The Lion's Roar/Karson Sharp

For their final project in marketing management, students gave a market planning lecture in Garrett Hall.

The lecture took place at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, May 3, and featured several student groups.  Some had collected data about First Guaranty Bank and their competitors, while others interpreted the data and made suggestions on how to improve the bank. 

Senior marketing major Jonathan Bordelon led one of the teams of students, and worked on the marketing segmentation component of the presentation. 

Bordelon enjoyed and learned from the project.

“I feel I learned a very large amount about analysis, about analyzing data and seeing how everything correlates in a major marketing project,” said Bordelon. “What my group did was the foundation of the entire marketing plan. Without this, there would be nothing people could base their statements off of.”

Bordelon’s team contributed the market segmentation component of the lecture. They analyzed the perceived usefulness, the ease of use, risk, perceived trust and perceived value of a product. According to Bordelon, all of these factors are important in marketing a product, and they have a different weight of importance between consumer classifications. 

He noted the fulfillment and the hands-on knowledge gained during the project.  

“The project was a lot of fun,” said Bordelon. “It was a lot of strenuous work, but it was extremely detailed. For someone like me who is very analytical, I really enjoyed looking at all these tables and data. Seeing that this is how everything pieces together. I think it gave me a lot of leadership skills too.”

Another team of students, led by senior marketing major Sean Mercer, examined the different groups of customers First Guaranty Bank can reach. The first type of customer, disconnects, includes males above the age of 76 who enjoy interaction during transactions and should not be marketed to. Prospectives, the second group, consists of professional women with college degrees. Prospectives can be reached, but marketing to them should be secondary to other groups. Next comes infrequents, who are mainly parents with young children, and value convenience and ease of use. As such, First Guaranty Bank’s mobile banking app presents a major draw for them. 

The last pool of customers was the regulars. This is the largest consumer group, and primarily consists of males between the ages of 18-55. According to Mercer, the group mainly consists of millennials, and this is the group that should be marketed to. This was the group that could make up a new customer base and is the future of the banking industry. They seek innovative and secure banking.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management Dr. Wesley Pollitte, taught the course. According to Pollitte, students had two months to work on the project, and chose their own groups. Each group chose a task for the whole marketing plan, and worked closely with employees of First Guaranty Bank. The result was a full, professional level marketing plan bound in notebooks.