Brayden Bork, Austin Medvec, Jordan Schiphoff, Cassie Schoenhard, Gabbie Sorrentino

USD BEACOM SCHOOL OF BUSINESS DIGITAL

MARKETING PLAN
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION PROGRAM
Digital Marketing Audit

Business Mission Statement

From the University website Beacom School of Business webpage: “The Beacom School of
Business' mission is excellence in undergraduate and graduate education that develops successful
future business leaders. We deliver high value to our students, employers and community
through distinctive teaching and learning supported by significant intellectual and professional
contributions and meaningful service.”

Business Goals
The Beacom School of Business’ Executive Education Program is committed to helping
businesses in the state and region recruit and retain high-quality business professionals. The
Executive Education program initiative aims to provide training opportunities to working
professionals and senior executives in the state in order to make businesses achieve higher
productivity and enhance their competitiveness. In correspondence with our digital marketing
plan, Beacom has developed some business goals they would like to achieve: Expanding the
reach of target market past a 2 hour drive (midwest) for potential business professionals that seek
the opportunity to enhance their career, as well as increasing the number of participants signed
up in each course. Throughout our digital marketing plan, we will create what actionable items
we believe will not only achieve their business goals, but as well as our goals we have set for
them as their respective marketing team.

Catalyst for Audit

Channels Activity & Schedule
Search They have selected keywords for
each program that is ran and they
use those keywords in their
website content, articles that are
written about the program and
other marketing materials.
Those keywords are the focus of
their paid-search campaigns and
their digital ads. No long tail
strategy identified.
Current Effectiveness
Rating (1-5)
Effectiveness rating: 4
They do have a good strategy
for using keywords in various
marketing materials, however,
they are not using any long tail
strategy. Using a long tail
strategy for the Executive
Education Program could
essentially help the program
grow if Beacom were to
recommend the program
immediately on the Beacom
page, or on other parts of the
USD website as well to appeal
to business professionals that
might specialize in a unique line
of work.
Referral The social platforms they use for
Beacom are Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and
Snapchat. Facebook & Instagram
are most active. Linked In is
used more heavily when they are
running the Executive Education
campaigns. It really is a hybrid.
They have some scheduled posts
that they identify at the launch of
a new set of courses. This
includes custom content, as well
as shares of paid content through
SiouxFalls.Business. Several
posts will be tied around an
upcoming deadline (i.e. end of
early-bird pricing). When a
particular class does need
additional attention, they will
include some ad-hoc posts.
SiouxFalls.Business is a site that
they have a partnership on. They
do a number of sponsored posts
with them, amplifying the Exec.
Education content when it is
running.
Effectiveness rating: 2
While Beacom is very active
on Facebook and Instagram,
the aim of the platforms is
more towards Beacom student
and organization achievements
and upcoming events. There is
much more that can be done
to appeal to prospective
professors and small business
entrepreneurs through social
platforms. LinkedIn is not used
nearly enough, with posts
being few and far between.
LinkedIn is actually the
platform that Beacom and the
Executive Education Program
should be targeting the most →
actively reaching out and
searching for small
entrepreneurs/business
owners/managers/prospective
professors in the surrounding
areas.
Paid In the spring, when they last ran
Exec Ed courses, they did run a
paid digital campaign that
included search and digital ads.
Email They have a number of ways that
they gather email addresses:
● Forms on their website
to get more information
about Executive
Education.
● Partner businesses that
they have met through
networking events,
sponsorship events and
referrals from others
who have taken their
programs
● Purchased lists through
the Sioux Falls Chamber
of Commerce
● Certain USD alumni
who meet a given
criteria they will email
using the USD Alumni
Association lists.
Similar to their posting
schedule, they send the
emails based on specific
timing and number of
people registered for a
course. They typically
send an email
announcing the new
course line-up and then
they will send a few
staggered emails to
encourage registration
before Early Bird
deadlines to certain
Effectiveness rating: 3
Paid digital campaigns will be
very important during the season
of Executive Education courses.
So far, they are doing a decent
job of creating digital campaigns
but are not targeting their market
year-round and keeping them
engaged with paid campaigns.
Effectiveness rating: 4
It seems as though Beacom has
a good system set in place to
create email lists and gather
emails effectively. Not only do
they have an email form on their
web page, but they have
partnerships with businesses
who offer emails and people
interested in the program, and
they also have purchased lists
and USD alumni lists. Using a
constant contact to send out
emails on a schedule from a
professional business account is
effective and makes the
emailing system more reputable
rather than using a personal
email account to send out
information. More can be done
to promote the program instead
of just announcing when certain
classes/events are taking place.
Example: spotlight emails on
professors, success stories of
implementation of coursework
in small businesses, etc. More
just needs to be on the
promotional side of email, as it
seems they are just focusing on
the informational side of things
for participants of the courses.
 courses. Some of the
courses fill up almost
every time, others are
new or more niche topics
so they tend to focus on
customized emails on
those courses. They use
a constant contact to
build their emails and
send them out from a
business account.
Previously (before this
year) emails were sent
using a mail-merge from
a personal email
account.

Graphics / Brand
Current logos and Photos:
 Top Engagement Example on Social Media Post, Paid Media, Email

Searching Beacom’s social media platforms, the only platform that had content about the
Executive Education Program was LinkedIn. The post with the highest success is on LinkedIn,
but, unfortunately, the post did not gain
much engagement through the platform.
Interestingly, even though LinkedIn is a
platform geared towards business
professionals, this seems to be the
platform Beacom uses the least. The post
discusses the Executive Education course,
“Developing an Integrated Marketing
Plan” taught by Professor Emily Quinn
(then Emily Paulson). In the article, Emily
discusses her one-day course for
developing a successful marketing plan.
We believe the target market engaged
with this post because it is hitting
centrically at the audience that they want,
however, the engagement with the post
should have been much higher as it was
posted on LinkedIn, where Becaom has
2,712 followers full of professionals,
students, and business owners/operators.
USD Beacom School of Business does not
have a high consistent posting rate for
their Executive Education Program. We
will address this in our digital strategy
recommendation.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths Weaknesses
- Accredited Professors/school - Location for a lot of professionals
- Strong traditional marketing tactics: - Reach of target market
 postcard, procedure, website, and - Social Media Presence
emails - Custom Projects and the different
- Sponsored Articles through Sioux types of opportunities are not well
Falls Business on the Chamber highlighted
Website - Doesn’t stand out on the Beacom
- Webinars Website
- Custom Projects for specific
companies
- Reaching out to Sioux Falls
- Providing a course that can attract and
apply to managers at varying stages in
their careers

Opportunities Threats
- Sioux Falls Businesses - Companies doing their own training
- Corporations that want to educate and programs
train their employees - Similar programs that are in
- Expanding past 2 hour drive Minneapolis or Omaha, can gain target
- Highlight accredited professors that market based on their location
teach courses to attract target market - Travel Distance
- Promoting and reaching out to
prospective companies through
LinkedIn
- Implement paid advertising, such as:
Banner ads and sponsored ads
- Highlight webinars
- Focus on reaching individuals in
Brookings and Sioux City, even
Minneapolis and Omaha

Audit Summary
It is evident that Beacom is dedicated to its Executive Education Program and promoting
this program so that they may “help businesses in the state and region recruit and retain high-
quality business professionals.” Beacom has developed the program so that they may provide
training opportunities to professionals and senior-level executives in the state. Not only does the
program strengthen the reputation and accreditation of the Beacom School of Business, but it
allows the opportunity for growth for South Dakota businesses and ultimately, the state’s
economy.
In terms of what is currently being done for digital marketing efforts for the program,
Beacom is not suffering entirely. We gave Beacom a rating of 4 for the search channel of digital
marketing. They are doing a very good job with SEO in targeting words that will pull up organic
search results at the top of the list. As far as the referral channel goes, we actually gave them the
lowest rating in this category with a rate of 2. We believe there is much more that needs to be
done for posting on social. While they do post about the Executive Education Program, we think
there needs to be more attention paid to these efforts. For the paid channel, we gave Beacom an
effectiveness rating of 3. Beacom has run paid campaigns in the future, but we believe they
should be allocating a larger budget to boost the promotion of these paid ad campaigns. And
finally, we gave their email channel an effectiveness rating of 4. Jennifer explained to us that
they have tried to evolve their email campaigns from moving from a personal account to a
business account, as well as developing specific ways that they can gain subscribers. However,
there is also room for improvement in this category as we will outline.
The program has a lot of potential for growth in the digital marketing realm. Below, we
have given a rough idea of our ideas targeting each of the digital marketing channels. While
there are many things that Beacom is currently doing well in promotional aspects, there are still
many things that can be done to boost their digital marketing efforts. We will touch on our digital
objectives and go into these more in depth in our recommendation.
First, one specific goal that we have for Beacom is to develop better visibility for the
program on their page within university website. This could help the program see a better
registration rate for courses. Not only does registration need to be quicker and easier, but
information and promotions for the program should be seen immediately upon clicking on
Beacom’s main webpage. Going along with continuing development for the website, we believe
that the Executive Education Program should develop a long tail strategy to target different parts
of USD’s website as a whole. We will expand on this point in our digital marketing
recommendation.
Another goal available for development is Beacom’s email process for the Executive
Education program. Currently, Beacom uses one email to send out all information about the
program. However, we are unaware of any email template that Beacom uses to set the program
apart from their competitors and/or create consistency with its email subscribers which has the
potential to gain more professionals, alumni of USD, and perspective professors for the program.
More can definitely be done in terms of gaining email subscribers, creating a strong contact list
and creating effective and creative email campaigns for the Executive Education Program.
Additionally, from what we have learned about the program, we don’t believe much is
being done in terms of retargeting consumers. Retargeting consumers that have participated in
the program could not only ensure a higher course-registration rate for future courses, but also
has the potential to create more word-of-mouth buzz about the success of the program. Also,
retargeting efforts could open up the opportunity to build loyalty and trust within Beacom’s
consumers.
One other goal we have developed for Beacom to face their challenge of the Executive
Education Program’s low engagement posts on their social media platforms. Beacom must use
each of its platforms to promote the Exec. Education program with consistency. Although they
do craft visually appealing posts with colorful verbiage, there is room for improvement as far as
engagement goes. Not only should Beacom be posting more about the Executive Education
Program in general, but it should be highlighting certain strengths and possible points of interest
for different segments of their target market.
Moving on, Beacom should overall aim to boost its program awareness. From the
beginning of the project, we realized most students were unaware of the program in general.
While there are many different ways to boost program awareness, our idea and goal for this
project is to mainly focus on budgeting more for paid ads for the program. Posts on social media
can do a lot for the program, but from what we are aware of, not enough budget from Beacom is
being budgeted for paid ads gearing towards the Executive Education Program. We will expand
more on this in our digital strategy recommendation.
Another goal we have for the Executive Education program for USD, is for them to
expand their target market reach. Currently the program is centrally focused on Sioux Falls, and
the businesses and professionals there, but we believe that the program can expand and find
success in more areas surrounding the Midwest. Focusing on a larger market targets individuals
that are also being marketed by USD's competitors, allowing USD to reach even more potential
success by gaining their competitors’ consumers. They have to opportunity to capitalize and
prove why they are the better option.

User Personas
Digital Marketing Strategy Matrix
Business
Goal:

Channels SEARCH REFERRAL PAID EMAIL

CONNECT Keywords: Networks: Platforms: Segments:

Professional LinkedIn Display Ads Small- Medium
Training Facebook Banner Ads sized Business
In-House owners/business
Executive Education
Professional Program professionals in the
University of South Dakota surrounding area;
Sioux Falls alumni; perspective
Advancement in Career professors →
Accredited Faculty potential for larger
Custom Programs
target market

CULTIVATE Content: Button on Beacom Share: Posts that Retargeting: Subject &
website in upperfold that directs highlight the 1 ad per week Content:
them to immediate experience and the on LinkedIn Subject: Earn the
registration/more info/email benefits that previous and Facebook promotion you’ve
registry “desire for information” executives have regarding been waiting for!
had/gained from the success Content: Executive
courses stories/registeri Education initiatives
ng for courses and registration for
new course
catalogue (button);
links to articles
about success
stories and professor
spotlights

CONVERT Goal: Enter their information in Goal: Share and like Goal: Goal: Click on
the desire for information form the posts about Click on direct button in email/click
on Beacom website previous experiences, link for on linked articles
comment questions registration
about success, interact
with other business
professionals on posts
RETAIN Ongoing: Follow up emails Engage: Articles on Repeat Open Rate & Click
with individuals, about their LinkedIn/Facebook Purchase: Rate:
experience in the courses about our accredited Having Increase click rate
(surveys), upcoming new professors and the previous by at least 40%
courses being offered, and work they are doing course with intriguing
thank-you for participating (“spotlights”); success participants
testimonials of people sign up for subject/content as
who have participated more courses. well as click rate
in courses As well as with interactive
having buttons → overall
participants increase open rate
recommended
the program to
other
professionals.

Digital Marketing Objectives

1) Improve conversion rate of registration for courses

2) Improve click rate on emails
3) Develop a new strategy for retargeting
4) Heighten engagement of Executive Education posts on social platforms
5) Boost program awareness
6) Expand target market
7) Implementing a long-tail strategy

Digital Strategy Recommendation

The Beacom School of Business Executive Education Program is a program that provides
high-quality professional development and training opportunities to surrounding business
professionals and senior executives to achieve high productivity, and be professionally
competitive. By having faculty that are experts in their field, along with professions that have
“real world” experiences, the program provides a learning outlet to further careers, and help
companies prosper. Currently, Beacom is doing a decent job of promotional efforts for the
Executive Education Program, however, there is much more that can be done in aspects of digital
marketing for the program.
During our time with Jennifer, we developed a firm grasp on the direction we wanted to
head with the Executive Education Program. Jennifer explained that although the program has
had some marketing efforts put towards it, they haven’t been dedicating nearly enough focus on
the program so there is a large potential for growth and innovation. She was hoping to receive
and apply our ideas from this project.
 In learning more about the Executive Education Program, we were able to identify some
key points of improvement for the program’s efforts in digital marketing. As outlined in our
digital marketing objectives above, we have come up with seven main areas of digital marketing
improvement for the program. First, we believe that we can improve the conversion rate of the
number of people registering for courses. Jennifer mentioned that she wanted to see an
improvement of 5-12 people registered per course. Ideally, we would like to see the courses
maximized to full potential, at 20 student professionals per course. To do this, we have come up
with a few major points of action for Beacom. First, we believe that Beacom should make
registering for courses easy and accessible by redesigning their page on USD’s website,
including a button for quick-access registration linking directly to a separate page. Currently, the
Executive Education Program page is designed with information about the program in the upper-
fold and a “more information” request form at the bottom. We believe that a button should be
included for users in the upper-fold of the page that will link them not only to more in-depth
information about the program, but immediate registration as well.
Our next digital marketing objective is to improve the click rate on emails by at least
40%. While the Executive Education program currently has a good system for sending out
emails, we believe that we can improve the click rate on emails and update their emailing system
so that it is both visually appealing while still including meaningful content. In doing this, we
believe that Beacom should utilize an email software of their choice, for example, Mailchimp, in
order to craft out emails to send to a set subscriber list (which Jennifer described to us that they
have a system for gaining). This way, they will have a clear and efficient template to use that will
outline what their goal is for each marketing campaign and be able to gear each email to the
purpose of every campaign they run. For example, in our crafted email below, you are able to see
that the subject of the email is eye catching and grabs the reader right away: “Earn the Promotion
You’ve Been Waiting for!” and the content of the email describes new courses within the
program with a button to link the user to registration information. The emails should be crafted
out from a separate account than that of Beacom’s normal account to let the user immediately
know what the email will entail and therefore, lead them to be more likely to click into the email
and its contents and hopefully lead to an increased click rate of 40% as well as an increased open
rate.
Next, we want to develop a new strategy for the Executive Education Program’s
retargeting. As far as we are aware of, there is not much being done in terms of retargeting to
consumers who have taken the courses of the program. A simple, but useful step in retargeting
and retaining these consumers would be sending out not only a confirmation email, (ex. Thank
you for registering! We are so excited to help you in enhancing your professional career.) but
also emailing out surveys and thank-you emails to those who have just participated in a course.
Not only will this build trust within the professionals taking the classes, but it will possibly lead
them to registering for more courses in the future.
Our fourth digital marketing objective addresses heightening the engagement of posts on
Beacom’s social platforms. Currently, we do not believe much is being done in terms of posting
about the program. And, ironically, LinkedIn is being the least in terms of posting when in
actuality it should be used the most for Beacom, especially when it comes to gaining awareness
of individuals interested in furthering their professional careers. Not only should Beacom acquire
a consistent posting schedule for their social platforms, but they should also be highlighting
different aspects of the program with the content they post. Our recommendation for this is
establishing a weekly post of spotlight professors (ones who teach the program and their
backgrounds and successes in their professional careers) as well as highlighting personal
testimonials for professionals in the area of have benefitted from the program’s courses. This
will appeal to consumers emotions, drive their curiosity for success that the program gives to so
many individuals, and give them reassurance that the professors teaching the courses are both
reptable and distinguished. Therefore, driving more engagement and opening up a social forum
for users to interact on.
Additionally, we would like to see Beacom boost its program awareness. While the
program has completed some paid digital ad campaigns in the past, we believe that more paid
ads could be promoted through Facebook, LinkedIn, and GoogleAds to raise awareness of the
program. More of Beacom’s budget needs to be allocated to paid digital campaigns to highten
visibility. As students ourselves, we were not aware that the Executive Education Program
existed. We believe if Beacom budgets for paid ads for the Executive Education Program and
promotes this digital content through Facebook, GoogleAds and LinkedIn that people will
become more aware of the program and its effectiveness.
Next, we want to expand the target market for the program. Currently, Beacom is
focusing on targeting business professionals in Sioux Falls. However, we believe that their
market share could be expanded by not only focusing on business professionals outside of Sioux
Falls in areas like Sioux City and Brookings, but we also believe the program should be targeting
different segments of the market including prospective professors for the Beacom School of
Business as well as university alumna. To appeal to these different segments, there are many
things that the program can do from a digital marketing standpoint. We believe creating paid ads
geared towards these segments could be one of the most effective options for the program.
Content for these ads would include promoting the accreditation of the program and the school,
appealing to prospective professors in the surrounding area that might want to teach for the
program, as well as promoting alumna that have participated in the courses and their success
stories for other perspective alum of different universities.
Finally, we believe that Beacom should implement a long-tail strategy for the USD
website. USD should be recommending the program to unsuspected users. Implementing the
long-tail strategy into the USD website could open up the door for business professionals in
medicine, the arts, and many other points of education at the university who may or may not be
running their own businesses in the surrounding areas. This also opens up the program’s
opportunity to enlarge their target market. Including links to the Executive Education Program in
other pages of the university website could not only heighten brand awareness, but could also
introduce an unsuspecting market for the program.
The Executive Education Program deserves to be promoted to its full potential, and has
the ability to do so. There is so much opportunity for this program to grow and develop to
become the competitor to beat in the market. We believe that with our help of our digital
marketing plan, that Beacom’s Executive Education Program will begin to thrive more than it
already is. As Peter Drucker once said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the
customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself” (Successories, 2019). With our
proposed digital marketing plan, we believe Beacom has the ability to do this with the Executive
Education Program.

Action Items:
1) Create a button on the Beacom School of Business webpage in the upper-fold that links
to more in-depth information about the program as well as immediate registration
2) Implement the usage of an email software such as MailChimp on a seperate account then
that of Beacom
3) Emailing out confirmations to those who have just registered for courses as well as thank-
you emails to those who have just participated in courses
4) Emailing out surveys for people who have just participated in courses
5) Acquire a consistent posting schedule highlighting personal testimonials and a weekly
spotlight for Beacom professors
6) Allocate a larger budget to paid ads for the Executive Education Program
7) Create ads geared towards promoting the accreditation of the program/alumni success
stories to appeal to prospective professors for Beacom and future alumni course
participants
8) Include links to the Executive Education Program on different pages of the USD website,
not just Beacom’s page

Proposed Creative for Digital Marketing

HTML Email:
 Conclusion

Gabbie:
 When beginning this project, I was excited that we chose the Beacom School of Business,
because it is a company that I interact with every day. Once we began to talk to Jennifer about
the marketing for the Beacom School of Business, she began to bring up the Executive Education
Program. She was hoping that we would focus on this program, and really make it our own. She
said there was not a lot that they did with it now, so there was huge room for potential growth. I
found this particularly exciting because our group could be super creative and dig in and develop
a great digital marketing plan. A huge thing I learned was that USD had an Executive Education
Program, which through project, I now feel like I am an expert in.
Once gaining all the information from Jennifer, we began to dive into the projects. A key
point we discovered early on that I definitely learned from this project is that organization, and
planning would be key. The project was made up of numerous parts that extended off of another,
so as a team we had to meticulously work to finish the project. We thought it would be best to
sort of separate the tasks based on our skill sets.
Due to previous classes, I have become pretty well versed in making mock-up social
media posts, so I told my group I could tackle that aspect. I also learned to be prepared for
bumps in the road, we had some struggles gaining information, as well as defining a clear idea
about our user personas. Although we faced a few challenges, we worked through them, and
avoided and major issues. Another large takeaway I had was I found aspects of the digital plan
that I enjoyed and were good at and other aspects that I did not particularly enjoy doing. I
enjoyed creating social media posts, while also analyzing and developing the SWOT analysis
and the digital matrix. Both the SWOT and the matrix, I was surprised that I liked making them,
and I was even more happy at how well they turned out. On the other hand, although I didn’t do
a bad job at making them, I did not particular enjoy the user personas. After making one, I
needed a break, before I attempted tackling another one. Overall, I believe this project tested my
knowledge and skills at creating a digital marketing plan, it also allowed me to have a project to
present to future employers to show my assets and skillset.
.
Cassie:
This project of completing a digital marketing plan for the Beacom School of Business
really opened my eyes to how much hard work, time and thought goes into creating an effective
and clear digital marketing plan for a business. The first, and most major thing I learned from
this project is the fact that Beacom has an Executive Education Program. Before this, I honestly
had no idea what the Executive Education Program was… which revealed to us that Beacom had
a lot of potential to grow in terms of promotional and digital marketing efforts. Our contact for
this project was Jennifer Lemaster, the Director of Marketing and Executive Education for the
Beacom School of Business. From the moment we began our discussion about digital marketing
efforts for Beacom, I knew that there was going to be a lot of opportunity for the Executive
Education Program to evolve with the help of our digital marketing plan.
At first, I was honestly overwhelmed by the project. It was hard to know where to
begin. However, with the use of this template, it was a much easier process to start at one
specific point and go from there, delegating parts aiming at each team member’s strengths. I
knew that my strengths would shine in writing about the business and analyzing/summarizing
current efforts already being done for the program, so I offered to do the company audit as well
as aid in the audit summary. I also offered to help in searching for Beacom’s posts with the most
engagement and analyzing those metrics in correspondence to our developed marketing plan as
well as crafting out an example of an HTML email for the company and helping fill out the
digital matrix. Additionally, I offered to do the reviewing/revising of the writing to make sure
our project and plan sounded cohesive.
Throughout the project, I thought I was able to execute my strengths well through these
aspects of the digital marketing plan. However, I struggled in trying to organize all of my ideas
and thoughts for the business. One minute I was thinking about how they should be doing a
professor spotlight on LinkedIn every week and the next minute I was thinking about how they
should be pursuing partnerships/sponsorships with budding Midwestern businesses. One thing I
found extremely interesting when analyzing Beacom’s current digital marketing efforts was the
fact that they actually seem to use LinkedIn the least, even though that is a platform specialized
for business professionals. Overall, I really value the time and hard work that my teammates and
I put into the project and I am glad for the experience it gave me to hopefully develop effective
marketing plans for businesses (both big and small) in the future.

Brayden:
At the beginning of the project I really didn’t know what to expect or know how much
information we were going to find. I think the biggest thing that really helped us out and get us
pointed in the right direction was our conversation with Jennifer in class. She broke down all the
things we needed to know and really opened my eyes about how much stuff needs to be done to
have a concrete marketing plan. After our talk with her I think our group was really exciting and
ready to start this project. The biggest thing I learned is how much Beacom could be bigger and
better. I knew the university was growing but with the Executive Education Program I didn’t
realize the potential Beacom had!
When we started this assignment we knew it wasn't going to be easy. To be honest we did
not know where to start. After gaining a lot of information from Jennifer we were ready. We
knew this project was going to take a lot of teamwork and scheduling. With such a big project
and so many parts we knew we were going to have to work together. One of my favorite things I
have gotten to learn about is the potential of Beacom and being able to work with such a great
team.
After completing this project, it did a great job testing us and making us work together to
complete all the complicated task. We all brought different strengths and creativity into this
project. My favorite thing I got to work on was the SWOT analysis. Finally, after finishing this
digital marketing project I learned a lot about developing my digital marketing skills.

Jordan:
When Jennifer came in our classroom to talk about the Beacom School of Business, I
learned so much. To be honest, I didn't even know that Beacom had an Executive Education
program. In retrospect, that was a problem that we noticed right away. Nobody in our group even
knew what it was. Once we knew that was a problem, we knew the digital marketing plan was
needed for their program. It was awesome that Jennifer came in and informed our group about
the program. Since we wanted as much information as possible, we asked her any and every
question possible. Thankfully, she gave us plenty of information to work from.
Through the Executive Education program, adults in the working world are able to take a
class through USD to polish up their skills and knowledge about a certain subject. It is a great
idea and can be expanded into classes related to certain careers. Classes that relate to balancing a
worker’s family life and his working time. We learned that there were many opportunities with
this program and it needed to be marketed. We decided to advertise to Sioux City and other
towns around Vermillion instead of just focusing on Sioux Falls citizens. This will allow
Beacom to enroll more diverse students from different areas around Vermillion. The students
will even be able to give each other ideas and see things from a different worker’s perspective.
Overall, I had a great experience with this project and I learned a lot about the Beacom
School of Business. It was cool to see what else they offer rather than just classes to
undergraduate/graduate students.

Austin:
I was very excited when I heard that we had the opportunity to do a digital marketing
plan for the Beacom School of Business. After our group talked with Jennifer about marketing
for the Beacom School of Business she mentioned the Executive Education Program as a
program that we should focus on. There wasn’t much for a marketing plan at the time which
gave us the opportunity to improve the marketing plan in various ways and be creative with the
project. After completing this project, I learned how to make more effective social media posts
that would catch our target markets attention. Before this project, I have not had the opportunity
to work on my digital marketing skills in a real life situation. I learned a lot about the Executive
Education Program and that there was a lot of room for improvement for marketing this program.
After we gathered all the necessary information that we needed from Jennifer to complete
this project we decided to break up the parts of the projects on who would be most efficient and
fit to complete each task. After working with the group we started to run into a few challenges
and we learned how to deal with these challenges as effectively as possible. When we ran into a
problem we were able to discuss the problem at hand with our group and find the most effective
solution for everybody. Also, after completing this project I learned a lot more about the
Executive Education Program. Prior to this project, I knew very little about this program. I
learned that people in the working world are able to take a class through USD and develop their
skills on a particular subject to better their future career path. Also, I learned that there are
many different markets that we are not reaching out to and that there is an opportunity for
significant growth by connecting with surrounding areas around Vermillion besides Sioux Falls.
Having the opportunity to complete this project gave me the opportunity to learn and
develop many skills. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the Executive Education
Program which I knew very little about beforehand. I had a great experience doing this project
and I was very glad that I had the opportunity to work with a group on developing a digital
marketing plan.