2. Executive Summary
The Southwest Regional Professional Development Center is located in Springfield, Missouri and serves 94 districts in
the region. Though the educational community knows about the SWRPDC, they do not leave a lasting impression that
holds any resonance with people. We aim to change that.
By implementing a rebranding strategy with a heavy emphasis on online presence and social media, we believe that
we will be able to communicate effectively the strengths and positives of the center. Juliet wisely asked, “What’s in a
name?” to which we answer everything. The rebranding of the SWRPDC starts with a name change that is easier to
say, shorten, and remember. We introduce a logo with a meaning and a tagline that captures the vision of the SWRPDC.
We want to take the Southwest Regional Professional Development center from a known, but not remembered entity,
to something that can stand up to other centers around the area. Springfield especially has many elementary, middle,
and high schools along with multiple colleges and universities. There are educators in the region who are interested in
the professional development courses offered by Southwest Regional, but they don’t even know it. We believe that
emphasizing a strong online presence and a consistent, strong message are necessary to work towards brand recogni-
tion and top of mind awareness. When regional teachers think professional development, we want them to think of the
Southwest Regional Professional Development center and be excited about the classes that are offered.
This campaign is only the building blocks for a successful future with the Southwest Regional Professional Development
Center and we are excited to see its progress.
3. Table of Contents
1 Executive Summary
3 Situational Analysis
5 Target Market Assessment
7 Assessment of Competition
9 Objectives and Positioning
10 Creative Strategy
11 Media Strategy
11 Website
12 Social Media
14 E-Blasts and E-Newsletters
16 Trade Show
18 Brochure
19 PR/Guerilla Tactics
20 Media Schedule
21 Budget
22 Sources
4. Situational Analysis
The Southwest Regional Professional Development Center helps teachers
and administrators meet the necessary qualifications for professional
development certification. Currently, those teachers within the region
who have taken a class from the SWRPDC are aware of the center. How-
ever, some of the education majors surveyed who had taken a class from the center knew where is was but, “Couldn’t
remember the name.” The markets that need to know about the SWRPDC are those teachers in the region and the sur-
rounding areas. However, our primary focus is building brand recognition within the region and then once that is estab-
lished, plans can be made to expand the company’s reach.
The perceptions of the SWRPDC are positive, but few. Those surveyed who have taken classes there had a good expe-
rience, but nothing stood out to them about the center. The overwhelming majority of classes taken are those that are
DESE requirements, which is a known service of the center. However, there is a lack of awareness in regards to specialty
classes offered. New markets need to know that SWRPDC not only offers the required Department of Education classes,
but also professional development classes. Because these are classes that teachers are able to request as part of their
personalized plans, teachers need to view the center as a viable option when choosing development classes.
At the moment, the lack of general perception of SWRPDC can be an advantage. We believe that this situation presents
an opportunity for SWRPDC to rebrand itself and be presented in the best possible light. Though the center has many
great programs and classes offered, it is not currently high on the list of alternatives. Teachers know the development
center as a place for the government mandated classes, but are not knowledgeable about other opportunities and ser-
vices provided.
Teachers do not typically view personal development classes like they do DESE
classes because they are ones that they choose. In general, teachers want to
help their students learn and improve, which are positive outcomes of personal
development classes. These classes also allow teachers to express themselves
more and infuse their personalities into their teaching style more so than regulated classes.
“I can’t ever remember the
name...” – student surveyed
“Don’t they just do the DESE
stuff? I’m really not sure
what classes they offer.”
– student surveyed
5. Many teachers need to take professional development classes, but as newer teachers are required to have more
certification (The following chart contains more information regarding the numbers and types of necessary certifi-
cation). Those teachers who have been teaching for over ten years typically do not have to attend nearly as many
professional development classes.
The target market that we are addressing is those teachers (typically newly certified)
who still need to take professional development classes.
6. Target Market Assessment
83% of teachers are white
29%of all teachers
have a bachelor’s degree
(and still need development classes)
“Teachers are one of the
most untapped markets
today.”– Joe Greenstein, founder of Flixter
7. “It seems pointless”
“I can’t believe administration
has us trying something new”
“PD challenges me to
improve and grow”
“Teaching is not stagnant,
we can’t be either”
“We have enough
to do as is”
“Kids are counting on us”
Attitudes regarding professional development classes vary
from negative to positive. One of the biggest turn-offs for
teachers in regards to professional development is hav-
ing non-practicing presenters. Teachers do not want to be
patronized or talked down to, especially by someone who
hasn’t been a teacher in years or has never been a teacher.
However, the majority of teachers are willing to do
something if they see a
direct benefit to their students.
If teachers see a correlation between their students’ success
and their own professional development, they are more
motivated to complete the classes with a positive attitude.
“Excuse me for [being a] little bit of
soapboxy, but teachers need to grow
as professionals. We want to stay
on top of our game. Please help us
by giving us the most innovative,
relevant, tailored, differentiated, and
professional development you can
plan and you won’t have a school full
of angry teachers!”
– Jessica Piper
8. Assessment of Competition
The biggest competition is Southwest Center for Education-
al Excellence. They are an educational service agency that
serves 42 school districts and 3 colleges/universities. Found-
ed in 1996, they offer professional development classes by
“nationally known education leaders and trained staff on
relevant, quality and research-based classroom instruction
and leadership opportunities” (Southwestcenter.org). The
Southwest Center aims for student success through im-
proved teachers.
The center has a basic looking website with a lot of informa-
tion and pictures. It is easy to navigate, but the colors and
clipart on the website are not attractive. The search bar at
the top right is helpful and can help those who come to the
site find what they are looking for. The site emphasized the
benefits that are given to member districts involved with the
Southwest Center.
The similar name, Southwest Center, makes it hard to do a
Google search. In fact, the first site to pop up after typing
in Southwest Center is the Southwest Regional Professional
Development Center, which is surprising given the amount
of improvements that are necessary to the website.
In order to compete with Southwest Center, it is necessary
for the Southwest Regional Professional Development Cen-
ter to develop a strong brand and logo to be recognizable
by teachers in the region.
· ability to market
· strong staff
· large involvement in learning community
· has many sponsors for events and organizations
· similar name to SWPDC
· offers limited amount of classes
· only 6 staff members
· ability to create more classes
· improve its branding/marketing
· legislation that limits the creativity of teachers
· limitations on capabilities (funding or otherwise)
9. The Southwest Center has a lengthy and extensive action plan. However, some of the things that stood out on the
list were:
1. Attends local, state, and national conferences.
2. Pursues funding options to support curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
3. Develop programs to meet the needs of member districts
By focusing on their customer, the Southwest Center has become a strong force in the educational community. It
caters to the needs of its member districts at a reasonable cost. The Center maintains its staff members’ education
and certification, which builds trust. They are perceived as a competent and caring professional development
center, which is similar to the goals for Southwest Regional Professional Development Center.
Secondary competition is those districts that can support themselves with in house development courses, such
as Springfield Public Schools. It is less expensive for these districts to have their in-house development courses
than to pay for an outside, third-party development center.
IPA schools/shops that offer cheap courses for teachers to pay out of pocket are also an option for personal
development. Webinars that are free and offered by other development centers is one more source of
competition for Southwest Regional Professional Development Center.
Teachers are a busy target market and one of the biggest challenges that must be faced is cutting through the
amount of clutter and information that is thrown in a teacher’s direction. By generating consumer relationships
and practicing frequency and repetition with our communication, Southwest Regional Development Center will
become recognized. It will then be the responsibility of the center to maintain a positive reputation.
Our approach to building a strong and recognizable brand is similar to that of Southwest Center. Later we will dis-
cuss how our creative strategy has some similar components, but the level of quality will be drastically improved.
10. Objectives and Positioning
The objectives for the SWRPDC are to:
1. Rebrand the center
2. Develop a marketing strategy that increases brand awareness by 15%
3. Increase number of class attendees by 10%
4. Receive 350 leads at a trade show that results in class scheduling within 6 months of initial contact.
The measurements for these objectives are:
1. Completion of task
2. Compare beginning survey to end of campaign survey. Individuals for the survey will be chosen from the
educational field.
3. Compare beginning average number of class attendees to end average.
4. Track the leads that attend classes within 6 months of trade show.
Positioning Statement:
The Southwest Regional Professional Development Center aims
to help teachers go above and beyond what is expected.
We want to inspire teachers today for their students tomorrow in a way that can make concrete changes in the class-
rooms. We want our target market to respect the SWRPDC and its employees as competent and capable. At the mo-
ment, there is a lack of awareness and an apathetic attitude towards professional development in general. We want to
change the attitude of teachers, which we understand is a hefty task. However, in order for the campaign and company
to be successful, there needs to be a shift in the attitude towards professional development classes and the centers that
offer them.
11. Creative Strategy
The most important part of our proposed campaign is the rebranding elements. In order to differentiate from our
competitor and become more recognizable, we decided to create a new name and logo.
We suggest renaming the SWRPDC the
Missouri Educational Development Center or
MOED Center. The name clearly communicates
the purpose of the center and is able to be short
ened in a way that is easy and understandable.
The tagline for the center is
“Beyond the Standard” which speaks to the way
that the MOED Center approaches teaching
professional development classes as well as the
idea that teachers are encouraged to go beyond
the bare minimum for their students. Each colored
circle symbolizes the three focuses of the
MOED Center.
The gray represents “professionalism.” Gray is a strong, powerful, and commanding color. Teachers should feel
in control of their classrooms and their careers.
The blue represents “innovation.” Teachers need to be up to date on current technology and new ways to teach
students. We encourage teachers to embrace change and thrive on it.
The yellow represents “creativity.” Yellow is a happy and positive color that inspires original thought and i
nquisitiveness. Teachers should feel empowered to think creatively and differently to best suit their classroom’s
individual needs.
This logo and name will be added to every part of our media strategy to increase brand familiarity and recognition.
12. Media Strategy
The main components of our creative strategy are social media/online presence, a trade show, and brochures.
Website
Though the current website does show up typically within the first three Google results, we believe that having an easier
name will help potential customers find it easier. Updating the website to reflect current information and to be more en-
gaging is a goal of the campaign. It does take about 1/10 of the budget to do a basic website overhaul, but we believe
it is money well spent. Today’s consumer does his or her research online, which means that when they are looking for
answers they need to be there.
To drive subscribers to our e-blasts, there will be a pop-up on the website after someone is on there for more than 2
minutes. The reason for this is that after that time, if someone is still on the site it means that they are finding some in-
terest in the information we are providing. This interest heightens the likelihood that a potential client would be willing
to sign up for our newsletter.
13. Social Media
We would like to utilize social media, specifically Twitter and Facebook, to reach out and engage teachers and
administrators. SWRPDC are currently using Facebook and Twitter, but with our rebranding campaign we would
like to improve SWRPDC’s use of social media to best represent SWRPDC and the services they offer.
The frequent use of Twitter would be beneficial to the MOED Center (currently SWRPDC). Twitter is frequently
used by a younger audience which would be ideal to targeting the younger generation of teachers. The younger
teachers who are new to the field will likely be utilizing Twitter and are very familiar with the site. On the MOED
Center’s Twitter site, we recommend that they tweet as much as every day and focus on a variety of topics. The
Twitter profile should display tweets with tips and hints for teachers, inspiring facts and information, and also
advertise MOED’s upcoming events and classes. As part of our social media campaign we, Quixotic, would like
to implement a #FactFriday hashtag every week. On Friday the MOED twitter account would tweet out facts
about teachers, students, and classroom environments using the hashtag #FactFriday. #FactFriday would also
encourage teachers to engage in the conversation using the hashtag as well.
14. As part of the social media campaign we would also like to revamp the MOED Center’s Facebook profile. The use of
Facebook is ideal for targeting an older generation of teachers and administrators because Facebook has become the
social media of choice for older generations. For the Facebook portion of our campaign we recommend that MOED
post three times a week, preferably Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We would like MOED to post a variety of infor-
mation on their Facebook profile. Topics like: classroom management skills, facts and information, and also upcoming
classes and events should be continually posted on the Facebook profile.
We believe that Facebook will be a great platform to engage teachers and administrators of an older generation. We
also recommend using Facebook analytics to promote the MOED Center’s Facebook profile. With Facebook’s ‘spon-
sored posts’ option we can set the settings to match our target market and the MOED Center’s profile will be adver-
tised directly to Facebook users matching the demographics we have set. We will have one promoted post each month.
These posts will be directly about the center and will be on the third Thursday of every month.
15. E-Blasts and E-Newsletter
In order to prepare teachers for upcoming events and
provide the necessary brand repetition, we suggest having
a monthly newsletter.
We will use the online marketing tool MailChimp to send
out the bimonthly newsletters. We plan on sending the
blasts the 2nd week and 4th week of the month at first
and adjusting throughout the campaign as necessary. If
we find that this is a successful means of communication
and a good percentage of our subscribers are opening the
email, we will evaluate the effectiveness of sending out
the e-blasts more than twice a month.
By the end of the campaign we aim to have 800 subscrib-
ers with a stretch goal of 1,000. The first email will be
general classroom information (management skills, useful
tips, links to freebies for teachers, etc.) and the second will
be about products and classes offered by MOED Center.
For $15/month, MailChimp makes it possible to send an
unlimited number of emails a month to 5001-1,000
subscribers. For not a lot of money, we will be able to
have many impressions on our target audience.
In order to send out more personalized emails, we suggest
creating a database in Excel with the contact information
for each teacher and administrator. This is relatively simple
to do and easy to sort through, making emails that much
more effective.
In order to keep up with social media aspects
of our campaign, we have suggested the hiring
of an intern. The intern will work 10 hours a
week for $10 an hour.
16.
17. Trade Show
The trade show is one of the most expensive parts of our campaign, but we believe that it is important to build
relationships with potential customers and get our name out there in an appropriate setting.
We will be attending the MSTA Convention Exhibit in the fall of 2015. Last
year it was held in Columbia, MO and will be held at the Holiday Inn Executive
Center. Sponsored by the Missouri State Teachers Association, this trade show
is one of the best ones to attend in the state to reach Missouri’s education
community. Information from 2013 indicates that 24% of the teachers that are
attending are in our target age group, with the possibility of more teachers
who need professional development classes who are in the older, majority age
group.
These teachers have influence over what happens in their schools, though they
themselves may not be the gatekeepers.
We plan on pre-registering and receiving the premier package which includes:
• Prime booth locations • One 7” x 44” sign
• 8’ x 10’ booth • Listing in convention booklet
• 30” x 6’ draped table • Listing in delegate mailing
• Two folding chairs • Listing on Web site with link to Web site
• Wastebasket
Packages can be upgraded to include other promotional tools, which we anticipate using. We will purchase a
2x2 Advertisement in School & Community magazine. In 2013 it was distributed to nearly 50,000 people, which
means that cost per thousand is less than $0.01 as it only costs an additional $150. The ad will feature the logo,
name and website. We also will pay for a link to website on Convention webpage as well as a booth listing on
attendee punch card. In order to make sure that connections made at the conference are remembered, we will
have business cards for staff members to hand out.
18. The banner for the tradeshow will be retractable and reusable, which is a good investment for future use.
Once we attract people to the table, we will offer notepads with the MOED Center logo and website to those who sign
up for our newsletter. Originally we wanted to give out USBs because we thought that they would be more useful, but
it was too expensive at this time. The cost per thousand for the sticky notes is $.26 compared to nearly $4 for a USB.
However, it may be worth looking into for the future for those recurring customers.
This trade show is a perfect opportunity to become well acquainted within the community and allows the staff from
MOED Center to interact with teachers on a one to one basis. This element of personal selling can help to strengthen
the relationships between teachers and the MOED Center, which we believe will be important when teachers are choos-
ing their personal development plans throughout the school year.
19. Brochure
The brochure will be handed out at the trade show to those individuals who sign up for the online newsletter.
This will give potential clients information necessary to go home and make a decision about taking a professional
development class from the MOED Center. It will have information regarding the name, logo, mission, and
classes of the center.
20. PR/Guerilla Tactics
When teachers come to a class held by the MOED Center, we will give them a window cling for their car with the logo
and name of the center. This will give more impressions as the teachers drive to their various destinations. The stick-
ers are a good communication piece and are a simple enough to be able to look up if a viewer is interested in learning
more about the MOED Center.
In order to create positive PR for the MOED Center, we want to hold a two week long promotion for Teacher’s Appreci-
ation Week. We will hold nominations on our social media for teachers to be surprised at their schools. The submissions
will be reviewed and the three that are found most professional, innovative, and creative will win the prize. The staff
from the MOED Center will go to the schools of the 3 teachers who win and surprise them in class with a gift basket of
goodies and $200 to spend on whatever they want. The basket will include things such as restaurant gift cards, spa gift
cards, socks, snacks and classroom supplies such as rulers, pencils, and paper. The whole experience will be videotaped
and put on social media to music. This will become an annual tradition if successful.
We will have the intern and staff members request gift cards from local businesses around Springfield to donate to re-
ward some of the best teachers in the region. We will tag the businesses in all posts on social media to spread goodwill
and brand awareness.
21. Media Schedule
in order to reach the necessary frequency and reach we have developed a media schedule. Our campaign will run
from July 2015 to June 2016. By doing this, we will reach those teachers who will be in professional development
classes before school starts, during, and the following summer. Our rebranding efforts need to start in advance
of the trade show so that there is sufficient recognition before we attend. We want to have as many impressions,
without losing effectiveness, as possible.
22. Budget
We were a little under the allotted budget of $10,000 which gives some room for error or changes. We are confident
that the expenses we have estimated will give the MOED Center the necessary return on investment.
