Are Subscription-Based & Open-Source Apps, The Future of Social Media.pdf
Microsoft Protege
1. Microsoft Protégé
[Year]
BY SHAUN HUTCHINS (MIT141122),JOHNROXAS (MIT141127)
& DYLANKANG (MIT140489)
MELBOURNE INSTITUE OF TECHNOLOGY| Consumer Behaviour BK202
2. 1
Executive Summary
This report will contain the marketing campaign of the free launch of Microsoft Office 365®
for students. The goal of this campaign is to spread awareness, achieve 1 million downloads
and maintain sustained usage. To spread awareness we aim to create a video that displays
Office 365®’s uses by the student body in which they use software to do their projects, as well
as to spread news about Office 365® and hold workshops within community centres around
low income areas. With 25% of Australia's population being students, both local and
international (1,313,776), it will be highly achievable to reach the 1 million downloads. By
promoting its free download to not only university students but also to underprivileged students
it will be possible to obtain 1 million downloads and finally sustained usage can be maintained
by providing students with new programs that they can use to further their studies, such as a
social media outlet that also can be used as a word document that multiple students can access
at the same time.
The budget that has been set for this campaign is $200,000 which we split into sections, with
$60,520 on the creation of the video, $40,000 on social media advertising (Facebook® &
YouTube®) and $30,000 on the community centre workshop (including location hire, fliers
and possible wage to students who aid in this outreach program). This leaves $64,480 of the
budget to relocate where it is needed or to fall back on as a contingency plan, with a total overall
cost of $135,520. This will be done over a 3 month period.
Measurement of this can be achieved by, tracking how many views are made from the social
media advertisements which will aid in determining the level of awareness from students, data
collection of how many students sign up for the free Office 365® will assist in tracking the
progress of our final goal of 1 million downloads, adding a counter to each student email
address that is used when registering will allow us to see how many times they login and
determine the level of sustained usage, and finally adding a feedback system to the registration
page to allow us to see where they heard about this free offer and determine which method
works the best.
4. 3
1.0: Introduction
Microsoft® has always been the go to source for any and all work related software, which can
range from students and teaching facility to high corporate usage, whether it is used for writing
a report or essay on Word, making up a spreadsheet on Excel® or designing a presentation with
PowerPoint®, Microsoft® has provided all of these services and now with Office 365®, the
company can provide an even better service to its customers. Office 365® will be a program
that is free to download for anybody who has a valid .edu.com email address, be they students
or facility. By doing this Microsoft® can spread awareness of this new system and all the
features that is offers as well as pinpoint a demographic for its marketing campaign, also by
making incredible program free for students they are providing a better service to those students
who have low income and are unable to purchase the full retail price version of this program.
The following report will cover the student demographic, why it was chosen, the needs of this
demographic and what behaviours they have that may influence their choices in using or not
using this system. A marketing strategy will also be included which will cover the execution
plan (how the product will be advertised), any objectives that will be aimed for and Key
Performance Indicators that will be tracked during the duration of the three month campaign
and finally a detailed outline of the budget plan and the time frame in which this campaign will
operate.
2.0: Target Market insight
The main demographic for the Microsoft Office 365® campaign is university students, with
25% of Australia's population being students, both local and international (1,313,776) (Network,
2015). They are the focus for the Office 365® campaign due to the fact that by having access
and being able to download the free product will greatly help university students with their
education. Since the software is free, university students need not spend any money to acquire
the software meaning that they would not pass up the opportunity to download it and it will
provide support for those underprivileged students who are unable to afford the retail version
of Office 365®. University students then can focus on completing their assignments with ease
without needing to worry about raising funds in order to be able to use the software. Not only
that but since the software is free of cost, this gives the consumers the freedom to explore the
software and get comfortable in using it without any pressure of a trial period. The main reason
in which Office 365® is targeted to tertiary students is due to the fact that the students will have
continuous use of Office 365® meaning that Microsoft® can maintain the market with the
students. Not only that, but since there is no short supply of students but instead the opposite
and the student body is increasing, this means that Microsoft will have more opportunities for
students to acquire Office 365®. Low income households consist of 22% of the total population
within Australia (Abs.gov.au, 2015) and by targeting this market as well as the average
university students we will be able reach the target goal of 1 million downloads and provide a
beneficial service to those students that are from low income households with this free product.
5. 4
3.0: Objectives
To achieve our ideal marketing strategy several objectives and indicators will be set in order to
track the progress of this campaign. There are currently three key objectives that will need to
be achieved in order for this to be a successful campaign. The first being awareness, spreading
awareness of this new system to the target market is essential for success of Office 365®. Our
second objective is to drive 1 million downloads within a three month period and last but
certainly not least is the sustained usage of Office 365® after it has been downloaded.
Our marketing strategy will be tailored with these three key objectives in mind which will be
broken down into three sub-sections below for a more detailed outline of each one.
3.1: Awareness
The first step with any new product to it make it known to the consumer. Our aim is to make
Office 365® the first thing that comes to mind when a student thinks about any assessment,
report, spreadsheet or presentation and to have Office 365® be the program that they seek to
fulfil this need. In order to spread the awareness of this amazing system we intend to target our
advertising in high student traffic areas such as city/public libraries and university campus’ and
making sure that the consumer is aware that this product is indeed FREE for students to
download. Examples of some means to spread awareness can be through social media, which
at present represents a large part of the student lifestyle. By obtaining a partnership with a
company like Facebook® for example would open a large number of doors in which we can
advertise this product to the target demographic. Another method to market this product would
be to display this product on YouTube®, as it is also a frequented site for students to utilize.
The reasoning behind these two outlets is that high volumes of students use both of these
websites and thus all but guaranteeing. Thousands of videos are view each and every day on
YouTube which provide us great opportunity to display our product to the target market
through our video advertisement. Another way to spread awareness to those students who are
from low income families would be to place fliers at community centres promoting the free
Office 365® as well as having workshops that run twice a week to teach those underprivileged
students how to use this software, this can be done by recruiting students from large universities
that are advocates of the student community to do an “outreach” program to those students who
are underprivileged.
3.2: One Million Downloads
The target goal set for this campaign is one million downloads. We believe this is a very
achievable goal as the student body takes up a large portion of the population and is constantly
growing. The overall target will be measured through Key Performance Indicators that will be
set for each month, this will include 350,000 download target for each month. Additionally, we
could track how many people renew their Office 365® each year in order to measure whether
or not people do in fact find the product useful and if they generally like it. By renewing their
Office 365® shows that they are not just trying it out for a year but instead they actively renew
Office 365® because they find it necessary in accordance with their studies and education. We
track how many students renew their Office 365® after the first year and we then use that
number in order to measure and create Key Performance Indicators in accordance with the
results of the renewal. By meeting this target each month will not only get us the one million
6. 5
downloads but also push us over that initial target, setting the monthly target to this amount
will allow us some “wiggle” room should one month fail to meet that target as it can be easily
made up in the following months. However should the monthly target fall drastically low then
a backup strategy will be implemented in which case the Key Performance Indicators for the
following months will be increased and a greater push on awareness will be done through more
advertising (should the budget allow it). One such method in attaining the 1 million downloads
would be to offer something additional to students who sign up with a student email address
and obtain the free download, to achieve this we brainstormed ideas as to what we could offer
and one such idea stood out above the rest. However the idea in question can only be realised
by aiming to have an additional program specifically for the free student download of Office
365® that will enable users to access a number of different, this additional feature will only be
available for students who sign up for the free version of the program using a student email
address. By doing this we will be able to reach our goal of one million downloads as it provides
students with a helpful feature to further their studies.
3.3: Sustained Usage
The final objective in this marketing strategy is to maintain sustained usage of Office 365® by
students. By obtaining sustained usage it will help to determine the success of this strategy and
provide a great resource for students throughout their schooling and continue that long after
they have finished. In order to determine if this product has achieved this objective of sustained
usage it must be tractable in some way, this can be done relatively easily with Office 365®’s
login system, by counting the amount of times a user has login will allow us to get a better
understanding of how often they use this program. Various methods can be implemented to
achieve sustained usage, such as adding additional programs/features to the Office 365®. An
idea to this is that asuniversity students are much busier than perceived within their lives. Many
have different schedules and extracurricular activity. Simple things such as checking emails
become forgettable and assignment due dates are forgotten. Eliminating this time consuming
factor. Considering checking email is a struggle as it is, imagine an application that will remind
you when your work is due and you can uphold conversations/word documents with your
friends while editing the same thing. Many have this social media as a connection to socialize,
this social media outlet will be exclusively used for doing homework, much in the same manner
as Facebook® or LinkedIn® but with features like Google Docs®. This extra application would
be easily accessible for University students as a common factor in which they socialize. This
additional program throws the undemanding way in which students are able to work together
in a safe and controlled environment. It eliminates emailing partners back and forth alongside
remembering the long complex numbered email addresses. This feature could have a chat
feature included so that students can communicate with each other while they work on their
projects for school. By having this feature students will have more incentive to return to Office
365® and use it regularly.
4.0: Execution plan
To achieve a successful marketing campaign users must be made aware of the features and
benefits of the product in question, advertise directly to the target market - in this case students
- in order to make them aware of this product and its uses. With our marketing campaign we
aim to promote this product in a number of different aspects that will appeal to our target
7. 6
market. The first being the benefits this product will bring to the average student, including all
Office 365® systems (word, PowerPoint, excel etc.). In order to market Office 365®, we aim
to advertise in places that are very student heavy to achieve the maximum exposure to this
product as we can get. One method to achieve this is to go viral, nothing spreads faster than
videos over the internet. An idea for the video in question would begin with a group of
university students finishing a presentation to their class and just after the class applauds a
“flashback” begins in which the progress of creating the presentation is shown and within this
flashback the use of Office 365® will be shown by the students as they work on their
presentation. This can be shown by for example having one of the students sitting in a cafe
working on the presentation and upon adding some additional stuff instant messages one of the
partners in the group using Office 365® that they have added it and ask for feedback, the camera
will go split screen to the partner, who is say out with friends, just as he/she receives the instant
message and using Office 365®’s cloud system they login on their smartphone and check the
progress of the work and make a reply back/add something else to the work. By showing this
it displays Office 365®’s quick connect ability and ease of access from anywhere and on any
device. This will be followed by a few other short clips of the presentations creation while also
showing off Office365®’s other features. Following the “flashback” the camera will return to
the students in the classroom and just before it ends one student steps forward and asks to the
camera, “any questions?” Closing with this statement will leave the viewer to think about what
they just saw and perhaps even instil a sense of curiosity in them to search for Office 365® in
an effort to find out more information about the product and to satisfy any questions that may
have arisen follow the clip. Another addition to this is to display a message following the final
comment by the student about how Office 365® is free to students who sign up with their
student email address, providing even more incentive to seek out this program. Finally holding
workshops in underprivileged areas will also help to promote the product to those students who
may have never considered getting this product as it may have been too expensive for them
and it will also provide them with some knowledge of how to use this product to better further
their studies and become successful within their class and allow them to feel more confident
with doing their projects, be it for school or work.
5.0: Budget and timeline
The budget that has been set for this campaign is at $200,000 this will cover our execution
costs as well as advertising cost. We have decided to allocate this budget into two sections, one
being the production and creation of the video itself while the other part will be dedicated to
the actual marketing of the video. The first part of this budget will be used to create the video
in which we aim to promote Office365®, this will include the pre-production, production,
equipment, hired talent and location hire, the post production cost for the video will be at
$17,020 in total and the total production cost will be at $43,500. This totals to $60,520 of the
total $200,000 budget, leaving the rest on advertisement. The second part of the budget
($139,480) will be then dedicated to the sharing and distribution of the finished version video.
Deciding upon advertising on social media we have determined that both Facebook and
YouTube are viable options to reach the target market. By utilizing Facebook we will be able
to allocate a set budget and timeframe for the ad to run while also maintaining complete control
over the budget and timeframe in which it runs. Pricing for Facebook advertising works on a
pay per day method for over a set period of time so we have allocated a budget of $222 for 3
months as the initial budget, this totals to $20,000. Facebook also provides the option to
increase the budget if the ad is performing well or to halt it should it be under performing. As
for YouTube the cost of running an advertisement is considerable low and is based on a pay
8. 7
per view system thus providing a cheap form of advertising and again will have a large
exposure to the target market. Each view for an advertisement for runs at about 0.10c - 0.30c
(Videomi.com, 2015), viewers need only to watch the first 30 seconds of a clip to incite a charge.
As with Facebook® we have allocated $20,000 for the initial run of advertisement. The initial
budget for advertising will be at $40,000 for both websites, however should they both perform
well then and additional $30,000 will be allocated to each one, this leaves the remaining budget
amount at $64,480 with a total expenditure of $135,520. However if one fails to perform well
then the remaining budget for that section ($30,000) will then be relocated to the more
successful of the two. Alternatively another way to allocate the left over budget funds, should
the advertisements be successful, would be to hold introduction courses of Office 365® for
those underprivileged students, $30,000 of the remaining budget could be used to hire a small
room within a local community centre of an underprivileged area to teach the local students
about the advantages of Office 365®, how to use the software and provide information and
promote the fact that it is free to students with a valid student email address. See appendix for
budget expenses.
The timeframe in which we aim to run this marketing campaign will be over a 3 month period,
in which time we will strive to promote the awareness of this campaign through the video by
showing what the product is, its functions and its student free download. In addition to
achieving our 1 million download target and sustained usage.
6.0: Measurement and Conclusion
6.1: Measurement
A way in which the success of this campaign can be measured is by counting up the amount of
people who view our advertisement through the social media outlets, this will help us to
understand the depth of awareness that is being received by the population, also by tracking
the number of students that register to Office 365® with their student emails will allow us to
determine the amount of downloads we have received and how far we are from our target goal
and finally by tracking the login on of students over the short term will give us an understanding
of the sustained usage of this product, alternatively detailing how many students re-register
their student email for Office 365® each year will provide us with information about sustained
usage over the long term. Adding a feedback system to the signup process will also provide us
information as to where the students heard about this product and help us to determine which
method works best for advertising.
6.2: Conclusion
In conclusion, in order to achieve our ideal marketing strategy, we need to target the
demographic which are university and low income students while also trying to achieve the
three main objectives which are to spread awareness of this incredible free product, one-million
downloads within the student body and finally the sustained usage of Office 365®. By making
these the key objectives, this means that Microsoft® will not only gain customers but also
attract new customers to the Microsoft brand and maintain a healthy level of satisfaction with
9. 8
this system. This will all be done while keeping within the budget of $200,000 and the
timeframe of 3 months.
7.0: Appendices
Budget
Overall Production Time Cost Per Hour Total Cost
Pre-Production 4 Days
Conception $150/ph. $3,600
Scripting $150/ph. $3,600
Storyboard $150/ph. $3,600
Talent Search $50/ph. $1,200
Location Search $20/ph. $520
Props $1,500
Wardrobe $3,000
Total $17,020
Production 5 Days
Editing 175/ph. $5,250
Graphics 175/ph. $5,250
Actors 150/ph. $5,000
Equipment
Camera 100/ph. $3,200
Film Lenses 100/ph. $3,200
Stock 100/ph. $3,200
Audio 100/ph. $3,200
Lighting 100/ph. $3,200
Location 400/ph. $12,000
Total $43,500
Advertisement Spots 3 Months
Facebook Initial Run $20,000
YouTube Initial Run $20,000
Total $40,000
Workshop/Tutorial Lesson
Room Hire $15,000
Teacher $5,000
Equipment’s $10,000
Total $30,000
Total Budget $200,000
Overall Cost $135,520
10. 9
Budget Remainder $69,480
Note: IfInitial Run budget on Advertisement Spot is drained, add
$30,000 on top from remaining budget.
8.0: References
Network, A. (2015). Student Numbers at Australian Universities |
AustralianUniversities.com.au.Australianuniversities.com.au. Retrieved 30 April 2015, from
http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/directory/student-numbers/
Abs.gov.au, (2015). 6523.0 - Household Income and Income Distribution, Australia, 2011-12. Retrieved 29
April 2015, from
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/6523.0Feature% 20Article12011-
12?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=6523.0&issue=2011-12&num=&view=
Videomi.com, (2015). Home » A Guide to Advertising & Production Costs. Retrieved 29 April 2015, from
http://www.videomi.com/blog/archives/958