- [Lecturer] Hello, everyone.
Welcome to week two.
And this week we're going to be talking about
situational analysis and opportunity.
So this will be the first chance for you to get an overview
of the concept of marketing.
And there'll be an exercise at the end
for those of you who haven't thought about
what your business plan, your marketing plan will be on,
help you walk through.
And I'm hoping, start to gather and build on ideas
that you have to write your final marketing plan.
Which is due near the end of the semester.
Here's our agenda.
Start with announcements.
And then get into what is marketing.
And then the bulk of the class will be situational analysis.
So looking at the internal environment
in which your business or organization works,
what's the external environment?
Thinking a lot more about that for right now and finally,
to sort of put it together and do a so-called SWOT analysis,
which some of you may be familiar with,
but it may be new to some of you as well.
And then begin to think about what is an opportunity?
So what is a business opportunity
and how can you meet that opportunity?
How can you meet and fill a need or a want
in a way that creates a viable organization?
And we're gonna think about some criteria
that you can use to judge that.
Two quick announcements.
You have a homework based on this week's content
due next Tuesday.
And the next topic will be customers and competitors.
So know that almost every Tuesday at 10,
you're gonna have a homework.
I think the main exception will be
when we have our midterm exam.
But basically count on turning in a homework every Tuesday
till right near the end of the semester,
unless you hear otherwise.
I want you to start to think about the final project
for the class, which is your final marketing plan.
And that is going to be a big part of your final grade.
And we're basically building toward that now.
So I wanna give you an overview of sort of,
what are some of the ideas that you may want to consider?
'Cause the whole point of this class
is for you to be able to write a marketing plan
for an organization or a business.
So it should be something that takes in money,
that incurs costs and provide some kind of good or service.
And very soon I will have a draft of the final assignment
on Blackboard, just so you can see it.
So you can begin to build toward it.
And you'll notice that the homeworks that we do throughout
the semester very much are the building blocks for this.
So I will have you in the homework
really start to think about
a major component of the marketing plan.
And then at the end, when it is due,
you won't have to start from scratch.
That you will have already written and thought
and gotten feedback on these parts.
And while I don't expect you to just be able to
cut and paste or copy and paste,
that you will have already thought it through
and really have a good start.
So that you don't have this huge assignment at the end,
that sort of comes out of nowhere.
And I just think that's a better way to learn.
There are many possible ideas.
So many students do it, an actual for-profit,
which provides some sort of good or service
or maybe some kind of entertainment.
But many of them also do it on a not-for-profit
that may provide things like education,
advocacy, entertainment,
some sort of social club, philanthropy,
some religious or spiritual or cultural organization.
Either that already exists that you know well,
or that you may wish to start once you're done with school
or maybe wished to start now.
But there are a lot of options
and if you're not sure if it's a good fit,
please feel free to talk to me,
talk to the TA and we can always provide you with guidance.
Just to give you an idea.
Here are some ideas that students in the past have done
and have done very successfully.
It might be a business that you would like to start.
In some cases, students have done it on a business
that they had already started.
It could be your family's business.
It might be a UVM or other organization that you belong to.
It could also be a local business that you have worked for
or have an internship with.
It could also be a non-profit,
but know that you really have to have very close knowledge.
So to just sort of pick a local business out of the air
would probably not be a very good idea.
And to pick a large existing business
like McDonald's or Walmart or I don't know what.
Really that's not what I would like you to do here.
Specifically, I want you to do something
that matters to you.
I want this organization to be something
that reflects your passion and your values,
something you really care about,
something that you will really put the time and effort in
that hopefully you care about more than just the grade
and the credits for this class.
In addition, I really want it to be something
that will or could be used.
And when I talked about doing a marketing plan
for McDonald's or Walmart, as great as you are,
and I really do believe that you are great.
It's pretty unlikely that McDonald's or Walmart
is going to take your marketing plan and put it into action.
However, a local business that you have interned with,
that you've gotten to know them,
you understand the marketing challenges that they face,
or maybe a new direction that they wish to take.
And if you have their permission and buy-in,
then I think that would be an excellent idea.
And again, because this is a sustainability class
in the Community Entrepreneurship major,
I'm hoping that the organizations have a commitment
to the triple bottom line and sustainability.
And they are also committed to building the communities
in which they operate.
Just a few don'ts here.
I really just don't wanna see anything that has to do with
anything illegal, that is based on discrimination
or exploitation or in any way sort of dangerous,
violent, risky behavior.
I think none of those are a good fit
for the Community Entrepreneurship major.
And again, if you're not sure,
please talk to me and we can sort of walk through
what I would think would be appropriate or not.
I tend to be pretty open-minded,
but things that would fall into these,
I think I would rather you put your efforts elsewhere.
So as I said, part of the motivation for this
is that your homework assignments
are building the components.
You're really creating building blocks
as you do each homework and it makes it so that
you don't have a huge assignment from scratch at the end.
You already have the building blocks.
It's also quite frankly, evidence of original work.
That if you're doing homework on a hamburger stand
and then suddenly you upload your marketing plan
and it is on a shoe store.
You know, that might make me a little bit suspicious
that you might've gone onto the internet
and found a shoe store one.
So not that I don't trust you,
but it just seems like this is a better fit
and it really benefits you.
As always use me, use the TA,
use other students as resources.
And if you're encountering any struggles
or if you have any amazing ideas,
you'd love to bounce off at me.
I love to do things like that.
I always like to talk about things like that with students.
So please do and start to think now.
Start to get those creative juices flowing now.
And so that the whole process will be more seamless
as we go through.
I'm going to show you homework two now.
Again, I like to show it at the beginning of the lecture
so that you know what to look for.
So this is, if you already have an idea.
And if you do not, then there's another exercise
in Environmental Scan which you'll see soon,
which will help you generate ideas.
But once you have an idea or if you already have one,
start here.
so I want you to briefly describe the business.
Why did you choose this?
Why is it a good fit for you?
Does it meet the hedgehog model of something
that you are passionate about and really good at
and can drive an economic engine?
How will it create value?
How is it a good opportunity?
How do you anticipate incorporating
sustainability principles?
What trade-offs may you need?
Then I want you to use the five C model,
which we are about to learn about
and write a sentence about each C.
And then I want you to do some synthesis and analysis
and identify some of the key external factors
and choose one or two.
And then finally put this all together,
the five Cs and the external environments
to create a SWOT analysis.
So SWOT as you'll learn stands for strengths,
weakness, opportunities, threats.
And to pick out one to three under each one,
so one to three strengths, weaknesses, et cetera.
And a sentence about why those are important
to your business.
So there's your homework and that sort of lets you know
what to look for as we go through.
If you do not have an idea yet,
and many of you probably do not,
then this would be a good thing for you to do.
And that is to conduct an environmental scan.
And you're gonna learn about that.
So what I want you to do is conduct an environmental scan
of some group that you associated with.
Your friend, a club, people that you hang out with,
your study partners, what are they reading?
What do they listen to?
What kind of music?
Where are they web surfing?
What do they eat?
What are some of the trends of things that they are doing,
that you find interesting?
Make a list of this and think about
two or three opportunities that emerged.
So what is a product or service that you could offer
that would be timely and relevant
that there's a need or want for
and sort of talk to a few folks about this.
And see if you can come up with the best one.
Now know that, it can change what you pick now,
maybe in a week or two,
you figure out really that first idea has it worked?
And I have a great new idea.
The longer you wait, the harder it will be
but don't feel like you absolutely have to choose
the final decision now.
And note that I don't need to see this
as part of your homework.
So whether you do the environmental scan or not,
you don't have to turn anything in.
Just do the homework based on the idea that you generate.
And if you have any questions,
as always feel free to let me know.
Now I want to get into the main theme of this class,
which is marketing.
I define it as activities which create and retain customers.
And note that I'm not saying it's just selling stuff.
It's not just selling a product.
That so much of marketing is
finding the right people who are really interested
in what you have and creating value for them
and communicating the value
and ensuring the value of what you are offering.
So that they will be loyal customers
that will keep coming back
and supporting you over time.
And it's much more than just getting someone
to buy something one time.
Would be sort of the opposite end of the spectrum there.
Our textbook author, Crane gives this definition.
And basically I bolded these two phrases.
Delivering value, so it's all about delivering value
and to manage relationships.
Again, to have a really good relationship
with your customers so that you really understand
where the value comes from
so that you can continue to deliver it.
And it reminds me of, I believe this is an old song.
Make new friends but keep the old one is silver,
but the other is gold.
So getting new customers is great
and you will have to do that,
but retaining the ones that you have
not only probably takes less effort than finding new ones
but they're sort of the gold standard of your business.
They're the ones that are really gonna see you through
and help you to succeed.
I think this is the only equation
that I will show you during the whole class.
And it is not a very complex one.
That's the idea of value again,
that your job as marketing is to deliver customer value.
So you can think of it as the ratio
where on top is the perceived benefits
and the bottom is the cost.
So we'll have a brainstorming class,
but think about some product or service that you buy.
What are the benefits that you gain?
Why do you buy it?
What value do you derive from it?
And in the denominator, what are the kinds of costs,
not only how much money that you pay for it,
but things like inconvenience and time that you might spend,
hassles, annoyance, anything like that.
That you want to minimize.
So clearly to make the term on the left side,
as big as you can.
You want to make the numerator as big as you can
and make the denominator as small as you can.
Some early words of wisdom.
One of the most important things that you can think about
early on, and we're gonna spend a whole week on this,
is when you ask, who will buy your products?
And if the answer is, everyone.
This is a dangerous sign.
There are very, very few products that everyone buys.
And if they are, they tend to be ones that
are sort of high volume, low price.
Where you really only make your way in the world
by being the low cost provider of it.
And it's very hard for a new business to compete
in that world.
So it's much more important and a lot of this class
will be finding those folks.
Getting a really rich, detailed description of the people
who are going to gain the most value,
who will be most interested and to target them.
So what we're going to do in a few weeks
is to come up with a target market that there's the saying,
don't chase too many rabbits.
That if a beagle here I think,
starts to chase more than one,
that dog is probably going to get really confused
and will not keep track of any of them.
Whereas if you find that one segment of the market
who will become your loyal customers,
and be able to pay a lot of attention to them
and what they want and what they need.
It's a lot easier to effectively market to them
than to try to market to everyone.
Another thing that we'll be doing
more toward the end of class
is the model of the classical marketing mix,
the four P's model.
So the four P's are product, place, price and promotion.
So what do you sell?
Where do you sell it?
How much do you charge?
And how do you tell the story of it?
And I put this graphic here.
One of my very first research projects
when I was a newly minted PhD,
was to look at the marketing practices of organic farmers
in the Northeast.
And I was doing an interview of one and said,
so what are your four P's?
And this farmer said, shell peas, snow peas, snack peas
and world peas.
And I had to explain that those are great,
but that I was looking for something slightly different.
But anyway, that's what it always makes me think of
and makes me laugh.
So here is the diagram that we've seen a few times now.
So you can think about the two sort of middle
horizontal ones.
Thinking about our customers,
thinking about target and segmentation.
Today, we're gonna do the top middle and right.
The opportunity and the external forces.
And we just touched base about on the four P's
with the main goal being the downward arrow
of creating value and fulfilling therefore
the mission of the organization.
But these are gonna be both the main topics
that we will cover.
And also the parts of the marketing plan
that you will write.
This is the end of the first video.
And so please, when you like go to part two
and continue with this week's topic.
Thanks.