Executive Summary

Non-Profit Overview: ACP

Academic & Career Planning is a department at Meredith College that focuses on the needs of current students as well as alums. ACP extends help in all areas of academic and professional life. ACP offers services in time management, 4 year planning, internship and job searches, major selection, coaching, career planning, networking, campus recruiting and much more. 

Currently ACP is concerned about the low attendance to the Spring career fair that is offered annually at NCSU’s McKimmon Center. Professionals from all over the Triangle attend this fair in search of college students to employ at their companies. Meredith student’s are always invited but unfortunately only around 30 Meredith students attend each year. They would like to increase their numbers to at least 50 with the majority of students attending being seniors.

In the past, ACP has used many outlets to spread the word about the fair including social media, emails, posters, flyers, and personalized postcards. The goal of ACP is to find a medium that successfully attracts more Meredith students to the career fair. Some marketing objectives that we plan to implement are shuttling, extra credit incentives to student, and getting the involvement of professors and clubs to help spread awareness about the fair.

The fair will be held on February 12, 2014 from 9 am to 2 pm.

 

Marketing Environement

1.) Competitive Forces  

• Main competitor for the career fair is the students’ class
• Career fair takes place on a weekday during school hours
• Difficult for most students to attend
• Professors only allow a few absences per semester
• Students potentially missing important assignments

2.) Economic Forces 

• Some Meredith students living on campus are without transportation
• Extra effort to find someone who does have a ride
• Students with transportation avoid paying for parking

3.) Political Forces 

• No political forces

4.) Legal and Regulatory Forces 

• No legal or regulatory forces

5.) Technological Forces 

• ACP advertises the fair on all Meredith College social media platforms
• Too many college-generated emails
• Students may ignore or delete

6.) Sociocultural Forces

• Students may not have professional attire to wear to the event, or with them on campus
• Many college students do not like waking up early
• Lack of motivation for attending job fair
• Students do not feel anything will be offered for them in their major

Target Market

• Mainly towards seniors looking for jobs and juniors who are looking for internships
•  Though all Meredith class groups are welcomed and encouraged to attended

Market Objectives and Performance

ACP In the past they have tried to spread awareness of the event through Social Media outlets like Facebook, flyers and emails.  While these products brought in some students, they didn’t prove to be as successful as ACP had hoped for. New goals and objectives set out for this year's fair.

• Increase the attendance of the Career Fair from 30 Meredith students to 50 students
• Plan on expanding locations flyers to the Cate Center 
• Sending out more emails to promote the event  
• Promote awareness through the use of professors and clubs

 
If this year’s campaign is successful, then next year they can set an even higher goal.

Situation Swot Analysis

 Strengths

• Outgoing staff that genuinely cares about people and wants to help
• Talented and skilled design/marketing team
• Walk-In ready - students can come in at any time without an appointment and be helped
• Consistent hours that allows for flexibility in student’s schedules
  

Weakness

• Don’t stand out from other organizations while advertising (posters, flyers, etc.)
• Young students aren’t aware of ACP’s existence until later in academic career
• Lacking a fun factor that makes students want to get involved with ACP early in academic career 
  

  • Lacking "whats in it for me" factor. Students do not feel it is beneficial to their life and/ or time
  
  

Opportunities

• Face to Face connections begin made with students at events like the Club Fair
• Current presence on Social Media sites
• Current presence at campus wide events
  
  

Threats  

• Apathy of students
• Competition present with other organizations for attention (flyers, posters, etc.)
• Students ignore emails because they receive so many campus wide emails

Marketing Objective

• Getting more students to the Career Fair 
• Goal: increase attendance of Career Fair from 30 Meredith students to 50 students
• Spread awareness of the event through Social Media outlets like Facebook, flyers and emails 
• Promote awareness through the use of professors and club
• Help students succeed both academically and professional