Student Counseling Ideas Project – Introduction
Potential Counseling Services is a service based organization developed to provide professional development workshop to students in helping them overcame with leadership and communication skills to unleash their talent by overcoming phobias like stage fright, etc. Additional to this we also focus on providing guidance about the do’s and donts when giving an interview.
Mission Statement
The Potential Counseling Services is committed in addressing the academic and personality development of students in a multicultural society.
Vision
We want to be the leading counseling organization. We believe each individual has the worth, value and hidden talent. In order to groom and help the students visualize and actualize their personalities, the PCS would provide them with personality enhancement. PCS will also provide a platform where people can enhance their professional skills.
Target Market:
Our main target market is student body but our main focused segments are the pool of fresh graduates of bachelors, masters or diploma holders from universities all over Lahore.
Marketing Strategy:
Since we are targeting the universities, we will focus mainly on below the line advertisement and marketing strategy. We operate an online facebook page through which we are available to our target market 24/7 and will carry out marketing through this platform.
We will also conduct free of cost introductory sessions at different universities and have flex posters/banners in universities. We will also post an ad in newspaper. we will also be available through our website: www.pcs.org
Competitors:
HR is newly being developed in developing countries, but our major competitor is AIESEC. AIESEC is international organization which provides students with leadership training and internship opportunities. We are one of the first local initiators to create a business likewise.
PRODUCT
Potential Counseling Services/Student Counseling Ideas is developed to provide professional personality consultancy. Our slogan is “Yes I can”. We will work on confidence building and self-actualization of student, i-e attitude. We will also assess the personality of the school and college level students and tell them what right choice for their career is. Students have right to choose career according to their personalities.
Objectives
- Providing quality, professionally-delivered, counseling services to our students.
- Encouraging healthy decision-making and promoting their skills.
- Facilitating and supporting the personal and psychological growth and enable them to understand their strength and weakness and select the profession which is suitable for them.
- Providing support in establishing Career Counseling Centers at Schools, Colleges and Universities and to work together on students. Counseling Enables the institutes to arrange work placements , professional skill development workshops for graduating students to help them in developing, evaluating and implementing career plans that lead to employment.
- Acquire skills to design, implement and evaluate guidance and consulting programs and interventions.
Organization activities
Outdoor activities
- Seminars
We will conduct seminars in different universities in which we invite famous motivational speakers.
- Workshops
We will arrange workshops including group activities, individual (on the spot) presentation and questioning sessions to build up confidence.
In door activities
- Interviews & Questionnaires
We will conduct interviews in the presence of psychiatrist who will analyze person’s personalities. The purpose of questionnaires is to collect data about persons past performances.
- Psychotherapy & counseling
After analyzing the personalities of our clients, consultants will advise them how can they overcome their weaknesses and utilize their strengths.
Promotion
Our project “Potential Counseling Services” provides personality grooming and skill enhancing seminars where individuals can unleash their potential and leadership skills and make it the best use of it.
- Sales Promotion
In the initial stage of our product’s life cycle, we will offer discount on the fee to the first 20 individuals who will apply for membership. They will be able to attend our seminars free of cost for 6 months after becoming members.
- Public Relation
We will handle our product’s public relation through our facebook page, E-mails, contact numbers. We will encourage feedback and comments from our customers. We will also visit companies and help them evaluate the gap between the skills and training needed for the employees.
- Personal Selling
We will visit different colleges and universities and personally hold seminars and sell our ideology.
- Direct marketing
We will do direct marketing through our Facebook Page.
https://www.facebook.com/PotentialCounseling
- Buzz Marketing
We will cultivate opinion leaders and getting then to spread information about our product to others in their communities/universities and colleges.
- Promotion Budget
Our company is shifting from introduction to growth part of the place. It is still in its initial stages to start spending so much on promotion. Therefore we will use affordable method strategy for setting our budget which means setting the promotion budget at that level which management thinks the company can afford.
We will also use by objective and task method which means: developing the promotion budget.
We work by the pull strategy where we value our customers and their needs and provide them with quality assured training sessions.
- Advertising
Our company will use informative advertising by communicating customer value, building our brand and company image, telling the market about our new product i-e personality grooming and unleashing their skills and explaining how our product will work.
- Medium of Advertising
We will use internet, newspaper, magazines and direct mail for advertisement. As we have low advertising budget, so it will cost low.
PRICING
Our company ‘POTENTIAL COUNSELING SERVICE’ is a product/service which caters to the mass majority of people from all over the colleges and universities of Lahore. Therefore we would device a pricing strategy which is not too high that it cuts down on our demand and not too low that it doesn’t profits us either. We would device a pricing strategy that would synchronise with the product’s value.
We are currently based in an oligopolistic competitive market. Where there are few sellers and the pricing strategies chosen by the companies largely affect the customer demand. Our only and biggest competitor in the market so far is aiesec, which has a renowned name and prestige in the market. Therefore our product is price elastic and a price sensitive. Therefore a slight mismanagement in setting the right price could lead to customer shifting to our competitor for the services.
With the current economic crunch that can be seen in Pakistan. We know that even when there is training needed and also desired by the graduate and graduating batches. Hence With the given circumstances they still wouldn’t be willing to pay a lot for getting training and grooming for their future. So we go by good-value pricing strategies. We will therefore offer just the right combination of quality and good service at a fair price.
Also considering our competitor and us being on the initial stages of product life cycle, that is introduction and growth. This pricing strategy will not only help us make our place in the market but will also help us catch attention of the majority masses which have not been tapped by aiesec itself before.
This good value pricing will be perfect for our product as it will be setting the right bench mark for customer’s perception. It won’t be too low that the customers might end up thinking that it is a low quality product but will also be high enough to help us set our product image as a brand in itself and a quality assured product.
Following is the table for major costs, profits and other supportive characteristics in contrast with our competitor which affect our price and therefore you can detect how the pricing strategy has been set and how good value pricing is best suitable for our product.
| The potential counseling service | Aiesec | |
| Registration fee | 500 | 700 |
| Training fee | 1000 | 1200 |
| Membership fee | 700 | 1000 |
Our competitor mainly focuses on universities and colleges. But we are focusing on universities and colleges like Punjab University, BNU, NCA, STEP etc. therefore keeping in mind this mass customer base we have set our registration fee for 500 only which is a compulsory fee and therefore a number which can be afforded by people/students from all walks of life. After this the candidate or customer may choose whether he wants to apply for training session or as a member.
We have set prices a tad bit lower not just to attract customers but also keeping in mind our customer’s pocket and their age. A lot of students from these universities are on a tight budget. Therefore these prices will satisfy them best.
Placement
Placement, or product distribution, is the process of making a product or service accessible for use or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries.
Horizontal Marketing
Initially we will adopt the horizontal marketing system for our services. As we are new entrant in the market so it is difficult for us to establish a reasonable place in market and capture customers. We need a partner having same target market but already established a reasonable place in market. For this purpose in starting we will make partnerships with different educational institutes. It will help us to target our market because institutes already have students. Therefore through partnership with an institute we can easily reach to a large number of students.
Multi-channel service
We will adopt multi-channel distribution system means that we will provide our services thorough different channels to reach our customers. Our lectures and personality grooming courses will be available on
- Internet (online courses)
- CDs & DVDs
- In printed form likes books
- And most important workshops and seminars
Our main focus will be on 4th channel which is workshop and seminars because in this we can directly interact with our customers.
- Analyzing customer needs
Marketing channels are part of overall customer value delivery. Network channel adds value delivery for the customers. Designing the market channel start with finding out what target customer wants from channel. Our service will available in four different channels. Our customer can get our service from any channel which they think easily available for them.