DegreeLab

Steven Borik, Mohammad Ali, Alyzah Suteria, Zain Merchant

University of Texas at Dallas

Marketing 3300

Semiramis Amirpour

4/18/2016
 Table of Contents

Introduction3

Marketing Objectives4

Market Research..6

Product Design.8

Pricing Strategy and Financials.10

Promotion Plan...12
 Introduction

Did you know that poor student planning is one of the reasons graduation rates for four-

year colleges are only about 60%? There are a countless number of stories of students who

have had trouble navigating their degree plan and how they have taken a number of classes

that werent needed or they cant take the classes they want. This is definitely a problem for

students because a college student can easily be confused in what exact classes they need to

take in order to get their degree and graduate and if they arent being provided with the

information they can become confused and discouraged. Degree plans are at the heart of

students and are very critical for helping students stay organized and for them to graduate on

time. Our product is called Degree Lab and our main goal is to help students manage their

degree plan more effectively. Degree Lab simplifies complicated degree plans and helps

undergraduate students plan their academic careers with minimal effort so that they can

graduate on time with the degree they want and the least amount of debt. Degree Lab not only

helps students, but universities as well. It helps universities collect data about the students so

they can accurately predict and offer the students the classes they need. Degree Lab generates

revenue by charging universities so that students, parents, and advisors have access to the

software.
 Marketing Objectives

The target market for DegreeLab is both public and private 4 year universities in the

United States. There are both primary and secondary users for DegreeLab: students and

advisors. Based on our survey, we have found that students desire a simple, convenient, and

easily accessible solution, and an online software system is the solution to maintaining a degree

plan. The reason we chose public and private four year universities as our target market

because we believe that having an advisor help students utilize this software would be much

more beneficial than offering this as a service students can purchase. Additionally, it would be

more profitable and easier to market to schools directly as opposed to offering the software

online and running the software with advertisements. As a result, we have concluded with the

following marketing Objectives:

1) Visit approximately 8-10 public and private universities in our first year and sign them up

for either one or four year annual subscription models.

2) Based on our financial projections, this would allow us to break even after our first year

and maintain a $57,000 dollar profit after our second year, and improving the lives of

students struggling with graduating on time with the degree they want.
 Market Research

Survey Questions

1) Are you a graduate or undergraduate student?

a) Graduate
b) Undergraduate
2) How many times have you had trouble meeting with advisors during enrollment periods?
a) 1 times
b) 2 times
c) 3 times
d) 4+ times
3) How far ahead do you plan ahead for your degree plan?
a) 1 semester
b) 1 year
c) 2 years
d) 3 years
4) How much time do you spend planning your degree plan each semester?
a) 30 minutes
b) 30 minutes - 1 hour
c) 1-2 hours
d) 3-4 hours
e) 4+ hours
5) What level of understanding do you think you have regarding your degree plan?
a) No understanding
b) Little understanding
c) Average understanding
d) Strong understanding
e) Very strong understanding
6) How many times have you been restricted from enrolling?
a) 0 times
b) 1-2 times
c) 3-4 times
d) 5-6 times
e) 6+ times
7) How many times were you unable to take a certain class each semester?
a) 0 times
b) 1-2 times
c) 3-4 times
d) 5-6 times
e) 6+ times
8) How often were you unable to take the desired number of classes per semester?
a) 0 times
b) 1-2 times
 c) 3-4 times
d) 5-6 times
e) 6 times
9) How likely would you be to use a software that helps you plan your degree path?
a) Unlikely
b) Likely
c) Very likely
d) I would use this software
10) Do you think that a software that created your degree plan for you would be beneficial to
your educational success?
a) No
b) Maybe
c) Yes

Here are the important findings from our survey. 44% of underclassmen only plan 1

semester ahead, and 42% spend less than 1 hour planning their degree plan each semester.

For undergraduates, 33% dont believe they have a strong understanding of their degree plan.

Because of the fact that degree plans are so complicated, it makes sense that students dont

want to spend large amounts of time planning their degree.

 For graduate students, we have found that 63% have found themselves restricted from
taking certain classes due to lack of prerequisites, and 23% have been unable to take the
desired number of classes per semester.
Product Design
 DegreeLab has 3 major interfaces that all have unique benefits and perks for

students and advisors that other similar softwares dont. The first feature on the

DegreeLab setup page is the AP/IB Credits tab. Ideally during orientation, students will

add their previous AB/IB credits from high school and community college and

DegreeLab will take this into account when students are signing up for classes.

Additionally, students can add their major, their preferred number of credits to take each

semester, and any other programs they might be a part of, such as honors. One of the

most unique features of DegreeLab is the Degree of Flexibility Tab. Designed for

students who are undecided, the Flexibility Tab will assist students choosing classes so

that the can gain credits effectively while exploring degree options. Once all of these

parameters are completed, their four year Degree Plan will be created for them to

review and edit accordingly. As a result, this will help students plan multiple year in

advance and give them a better understanding of how their degree plan actually works.

Thi
s is a sample home page for a student looking at their degree plan for the 2015-2016 school

year. On the left is a color coded schedule based on what type of course each class falls under:

Core Curriculum, Major Preparatory Courses, Major Core Courses, Free Electives, and Major

Related Courses. On the right side of the home page a student can see the name of the class,

the prerequisites it needs, and how many hours it fulfills. By having this home screen, students

can more easily visualize their degree plan.

 To provide superior value over competitors, we added an Add Major screen where

students can visualize potential changes they want to make to their major, minor, or both. For

example, if this student wants to add a marketing major, they can preview what classes they

would need to take during their semesters to come and theoretically what other classes they

would need to take moving forward.

 Pricing Strategy and Financials

The objective was for our product to make a profit of at least $10,000 within the first two years

so we used a Profit- Oriented Pricing Approach, specificallyTarget Profit Pricing. We decided to

use this approach after calculating all of the input costs and yearly costs and created small

simulations to project how many of each subscriptions we needed to sell to reach our profit.

A) It took an investment of $80,000 to develop DegreeLab.The retail price is divided

into three different types of subscriptions for 4- year universities and community colleges:

A 1-year subscription is $3,500

A 4-year subscription is $12,600

And finally, an 8-year subscription is $23,800

B) To reach our profit objective we will need to sell:

Sixteen 1- year subscriptions

Four 4-year subscriptions

And two 8-year subscriptions

 Promotion Plan

So how do we sell our product to the market? Well, weve identified our target market (four year

universities) and we plan on concentrating heavily on direct sales because we dont believe our

market is going to be receptive to advertising and will not be cost effective. Along with direct

sales, we will also attend both academic conferences and trade shows to get the name out there

and meet with potential customers. Also, one of our primary strategies is to look into potential

partnerships with companies in the higher education space so we can effectively penetrate the

market. There are many effective ways to successfully sell a product using direct sales but for

Degree Lab we believe the most effective way is person-to-person. We will do this by setting up

a meeting with the university directly and one of our associates going face to face and promote

our product and hopefully get a sale. Attending trade shows will be very beneficial because

potential customers will attend and we will get a chance to explain our product and convince the

customer why they should buy Degree Lab. Even if we dont sell our product at the trade show,

it will help increase our popularity, spread the word of our product, and help fix any problems

we might have. Because Degree Lab is targeted for universities, by attending academic

conferences we can promote our product to universities that attend and fully explain the

importance of this product and why it will be very beneficial for them to buy it. In todays

society, the number one way to promote anything or spread the word is easily through the use of

social media. Millions of people, businesses, celebrities all use social media for entertainment,

sometimes even business. Particularly through the use of Facebook and Twitter we will spread

the word about our product and let universities and students know what exactly are product is

and how they can benefit from it. Once we tweet about our product, thousands of users will see it

and from there the word will spread. Using social media will be the biggest promotion strategy
for Degree Lab solely because of how popular the use of social media is and how big of an

impact it has on peoples lives. Some benefits of using social media will be increasing our brand

recognition, richer customer experiences, and improved customer insights.

 Works Cited

Demers, Jayson. "Top 10 Benefits of Social Media Marketing." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 11 Aug.

2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Kerin, Roger, Hartley, Steven, Rudelius, William. Marketing. 11th ed. N.p.: McGraw-Hill, 2012.
Print.

Symonds, Peter. "4 Reasons to Exhibit at a Trade Show." Smart Insights. N.p., 19 Feb. 2014.
Web. 22 Apr. 2016.