Marketing Plan...online Event

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MARKETING PLAN FOR MBA STUDENTS

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ASSIGNMENT ON Marketing Plan of a Training Event for MBA Students

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SUBMITTED TO Mr. Jerry Mathew

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Head HR Xcelerator Solution and Service

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SUBMITTED BY Siddik Fruitwala Student

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BIMHRD

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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I WOULD LIKE TO THANK MR. JERRY MATHEW AND XCELERATOR COMPANY FOR PROVIDING AN OPPORTUNITY TO ME TO WORK ON THIS ASSIGNMENT

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THIS ASSIGNMET HAS BEEN OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO ME AS IT HAS HEPLED ME TO UNDERSTAND THE ONLINE MARKETING IN MUCH MORE DEPTH

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I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK ALL THOSE STUDENTS WHO HEPLED ME BY GIVING THEIR TIME AND PARTICIPATING IN MY SURVEY

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FINALLY MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS WHO ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT INSPIRATION TO ME TO SUCCEED IN LIFE

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SUMMARY

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THIS ASSIGNMENT HAS GIVEN ME AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW MY MARKETING PLAN, HOW A TRAINING EVENT SHOULD BE

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I HAVE CREATED ON EVENT CALLED XCELERATOR CAREER FAIR WHICH IS AN ONLINE EVENT

THIS ASSIGNMET ALSO GIVES VARIOUS TOOLS TO PROMOTE SUCH EVENTS

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WHAT SHOULD BE THE BUGDET AND BY CONDUCTING A SURVEY AMONG STUDENTS I HAVE TRIED TO UNDERSTAND HOW TODAYS YOUTH TAKE SUCH EVENTS

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THE EVENT (XCELERATOR CAREER FAIR)

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The Xcelerator Career Fair offers employer’s unparalleled access to MBA students from its partnership with 10 of the best business schools of India through a unique interactive online recruiting event. .

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The event is for two weeks, the Xcelerator Career Fair offer companies a longer opportunity to connect with students from 10 leading business schools. Twice in a year November and February, the Xcelerator Career Fair hosts an online event, it has partner institutions: • • •

XLRI FMS NMIMS

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• • • • • • •

JBIMS WELLINKARS SIBM NITIE ALLIANCE BUSINESS SCHOOL CHRIST COLLEGE BIMHRD

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The web-based recruiting forum produced by XCELERATOR Solutions and Services offers a vital service to both top MBA students and the companies that are looking for to recruit them. For companies with a small recruiting budget, or who want to hire one or a few students with very specific profiles, the Xcelerator Career Fair is the ideal recruiting event to level the playing field and compete

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for the best students, while tapping into a large base of great candidates. For other companies, the Forum allows them to establish a rapport with the students from the schools where they do not go on campus. Above all, the Xcelerator Career Fair enables both students and companies to meet, discover each other and connect in a highly

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effective manner from their respective desktops. What's more, the extraordinarily wide student base enables the recruiters to access a broader selection of available MBAs. With two weeks event, both the MBAs and the companies are given more time to get to know each other during the busy recruiting season and workload. With time constraints eased, student

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participants can use the forum more effectively while continuing with their day-to-day business.

Online Presentations, Discussion Forums

Webcasts

and

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During the event, companies interact with students through a range of online PowerPoint presentations with voiceovers, webcasts, discussion forums, and online chats. Job lists and company profiles enable students to discover global opportunities that they would never otherwise find. Participating companies can check online applications and set up chats or discussions with the right candidates thus enabling them to focus on the right candidates for them.

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The Xcelerator Career Fair is a highly cost-effective and time-efficient way to recruit some of the most dynamic students from the best business schools in the world

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SWOT ANALYSIS STRENGTHS •

The event will be one of its kind as it will give platform to MBA students to prove themselves that they are better than other

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•

This event will also provide job opportunities to MBA students in such a recession period

•

Since its an online event it will save time for students as well as HR’s of companies participating in the event

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•

It will give an opportunity to students to have one on one interaction with HR’s and show their talent

•

For companies with a small recruiting budget, or who want to hire one or a few students with very specific profiles, the Xcelerator Career Fair is the ideal recruiting event to level the playing field and compete for the best students, while tapping into a large base of great

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candidates. For other companies, the Forum allows them to establish a rapport with the students from the schools where they do not go on campus. WEAKNESS •

Technical problems can be a weakness like handling computer complexities

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•

Since the event is online there may be network problem where the parties may find it difficult to connect and a student may lose his opportunity

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•

This event will be more successful and easily accessible from metro’s and cities and students belonging to small villages may not get the benefits of such an event as in villages internet and cyber facilities may not be available

OPPORTUNITIES

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Recession

The recession period through which our country is going, will provide a huge opportunities for events like Xcelerator Career Fair as it will help students by providing career opportunities to them and they will apply in huge numbers to register themselves

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Colleges

Today, many colleges are failing to provide 100% placements hence those students who are unsure that they will get placed they will welcome such events and also colleges will find such events good for their students as it will take care of their tension of placing their students

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Cost – Cutting

Today, every company is figuring out some or the other way to cut its cost by using various cost cutting tools, xcelerator career fair 2009 will reduce the recruitment cost as it will be cost effective as compared to campus placements

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THREATS

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The threats to such events are various other events like education fair, MBA job fair etc

• •

Phishing websites are also threat as the event is online hence such websites can affect the event as well as the image of our company

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EXTERNAL RESEARCH

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(Questionnaire) For external research I conducted a questionnaire in my college asking students to answer few questions. 1) Do you participate in MBA events?

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a)

yes

b) no

1) What you think about online MBA events? Bad -- -- -- -- -- -- -- excellent

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2)

What do you think about the idea of Xcelerator Career Fair? Bad-- -- -- -- -- -- --excellent

3)

What should be the Registration fees?

a)

RS 200

b) RS 300

c) RS 400

d)RS 500

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1) What should be the period of event and when it should be conducted during a year? a)

1 week Jan-Feb b) 2 weeks Mar-Apr

C) 3 days Oct-Nov

d) 3 weeks June-July

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1) Where such events should be advertised? a) Internet b) Newspapers c) Television d) Radio

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What is best about this program? a) Saves time b) provides opportunities b) improves skills d)one on one interaction with HR’s

2)

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RESPOSNE After conducted this survey in my college where thirty students took part in this survey I got following answers ANSWERS

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Q1. 68% (20) yes, they participate in MBA events remaining said they don’t Q2. In this question students were asked to rate online MBA events on 1-7 scale 10% (7), 74% (6), 16% (5)

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Q3. Same rating scale was used, and the question asked was about XELERATOR CAREER FAIR 84% (7), 7% (6), 8% (5), 1% (4) Q4. What should be the registration fees? 200-70%, 300-16%, 400- 9%, 500-9%

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Q5. Period and when it should be conducted? a) 40% b) 8% c) 40% d 12% Q6. Promotion of event through which mean or tool? a)

70% b) 20% 3) 5% 4) 5%

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Q7.Best benefits that you will derive from such events? . a) 40% b) 20% c) 30% d) 10%

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BENEFITS STANDARD BENEFITS

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Xcelerator Career Fair will act as a platform for students and companies to interact with each other and student can choose a feasible career for them and companies can find the right man for right job COMPANY BENEFITS Now let us see what benefits our company can get by organizing such event,

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The company can generate its revenue through online registration fees that they will be getting

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Our company will also ask for 50% of the first salary that a student from the company, will withdrew from their company after they get placed

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•

This event will help in creating and developing brand image of our company

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The brand image created by this event will also help our company in sales of their other services that they offer in the market

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•

The other business that our company is carrying will also help us to attract HR’s from different companies who are already our clients, who will actually act as the Recruiting HR’s in our events

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We can even send our representatives in various companies who are not our clients and induce them or convince them to participate as this event will be beneficial for them

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EVENT PROMOTION (Integrated Marketing Communication)

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An event like Xcelerator Carrer Fair-2009 will only be successful only if its well promoted.

• Hence it would be most feasible for our company if we use integrated marketing communication(IMC) by using two or more tool for advertising our event

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•

Our company can use some of the promotion tools or combination of these, which are suggested below.

Colleges: We should try to enter into partnership with some of the best MBA institutes like NMIMS, JBIMS,WELLINKAR, SIBM and Balaji Institute.

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So students from those top institutes can apply and through the phase which are going now where employment opportunities are less and even colleges are finding it difficult to attain 100% placement so they will also appreciate such events.

Social networking websites:

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Social networking websites like ORKUT, hi5, FACEBOOK etc, can provide very good platform to such events.

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Direct mail advertising: We can collect data of all the first year MBA students from their respective college and send an email to all these students informing about such event.

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Collaboration: Our company can enter into collaboration with websites like LINKINDIA, SILICONINDIA etc, which also provides opportunities to various students who are looking for jobs to connect with HR’s.

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Recruitment websites: We can also enter into partnership websites like MONSTER.com, BIXEE.com, and TIMESJOB.com and promote our event as many MBA students visit these websites.

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Newspaper: We can also issue advertisements in economic times,times of India, Mumbai mirror specially education times and such education oriented newspapers.

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TV sponsorship We can advertise about their events in youth oriented TV Shows like ROADIES, INDIAN IDOL etc.

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Pop-ups/pop-under: These can also be a very important advertisement tools for such events.

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Interstitials: The ads which appear while we wait for sites content to download. They are very useful as they compel people to visit or see the ads whether they wish or not.

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Additional links: Whichever sites we visit below we find some additional links and these links can also help in creating awareness about Xcelerator Career Fair.

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Mobile ads: We can also market our event by mobile ads which includes sending sms informing about Xcelerator Career Fair,

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BUDGET • The company has to invest in this project. • The budgeted cost of the project is not too high.

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• This training event being online will reduce the cost when compared to a normal training. • This event will be a very cost effective event. • The company is expected to invest highly on event promotion in the start for 1-2 years.

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• Hence to summarize the only investment which can be termed heavy investment will include website introduction and promoting the event. •

I expect the investment in the event not more than RS 1-3 lakhs (the figure is just an estimated assumption). As introducing a

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website cost around RS 10,000 or RS 20,000 and for advertisements and promotion the company should spend more • The promotion of such an event is very important and once the event is successful we can reduce the promotion cost.

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INDIAN SCENARIO (PEST ANALYSIS) POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT:

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•

If you see the political environment, it is very uncertain in India.

• There is always a risk of security now, news coming around that various websites being hacked by Pakistan agencies to monitor developments in India.

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• So the security of websites should be very important for our companies’ agenda. ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT: • Our economy is suffering due to global recession there is scarcity of jobs.

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• Hence such an event will be very useful in providing employment opportunities to those people who are not finding employment. •

Our country is a developing country where the per capita income of being around $1000 per annum its way behind as compared to US.

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•

The reason for low per capita income being less opportunities such fair can help in reducing the per capita income.

• Hence an event like this will also help our country to develop by providing employment to unemployed and educated students

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SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT:

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• Our country is no more the same it uses to be, the expectation has increased, the standard of living has increased. •

It’s no more a country where women were not allowed to go out for job and educate her.

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•

The power of internet has increased and people have taken “DOT.com” as a new and time saving means to get informed, learn, enjoy and search for opportunities.

• The demand for MBA’s has increased and the craze to be an MBA among students has also increased reason being, money, fame, respect and recognition.

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TECHNOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT: • The use of computer has immensely increased in our country. • Now, everything is done through internet as it provides cheap and time saving mean for getting informed and to do others work.

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• Hence online presentation, case study, marketing planning etc such events being conducted online will be appreciated as now the way technology is being accepted in India.

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SOURCES OF INFORMATION Primary Data

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•

Survey conducted with 30 students participating asking them to answer the questionnaire designed for the research about this event

Secondary Data Bibliography

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1. Web Marketing For Dummies -Jan Zimmerman 2. Advertising and Promotion -George E. Belch & Michael A. Belch 3. Marketing Plan

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Webliography Search engines 1. Google.com

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2. Yahoo.com Websites 1. www.xcelerator.in 2. www.emarketingassociation.com

3. www.ecommerceinsight.com