Market Research & Consumer Behavior - WWU Career Services

This project was a part of the MKTG 381 and 382 courses at Western Washington University. Course descriptions below:

  • MKTG 381: The primary tool for exploring new opportunities in the marketplace. Emphasis will be on how to: 1) specify information needs and design a research study to meet those needs; 2) collect, analyze and use marketing research data to make effective marketing decisions; 3) communicate the research findings and their implications to various publics. This course should be taken concurrently with MKTG 382

  • MKTG 382: Perception, motivation, learning, attitude structure and change, social influences and cultural forces relevant to buyer behavior and decision processes. Implications for marketing planning, analysis and management.

The assigned task for this project was to better understand working with a live client, and use research and consumer insights to create suggestions and solutions to help solve the needs of our client. We then presented our findings and solutions to our live client.

Client: Western Washington University’s Career Services Center

Marketing Case:

The Western Washington University Career Services Center is looking for a better way to connect and serve students. With only 3 career counselors for 16,000 undergraduate students, the center wanted to provide the best services to its students as possible so that when they leave WWU they feel ready and prepared to enter the workforce.

The center was seeking solutions on how to better engage with students on and off campus, and wanted to know how they can utilize their knowledge, platform and services to serve the university students.

Market Research - Phase 1

The first objective of this project was to conduct and industry analysis to learn background information, define terms common to the industry, and clarify common problems presented by clients that may help inform research priorities. Our team was tasked with using secondary data to understand the industry of our client. This data and information gathered in the first phase of the Market Research project would then go on to help us in the Consumer Behavior portion of this project.

In this phase, our group learned more about the staffing industry, what the roles and responsibilities were for Kelly Services and its competitors. We also used data analysis tools such as SPSS to find similarities and differences among data sets that we could use as quantitative reasoning.

The second phase of this project was our opportunity to use primary research to collect data from the people who use our client the most - the students. Our group created a survey for us to better understand the current use of our Career Services Center by the students at Western.

The survey was distributed by the six members of our group to our colleagues, fellow students and friends who are also students of WWU. After the completion of the survey, our job was to analyze the results and work to create solutions and suggestions on how our client could better engage and offer students their services.

Market Research - Phase 2

  • 81% of respondents to our survey had never utilized the Career Services Center

  • 54% of our respondents were underclassmen

  • There was a higher level of interest in using the services that the Career Services Center had to offer than awareness that the resource was available to students

  • 58.16% of respondents said that they utilize ‘Personal Relationships’ as outside career help

Findings

In the final stage of this project, my group created a final research report detailing all of our research findings, analyzed survey data, and suggestions for the client to implement that would be successful in increasing engagement, awareness and use of the Career Services Center. We also created a presentation that we then presented to our clients for them to then give us feedback and ask questions about our research and suggestions.

Our team suggested that the Career Services Center focus on the following three goals:

  • Create awareness in services to attract new incoming students

  • Share potential benefits of visiting CSC early in collegiate career

  • Show thought provoking statistics of post graduate employment rates in promotions

Behavioral Analysis - Phase 3

Based on our research findings, 45% of the Freshman did not see the center as a priority, and 35% of Sophomores felt the same. We suggest that the Career Services Center show students why it’s imperative that they start thinking of what life after college will be like at the beginning of their college careers.

Suggested Opportunities

Social Media

  • Use the appropriate networks to connect to college students

  • Utilize Facebook and Instagram insights to track performance and reach

  • Funnel all posts for WWU Career Services Center through the main WWU Instagram account for higher visibility (232 followers vs 21K followers)

Increasing Student Involvement

  • Create a ‘Student Ambassador’ program

  • Connect with first-year students at orientations

  • Train RA’s on campus about the CSC, it’s tools and resources for students.

  • Train students already working on campus with others in a “mentorship” capacity (tutors, etc)

Next

Integrated Marketing