AIESEC Madison Marketing Plan

2015 AIESEC Madison Summer Marketing Team:

Ian Kawetschanky

Robert Broome

Gladys Lai

Content I. Statement of Objectives­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ 3 II.Market Analysis­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­3­8 A.Demographic Analysis

Data Findings Data Analysis

B.Psychographic Analysis C.Target Market Discussion

III. Marketing Strategy­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­9­11 A.Unique Selling Points B.Marketing Message

C.Promotion Strategy Video Print Event International Interest Survey Social Media

IV. Reference­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­12

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I. STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES

At AIESEC­Madison, we have until recently relied on a lot of cold­calling, walk­ins, and other less­than­efficient means of marketing our services to companies in an effort to form partnerships. Luckily, AIESEC provides a great service with a couple unique selling points that differentiate us from our competitors. With this marketing plan we hope to (1) identify who our target markets are, (2) what marketing message/unique selling points resonate with our target markets the best, and (3) how we can relay that marketing message most effectively. By doing this, we hope to cut down on wasting time with inefficient sales/marketing tactics which will hopefully lead to more partnerships, brand awareness, and ultimately business down the line. II. MARKET ANALYSIS A. Demographic Analysis

Data Findings Primary data was collected via Podio and OneSource Global Business Browser on 32 current and previous partners with AIESEC Madison. Below is a summary of the demographic research finding on current and past partner.

Industry:

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Below is a pie chart of the roles our young professionals are actually being used for within the companies. IT and Marketing are the two most common roles.

Age:

On average, companies had been around for 24 years upon starting their partnership with AIESEC.

Stages of Maturity (Start­up, Growing, Mature):

53% in Mature Stage 40% in Growing Stage 7% in Startup stage

*Note: We have defined three distinct stages of maturity (at which our

partnership began) for the companies we have worked with based on the following criteria:

1) Start­up: this type of company is brand new and has just gotten started. Their product and/or service has either not been tested yet or has just been tested in a public market for a brief amount of time. Their product/services remain a work in progress and the company is working on establishing basic functions such as staffing, location, marketing and financials. These companies are still getting their operations organized and ready before they attempt to grow.

2) Growing: growing companies have established products/services that have been available for a while, but these companies continue to develop their product and services in order to fit customer needs. These companies are seeking to hire more people rapidly and increase their company size/staff. They are looking to expand to more locations and even expand their operations overseas.

3) Mature: mature companies have established products/services that are not changing much, if at all. They are not seeking to expand to new locations or to grow their staff significantly further.

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They have steady operations and day­to­day business looks the same.

Financial status (Annual Sales)

80% of companies had annual sales of less than $5 million The median annual sales of these companies was $2.1 million

Private/ Public:

82% of companies were private 18% of companies were public or other

Company size (see reference links)

Criteria for business size are as follows: <10 → Mirco 10­49 → Small 50­249 → Medium 250+ → Large

Size Number Percentage

<10 13 45%

10­49 6 21%

50­­249 4 14%

250+ 6 21%

66% of our partners are considered small or micro Micro companies are our biggest segment at 45%

International expansion:

25% of our past and current partners have/had operations overseas

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Data Analysis

Industry: from our research, it is clear that we tend to partner with companies that are in the IT industry (followed by Manufacturing and Logistics). This fits with our AIESEC records that indicate that IT talent is the most sought after, specifically for software engineering roles. This also supports the conclusion that our target market desires international talent with highly technical skills. In addition to IT, many of our professionals end up doing marketing roles for the companies they work for, which makes sense because a global or international perspective for marketing can be very beneficial for a company especially if they are looking to target a minority market or markets abroad.

Stage of Maturity/Age: most companies are partnering with us after 24 years of

being an established business. As such, most companies we have partnered with are considered “mature” but we also partner with a lot of “growing” companies. Both situations make sense. Mature companies are more than likely searching for one or only a couple highly skilled professionals to work on projects. Growing companies are probably looking for skilled labor as well, but also for employees that can help them expand to new markets or even overseas (or at least use their international perspective or native language to their advantage) . A little unexpected, but we do not partner with many start­ups, this is likely because using AIESEC is a luxury for growing or mature businesses with specific labors needs or desires to grow. This will change with the new Global Entrepreneur program.

Size/Financials: most companies we partner with are considered small or micro

(with micro being the most frequent partner at 45%). These small or micro companies are almost all private and are for the most part making annual sales of less than $5 million. This supports the logic that large companies are not going to use AIESEC because they do their recruiting in­house. Small or micro­companies with small annual sales are likely interested in the fact that we can get them cheaper labor and allow their companies to grow or remain stable at lower costs. The larger companies we have partnered with tend to have global branches, which also makes sense because these larger companies were probably drawn to AIESEC because of the global profile of our network of talent as opposed to the smaller companies which are looking for cost­effective recruiting and labor options.

International Expansion: surprisingly only 25% of the companies we have

targeted have operations overseas. This should be a point of emphasis with our marketing strategies as we would clearly appeal to companies that are expanding overseas or have a need for foreigners/diversity in their staff. Leveraging this USP could help us partner with and target more companies that align with AIESEC’s foundation of providing foreign talent.

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B. Psychographics Analysis

Values: AIESEC is hoping to target companies that are: Culturally diverse and seeking to bring different cultures and global mindsets into

their company Companies that have an interest in bettering their local community and the world

around them Companies that care about developing young people and creating future leaders Companies that embrace change and are not scared of trying new things

Personality Forward moving or progressive Open­minded/Outgoing Innovative Risk­takers Diverse/Well­cultured/international

Lifestyle/Activities Companies that are looking to hire foreigners or seeking people that speak foreign

languages Companies that are growing or expanding and looking to hire new people

immediately Companies that are seeking to expand abroad or are already established abroad Companies that are willing to outsource recruiting Companies looking to hire people with specific skillsets and who are experts in

their field Company Culture and Style

AIESEC desires to work with companies that have the following company cultures based on the needs of our abroad professionals:

The first type of company we partner with has a “spirited style”. These types of companies are enthusiastic, optimistic and value innovation. Moreover, they want their employees to have fun and attend group activities outside of the office. They are looking to hire employees that are social, fit well in teams, are adaptable and communicate well. This type of company culture would allow young professionals from abroad to have a much more comfortable transition into the workplace and would help foreign professionals get immersed in the local culture through fun and social group activities.

The second type of company we partner with has a “considerate style”. These types of companies have a supportive environment and are typically more relaxed and value harmony. Furthermore, these companies stress the importance of collaboration and building relationships. These companies hire employees that are willing and able to work in teams. This type of supportive and collaborative culture is ideal for young professionals coming from abroad who will initially need help and support as they

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transition into the workplace and will be seeking to build new relationships as they get settled in a new country.

Staffing Behavior; Involvement with Recruitment Process Outsourcing AIESEC mainly targets companies that do not have formal HR departments or

that are willing to outsource recruiting. Since our service is similar to that of a staffing agency, we work well with companies that are comfortable with passing off some or all recruiting duties to a third party.

C. Target Market

We have identified two target markets in the Madison area (and similar mid­sized cities)

based off our research. Our first target market is companies that desire affordable and highly technical/skilled labor to work on short­middle term projects. In particular, many of the companies in this target market are looking for quality talent to work on software engineering projects, where hiring and providing wages to local employees can be very costly. They also tend to be micro to small sized companies that are looking to outsource recruiting to AIESEC because it is a highly affordable option for them or because they do not have a formal HR department.

Our second target market is companies that desire foreign talent for the following reasons: they are looking to hire someone who is multilingual and that speaks a specific language (i.e. Spanish or Mandarin) to help them with specific business needs at home or abroad; they are looking for foreign talent because they are interested in expanding abroad either to the country where the young professional is from or a country that speaks the native language of the professional; they are looking to gain a more diverse and global perspective for their business. This target market which is looking to capitalize on the “foreignness” of the talent we provide are mostly hiring these young professionals for marketing roles. These companies can be larger than those in our first target market and some have facilities or operations overseas.

In terms of psychographics, we ideally want to target companies that are open­minded, have a social, collaborative and supportive company culture for our professionals, and that are looking to improve their company diversity and develop leaders to impact their community and the world around them.

Below is some data that exemplifies the most common reasons our target markets decide to partner with AIESEC and benefit from our services. It shows which unique selling points (described below) appeal to certain market segments.

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*This data was compiled from AIESEC partners all across the US from years 2012­2015 III. MARKETING STRATEGY A. Unique Selling Points: AIESEC provides many different benefits, but not all of them are unique to AIESEC and can be provided by other similar companies. Below are the benefits we have determined to be unique to AIESEC and that we want to relay clearly to relevant target markets.

We offer staffing solutions at very cost­effective rates as compared to a typical staffing agency.

We have a vast worldwide network that allows us to draw talented, young professionals from all over the world.

B. Official Marketing Message: AIESEC helps companies source international talent with specific technical and language skills for short to medium term projects at an affordable cost. C. Promotion Strategies

Video: In order to showcase our unique selling point of being able to draw talent from a vast global network, we have decided to create a short video to show companies. In this

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video, we will have current AIESEC professionals working in the U.S. state their names and greetings in their native language and their positions within their company in English. There will be a blurb at the bottom of the video while they speak that says their name, where they are from, age, and the company that they work for, etc. We want to have 20­25 professionals all from different countries included in this video. The intent of this video is to show companies that are looking to capitalize on the “foreign benefit” of our people, not only the vast array of countries we can source talent from, but that all our professionals our multilingual, have great english skills, and have a wide array of expertise in many different fields. This video should be uploaded to AIESEC’s Youtube Channel, as well as AIESEC Madison’s LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook social media accounts. This video should also be uploaded onto the AIESEC Madison company website.

Print: Currently AIESEC has a brochure that we hand out to companies. This brochure

could use some revising and refining. It is very wordy and has a lot going on. A smaller and more concise pamphlet will be able to get our benefits across to companies in a more organized manner. Specifically, we want to add to the pamphlet a price comparison visual of our staffing services compared to the typical staffing agency and that of a competitor like Aerotek. As we noted above, some of the companies we are going to target are going to want to work with AIESEC strictly because they are looking for more cost­effective labor and recruiting options, and it will be important to have this price comparison graphic in easy view because it is our main selling point to companies in this target market.

Event: in general we would like AIESEC to become a more recognizable brand name

among people and businesses in the community. As such, we are hoping to plan a networking event in the fall semester that would really highlight the diversity of the professionals we provide. For this networking event, we would like to set it up as a kind of international food fair. We would have all of our AIESEC members and professionals set up stands where they will provide a dish from their country. It will be a good opportunity for representatives from companies to go up to the stands and talk to our professionals about their experience working in the U.S. while also enjoying foods from around the globe. This event will allow company representatives to get a better idea of the types of talent we provide as well as emphasize how “cultured” and diverse our sourced professionals are (plus everyone enjoys having good food at a networking event!).

International Interest Survey: We would like to come up with a very short survey to

ask companies about their international interests. The questions must be very carefully

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decided and reflect the selling points to our respective target markets. Upon gathering enough answers from 30+ companies in our target markets, we will then gather and analyze the data. We will compile this data in a way that is easy for the companies to understand. The data will show them what they need, and we will follow up in showing what we can provide. This is basically a way of the companies showing themselves that they need our services. AIESEC Bombay did this and created 14 opportunities.

Social Media: We need to take steps to revamp our social media marketing campaign.

The following action steps must be taken: 1. LinkedIn:

We need to change our AIESEC Madison LinkedIn page from a personal LinkedIn Page to a company LinkedIn page.

We need to assign someone in the communications department to manage the page and periodically post articles that highlight the successes of AIESEC such as successful internship stories or how AIESEC as a whole is thriving locally or on an international scale. Informative posts about Visa differences and anything that will help explain the advantages of our services more in depth would be beneficial to post on the LinkedIn page as well.

We should also post open opportunities for both the incoming and outgoing programs on the page.

Once our marketing video is completed (see above) we should post this video on our LinkedIn Company page.

Individual members of AIESEC should then share these articles that are posted on our AIESEC Madison LinkedIn page.

2. Facebook/Twitter: While our first priority is to get a company LinkedIn page up and rolling, we want our communications team to be more active on facebook and twitter with regards to posting articles about AIESEC and connecting with other businesses and potential customers.

3. AIESEC Madison Website: We need to update our AIESEC Madison Website. We need to first:

update the contact information on the website by adding the email and phone number of the VPBD.

We need to update some of the vocabulary on the website. For instance, we need to replace the word “intern” with “skilled/young/international professional” wherever it appears on the website. We also need to add information about the Global Entrepreneur Program to the website.

We need to update our current partners on the website.

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We need to update some of the numbers of the countries we are in and some of the graphics on the website that relate to our global supply.

We need to add a testimonial either written or in video form. Add a “get started today” link on the website so that more companies who

get on our website are taking the steps necessary to actually partner with us.

IV. SECONDARY RESEARCH REFERENCES Business Maturity: http://wowguidemaster.hubpages.com/hub/The­Business­life­cycle­Establishment­Growth­Maturity­Post­Maturity Company Culture: http://business.salary.com/company­personality­style/slide/4/ Business Sizes: http://www.thinksmallcell.com/System/the­three­sizes­of­business­justify­different­small­cell­technical­solutions.html Marketing Message: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235120

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