Topic:

For my senior capstone project, I am going to be making a marketing plan for the Audubon Society, a non-profit organization that works towards the conservation of birds and their habitats. The marketing plan is going to consist of me doing market research into the Audubon Societies’ audience to figure out who their target audience is and how to increase brand awareness and to work towards to goal of increasing donations receiving. Included in the marketing plan will be strategies on how to reach the goal of increasing donations, as well as creating different media and content to get people to join the organization. The Audubon Society is always looking for new members and more donations to keep its mission going and continue to protect birds and their environment. 

I have always been very passionate about the environment and conservation is something that I care about a lot, and my sister who is extremely passionate about the environment and frequently goes birding works for the Audubon Society so I am very interested and excited to do this for. Especially because this project is very much connected to my future professional goals in marketing and would give me some great experience in this field. This project would give allow me to do a bit of market research, market strategy, and creating content used to promote the organization.

Form:

My project will take form through many different mediums. One of them is the main marketing plan document which will be formatted and showcase some designs and graphics that I will make for the company as a part of the marketing plan. There will also be promotional content created which will include bumper stickers, posters, podcast episodes, short promotional audio clips that could be added to sponsored content, as well as different products that would be sent to members.  

Example of the title page and table of contents for marketing plan document:

Audience and Impact:

The primary audience for this project would be the Audubon Society itself. The marketing plan will be made for them to see the overall plan I have come up with for their organization and they are the organization that the marketing plan is made for so it would need to be pitched to them. The secondary audience is the target market, these are the people that the marketing plan is going after and the content made for the marketing plan would be targeted towards. The Audubon society would be interested because this is the plan for growing their brand awareness and increasing the number of donations they will receive and the target audience would be interested because they are the ones who will be targeted by the plan and the content and they are the people I am trying to reach and get to join the organization. The impact I hope to have is to increase the overall donations that the Audubon Society receives as well as get people more involved in the organization.  

Prior Experience:

Previously in an Integrated Marketing and Communications course, I had launched a fake brand extension for Vizzy Hard Seltzer. I also have experience with making content whether it be audio, or visual content such as posters, stickers, and packaging. This project will differ from other projects I have done because it will combine aspects of many different projects I have worked on and combine them into one. It will be more in-depth than my previous brand extension because it will include me creating tailored-made content as well as creating a full document of my plan rather than just a presentation that I had done before. It will also be different from a number of projects I have made for Communications courses because it will be a cohesive collection of content made for the same group with the intent to get their advocacy and get them to join the Audubon Society. This Project will challenge me to use all of the different skills I have from my prior projects and use them together cohesively, it will also be the largest project I have had to do so far.

Educational Experience:

This project will showcase skills I have learned in both Communications and in Marketing over my time at Saint Joseph’s University. On the marketing side, it will showcase what I have learned in market research, identifying my target market and what appeals to them. It will show what I have learned in courses like Consumer Behavior, Integrated Marketing Communications, Marketing Strategy, and Principle of Marketing on how to make a marketing campaign that will grow brand awareness, grow membership, get involvement, and what sort of strategies 

work with my target audience. On the communications side, it will show what I have learned in my advanced design class of how to make something visually appealing to your intended audience and how to use programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Indesign, and Photoshop. Specifically from that course, I learned how people react to different design themes, different colors and different shapes, and the reactions that all of these things invoke. It will also showcase my skills with using audio and using Adobe Audition that I got from Digital Field Methods and how to properly make audio and video content.   

Example of previous Market Research:

Research:

The research that I will need to do for this project will mostly be market research. I need to figure out who is most likely to donate to the Audubon Society, this will involve me using the data available on the Audubon website, or any information they can give me, as well as doing other research on websites such as Nielson or using the SJU library database to narrow down a specific demographic and target market. I will also be researching some other related organizations to see what it is they do to get a better understanding of what the market is like and what the competition is doing. Some of this may require me to do surveys to get any information that I do not already have. I have experience doing this kind of research in my Marketing Research course where we did this same research for a group called the Black Bourbon Society. 

Obstacles and Resources:

Some obstacles I could possibly see are with getting participants in a potential survey that I might do. I also could have issues with the small podcast I planned on doing, the difficulty here is that I had planned to make a sample episode or two of an Audubon Society podcast about different bird species, their environments, and the threats they face. The trouble I might have with this is that my sister currently lives in Vermont and I would not be able to get the best audio possible if we are not in the same area and she does not have the proper equipment. The resources I will need for this project are a USBC microphone, as well as different software programs such as Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Audition, and Photoshop. There are also resources that I can use through the SJU library to use for market research.  

Timelines:

The First step of the project is going to be doing research about the market so I can define a target market so I can understand who to make to go after. Next, I will need to strategize on how to reach this target market and what best appeals to them, and how to tailor my content to those audiences. Once I have come up with my strategy I will write up the report of my marketing plan which will later be transferred into a well-designed document that looks appealing. That final document will be made after I make the actual content that is meant to be shared with members such as the stickers, shirts, and other content I have previously mentioned. After all that is done, it will be put together into a document showcasing the marketing plan along with the different content made for the plan.