5. My Value Proposition
Current: To Parkland College faculty who want
to effectively recruit students and promote
their programs, Ruthie Counter is the friendly,
professional, and experienced marketing and
public relations wordsmith who can help them
deliver just the right punch to their messages.
6. My Value Proposition
Future: To students who want to enter the
communications and/or marketing fields,
Ruthie Counter is the warm and engaging
Parkland College professor who brings the
highest combination of real-world industry
experience and up-to-date curriculum and
technological knowledge to the classroom.
7. Assessing My Brand
Product Life Cycle stage: Maturity
Gaps between value propositions
– Writer, instructor, but not a “professor”
– Communication and marketing curriculum/
technological knowledge not “up-to-date”
8. My Brand Development Plan
Brand Extension
– Adding professorship at the community college
level to current market offering
Product Quality Improvement
– Franklin University MCM program
• advanced academic credential (master’s degree)
• higher-level skills in communication and marketing
– Social media
– Marketing metrics
– Campaign execution strategies
9. My Brand Development Plan
Brand Promotion
– Resume building (adding advanced degree)
– Promotion through social media outlets
10. References
Franklin University. (2013). Masters degree marketing and
communication – online masters marketing, program
overview. Retrieved August 18, 2013, from
http://www.franklin.edu
/marketing-communication-masters-degree-program
Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2014). Principles of marketing (15th
ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Wolgemuth, L. (2008, December 29). Build your own brand. U.S.
News & World Report, 145 (14). Retrieved from Business
Source Complete, EBSCOhost. Retrieved from http://0-
web.ebscohost.com.olinkserver.franklin.edu/ehost/
Mat Zara'ai, Yunalis (Yuna). (2012). Live Your Life. On Yuna [CD].
New York, NY: FADER Label.
TemplatesWise. (2013). Light Streams Background [PowerPoint
template]. Retrieved from http://www.templateswise.com
Editor's Notes
This presentation summarizes the current and future identities of the Ruthie Counter brand. I open the presentation with a look at my marketplace and target market needs, including my brand’s perceived benefits to customers and my competition. Next, I present brand positioning statements (p. 216) to summarize my current and future brand value propositions and points of difference. Lastly, after briefly comparing where my brand is now to where I would like it to be, I outline my strategy for developing the personal brand and accomplishing , highlighted by examples of how obtaining a Franklin University MCM degree will increase the product quality needed for successful brand development and management.
This presentation summarizes the current and future identities of the Ruthie Counter brand. I open the presentation with a look at my marketplace and target market needs, including my brand’s perceived benefits to customers and my competition. Next, I present brand positioning statements (p. 216) to summarize my current and future brand value propositions and points of difference. Lastly, after briefly comparing where my brand is now to where I would like it to be, I outline my strategy for developing the personal brand and accomplishing , highlighted by examples of how obtaining a Franklin University MCM degree will increase the product quality needed for successful brand development and management.
Understanding my market (who my customers are) and identifying my customers’ needs and wants constitute the first step in the marketing process (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p.5). My target markets include the entire Parkland campus community and ultimately, the Parkland district itself. I write content for everything from president catalog welcomes and trustee letters to the editor, to campus view books, new facility funding brochures for our college’s foundation, and campus event posters. My customers need to promote their Parkland College programs, services, and events to prospective students and the community, and they want this done in as efficient a manner as possible. I provide a wealth of benefits to these clients, both in terms of products and services, to meet these needs. First, I offer clients a customer-centric brand experience, not only welcoming them with a smile and patiently learning about the messages they want to deliver, but also providing suggestions as to message content that they did not even realize they wanted. Next, I help them craft the messages that will resonate most with their student audiences.; my ability to do this comes from more than 17 years in the writing and editing craft.
A part of the marketplace that needs to be understood are my competitors as well. I believe my competition to be minimal in my current position, as I am the college’s official marketing writer. However, it would be foolish to say such competition does not exist; therefore I extend “competitors” to include those faculty who choose to market their programs/events by crafting and sending their own recruitment messages and to the marketing department’s Creative Services manager, who also writes ads and edits promotional content (mainly, course schedules and catalogs) for our department. Neither competitor group seems to be doing anything actively to brand themselves, where it involves offering the services I do.
Designing a customer-driven marketing strategy, step two in the marketing process, starts with both choosing my clients (which really has already been decided for me, and deciding on my value proposition , “the full mix of benefits on which a brand is differentiated and positioned” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 214). The value proposition basically answers the question “why should customers choose the Ruthie Counter brand?” According to Kotler and Armstrong (2014), the strongest brands are positioned on “strong beliefs and values, engaging customers on a deep, emotional level” (p. 245). Thus, my positioning statement , or personal value proposition summary (p. 216), should reflect this level of focus. In my current positioning statement, I recognize that my current customers need someone who will help them and their programs look professional and inviting to students first, and also to community stakeholders. No only do I provide them with a warm, welcoming, and supportive environment in which to come and make their requests, but I use my journalistic talent and experience to help them craft just the right message that will attract and persuade their target audiences
In the future, however, I hope to bring the same warmth of personality, journalistic experience, writing talent to the Parkland College classroom as a full-time communication instructor, along with a more highly developed skill set that will better meet the needs of my new customers, the students. My future positioning statement reflects this as well.
As Kotler and Armstrong (2014) acknowledge, “even a differentiated, relevant brand is far from a shoe-in” (p. 245). Thus, from time to time, an analysis or brand audit, should be conducted to determine if brand equity is still high; this can also determine if the brand “can be better positioned by associating its name with a more desirable benefit” (p. 245). An assessment of the Ruthie Counter brand shows that my current brand’s product life cycle (PLC) is in the maturity stage, where “the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 274). I have a strong reputation as a writer on all levels of the college, and my services and client treatment have often been commended in written form, through marketing staff evaluations and notes of appreciation. Yet the assessment also reveals gaps between my current and future positioning statements that will require some brand and product development to overcome. First, while I do offer basic news writing instruction at Parkland, I am not considered a “Parkland College professor,” the concept area on my future positioning statement. Second, the point of difference detailed in my future positioning statement has not been met, that of combining real-world industry experience with “up-to-date curriculum and technological knowledge.”
I desire to narrow these gaps to avoid moving my current brand’s product life cycle (PLC) into the Decline stage. To do this, I plan to gradually and methodically reposition my market offering by means of product development and by so doing develop my brand by way of brand extension . In brand extension, a company extends an existing brand name to cover new products or to modified products in a new category (Kotler & Armstrong, 2014, p. 251). Thus, the Ruthie Counter brand of friendly, professional, and experienced marketing/public relations writing services will soon professorship as well. Yet in order to extend my brand and become the communication/marketing professor I desire to be at Parkland College or any community college, I must accomplish an advanced academic credential, the master’s degree. And while I possess some technological proficiencies suitable to meet my current value proposition, I must also obtain higher-level skills in the areas of communication and marketing to both maintain my PLC and move into new territories. I believe these areas of product quality improvement can be brought about through successful completion of the Franklin University MCM program. The program will teach me social media strategies, metrics used to analyze the impact of Internet marketing campaigns, and the “strategies underlying creative executions used in marketing communication campaigns” (Franklin University, 2013, para 3). In addition, I plan to take advantage of the school’s top-notch nationwide library and Student Learning Center, which help the online learner by offering relevant instructional materials, tutoring, skill-building workshops, structured learning assistance, and testing services.
It may be necessary for me to extend my brand markets beyond the realm of Parkland College, or even beyond community colleges in general. My Franklin education will put me in a strong position to do this. As Wolgemuth (2008) aptly puts it, “an expertise and identity that resonate outside your company can be highly valuable to your employer now—and highly valuable to you later, should you find yourself unemployed.” If need be, I will use my Franklin credentials to build a more impressive resume and distribute my newfound knowledge through social media tools such as LinkedIn and Facebook.
