Marketing a Social Venture.

This weeks article on a marketing strategies, positioning statement and competitor analysis had some great pointers in developing a marketing plan and strategy for a new venture. I wanted to try out some of the tips in the Harvard article on positioning and branding. Since the first time we submitted our concepts I have made some changes to the concept ideas based on the feedback I received in class.

Product offered:

Education workshops to children in age group 13 to 16 years, focusing on making children understand the science of Climate Change through the concepts of Physics and Chemistry. These workshops will have specially designed packages featuring cartoons, games and activities to make learning fun and interactive.

These workshops will be sponsored by Corporates as a part of the budget allocated for Corporate Social Responsibility activities.

Market Segmentation:

One of my market segments would be students in schools. Many schools in India still follow the Colonial British educational system, classes are taught on theoretical bases there is no practical knowledge of the concepts of Physics and chemistry. There is a large gap here. This is an opportunity for my organization to exploit. The customer benefits here will be

• Better understanding of physics and chemistry concepts, leading to an improvement in scores.
• This will in turn lead to an understanding of climate change and global warming, sparking an interest in environmental initiatives.
• Students will then take more care of the environment and also spread awareness among their social circle.

With more research on schools and children age groups , I should be able to focus the product on a particular age group and schools ( public schools, private schools). This will also help to form the target market of the product.

Positioning statement:

The positioning statement though only a line is really hard to develop because it involves answering some though questions

• Who are the customers? – School students in age group 13 to 16 years.
• Set of needs product fulfills? - Aids the learning of physics and chemistry by demonstrating basics of climate change.
• Why is the product the best option to satisfy the needs? – It is a fun and interactive way to learn with cartoons, games and activities.

Statement:

Our product is the most fun and interactive way to learn science among all other educational products because we re-define conventional teaching with cartoons, games and activities.

Competitor Analysis:

Possible competitors might be educational content providers – book publishers, and even tutors. I need to do a complete market research on these sectors.

One question I want to leave you with is, after such a detailed market researching, branding and positioning the product, is it possible the product might fail in the market? What are those uncertainties that me need to accommodate in the business plan to avoid failure?