. Students
currently in the program will have a mentor which will guide them through their college
journey as an honors student. This person will initially be a member of the staff, however
as the program grows, more tenured students will have a chance to become a mentor to a
new student.

Financial and Operational Plans

As discussed earlier, when it comes to creating honors programs at UT Dallas,
financial gain is not an objective. However, we must keep in mind that we will need a
coordinator that will most likely need to be paid. As one of the coordinators for the
Davidson Management Honors Program stated, the rule of thumb is that every 20
students equals the salary of one instructor. The goals will be of course to have close
enough partnerships with companies so that the actual company can be the one that
sponsors an event or workshop, or even gives out a scholarship or donation for students.
We will do this by first collaborating with the career center to determine what companies
we already have relationships with. Once we have a list of companies, we can move
forward with corporate outreach. As of now, the program can only be funded by JSOM
and the dean.

Metrics and Implementation Control

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Some of the metrics and performance measurements we will use include the GPA
of the student, the number of community service events the student participates in, and
possibly the number of developmental workshops they go to throughout the year. The
GPA is still to be determined, but must continue to be above average every semester. As it
is important for the students to get to know each other outside of school, they must
participate in a minimum of 3 community service events per year, one of which must be
related to helping a non-profit with their marketing needs.
To help implement this, we will want to collaborate with the career center and
other honors programs and clubs that already have partnerships with major organizations
such as Habitat for humanity, North Texas Food Bank, The Boys and Girls Club, and
other places such as pet shelters and retirement homes. Upcoming developmental
workshops will be posted weekly and are already automatically emailed to students so it
will be easy for them to attend at least 3 per year.
To keep this plan on track, we will begin by recruiting a minimum of 20 students,
and steadily grow based on how the first year grows and what we think we will have a
capacity for. Above all, as Caryn Berardi said when giving advice about the this project,
one of the main things we must be careful of is over-programming. It may be very
tempting to continue adding all the benefits, features, and attributes we can think of, but
sometimes its best to just step back, look at what we have built and make sure those
experiences are the best they can be before piling more stuff on.

Appendix

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References
https://www.texastribune.org/2016/04/09/how-ut-dallas-has-climbed-ranks-texas-topcolleges/
http://www.utdallas.edu/parents/offer/
http://jindal.utdallas.edu/undergraduate-programs/honors-program/#requirements

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