Marketing Plan for the Prairie School in Racine, WI

1. 2012-
2013
Prairie School
Marketing Plan
Marketing Principles
Carthage College
5/9/2012
Melissa Jamnik
Natalie Tosti
Katie Hiller
TJ Trepanier
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2. Prairie School Sales & Marketing Plan
Executive Summary…………………………………………………… ……….
The Prairie school was founded in 1965. The school enhances each individual
child’s learning experience with a mission to develop leadership and character. The goal
of the school is to develop humane, tolerant, creative, well-schooled, and self-confident
leaders through the schools rigorous academic programs that enhance individual talents
and abilities.
The purpose of this marketing plan is to help increase enrollment for the Prairie
primary and middle schools. Our target markets are higher income families with the
intentions of providing their child with a well-rounded education. In order to achieve this,
Prairie school needs to broaden their reach of families within the region. Some ideas to
promote the school are to set up advertising ads and social media networks that will
enhance the school’s image.
Also, the school would like to decrease its use of financial aid. To do this, the
school should set up fundraisers and a call center to reach out to alumni and friends.
This should help increase funds for scholarships and minority enrollment. Other ideas to
raise money are to hold social events such as carnivals, or market days. The school
could even have car washes or set up promotions with a local restaurant to give a
percentage of sales to the school.
In addition to increasing funds and broadening perspective family reach, this plan
intends to establish a budget to help develop transportation and advertising. We are
seeking to keep the budget under a minimal amount and to minimize travel times and
expenses for parents. Our intentions for the school are to keep families and children
interested in the strong values that Prairie school has to offer.
Business Objectives…………………………………… ……………………….
• Enroll over 40 Kindergarteners in the 2013 school year.
• Bring financial aid awards given to students down to 30% within two years.
• Increase transportation and marketing ads

3. Situation Analysis………………………………… …………………………….
Social Media
This graph represents the market share % of online social media sites used in the US between
April 2011 & April 2012
Key Observations:
• Population is shrinking, therefore social media needs to be enhanced to increase
audience awareness
Objectives:
• Increase Facebook “likes” & Twitter followers by adding more pictures and more posts
about the school and upcoming events
• Establish a “My Big Campus” account (easy way for administration, parents, and
students to connect that is based on academics and learning)

4. Financial aid
This chart indicates the household income grouped by income range as a percentage of total respondent
population in Racine

5. Key Observations:
• Too much financial aid is being distributed to families
Objectives:
• Connect to consumers emotions by creating ad campaigns and commercials so that
more families become familiar with the school
• Hold fundraisers
Increase minorities
Ethnic Enrollment Summary
c t y
0%
%
4% 3%
% % 3%
% 3%
% Asian
n
4%
%
8%
% African-American
n
Caucasian
n
Middle Eastern
e n
Hispanic/Latino
o
75%
%
International
l
Multi-racial
l
Native American
e n
Key Observations:
Mostly Caucasian (75%) students enrolled in the school.
Objectives:

6. • Create minority scholarships by contacting previous alumni and by having fundraisers in support
of diversity enrollment.
• Hold minority essay contest for scholarship
Population is decreasing
Key Observations:
• The population of children in Racine County has been decreasing over the last three years.
We believe this is a contributing factor as to why the Prairie School has been seeing
decreased enrollment.
Objectives:
• Prairie School needs to broaden their reach beyond Racine County and target people in
other cities to increase enrollment
• In order to enroll students from other cities, buses to other cities and pick up areas will be
organized
• An ad campaign will be launched to target other cities as well
The following is a graph showing the enrollment of the school from 2009-2012

7. SAM Diagram..………………..…………………………… …………………….
(see attached)
Key Issues/Opportunities………..……………………………… ………….
Through the analysis of Prairie School, several key issues and opportunities became apparent. In order
for Prairie School to move forward in their effort to gain enrollment and meet their business objectives,
these key issues must be addressed.
• People view the school as exclusive and pretentious
Potential student families of Prairie school view the school as exclusive, and unwelcoming. As a
result there is minimal school enrollment in terms of new families wanting to be a part of the
Prairie school community
• Financial Aid is overused
Due to the high enrollment price of The Prairie School, it is hard for most families in the Racine
area to afford the tuition.

8. • Social Media is Underdeveloped
While prairie school has an active Facebook page, with various photos of the school’s
community, they do not provide potential clients with a look into the school’s academic life. In
addition to this, the school does highlight various student accomplishments in extra curricular
activities, however it does not include a diverse outlook in terms of social classification, culture,
ethnicity, etc.
• Lack of Minorities attending the school
Prairie school has a lack of minorities in the elementary school. For example, according to the
National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2009-2010 school year the school had 555 white
students, 52 Asian students, 24 Hispanic students, and 15 Black students. Today the ethnicity
enrollment is 82% white, 7% Asian, 3% Hispanic, 2% black. These numbers prove that the school
has an underdeveloped minority representation.
Target Market……………………………………………………………… ……..
The selected target markets are families with an income of $125,000 or above.
Marketing Objectives:……………………………………………… ………..
• To create diversity by advertising online to specific groups of people.
• To lower the amount of financial aid given to students by aiming to increase the amount
of wealthy families attending the school.
• To improve social media sites by hiring someone or putting someone in charge of
updating them on a regular basis.
• To increase enrollment by 20% by reaching out to more families.
Tactics (overview)………………………………………………… …………….
Ad Campaign
An ad campaign will be put together involving mail out flyers and informational DVDs,
billboards, magazine ads, newspaper ads, and television commercials.

9. Alumni Sponsored Scholarships
Alumni and local businesses will be contacted to find people to sponsor scholarships. This will
help Prairie spend less money giving out financial aid.
Promote Prairie via Facebook and Twitter
Facebook and Twitter pages will be updated frequently with attention grabbing statuses to
promote awareness of the school.
Buses to Pick-up Areas
Buses and/or shuttle vans will be organized to pick up students to bring them to and from
Prairie to ease parents’ travel and broaden reach
Fundraising
Fundraising will be organized to collect money in order to provide scholarships to students who
need financial aid. Call centers will also be set up to collect money for scholarships.
Tactics (detailed)………… …………………………………………… ……….
Ad Campaign
The Prairie School needs an organized ad campaign to increase awareness of the school and
advertise to school’s qualities and strong points. This ad campaign will have billboards, print
ads mailed out, ads in local newspapers and magazines, and local TV commercials. Billboard
locations will need to be designed by an advertising agency. Print ads will be mailed to families
that fall within the target market. Ads in local newspapers and magazines will be put in
publications read by the target market.
Alumni Sponsored Scholarships
Alumni will be contacted to ask if any are interested in sponsoring a scholarship. A list of
alumni will be provided by Prairie, and then directly contact by faculty or students of the
school. Scholarships can be designed specifically to target certain applicants such as minorities
or athletes. The purpose of scholarships is to broaden reach to students who can’t afford the
tuition and to increase minority enrollment.

10. Promote Prairie via Facebook and Twitter
The objective of Prairie’s social media is to increase awareness of the school and promote
events for free. The Facebook and Twitter pages will be updated frequently so info is
constantly popping up on people’s news feeds on the media sites. This method is used because
it is free of cost and extremely direct. It will get information out quickly and will be read by the
consumer immediately.
Buses to Pick-up Areas
A bus company will need to be contacted to hire drivers to pick up students at designated
locations where parents can drop them off. For smaller pick-up spots with fewer students, a
shuttle will be purchased by the Prairie school to pick up and drop off students at school. This
will ease the life of parents so they won’t have to spend time driving to and from the school.
This will also broaden the reach of the school, and will now be able to enroll students that live
further away from Prairie. The shuttle service will be complimentary.
Fundraising
Fundraising will be enhanced by the school to be put in a special financial aid account. Financial
aid and scholarships will be given from this account so lower income families can come to
Prairie School. Fundraising will include a call center and events to raise money. The idea of the
fundraisers will be to give everyone an equal opportunity for a great education and learning
experience. This will also help eliminate the perception people hold of the school that the
school is snotty and exclusive because they are reaching out to help others.
Budgets and Timetables ……………………… …………… ………….
Busses
• Estimated cost to buy a bus: $50,000 (small)
• Total amount of busses needed: 3
• Total cost: $150,000

11. Ads
• Bulletin Boards: $12,000 (per year)
• Radio ads: $500 (per week)
• Print ad: $500
• Newspaper print ads: $200 (per copy)
• Total cost: $170,000 (per year)
Supporting Material………………………… ………………………………….
FOCUS GROUP REPORT:
I. Introduction
A. Goal=to get a good understanding of the thoughts of the school’s parents on
parenting & education
B. Open and honest views
C. Couple 1- 5 kids; 18-16 year old go to Harborside Charter school
Parent 2- 3 daughters that go to St. Monica in Milwaukee
Parent 3- 12-year-old girl attends Lake Geneva middle school
Parent 4- 4 kids that go to Prairie
Couple 5- 5 kids, use home schooling
II. The Parent’s Education
A. Couple 1- Husband went to school in Washington, mostly Hispanic schools, wife
went to public school in Minnesota
1. Wife remembers going at her own pace which helped her out more than
following Special Ed classes, where she was behind
2. Husband- Loved teachers who were creative and spent time on things they loved
B. Couple 5- Lived in Georgia, high school did not offer college prep classes
C. Parent 4- Grew up in Queens NY (public school until 17) finished HS in Texas
D. Parent 2 -went to Catholic Schools in Ohio
1. Loved community feel
E. Parent 3- went to small school in Walworth county
III. School Shopping/Considerations
A. Home schooling-parents wanted to be main influence in child’s life

12. 1. Couple 5- home schooled because they didn’t like any schools in neighborhood,
school was looking for minorities
B. Teacher/student relationship
1. Very important- Parent 2 had a daughter who wasn’t “fitting in”
a. Location and distance are key, daughter had different group of friends outside
of school because she was from a different neighborhood
2. Couple 1- Notices the difference in teachers who really care and those who are
teaching for their summer vacations
C. School qualities
1. Couple 1- wants a school that pushes the exploration of ideas, doesn’t care
about “getting into Harvard” cares about being well-rounded and wants kids to
come home happy instead of doing 5 hours of homework at night
2. Community feel- Tours are welcoming and school invites parents to sit in on the
classroom, invites them to school functions. Schools that ask questions to the
parents are more appealing than the parent asking questions to the school
3. Down to earth teachers
4. Direct instruction and curriculum based, rather than a technology focused
5. Small schools- child feels more included and involved
IV. Primary School Selection
A. Little things count-teachers really need to focus on each child individually rather than
as a whole
1. “Wants a teacher that shares the wonders out there”
PRAIRIE SCHOOL REVIEWS
“The elementary and middle schools have been awesome, great teachers who care and spend
their time and want to help the students learn.”
“Prairie has been a wonderful experience for all four of our children. The faculty has always
been attentive to the students needs, and even though the tuition is high they will work with
parents who are in financial straits and need a little help. The coursework prepares the students
well for college and the activities and expectations prepare the children to be supports to
society. The facilities are beautiful and well maintained, and the support this school receives
from the private sector is outstanding. If you have never been aware of the Prairie School, look

13. into it, it is a beautiful place to learn and grow. And to address the cliques ganging up on one
another, this is nothing more than student peer pressure, no gang activity involved at all. This is
a good student body, with great students leading it. And the faculty stays on top of any
e
egregious behavior.” --Submitted by a parent
“I have been going here for 5 years and I love it. There are endless opportunities at this school”
--Submitted by a student
“The Prairie School is a business, not a school. The teachers are outstanding, but the
administration has little concern for the well being of the students. The students at the school
are excessively cliquey and those who are included in the cliques are left to fend against
torment from their peers. This may cause psychological problems including depression.
Essentially, if your children are not accepted by the students, expect to pay more than the price
of tuition, for you will be paying for numerous visits to the shrink.”
“We have three kids at Prairie, they are excellent at all grade levels. We had been at another
p
private school in the area and can say without question Prairie is the best around”. --Submitted
by a parent
“With two children at the school, I can attest that they are getting the best educational
experience they could receive in the SE Wisconsin area. This is a child-centered school that is
not forced to follow ridiculous NCLB test-them-to-death standards, allowing for true in-depth
learning to occur. The teachers are all dedicated, and work tirelessly, but a large part of what
makes the school work in concert with the teachers is that all of the families are also invested in
the proper education of their children, allowing for higher standards to be met. In your average
public school with average clientele, it is impossible to shoot very high when not everybody is
on board with what is important. The only downsides: While the school professes low tuition
compared to its class of school, they continue to raise tuition considerably each year, despite
the economic times. This is hitting many hard, and affects the school's parent climate
considerably. The Upper School is solid in its content, but extremely old school in its delivery.
They need to become more current in their methods, and not so focused on output and fact-
regurgitation”