By Clark Satterlee

This past semester, three students from the MBA program (Joe Easter, Kelly Herren and Dave Steinmann) worked on a marketing campaign for Springfield’s Best (SB), a nonprofit organization that promotes locally owned and operated businesses. As part of the requirements for the students’ marketing class, they had to work with a local company on some marketing issues that the company was dealing with. The students then met with SB’s executive director, Theresa Pollard, to discuss the issue that SB was facing, most notably attracting and retaining new members.

After this initial meeting, the MBA students went to work on analyzing SB’s situation, contrasting that with competitors, and examining the organization’s website. Through this process, the students, as Joe puts it, “determined that SB needed a big effort to bring back the Springfield’s Best brand through a marketing campaign.” The students then spent time discussing various ideas they could use to reach this objective. They wanted their marketing campaign to meet other goals as well, like creating brand awareness, gaining potential member interest and creating a database of SB’s target audience.

In the end, the students decided on a promotion that involved the giving away of a car. This type of promotion was able to meet all the goals that the students had in mind. First, to be eligible to win the car, persons had to give their contact information to SB, which helped SB build a database while at the same time creating brand awareness. Second, the car give away was done at a Springfield Cardinals game, providing a large venue to once again give brand awareness, as well as gain potential member interest. Third, when registering for the car, persons had to vote on which Springfield business is the best, helping meet the company’s goal of promoting local businesses.

With this idea in hand, the students met with two executives from Springfield’s Best. The executives were very receptive and later asked if the students would present their idea to the board of directors. Currently, Springfield’s Best is moving ahead with the promotion and the MBA students are scheduled to give their presentation to the board in August. Congratulations students on your accomplishments! As Joe puts it, “We are very excited and feel rewarded knowing our hard work is being put into action.”

By Clark Satterlee
With contributions from Joe Easter