Marketing Plan for a Digital B-to-B Language Education Service

Abstract

This Bachelor’s thesis was a commissioned by a company chief executive officer (CEO) of a German digital language education company operating on an international business-to-customer field that aimed to expand its business operations by performing an entrance to European business-to-business (b-to-b) digital language education market.

Objective of the thesis was to a develop a marketing plan and outlines of a new digital language learning service for b-to-b customers inside the European market area, which would enable performing a successful market penetration with limited amount of resources. The marketing plan consists of analyses of prevailing micro and macro environments, which were used as a foundation for a new marketing strategy and tactics. The new service features were optimized according strategy and tactics provided by the new marketing plan and enforced by the environmental factors that were revealed during the analyses.

Working history of the Author in the commissioning company and consultation from the CEO gave the author a clear image over the existing state of affairs of the commissioning company. Information and theoretical foundation of the thesis is based on the relevant literature and digital materials, about various concepts such as latest trends of the industry, business developing methods, digital marketing and data about the prevailing market environment. Theoretical framework of the marketing plan consisted of analyzing both macro and micro environmental factors by using analyses such as PESTEL and SWOT, on which the strategy was then founded, and then Extended Marketing Mix was used in defining the most suitable marketing tactics. The Lean Startup is the dominant new product development methodology in the commissioning company. Therefore, in order to make the future research and development of the topic easier, the new service was designed in a compatible way with the dominant methodology.

Main results of the thesis were ready marketing plan including optimized marketing strategy, marketing tactics and a list of business development methods for optimizing the existing processes and services regarding the new business-to-business market environment and the capabilities of the commissioning company.