Market Analysis The Market for our conferences comprises of mainly students from Ple ESG.

The total number of students from the six campuses (ESG, mbaESG, ESGF, ESGCI, ESG Formation Continue and Paris School of Business) amounts to 4,500. With these we hope to target 50% of the Junior graduates (2,250 students), 30% of the 2nd year students (1350 students), and 20% of the Freshmen/ 1st years (900 students). Market Segmentation The breakdown of the market for our conferences, we believe falls in three diverse groupings. Students demand the services that we provide. So, in order to achieve this, and to provide the greatest depth of information, we decided to do multi-segmentation to our target market. The three segmentation for the students therefore is: Freshmen 2nd year students Junior graduates

1. Freshmen (1st year) & 2nd year students We cannot neglect this part of our main customer base. Mostly during this time, most students havent yet decided in what line of their studies, they are going to be majoring in. So, by attending our conferences, which will be program-theme based, they will be able to get some guidelines to their majors. That is to say that our conference themes will mainly focus on, either, finance, marketing or management issues. We will also be flexible to organize conferences based on current issues, related directly or indirectly to students so as to meet their needs.

2. Junior graduates. The speakers to our conferences will be well known and successful professionals. So the junior graduates will get a chance to interact and network with them because some of these speakers could be their future employers.

Target Market Segment Strategy We chose to use a multi-segment marketing strategy for our target market. This is because we feel that the three different student segments have different specific needs. This will also help us reach them easily. Having therefore identified our key audiences, MERL will ensure that its marketing mix fits and appeals specifically to each group of our target market.

Marketing Strategies and Tactics (Promotion) Having discussed on our client base, we must then look at needs for these students, how to cater for them and how to reach them. Basically, being that they are all on-campus students, it is possible to reach them through the same medium. Our marketing is predominantly by Word of Mouth. When marketing to the students, we will try to use a message strategy to convince them to choose our conferences over those of our competitors. In this case, the question in mind is; why should students attend our conferences? We are committed to delivering information on issues that students and graduates are interested in We encourage hand picking delegates whereby the speakers from the different companies will be able to specify what sort of students they would like to see in the conference. (e.g. final year students with either, finance, accounts, management, or marketing backgrounds) We will therefore focus our marketing on this targeted group of students. 2 hour meet and greet that will allow for an opportunity to hold personal face-to-face with interactions with business professionals and corporate representatives to assist in their job search Distribution of unique conference materials , by this we mean that participating/sponsoring companies will have the opportunity to distribute their recruitment brochures, placement information or other promotional materials to all those attending the conference. Student to business networking, our conferences intend to connect students and business professionals as part of a long-term workforce development strategy. We believe that students are the potential workforce. A wider view and understanding of business Free participation fees will allow us to attract the maximum number of participants/delegates

Websites and Emails: The conference will be featured prominently on the home page of the schools website, and a dedicated event page will be created to serve as the destination page to which all email communications will link. Emails will be sent to all students through the students database to promote t conference features and announcements. The emails will include a call-to action, linking to the conference event page on the website. Direct mail: A series of direct mail will be sent to the students and student associations club leaders few months before the conference. The series will include; Save the date mailer, preliminary call to conference, call to conference and a final invitation to the conference.

Clubs & Associations: The club and association presidents will be informed of the conference and will be encouraged to share the information with the students. Clubs websites will also have links to the conference page. Flyers: Printed flyers will be distributed at the entrances in all the Ple ESG campuses well in advance ahead of the conferences.

Sponsorship and Funding Being a Non-Profit Organization, we intend to get our funds from sponsors. The main purpose for sponsorship will be for marketing, fundraising, and to establish long term partnerships with companies. We hope to get sponsorship from different areas/segments namely: Ple ESG: We hope to get support and funding from the school administration. Corporate companies (In partnership with Ple ESG): The school is already in partnership with some companies. We hope to approach these companies for funding towards our business. France Government (Chambre de Commerce et dIndustrie-CCI): This is a government body that do offer help in funding ideas to upcoming entrepreneurs, so of course we hope to present them our proposal too so as to get funds. Others (e.g. Alumni and Prominent people in the society): We will also approach prominent people within the society, those willing to support our project. Apart from this, we also have successful Ple ESG Alumni, whom we believe if we ask them to sponsor our business, would be more than willing to do so. An example of the Alumni could be Mr. Albert BENGUIGUI, the Founder and CEO of American Supply Designer De Matires.

Sponsorship Strategy MERL Conference has set different levels of sponsorship. We will offer to our sponsors a choice, but make sure that when developing these levels, we are not offering all levels the great benefits. With the lower levels receiving less of the supporting benefits. Our approach to sponsorship will therefore include gold, silver, and bronze, with gold receiving the maximum benefits offered.

Some of the benefits to the companies will be: Having access to the Intranet/Extranet of Ple ESG.net so as to post job offers for students to access on real time. Access to students profiles/database page (Majors, Campus, Potential Interns, and Graduates) Recruitment and job training: Companies, on request, will be allowed to do on job training as per their company requirements. Hand-picking of delegates: Companies are free to choose what kind of delegates they would like to have attending the conference. E.g. Junior graduates majoring only in finance, accounts, management etc

Developing a Proposal for Sponsorship We will need a proposal to give our potential sponsors enough information to make decision. Our proposal will include: A description of MERL Conference Corporation. Information about our events including date and location, speakers, proposed topics, preliminary agenda, amongst others. An overview of our marketing plan and a profile of our target audience. Your list of benefits and their corresponding monetary values.

Performance Monitoring We cannot ignore that this will be important for our company. Our team will set performance criteria so that we can be able to measure the success of each conference. Delegates will be asked to give a feedback. After each conference, delegates will evaluate the quality of the keynote speaker involved and the quality of the conference in general, the information provided and any additional questions and comments they might have. We will email respondents with answers to their questions after the conference or post their questions on our website for further discussion. Apart from these, we shall take note of the number of conference attendees and the number of those who left the conference room before the end of the event.

Lastly, we shall use the press to know how many times our conferences have been featured on the magazines, newspapers, etc.