Marketing Strategy for My Own Tutors (on online education services company)
Executive Summary
My Own Tutors is a startup whose mission is to provide supplemental after-school
education services online for school and college students. My Own Tutors aims to give
complete control to the student in scheduling and tailoring the tutoring sessions to suit
his/her needs. The services provided are aimed at not only helping students with their
school/home work but primarily helping them excel at advanced subjects, exotic
languages and necessary skills. Thus My Own Tutors provides both remedial and
advanced education. The demographic target segments for these services could be ethnic
groups such as US based Chinese/South Asian children, middle/high school students and
middle to high income families. Behaviorally, the target segment is students who are
currently using or have used either in-person or online supplementary education service
in the past. In addition dissatisfied users of current supplementary education services are
also a very relevant target. The services provided could be positioned as homework help
or as special skill development training with a real teacher. These services have the
potential of being positioned as an alternative to other online education services or an
alternative to any form of supplementary education help.
We recommend the services to be targeted at students in grades K4-K12 who need
help with Math and/or Science or special languages or with preparation of tests such as
Star, SAT, PSAT, etc. We recommend that the services be positioned against existing
supplementary education services as - a holistic learning experience in subjects such as
Math, Science, special languages and test preparation. With an objective of capturing
market share, we recommend the services to be - high quality, priced lower than the
competition, rich in content, distinguished in delivery through a social networking
platform, and easily tractable by parents. We also recommend creation and distribution
of e-learning modules which should be available to the subscribers as well as the non
subscribers of the services. We recommend packaging options to provide unlimited
access or on-demand hourly access to tutors at a fixed monthly or an hourly price. We
recommend that the initial launch be targeted at California bay area students. We suggest
a mix of mass marketing and direct marketing avenues and strategies with a higher
weight to direct internet marketing and promotions targeted to local markets. In addition,
we recommend potential distribution partners such as schools, libraries, education content
providers and distance learning services. In the future, the services have a huge potential
for expansion in terms of target users, distribution channels and pricing packages that can
be built upon the recommended options.
Team
Ashish Shah
Pranav Dharwadkar
Renu Motwani
Sridhar Devarapalli