Correspondences

To:  Debbie Oesch-Minor

From: Team Women4Change: Stephanie, Anna, Hal, Laurilie

Date:  February 25, 2020

RE:  Team Proposal and Progress on Marketing Events for IUPUI Women4Change

 

The IUPUI chapter of Women4Change has been struggling to get students to come to on campus events and interact with the organization. Attendance numbers for the monthly events have been fairly low. Our initial focus will be finding tactics and strategies to promote their events on campus.

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Our team proposal will incorporate new marketing techniques, ways to incorporate other campus organizations, research methods to reach IUPUI students, and the different options regarding those topics that we plan to explore throughout this project.

 

Community Client:  Isra Haider is the President of the IUPUI Chapter of Women4Change 

Isra Haider is the current president of the Women4Change chapter on the IUPUI campus. She explained to the team that they receive great responses from the individuals that attend the events, however they are not getting high attendance rates at many of the monthly events that they host. She discussed how their current marketing committee is not reaching enough people outside of the organization and they are not utilizing their social media accounts to its fullest potential. She explained how their target audience was college students of any gender. Isra requested that the team researched ideas and strategies that can improve their abilities in marketing to college aged students so that they can boost awareness of the organization as well as all the events that they put on each month. 

 

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Project Focus: Developing Marketing Strategies to Help Improve Event Attendance 

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For The Client

For our project we are focusing our research on marketing strategies for promoting Women4Change events on IUPUI’s campus. We want to explore effective and environmentally friendly ways to spread the word about Women4Change events so more people will know about the organization, will come to meetings, and will come back to the next meeting. 

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To come up with effective marketing strategies we would look through databases and articles that help shed light on how other organizations effectively market. As a group so far, we have come across quite a few articles that give good tips for marketing, some specifically on college campuses. One site that gave some insightful tips was from the “On Campus Advertising”. Some of the tips mentioned were giving away freebies, giving an unforgettable experience, and taking videos, along with a few others. With proper advertisement, organizations can go from the bottom of the barrel, to the most talked about group on campus. 

 

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Research Objectives and Methods: Using Proquest and Google to Find Our Best Support

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Research Questions:

What are the current ways the group tries to advertise their events? Do you use social media,if so what apps and media do you use, and what do you post?  What events have you already had and what is an estimate of how many people showed up? Is there a budget that you have planned for advertising that we should know about? Are there any specific ways you do not want us to advertise (paper flyers, social media, etc)? Where would you like us to conduct the local study? Do you have any specific questions you want us to ask in the study? Do you want us to focus on advertising for one main event, or all events in general?     

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Research Online and in Databases:

Resources that our group will use, will help us understand and expand our knowledge on types of advertising that are successful and what things we should stay away from recommending to the client. 

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With intensive research on the specific marketing strategies, marketing and promotions, and overall marketing in general we will understand the challenges that many organizations face when trying to start a new group and get people interested. Helping the Women4Change group come up with new and better ways to market their events will hopefully improve attendance and help the group grow and stay on campus for many years to come. As a team, we will come up with a plethora of ideas and recommendations for marketing for Women4Change on campus.  

 

The IUPUI Library Database(ProQuest Central, EBSCO Academic Search Premier & LexisNexis Academic) and Google Scholar are several possibilities for finding academic sources. Some of the terms we will use for our research will include the following:

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• Marketing AND “college campuses”—Google + ProQuest

• Marketing Strategies —Google + ProQuest

• College Campus AND “advertising to college students”—Google + EBSCOHost + ProQuest

• Professional Advertising Tips —Google + ProQuest

• Social Media AND "Marketing Strategies"—Google + Proquest

• College students AND “effective advertising” —Google + ProQuest

• Articles on Effective Advertising AND "peer to peer marketing" —Google

• Marketing Strategies AND "College Campus Organizations" —Google 

• Women4Change AND "public service announcement" — Google

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Research Options: Local Study and Building Excel Graphs to Record and Present Data:

My team and I will be working alongside the Women4Change organization. We will work to use the three pillars of engagement, education, and empowerment. Through a survey, we aim to better understand the campus’s knowledge of the organization. We will use SurveyMonkey to develop and distribute the survey, which will ask the following questions:

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• Have you heard of the organization Women4Change on IUPUI’s campus?

• Have you attended any of the events or service activities that the organization has done or participated in?

• What are your preferred social media sources? (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc)

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We will identify what methods of social media the majority of the student’s responded with and will make recommendations for certain paperless marketing techniques accordingly. The survey will allow us to reach a broad audience on the IUPUI campus and record results to shape part of the recommendation report. 

 

Team Member Responsibilities and Expectations

In class, we used time to discuss what we feel each member could excel at, as well as what we expect from each other as a team and for the report. We set up a GroupMe group message to communicate with each other outside of class and a shared Google Drive folder to share our research, sources, and any other component to the recommendation report. 

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Communication Between Members, Sharing Research and Completing the Recommendation Report

To keep in contact with each other, Hal has created a group message through the app, GroupMe. It is similar to texting as it is instant messaging, but seems to work better with groups. As a team, we decide when to meet during the week to discuss the progress we are making individually on the report and what still needs to be done. Anna has created a shared document with the due dates of the project assignments and she reminds the team through the group message every Saturday or Sunday what is due in the coming week. If a member will be absent from a team meeting, they must notify the team and an effort to use FaceTime or Zoom to participate is encouraged. It is asked that they review the meeting notes if those mediums are not possible. 

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Our team is using a shared folder that Stephanie created through Google Drive to share the materials that are created for the recommendation report. Google Drive is easy to manipulate as a team and multiple documents can be added and edited by each member. There is an overall team folder that has the meeting minutes, client meeting notes, and project deadlines documented. Inside the team folder there is a designated research folder for us to compile our sources and research in one place. Stephanie will put together the team website with each recommendation report component because she is the most comfortable and familiar using the Wix format. 

 

Team Member Strengths: DISC Results and Strong Personal Traits

Overall, our group has valuable characteristics and strengths that make us a unique team. What one person sees as a weakness, another team member brings in as a strength to promote a well balanced and focused group. 

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Lauralie South Dakota

The first group member, Laurie, is very directive and driven. She received a D on the DISC Personality test. Her outgoing personality but ability to focus in a fast paced environment has made her a valuable team member. She brings personal characteristics such as an open mind, determination, and patience with others. 

 

Stephanie California

The second group member is Stephanie. Her DISC results were a C. Her cautious personality and attention to detail pushes others to keep moving forward while doing their very best work. With Stephanie as a group member, we value quality and accuracy more deeply. 

 

Anna Colorado

The third group member is Annemarie. She has an almost even blend of DISC traits; dominant, inspiring, supportive, and cautious. Anna is organized and values flexibility. Developed strong communication skills and a friendly peace-making attitude has given our team a fun but serious professional environment. 

 

Hal Indiana

Lastly, the fourth group member is Hal. Hal is strong in being a leader and thinking ahead. Keeping groups on track has always been a strong suit. The DISC assessment results were DSC. Hal prefers non-genderized references that focus more on the person as an individual--Hal--rather than "he" or "she".

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Being supportive and careful of others thoughts and feelings has contributed to making our team excellent. 

 

Attendance Policy

• All team members should make their best efforts to attend all class sessions and outside team meetings.

• If one of the team members is unable to attend, she must give the team a notice via GroupMe.

• If absent from a meeting, team members must make an effort to catch up. (Zoom, Facetime, GroupMe, etc)

• Everyone must submit the assigned work by the assigned due date, even if the team member was absent in class.

• Each member who cannot attend the meetings should look over the notes after the meeting finishes and ask the other team members any questions they might have regarding the meeting/notes. 

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Workload Policy

• All group members will be assigned individual sections of the project.

• Team members should submit in a timely manner.

• Assignments are completed to the best of their abilities. 

• If a team member misses a due date, inform the rest of the team and follow up with Debbie.

• Do not submit incomplete work.

• If a team member continues to submit incomplete or late assignments, a meeting with Debbie to reconcile will be scheduled. 

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Conflict Issues

• The peacemaker must step in to resolve the situation.

• Debbie will be notified if the resolution does not work.

• If the conflict continues, a meeting with Debbie will be scheduled. 

 

Conclusion

As a group, we believe that the best ways to find good marketing strategies to reach the IUPUI community is through researching and surveying local students. These tactics will help with event attendance of the Women4Change campus organization. Our team will strive to use the information and data to reach many varieties of IUPUI students. While we are helping to boost the campus outreach for the Women4Change organization, we are also building on our writing skills in a professional manner. Aside from that, we are helping raise awareness for the incredible, educational opportunities that are available through the events that they put on.

 

If you have any questions or concerns on the project thus far, please contact us via email. Our emails are below:

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scalifornia@iu.edu

lsouthdakota@iu.edu 

acolorado@iu.edu 

hindiana@iu.edu