Final+Group+Presentation

Esmail Hanif - 996599854 Eric N. Madan - 997117686 Syed Saad Qaiser - 997075819
 * __ Group Members: __**

**__ Introduction: __**

The purpose of this assignment is to draft a complete marketing and advertising strategy and plan for our chosen client. The client that we have chosen for our group project is the 'Hindu student Council'(HSC) at the University of Toronto, Mississauga campus (UTM). We have opted for 'HSC' as our client because first of all it was accessible to us and being the veteran members of the club, we know the club inside out therefore we believe that we will be able to do sheer justice to our purpose by opting for the ‘HSC’. Moreover it is a student body that is going through a growth phase and we believe that a lot could be done in terms of marketing and advertising in order to make this club more prominent on the map.

“Hindu Student Council” at UTM is a student body that has been spreading the idea of unity through diversity amongst the students within the university. Although the name of the club reflects a religious paradigm but the club functions as an organization dedicated to promote the South Asian Culture in North America, at this stage restricting its focus just at UTM. So far the club has been very successful as it has consecutively won the award for the club of the year, at UTM for the past two years and before that it won best cultural club as well as best rookie club of the year. However from this year onwards, the club has started to face rigorous competition from various other clubs such as the “UTM Cricket Club” (UCC), “The South Asian Alliance” (SAA), and “The Pakistan Youth Alliance” (PYA), who have also started to operate on similar guidelines as the Hindu Student Council. An example of this being, all of the above mentioned competitors have now started to promote musical events and dance parties etc. Therefore we believe that the time has come for our client to adopt certain marketing and advertising strategies in order to distinguish and strengthen itself and to enhance its current standings. **__Swot analysis – HSC__** **Strengths:** 1. The club has its reputation and image, won the best club award for two consecutive years and before that it won best cultural club as well as best rookie club of the year. . It won’t be difficult to market new students (members). 2. Many South Asians living in Canada don’t get enough opportunities to celebrate and enjoy their culture. HSC has those events in which they can celebrate their culture. On top of that, there are many South Asians in UTM who make a greater community. 3. HSC has already many Facebook members. Reaching them and informing them about the new event is never difficult. 4. Usually event’s ticket prices are very low so it’s easier to get a huge crowd to their event. **Weaknesses:** 1. The events are usually low budget but the focus is more towards volunteers. Low budget event might not have a greater outcome because some students might prefer going somewhere worth their time if they are going out to enjoy. 2. It might be harmful for the club having members from the same ethnicity. It is difficult for a club to grow if it targets only a single type of audience. 3. The name of the club portrays it’s a religious club. It is difficult to attract a larger audience with that name. A club name and logo should signal more diversification. Especially when inviting new members to the club, it becomes more difficult for the club to attract new members. **Opportunities:** 1. Not many clubs have websites at UTM. It is an opportunity for the club to grow by creating an interactive website. A website could be managed by the marketing executive. There won’t be much cost to it and it would be a right time for the club as it has its reputation and already has many members. 2. The club can release viral videos over Facebook and YouTube having humour which could not only raise awareness of the club but also can attract new members by letting them know what happens inside of HSC. These videos could be funny backstage performances of the events, a cultural documentary, or any inside story related video. 3. The club lacks diversity, however, if they manage to collaborate with several different clubs and organize events, it will help the club to attract members of the other clubs. This will also help the club to have an event on a bigger scale and get more publicity. **Threats:** 1. The club has many competitors who have same sorts of events and who target almost the same ethnicity.

**__Strategies:__**

After carefully analysing and examining the nature of our client, we came up with the marketing strategy plan, to assist our client in promoting itself. The nature of our client, “HSC” at UTM is that it is an organization that works on a low financial budget and targets a niche market of just UTM students. However it faces a rigorous competition from other clubs which is increasing at a rapid rate with time therefore the club’s responsibilities are also increasing and it is facing ever growing challenges within and outside the corporate environment.

For this reason, we believe that the club should perhaps market itself in a way that is most cost effective and at the same time is also effective in serving the purpose, which is to reach or increase its audience and to dominate other club in order to maintain its current standings. In this regard our foremost and most vital marketing strategy, for the club is to promote itself on platforms where they don’t have to bare the financial overheads. So far the club has mostly been reliant on advertising techniques that are not associated to the digital and the web realm.

**1. Viral Videos:** The most valuable artillery in our arsenal would be to promote the client/club via viral videos hosted on websites such as the daily motion ([|www.dailymotion.com]) and YouTube ([|www.youtube.com]). These promotional viral videos are a very effective way to market a product. And the club holds an advantage here as it already has a stock of videos that could be hosted on these websites and can be made “Viral”, therefore by applying the strategy to its maximum potential, we can generate a lot of views in no time hence a lot of publicity for the club with no added expenditures. Further more marketing via viral videos would be a great way to reach the target audience since its mostly students who spend a decent amount of their time on surfing the internet therefore these viral videos can reach them faster then the word of mouth hence it would be very effective.

**2. Social Media Marketing Campaign:** Another strategy that we can put into effect is advertising via twitter and Facebook. Since the nature of the organization is a student club. As such it does not have too much of funds at its disposal however it does have a number of volunteers who are able to invest their time and effort into the club. This valuable resource could be effectively used in providing for social media campaign. Thereof we can do three thing. Firstly we can have a group on Facebook through which the club is able post up its events and discussions. Have a club’s mascot who can have an account on Facebook. This mascot can befriend the stakeholders of the club and keep them posted about the latest developments to do with the club. As a final social media campaign we can create a twitter account for the club through which constant updates about the club can be posted in real time to spread the awareness and keep a buzz going.

**3. Website:** We believe that it is high time for the club to come up with its own registered website. By having a website, the club would hold a psychological advantage over other clubs as well as its target audience. Moreover well classified and interactive information can be provided that will assist the club in promoting itself as well as the events. The website could be well classified and organised by the help of managing and dividing the content effectively and it could be made interactive by adding features such as the online polls and suggestions etc. These features would not only give a better outlook to the overall club’s appeal but would also enhance the membership experience. The website also increases users trust as he/she can get complete information about the club from the club itself by having a direct contact. However the idea of having a website would result in a minor increase in operating overheads for the club but these additional expenses can be combated by possible additional revenues such as online membership sales, ticket sales and the revenues generated through advertising for others such as their sponsors on the website.

**4. Banner/Skyscraper Ads:** To shed further light on the features of the website, by having a website of its own the club can post the free banner and sky scrapper ad. A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. These free banner and sky scrapper ad acts like an agreement between two or more website to promote each other on respective web pages. For a club like HSC, this could be of great advantage since it would earn them a lot of free publicity and considering its current position, the club hold a great advantage since its associated with fellow organizations such as the “UTM TV” that provides coverage to the club’s events. Both of these organizations can promote each other via free banner and sky scrapper ad in order to promote them selves effectively without adding further cost. Since they are interrelated, their target audience are also similar which gives the club an added advantage.

**5. Live Streaming of Events:** The evolution of technology has surprised us with its ever growing new ways of spreading information and providing coverage. One recent development in this regard has been the exposure to live streaming of events on the internet. There are various websites today, such as the U-stream ([|www.u-stream.tv]) that provides platform for live casting and live video streaming on the internet. HSC can also adopt the idea of giving live coverage to its events on web sites such as the UTM/TV. By doing so we believe the club would mature in the area of addressing the audience and would generate a lot of viewer ship.

**6. E-mail Marketing Strategy:** Other strategies include, direct marketing via e-mail which is a great way to spread and circulate the message in order to reach the potential customer directly. However it does have its short coming which would be discussed in the later part along with the short comings of the previously mentioned strategies.

**__Challenges to our marketing strategies:__**

The above mentioned strategies that we wish to apply in the marketing plan for our client are not that easy to incorporate. This section of the write up, states the challenges in regard to our strategies.

**1. Problems associated with Viral Videos:** Our foremost strategy, which is marketing via viral videos, has its own short comings. A lot depends on the content of the video, the objectives of the video has to be clear because if its not made effectively, it can generate a lot of negative criticism and publicity for our client. It is extremely difficult to capture and retain people’s attention on the internet, be it with videos, pictures of just about anything. The most effective and common tactic to promote a video today is to promote it my adding “sex and humour” in the content. Our challenge is that although we are trying to reach and cater a young audience who are very welcoming and open to such content but still we have to be very careful with it especially with the connotation of “sex” because the organization uses a religious affiliation as its name. And in attempt in doing so might give a bad impression to overall club’s image and appeal. ** 2. Challenges associated with marketing via Social Media: ** The challenges associated with marketing via Facebook and twitter is that, it is a general public forum which is highly competitive when it comes to marketing as many organizations and individuals promote themselves through these platforms therefore this marketing strategy involves great responsibility. The pages, events, statuses and tweets require content updates that are not just informative but interactive as well. Moreover since these platforms are open to public opinion, any one can add negative criticism and if its not dealt immediately and in proper fashion, it could lead up to massive negative publicity for the club therefore we believe that with marketing via Facebook and twitter, the organization has to be extremely careful, responsible competitive and up to date.

**3. Challenges with Banner/Skyscraper Ads:** The challenges the club might face with promotion via free banner and Skyscraper ad revolves around finding a suitable associate website that would agree to promote their ad. Our recommendation to the club is to exchange advertising banners with UTM/TV however if UTM/TV denies the offer, the club has to be very selective in choosing any other associate website. The advertising would depend on the associate website’s reputation and any miss-conduct on their part can have a direct impact on HSC’s image, through the “Coat-tail effect”. Therefore the associate website has to be very reliable. In case of going for banner ads that are not hosted for free, the club would increase the elements of reliability and availability. But it would add to club’s expenditure, which at this stage, the club might not be able to bare.

**__ Cost/Benefit Analysis: __** As we have mentioned throughout our project one of the biggest hurdles that we as a group had to face with our clients is to work on an extremely tight budget. As such the strategies that we came up with for our client were of little to no cost to them. However they are strategies that would require a lot of volunteer participation which our clients are willingly able to provide as they have a substantial pool of volunteers as a resource. The only major cost in all of our strategies would be the cost of hosting a website and the purchase of the domain name for it. To combat these costs what our recommendation to the club was to use the website effectively such as to have online ticket sales for their events as well as to allocate space for advertising to sponsors who would and thus easily recovering all their costs and increasing their revenue in the process as well. Other than this there were no real cost to organization and all our strategies are definitely aimed and propagating their vision and mission. So at the end of the day our strategies and recommendations if used effectively will yield a higher benefit over their costs.

**__ Conclusion: __** In conclusion if we look at the nature of the club which is a cultural club looking to promote a unique culture of the South Asian people within North America, their target audience is university students. What the club aimed to do was to spread awareness about their mission and vision and get as many people as they can involved in the club. The strategies our group came up with could be extremely effective in doing so it is cost effective as well as can cover a large pool of people in the online realm. Not only that but using tools such as social media we are also targeting the right points where students tend to spend the maximum amount of their time. Thus, in our humble opinion, with these tools our online marketing campaign is bound for success. __**Word Document of the complete writeup:**__




 * __ Powerpoint Presentation: __**