Digital Marketing

Our company advertises thousands of products online. We have developed a set of marketing strategies, but it has been challenging to implement them. We would like to collaborate with students to review and post content promoting our company. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Familiarizing themselves with our target market, products and services. Reviewing marketing content in the form of posts, emails, brochures, etc. Deploying content according to our social media calendar to increase website traffic. Overseeing our channels and keeping them up-to-date. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Recommending search engine optimization (SEO) strategies so our materials are easily accessible.

SEO and Social Media Strategy

Our team is looking to take our social media presence to the next level in order to drive traffic to our pages. To do this, we hope to improve our search engine optimization, and create an optimal schedule for our social media posts to be uploaded. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Researching keywords to determine the most relevant terms that our customers search for. Researching Search Engine Optimization requirements for us to rank on the first page of Google. Constructing a content calendar to upload social media content for the maximum possible traffic . Creating social media content using the most efficient keywords for our target audience while following the content calendar. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Using our company’s social media analytics to tailor the content calendar to our customers activity, rather than general trends

Brand Voice

Our company has been serving customers for decades. We would like to update and revamp our existing brand to attract more customers. While we have a detailed website with strong graphic design assets, we currently lack a consistent brand voice. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Familiarizing themselves with our company’s story, mission and vision statements. Conducting background research on our company’s products and customers. Establishing suitable personality traits for our brand voice and justifying each trait. Describing how personality traits can be displayed through our brand voice. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Recommending methods of ensuring a consistent brand voice. Recommending revisions for our current marketing materials to use a new brand voice.

Blogging

Our company advertises thousands of products online. We want to create a blog to strengthen our marketing. We would like to collaborate with students to create blog posts that drive more traffic to our website. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Familiarizing themselves with our goals, target market, products and services. Recommending topics for our blog posts. Drafting blog posts relevant to our business. Revising blog posts based on feedback. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Recommending ways to market our blog.

Financial Business Plan

We are excited to be launching a new business, Karibu Solutions. This is a Canadian company which has created an app for Blue Collar workers to find reliable work and information for short term work in Canada. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Learning about our business strategy from various employees to become familiar with our goals, mission, and products. Creating forecasts using Excel (or another financial software) for sales in first 3 years of operation as well as an income projection (conservative and aggressive). Working with our team to develop an expense budget. Conducting a break-even analysis timeline using financial projections. Reporting on projected assets and liabilities. Including visual comparisons such as graphs and charts to show the differences between the conservative and aggressive income projection.

ISO 27001, SOC 2 Security TSP and NIST CSF v1.1 Implementation Project

Students shall be assigned 2 of our portfolio companies and they are required to create the Cybersecurity framework aligned with ISO 27001, SOC 2 Security Trust Service Principle and NIST CSF v1.1.

Competitive Analysis & Overseas Expansion

This project will be a specific case for an American Operational Technology Security company to expand in the Australia and New Zealand region. This project will include: Identification of our current competitors' Identification of potential future competitors (eg. a large company in a similar industry that may enter the space)The creation of a matrix identifying features shared across the companies and those that are different.A summary of 2-4 paragraphs describing our competitive advantages and disadvantages relative to the competition determined. This could be done in the form of a SWOT analysis. An outline of our industry’s expansion opportunities through a location analysis. We will give you access to organizational assets to support this project, such as personnel, website analytics, sales and brand collateral, and more. We can suggest names of competitors to research.

Pricing Model Development

We are building a B2B SaaS product which will act as an exchange for verified data between organizations. We have prepared the business model and we would like you to develop and test a series of pricing model options and present an effective data-based pricing model recommendation for our organization. You should conduct primary and secondary research to confirm your recommendation is validated by our target customer in this market. To accomplish this, we believe you will need to conduct the following research: Our organization’s costs, target customer, revenue targets, and business goals. The competitive landscape of this new market. Organizing focus groups, surveys, and/or customer discovery interviews to get input and feedback on potential pricing models. Using targeted online ads to A/B test landing pages with different price models. We want to enter this new market with a proven pricing model so that we can have a successful launch. Final deliverables should include: A written report including an Executive Summary that illustrates your research findings and recommendations on our pricing model. A visual presentation of your research findings and recommendations.

Strategic AI & Machine Learning Application for Sustainability

We want to leverage the latest technology to gain an advantage in our market. We would like to collaborate with students to strategically apply AI and machine learning in our organization. Through using internal and open source data and applying analytics models, methodologies, and machine learning tools, we hope to get an end-to-end machine learning solution. Students should be prepared to: Identify and present an opportunity within our organization, which AI could be applied.Develop a unique machine learning solution, based on the latest technology, to identify the cost and benefit of using ML for particular business problems. The model should provide data-backed recommendations to business owners on whether to use AI for a particular problem. In the process, the model should analyze the compute costs and compare them to potential benefits. Create a report that provides an in-depth overview of the AI solution. A few areas of specific interest for us include: Predicting compute costs based on models used to solve a particular problem.Recommendation engine for best suitable models basis the business problem at hand.Marketplace for ML models

Competitive Analysis & Overseas Expansion

It’s important for us to have a better understanding of how our target audience perceives our brand and competitors. We want to develop clarity on our competitive advantages and optimize our marketing strategy. This project will include: Identification of our current competitorsIdentification of potential future competitors (eg. a large company in a similar industry that may enter the space)The creation of a matrix identifying features shared across the companies and those that are different.A summary of 2-4 paragraphs describing our competitive advantages and disadvantages relative to the competition identified. This could be done in the form of a SWOT analysis.An outline of our industry’s expansion opportunities through a location analysis. This report should include an optimal location recommendation list. We will give you access to organizational assets to support this project such as personnel, website analytics, sales and brand collateral, and more. We can suggest names of competitors to research. Objective We hope to gain a comprehensive understanding of the competitors in our space and how we can differentiate ourselves through our product/service offering, and our messaging. Presently we only exist in one market but it’s time to grow! Our company requires some assistance in assessing our customer landscape outside of our current territory. We want to learn more about customer’s expectations and behaviors in suggested new regions. It is important for us to stay up to date on industry standards to ensure that we research new locations fully and completely before choosing to enter. We have some ideas of where we would like to go but we need to make sure that we consider all available options before making a decision. To consider: which markets align with our current one? Where are there buyers that we have yet to reach? What are the pros and cons of expanding our operations? What potential competitors exist in new locations? What legal protocol will need to be considered? Potential recommendations could be new products, new geographies, and new partnerships.