I had the pleasure of competing in the 2020 Digital Marketing Competition in which I was the team lead for my team. This competition sees teams from all over the US and some international teams developing a full marketing strategy for a real-life company.
We ended up missing out on the top 5 and making it to the final round, however, we were named as a 2nd alternate which placed us 7th overall out of 85 teams that competed, from 5 different countries.
I was asked to be the Team Lead for this competition by Dr Scott Cowley. My personal contribution to the team and our strategy was that I directly communicated with both Scott and my team to ensure that we all managed to achieve our goal of creating a professional and thought out marketing strategy.
At first, we had no idea as to where our strategy would lead us. From our first initial outlook of the case study to our final product we went through drastic changes. We began by conducting our Primary and secondary research which resulted in us talking to several professionals in the industry, and conducting a survey. By coordinating these interviews with professionals in the financial aid industry we were able to gain useful information which then helped in developing our strategy.
Along the way I split the team into two teams where we were able to focus our attention to certain parts of the strategy to allow for the best possible result. When we went to bring it all together we had some trouble making it all fit. This is where myself as the team lead had to pick up some of the weight by going over all of the sections and making them fit together. Towards the end of our strategy I then had to breakdown our $250k budget to ensure that all parts of our strategy were accounted for and would be functional if the company decided to run with our strategy. I was also responsible for all the communications with the competition including signing our team up, distribution of the case study and information needed along with submitting the video presentation at the end.
This digital marketing competition was completely extracurricular however as a digital marketing major it was an excellent way for me to gain real life experience and test my skills in Digital marketing.
I think by doing this competition in my final semester it has allowed me to tie together my overall WMU experience. By using all the skills and experiences I have learnt at western in one project before graduating, it acts as a final preparation for the next steps in my professional career.
The Digital Marketing Competition Website: https://digitalmarketingcompetition.com/
