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FOR YOUR STUDENTS, ENTER
THE Direct/Interactive Marketing Challenge
… with a real client … win cash prizes and a free trip to Las Vegas
All participating students get a FREE book with direct marketing career information.
- Benefits
- What Pitney Bowes has to say
- Target Audience
- Your Challenge
- Our Business Objectives
- Who Can Participate
- Prizes!
- Testimonials
Our target market for the Stamp Expressions Printer™ is primarily small businesses that use about $30 of postage a month, and have 10 or fewer employees. They also believe in the power of marketing and are committed to making themselves and their companies “stand out in the crowd." In the USA today, we estimate the target audience is about 10 million such businesses, and currently, 10% use a desktop postage solution (either a meter or an internet postage product). Some examples of the businesses we will ask you to target are dentists, florists, landscapers, hospitality areas, auto dealers and realtors or other categories you think fit this profile. We’re looking to make direct mail and postage sexy to small business. Our
promotion activity for this product, the newest addition to our Small Business Office Series, has been light to date. So, this competition will be your opportunity to get our product some good visibility! Benefit from:
National recognition for your college or university: This DMEF Collegiate ECHO competition is a door-opener to the direct/interactive marketing community.
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HERE’S WHAT PITNEY BOWES – YOUR CLIENT HAS TO SAY …
Pitney Bowes, the $5.7 billion worldwide leader in mailstream solutions, is asking you to help develop a marketing plan for the latest desktop postage machine for small businesses. Our Stamp Expressions™ Printer is powered by innovative, new Internet technology. Through the Internet, we deliver USPS postage, and customers also can design their own postage with images, photos or their company logos! Launched in Spring 2006, this new product is about the size of a coffee mug and provides two key benefits for our small business target audience.
THE TARGET AUDIENCE
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YOUR CHALLENGE
Our challenge to you is to create an innovative, integrated marketing program that will help us establish the Stamp Expressions Printer™ within the small business target. You will be asked to create a marketing plan that incorporates both traditional direct/interactive marketing elements (such as direct mail, web and telemarketing), as well as at least one “emerging direct marketing media,” such as podcasts, mobile media, blogs, etc. You will also consider partnerships for Pitney Bowes to undertake with other properties or programs to extend our marketing through co-marketing programs or sell our product directly through different channels. In this Direct/Interactive Marketing Challenge, you will have
a marketing budget of $3 million.
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OUR BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
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WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
(www.the-dma.org). For a bibliography, visit the Bookstore (http://www.the-dma.org/bookstore). Many of these books are available in business libraries.
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PRIZES!
- First Place (Gold): $3,000 to be split among the student team winners. PLUS transportation, accommodations and registration to DMA08, October 12-15, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV for the student team winners and their faculty advisor. DMA08 is the world’s largest international conference and exhibition for direct/interactive marketers. During this event, the winning team and their faculty advisor will receive a Gold ECHO Trophy onstage at the DMA International ECHO Awards Ceremony from Pitney Bowes.
- Second Place (Silver): $2,000 to be split among the student team winners. PLUS transportation, accommodations and registration to a regional direct/interactive marketing conference. And a Silver ECHO Trophy for your school.
- Third Place (Bronze): $1,000 to be split among the student team winners.
- T shirts for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place student team winners and their faculty advisors from Pitney Bowes.
- A Stamp Expressions™ Printer free for 1 year (including $25 in free postage) for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place student team winners and their faculty advisors from Pitney Bowes.
- Certificates for Honorable Mentions.
- And – all students who enter the competition, get a free direct/interactive marketing career guide.
- PLUS all winning team members qualify for scholarships to direct marketing graduate programs at leading universities.
- NOTE: Undergraduate teams are eligible for prizes and winner certificates; winning graduate teams receive a trophy for their school and individual Gold, Silver, Bronze or Honorable Mention winner certificates. Prize details are available in the Official Rules Booklet.
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS - Past Gold 1st Place Winners:
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"The ECHO competition made me more confident in the education I received at Christopher Newport University. I felt being able to actually apply the knowledge I had learned as a marketing student graduating from college. Unlike an internship, where you could be doing anything from mundane paper work to ordering coffee for the office, the ECHO competition really puts you in the driver's seat.
But, where I've really seen my ECHO experience shine is in my current career. I feel like I entered the job market with a much larger upper-hand on the competition. And finally, having been awarded a GOLD ECHO is an accomplishment that will highlight my resume for the rest of my professional life."
Andrew Vannatta, Collegiate Gold ECHO team, 2007
"Thanks to the practical learning experience I received from participating in the prestigious 2005 Collegiate ECHO competition, I was a step above the competition when looking for a job after college. I moved to Chicago a short while after college and without an established network, I was able to incorporate my Collegiate Gold ECHO competition experience and my determination into my interviews, thereby receiving a job offer almost immediately. Without the Collegiate ECHO Competition experience under my belt, I honestly do not believe I would be where I am today in my career."
Nicole Hruska, Collegiate Gold ECHO team, 2005
Direct/Interactive Marketing Competition
DMEF
1120 Ave. of the Americas, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10036
212.768.7277
Fax: 212.790.1561
awww.collegiateecho.org