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1. Successful Study Skills 4 Students, LLC
Strategic Plan
Michael Colonnese
Megan Girard
Christopher Sutherland
Daniella Matias

2. Review of Action Items:
▪ Evaluate current online marketing efforts
▪ Develop strategy for marketing communications (on and offline)
▪ Bring awareness to the lack of study skills being taught in local
education institutions
▪ Provide tactical opportunities for online advertising and
interactive communication using the organization’s website, and
social media
▪ Use social media to help establish S4 as a local/regional brand
and thought leader in study skills

3. S4’s Strategy Statement:
“To create a need by building
awareness around the lack of
study skills taught in the
education system and provide
specialized service in that area
of deficit in at least 30
workshops or more within the
Fairfield County area.”

5. The Closed-Loop Management System
▪ Mastering the Management System
by. Kaplan & Norton (2004)
▪ Loop has 5 stages
1. Develop the Strategy
2. Translate the Strategy
3. Plan Operations
4. Monitor and Learn
5. Test and Adapt the Strategy
▪ At the end of the 5 stage, the loop
restarts.

6. Stage 1: Develop the Strategy
▪ S4 current marketing strategy is good but flawed
– Social media & email correspondence reach intended market
– Newsletters filled with great information
▪ Lots of great marketing, but often sporadic and over
extended

7. Stage 2: Translate the Strategy
▪ S4’s 3 main goals for marketing strategy:
– Help parents understand study skills aren’t taught
– Encourage parents to ask their schools and districts for S4
– Ease apprehensions of educators
▪ We’ve shortened goals into 2 themes for suggested
marketing objectives:
– Educate Parents
– Get Parents to Request the Program from Schools

8. Educate Parents
▪ Create succinct & approachable messages
▪ Explore platforms in which to deliver messages
▪ Deliver messages and develop relationship with parents

9. Get Parents to Request S4 from
Schools
▪ Create understanding of “Study Skills” issue
▪ Develop incentives for “Referral Programs”
▪ Target Parents with more than 1 school-age child

11. Process Improvements: Website
Optimizations
▪ Homepage:
– The homepage looks very dated design wise. It brings the question
of whether or not S4’s study skill methods are also dated.
▪ Color Scheme:
– Red font often is associated with bad grades or errors. The excessive
use of red font should be minimized to help bring a positive feeling
to the site and feel more inviting to new visitors.
▪ Logo Leverage
– The logo can be difficult to read when it is transposed onto other
media vehicles such as Facebook and Patch.

12. Process Improvements: Website
Optimizations
▪ Social Media drivers:
– It is great that S4 has social media links to their other efforts. It is confusing to
the user why these are duplicated on the site in various places.
▪ Improve Staff Bio’s:

13. Content Transformation
Content is consumed on mobile/tablet
devices about 60% of internet usage
Focus on:
– Creating a “snackable” content
experience through existing email
content that is friendly “on-the-go”
– Provides value to target consumer
– Content that creates and builds trust
between brand and consumer
▪ eBook is a great example of this

15. Social Media: Opening the lines of
communication
Leverage S4’s existing social presence:
▪ Acquiring:
– Gain Fan Base
▪ Engaging
Paid > Earned > Owned

16. Acquiring: Invest and drive results
Research finds customers who engage with companies over social media are
more loyal-and-spend 20-40% more-with those companies than other
customers.

17. Acquiring: Social Media: A Model for
Success
2
3
4
5
Invest in the Right Fans Monitor Fan Statistics
1
Leverage
Company
Presence
Attract Fans
Engage Fans
Amplify
thru
Network
Analyze and
Refine
Develop Content Plan

18. Marketing that pays for itself
$
Value of a Fan
Unlimited ability to
message over time
# of marketing messages sent over time
Value
Cost

19. Engage: Value Your “Owned” Investment
Asks a short simple open ended
question that asks for fans to “Join
the Conversation”.
It also is capitalizing on page views to
their website by including a link to a
related article hosted on their site.
Fans engage. Can be used as a mini
focus group to get real time feedback.

20. National Public Radio: “Where We
Live”.
▪ What it is
▪ How it can work
▪ Frequency of listeners in target
demo
▪ How to leverage across other media
vehicles

21. Local Television: WTNH (ABC)
Back to School Campaign
▪ August – Got Your Back to School
– Campaign Goal: backpack & school supply drive to
benefit area organizations. Event hosted at a partner’s
location/s
– Timeline: event mid to late August with promotion
beginning a few weeks in advance
– Elements:
▪ On-air and online promotional campaign to drive viewers to donate
at the Got your Back to School Drive
▪ Connecticut Style segments with benefiting organizations
▪ News coverage – pre event promotion & event coverage

23. Google Adwords
▪ Great for small businesses
▪ Total control over costs and daily budgets
▪ Great tool for lead capture

24. Getting the Most from Google Adwords
▪ Keyword on website relevant to AdWords
ad
▪ Compelling ad text with strong call to
action driving to relevant page
– Drive to lead collector page
– Or drive to learn more
▪ Landing page must be updated
▪ The higher the Quality Score the lower
the bid

25. Gaining Access: Facebook Sponsored Stories

26. The world is talking about your
products and services
26
81%
say friends’ posts
influence their
purchases.
78%
say companies’ posts
influence their
purchases

28. Profitability Analysis
▪ From the Information Given, S4 is profitable with
great margins
▪ Schools currently receive $100/hr as commission
– As S4 becomes more popular, alternate commission opportunities may exist
▪ A per student commission would be an option as
well.

29. Expansion Strategies
▪ Divide the Program
– Analyze each student, see what skills they need
– Enter students in their needed sections of the workshop
– Alternate sections of the workshop
▪ Referral Incentives
– Offer discounts or rebates to students that refer other families.
– Examples: A free refresher course, any incentive to attract new families (financial
or non-financial)

30. Expansion Strategies
▪ Class Specific Sections
– A “How to prepare for exams” workshop exists.
– Offer Subject Specifics workshops
– Offer course specific workshops for each school
▪ Offer a Tester Lesson
– A preview lesson to attract unsure parents and students
– This lesson would be unique to the lessons learned in the workshop

31. Expansion Strategies
▪ Digital Courses
– Offer Skype classes, or paid downloadable lessons.
– A full workshop would offer more than the downloadable lessons.
▪ Membership to S4
– A paid membership would entitle students to refresher lessons, and unique
lessons that are released each year. These can be downloaded online
– This would be beneficial to students beginning middle school or high school.

33. Monitor Performance and Strategy
▪ Hold periodic Operational and Strategic Reviews
▪ Highlight and monitor Key Performance Indicators
▪ Adjust Targets for Seasonality (most volume in summer
months)
▪ Leverage CRM platform to track data
▪ Analyze historical figures to create forecasts
▪ Ensure operational plan aligns with strategy

34. Operational Reviews,
Recommendations and Measures
▪ New and existing venues for
workshops
▪ Physically interactive workshops
‘study games’
▪ Shorter sessions
▪ Re-occurring visits
– Plan to maintain relationships
over time
▪ Expansion beyond Fairfield
County
Monthly Target Plan Target Actual
Number of inbound calls
Number of inbound email
communications
Number of meetings with prospects
Number of new accounts / contacts
Number of Workshops
Students per Workshop
Number of Parent Sessions
Number of Tutoring Sessions

35. Marketing Reviews and
Recommendations
 Website, Google Ad Words, Social Media, Radio, etc.
 Referral Promotions
– Percentage of cost
– Small gift offer
 Total leads generated from each source
– Survey, other tracking system
– Allocate more resources to most effective lead source

36. Financial Review and Recommendations
▪ Reduce teacher’s pay from $100 to $50 per hour
– Increase margins
– Reduce breakeven point by 1 student
▪ Price discounting
– Larger groups
▪ Purchase or rent venue in high volume location(s)
▪ Establish target budget for costs
▪ Ongoing profitability analysis
▪ Measure revenues from each type of session offered
– Establish targets
– Review percentage of total revenues