Increasing Sales of Intelligent Tutor SoftwareGoogle AdWords Advertising in Jingwei Company

1、increasing sales of intelligent tutor software by google adwords advertising in jingwei companysubmitted by guoshiqiangstudent id number (w2006a1001c0052)supervised by dr. dong mina paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of bachelor of artsthe institute of online ed

2、ucationbeijing foreign studies university北京外国语大学网络教育学院学士学位论文诚信声明本人郑重声明：所呈交的学士学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。论文所涉及的项目为本人亲自负责或者参与实施的项目。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。本人完全了解本声明的法律结果由本人承担。学士学位论文作者签名：郭世强日期：2011年10月30日摘要北京经纬公司是一家专业从事中小学教育软件研发的企业，2010年公司研发了一款面向初、高中学生的家教辅导软件“智能辅导王”。软件内集成了最新的中高考试题

3、、视频资源库和一对一家教服务等功能，软件实用性强，价格合理，收到了众多学生家长的好评。2011年初开始上市推广，主要通过电话销售方式直接向各地零售商和学生家长推销产品。但是，由于缺乏客户资料、软件产品抽象、小公司缺乏知名度等问题，导致电话营销工作的难度比较大，销售业绩一直不佳。网络营销广告尤其是搜索引擎推广以其覆盖广泛、灵活性强、成本可控等特点给小型企业的产品推广提供了一个独特的渠道。本论文设计通过谷歌搜索关键词广告（google adwords）推广该软件产品网站，结合利用在网站上提供在线咨询、注册信息免费产品试用、在线订购等营销方式，力图用较少的资金投入，在较短时间内找到新的销售推广渠道，

4、从而使软件的用户量和销售额都有明显的增长。本论文前期通过目标客户的分组问卷调查和swot分析法等研究方法，找出原来电话业务推广存在的问题和新的营销方式需要解决的问题和预期要达到的目的。中期在广告方案设计和其它投放前的准备工作，通过项目进度流程表、项目负责人工作日志等形式来检查和保证推广方案得到顺利实施。最后在广告投放结束后，主要是通过第三方流量统计工具和销售业绩的前后对比来进行评估。经过前期对存在问题的调查分析和解决方案设计，中期周密的准备工作和后期基于数据的客观评估，本论文设计的网络营销推广方案顺利实施，不但拓展了新的营销渠道，提升了公司和产品的知名度，而且解决了原来电话营销方式存在的若干问

5、题，随着客户数量持续快速增长，销售收入和利润均获得了预期的效果。实践表明，小企业通过实施合理设计的网络营销方案可以有效地提升产品销售业绩。关键词：网络营销；家教软件；小型企业；谷歌关键词广告abstractthis dissertation presents a detailed report of a project implemented to promotea product of educationalsoftware by google adwords advertising program in a small company. beijing jingwei educationa

6、l software company developed a product of afterschool tutoring software for grades 7-12. the productwon high praises from many parents of students because of powerful functions and reasonable price.however, problems exist with the projectin that there are a smallnumber of customers due to inefficien

7、t telemarketing promotion, lack of brand recognition. it is hypothesized that there is an effectiveway to increase sales volume by conducting a well-designed google adwords advertising program. a six weeks project was launched to design and conduct the online marketing campaign. scientific research

8、methods of customer survey, such as focus group, telephone interviewand swot analysis were used in the identification and analysis of the problems. flowchart, project framework and several other methods were adopted in the design, implementation and evaluation of the project. with the efforts of all

9、 our project members, we achieved our final goal successfully with a small budget. the online advertising campaign brings enormous customers and the sales increased rapidly. the results of project demonstrated that the small business canget a significant increase in sales volume through conducting a

10、 well-designed online advertising program. key words: online advertising; educational software; small business; google adwordstable of contentspages1. introduction32. problem identification and analysis32.1 project problem32.2 project analysis32.2.1 current situation of project32.2.2needs and wants

11、analysis32.2.3pest analysis32.2.4 swot analysis32.3results of problem analysis33. project objective and hypothesis33.1 project objective33.2 project hypothesis34. project rationale35. project design35.1.1 activities with time-scale35.1.3 time-scale of activities35.1.2 people involved and responsibil

12、ities35.2 cost analysis35.3 risks analysis and protective measures to be taken35.4 plan for monitoring and evaluation of the project36. project implementation36.1 general introduction of time, place of project implementation36.2 the working steps of implementation36.3 monitoring37. results and discu

13、ssion37.1 results37.2 discussion38. conclusion3bibliography3appendix 1: questionnaire.3appendix 2: the project framework3appendix 3: the advertisement on google adwords program3appendix 4: the new website of product3increasing sales of intelligent tutor software by google adwords advertising in jing

14、wei company1. introductionbeijing jingwei company is major in developing software for k12 students. i am the technology director of company. in 2010, my company developed a product of afterschool tutoring software for grades 7-12. the software integrated information of examination entrance, video an

15、d one on one afterschool tutoring service. it featuring intelligence helps students to learn and master curriculum and focuses on helping students gain good performances in examinations. the software won high praises from many parents of studentsbecause of powerful functions and reasonable price. it

16、 has determined that it would be popular forstudents parentsbased on previous market research.however, the launching marketing campaign was not going well since february, 2011. our salesmen promoted products directly to resellers and students parents with telemarketing asa majorapproach.yet, we foun

17、d some problems to do the telemarketing. firstly, it was difficultto findcustomer information by public channel. the salesmen had to spend much of time on searching customer contacts. secondly, the communication was inefficient due to the software was not visibility on the phone. thus customer would

18、 feel not easy to understand the product features. in addition, our company was too small to spend much money on the marketing campaign. the telemarketing was not an inefficient method to promote the product. the sales volume was very small.internet advertising especially search engine advertising p

19、rovided a special promotional tool for small businesses because of its flexible, widespread and cost-effective nature. google adwords advertising is one of search engine advertising products, which can display the ads to people looking for products or services on google. and it could be tailored to

20、fit any budget. base on the hypothesis that there is an effective way to increase sales volumeby the well-designed google adwordsprogram because it couldhelp reach a large customer base to visit a website with functions of online customer service, trial register and other more information to stimula

21、te customers to buy. a six-week project was launched to design and conducted the advertising program from november 1, 2011 to december12, 2011. a series of activities was planned and carried out, such as budget approval, designing and building a new website, creating and setting google adwords accou

22、nt, and so on.the total cost of project is 13,200 yuan. the budget of advertising is 3,000 yuan. it just included the spending for google adwords account because my coworkers and i could do the rest of jobs by ourselves.the output of the project was an account of google adwords advertising programwh

23、ich would show the advertisement of product,keywords and the clicks, etc. during the whole project, i adopted those helpful techniques and methods which john, hilton & xian, xibiaointroduced in their book “practical business project and proposal design (2001)”. scientific research methods of cus

24、tomer survey, such as focus group, telephone interview and swot analysis were used in the identification and analysis of the problems.flowchart, project framework and several other methods were adopted in the design, implementation and evaluation of the project.after six weeks of online marketing ca

25、mpaign, the number of customers and turnover has been increased dramatically by 15% and 11%. we found anew effective approach to promote our product. that is very important for our company future. 2. problem identification and analysis2.1 project problemthe problem i was facing was there are a small

26、 number of customers due to inefficient telemarketing promotion, lack of brand recognition and customer information. 2.2 project analysis2.2.1 current situation of projectl physical resourcesthe first release of intelligent tutor software was completed on july, 2010 and the first one thousand packag

27、es of product were produced on the next month. the box was colorful, eye-catching and included a dvd disc, handbook and rechargeable card. the software was burned to a dvd disc but could be updated through getting online while it was installed on the computer with microsoft windows system. the recha

28、rgeable card was similar to telephone rechargeable card which was printed with id number, password, value and expiration, etc. l human resourcesas a new modern company, it was believed that the human-resources were the most valuable part of it. our company had 32 qualified staffs andwas divided into

29、 five divisions: r&d, marketing, customer service, finance, and administration. among all of divisions, there were the most members in marketing departmentand that was headed by the marketing manager. i was in r&d department. our department had six members and all of them are major in comput

30、er or relative subjects. there are three members in customer service department. in this project, i would establish a temporary team with three members who would be from three divisions for carrying out the online marketing campaign. the members were miss yao, from marketing and miss zhang, from cus

31、tomer service and me from r&d department.（figure 1）l financial statusthe financial performance was increased very slowly and unstable since we launched the market campaign on january in 2011 (see the following sheet illustrated). the highest sales were less than 34,000 yuan during the past six m

32、onths. in october, it was 33,930 yuan accounting by the financial department. the sales volume was too low and the project may be aborted because of its low profit. so in october, 2011,i applied rmb3,000 for the marketing budget in order to finda new effectivemarketingpromotion method.intelligent tu

33、toring software sales from may to october in 2011(figure 2)l customer profilesthere are mainly two kinds of customers who buy our products.1) parents of studentsnormally, it is the parents rather than students willbuy educational products. they are directly consumers of product, account for 70% of o

34、ur customers. 2) resellersthe resellers mainly are owners of bookshop and businessmen who do business with middle school. they are big buyers, account for 28% of our customers. they can get 2060% discount depending on the quantity of purchasing. 2.2.2needs and wants analysisin order to know what the

35、 customers think about the promotion of our product and find their views about the problem, two focus groups were organized. we made the telephone interview with 15 customers.the focus groups were as follows:1) 10 parents of students: 5 parents of secondary school students' and 5 parents of high

36、 school students2) 5 owners of bookshopquestions1) do you often receive the cold callings of selling educational products? 2) do you usually find the product you need?3) which one do you prefer to find: book store, internet, outdoor advertisement? 4) would you like to have a try on the product of ed

37、ucational software when you see it online?5) what do you think of the prices of our educational software? 6) do you have any suggestions for us to improve the product or service?complaints1) parents get many cold callings to promote educational products or services, many of them feel to be disturbed

38、, especially the calling is from an unknown company. 2) parents always find and buy educational products for their children, but they feel confused whether those are helpful for their childrens learning. 3) many educational products are expensive but dont offer free trial before buying. suggestions1

39、) the company should offer product free trial to prove it is helpful for students learning. 2) the product should be easily found online to let parents know it in details.3) the product should be easily to use and block students playing computer game.2.2.3pest analysispolitical:china has a long term

40、 exam-oriented education policy for students getting into high school and college.the promotion rate of junior sec.school graduates is 85.6% and the promotion rate of senior school graduates is 77.6% until 2009. (ministry of education of the peoples republic of china, its website: and getting into t

41、op schools and colleges is very competitive in china.so, this creates a strong demand of product or service which could help students to get good grades in examination (mainly in zhongkao and gaokao) in the market. on the other hand, chinese government strongly encouraged the educators to aggressive

42、ly adopt information technologies in their regular teaching. this makes students and their parents take the internet as an alternative study resource. economic:as more and more chinese middle-class families becomeaffluent with higher disposable incomes, the demand for quality education is likely toi

43、ncrease as well. the spending on education in china is expected to grow at a cagrof 20.7% from 2008-2013, according to idc.obviously, our project will also benefit from the prosperity and development of marketing.social:there is an inequality of educational opportunities and resources allocation in

44、different areas, especially between urban and ruralareas.on the other hand, chinese people always attach great significance to education. technological:with the matured program design development of e-learning, more and more people consider the internet as a new type of study alternative. intelligen

45、t tutor is developed by beijing jingwei company as both online synchronous and asynchronous teaching platform.this system allows both teacher and students process teach-and-learn interaction online.2.2.4 swot analysisthe swot analysis could help us to review the overall project and make clear what t

46、he problem was. strengths： product and service can be deliverable by internet reputable teachers provide the lecture product and service can be updated online low cost offer customer to have a trialweakness: few customers, no brand awareness limited marketing campaign budget difficult to introduce t

47、he software without computer and internet product cannot be use or visibility when computer or internet connection are not be available software can sometimes seem complex for students with beginner-level computer skills parents may worry that their children will become addicted to game rather than

48、learning.opportunities: increasing demand for tutoring service sustained high competition in college and high-school admissions more and more middle class families spend more on education computer and internet are getting more and more widely availablethreats: competition from well-known education s

49、ervice company providing similar product and service new rivals may have advanced technology, a large amount of marketing budget the policy of entrance of high school and college changed2.3 results of problem analysisin summary, pest and swot analysis showed that the projects major problem was there

50、 were a small number of customers and sales volume due to the ineffective telemarketing. the telemarketing was not a good promotional method to sell the product.we should find another promotional method which could maximize the strengths and minimize the weakness of the product. 3. project objective

51、 and hypothesis3.1 project objectivethe problem of project was there were a small number of customers due to the ineffective telemarketing promotion and lack of brand recognition. the goal of my project was that weconducted an online promotion campaign by google adwords advertising program to attrac

52、tpotential customers to visit our websiteand stimulate them to buy. the objective is rapidly increasing the revenue by 10% through this online promotion campaign.3.2 project hypothesisit is hypothesized that there is an effective way to increase sales volume by conducting a well-designed google adwo

53、rds advertising programbecause it could help reach a large customer base to visit our website with functions of online customer service, trial register and other more information to stimulate customers to buy.4. project rationalefirstly, it was important that i observed and studied the terms of the

54、project framework as below when i wrote my paper on the project:“the project frame is a way of setting out all the essential details of a project in an orderly and logical way on one or at most two sides of paper. it is commonly used in planning and carrying out a project as the key document on whic

55、h all other elements of planning and based.”(john, hilton & xian, xibiao)when i did the project, i did not know the framework. when i began to write the paper, i found that the project frame term and content helped me to lay out a structure for my project. there were five steps: goal or aim, pur

56、pose or objective, outputs, activities, input like a clue with four characteristic narrative summary, objectively verifiable indicators, source of information assumptions and risks which form a two-dimensional flat. i filled in all forms, and the project profile clearly emerged.following this step,

57、i organized the project materials well. secondly, i thought the critical path analysis was truly a good way to make plan. there were many detailed works you had to do when preparing for the online advertising. at very beginning, i felt i was like a fire fighter, and there was fire everywhere. luckil

58、y i read: as you identify these important sequences, you are doing what is called a critical path.(john, hilton & xian, xibiao) i did as instructed in the book:firstly wrote down all the things you had to do, divided them by your category, secondly wrote a simple flow chart of every category, lastly combine the simple ones together, then i got what i want. another enlightenment i had in my