Marketing-The Ten Day MBA

The following post is in reflection on chapter 1 Marketing in the book The Ten Day MBA. Author Steven Silbiger provides focus on the following Marketing Topics;

• 7 Steps of Marketing Stategy Development
• The Buying Process
• Segmentation
• Product Life Cycle
• Perceptual Mapping
• Margins
• The Marketing Mix and the 4 P's Product, Place, Promotion, Price
• Positioning
• Distribution Channels
• Advertising
• Promotions
• Pricing
• Marketing Economics

The Marketing process is circular and learning the parts of the process was very helpful and knowing that the process order is not set. In the marketing process there will be much revision and changes, similar to a mobile when one aspect changes the others need to change to create balance and what the author calls "internally consistent and mutally supportive of the objectives."

The three to six areas that I would use and incorporate into my marketing planning for the Open System Lab project will be highlighted through examples of using the 7 Step Process

1. Consumer Analysis

• What is the current need; bridging the digital divide, access to content, flexility, technology tools for educators, organized course content/consistency.
• Who is buying? School administrators, Technology Directors, and Teachers
• Who is using the product? Teachers, administration, students and community
• High or Low Involvement Product? I would say the cost makes it a low involment when compared to other costs, however, it is a high involvment in that there is a commitment and follow through required for the long term sucess of the investment. I would like to try to keep this at the High Involvement in making it a critial tool for educational institutions of the future. I would like to do this by linking our product to a high-involvement issues (pg. 11) such as the current budget cuts to education. Open System Lab solutions will provide a platform for institutions to build in a revenue stream in for profit online course offerings and/or staying competitive in the changing landscape of education in which you will have the digital edge to stay competitive.
• Segment the Market- the education market is huge. The segment of the market the OSL will target will be instititions with 500-2000 students, in Monterey, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties. Focus on k-12, College and University markets, public and private.
• Who is buying the product? Technology Directors, Technologist, Distance Education Directors and Administrators.
• The buying Process? Awareness-Information Search, Evaluate Alternatives, Purchase, Evaluate. This is GREAT. I need to note that attending TradeShows and presenting will include all the buying process in one location. The purchaser for the school can attend a conference with information on open source online course solutions (example; Moodle Moot), see the competitors, demo the products, evaluate alternatives and purchase.
  

• Attending seminars on technology in education, technology trade shows and response to advertising. There is a list of current events in the area to attend in which OSL can be showcased; Common Ground-school consortium in bay area, Moodle Moot conference and others.

I want to incorporate the use of the Consumer Behavior Matrix with OSL to help me evaluate buyer behavior.


2. Market Analysis

From this section I want to focus on the

Key Competitive Factors within the industry?

• Quality-Moodle industry standard in open source course management solutions
  
• Price-competitive and attractive solution and alternative to high cost proprientary systems
  
• Advertising-Tradeshows, brochure, business cards, flyers, posters, pens? (think of something cool for tradeshow giveaways)
  
• Research and Development-Focus on open source developments
  
• Service-OSL to provide the best service in the industry for the price and market segment

3. Ananlysis of Your Company Versus the Competition

I will use the SWOT Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for OSL. I am going to go to Moodle Moot and will focus on the learning about the competition and collecting advertising materials. I will then create a Perceptual mapping of the course management solutions, including OSL.

continued on next post . . .