Summer Internship Project Report

Intern Role: Marketing Strategist

at

Under the guidance

of

Mr. Karthick Palaniappan

(Senior Associate at Co-Founders Office)

Report Prepare by:

Akshay Singh Bhartiya

Section-B R.No- 2010079
PGP-2020-2020
Authorization

This is to authorize that the project report on Marketing Strategies of “EMPOWER 2.0,
Capacity Building, Leadership Program” is an original work done by Mr. Akshay Singh
Bhartiya, Enrolment Number – 2010079, MBA 2020 – 2022, IIM Visakhapatnam, during his
Summer Internship at Poornatha Partnering Entrepreneurs Private Ltd. This work is
submitted in the partial fulfilment of the requirement of MBA program of IIM
Visakhapatnam.

This work has not been submitted to any other university or Organisation for assessment or
award.

Company Guide:

Mr. Karthick Palaniappan

Senior Associate at Co-Founders Office

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Acknowledgement

It gives me immense pleasure to present this project report on Marketing Strategies of

“EMPOWER 2.0, Capacity Building, Leadership Program”carried out at Poornatha
Partnering Entrepreneurs Private Ltd in partial fulfilment of the M.B.A. Program at IIM
Visakhapatnam.

No work can be carried out without the help and guidance of various people. I am happy to
take this opportunity to express gratitude to those who have been helpful to me in completing
this project report.

At the outset I would like to thank my company guide Mr. Karthick Palaniappan, Senior
Associate at Co-Founders Office, Madurai who allowed me to undertake the project and
helped me at every point throughout the tenure of the project. Mr. Vishwath Surendra has
played a versatile role, by being both a friend and a mentor. He patiently listened to my
difficulties, tried to sort them out and gave me valuable suggestions and remarks to make my
project a more meaningful one. His guidance has made me learn a lot about the marketing
domain. He constantly motivated me to overcome the hurdles and difficulties in the project. I
am grateful for the time he spent on this project out of his busy schedule.

Lastly I would like to thank my parents, friends, fellow interns and well-wishers who
encouraged me to do this research/ strategy work and all those who contributed directly or
indirectly in completing this project to whom I am obligated to even though anonymously.

Akshay Singh Bhartiya

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Certificate

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Executive Summary

Entrepreneurship is important, why? for several reasons, from promoting social change to
driving innovation. Entrepreneurs are frequently thought of as national assets to be cultivated,
motivated, and remunerated to the greatest possible extent. Entrepreneurs are important to
market economies because they can act as the wheels of the economic growth of the country.
By creating new products and services, they stimulate new employment, which ultimately
results in the acceleration of economic development however, they also face multiple risks
such as bankruptcy, financial risk, competitive risks, environmental risks, reputational risks,
and political and economic risks and mostly of these risks are due to gap in leadership skills
and managerial skills, lack of capacity to handle crises in business, understand the dynamics
of credit rating and risk management and due to the barrier of language they also face
problem in managing cash flows and finding opportunities.
So, here comes the solution for not all these but we can say at most of these problems-
Empower 2.0, A business leadership program, a Simple, Interactive and Practical learning
for entrepreneurs where they would learn Combination of world class knowledge and local
business expertise, and which Help them strengthen their people management skills,
decision-making capabilities, and financial literacy to be more confident leaders for their
businesses and beyond.

A dynamic entrepreneur in a developing country like India basically requires business and
leadership training in following three areas: Grasp of basic financial concepts, developing
structured decision-making capabilities, Broadening the view of leadership and empower
focusses on all three aspects and help entrepreneurs develop skills in all these areas to stand
out in the market against the competition. Empower is the combined pack of knowledge
which every entrepreneur needs to become self-reliant in different areas where they are
lacking due to their different educational and regional backgrounds.

So, Poornatha, a capacity building organization through its Empower 2.0 program want to
reach maximum entrepreneurs to give them benefit of this problem and fill the gap of
business and leadership skills to help them grow and boost the economic development of
country however, entrepreneurs can do so only if they would get to know about this problem
and which is only possible through an extraordinary marketing plan which helps us to access
as many entrepreneurs in the state of Tamil Nadu and attracts them towards this problem
which is the hour of the need in these times. So, this study has been undertaken to draft an
attractive marketing plan and focuses on all aspects of marketing (Marketing channel, target
audience, pricing, product, promotion) to achieve a goal to reach maximum entrepreneurs in
the state of Tamil Nadu.

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Contents

Authorization......................................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................................. 3
Certificate .............................................................................................................................................. 4
Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 5
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Product Description .............................................................................................................................. 7
Empower 2.0 .......................................................................................................................................... 7
Task 1: Marketing Strategies for Empower Program ...................................................................... 8
Customer Expectation .................................................................................................................. 8
Customer enrolment motivation .................................................................................................. 8
Customer buying concern ............................................................................................................ 8
How to reach potential customer ................................................................................................. 9
Value Proposition of the program ............................................................................................... 9
Task 2: Social Media Marketing........................................................................................................ 10
Selection of social media platform for alumni network ........................................................... 11
Task 3: Alumni Network .................................................................................................................... 12
Use alumni network in Poornatha ............................................................................................. 12
Learning from Internship .................................................................................................................. 14

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Introduction

Poornatha is a capacity-building organisation dedicated to accelerating the progress of the

nation through empowering individuals and institutions. We work with entrepreneurs to help
them build confidence in their decision-making and to establish and sustain a trust-based
culture. Poornatha aims to create an encompassing ecosystem by providing diagnostic tools,
mentoring, and a support structure to help MSME company leaders find growth opportunities
and gain confidence in making sound business decisions.

For a revitalised business vision and increased production, Poornatha assist individuals and
institutions in undergoing a complete "Poornatha" transformation.

Product Description

Empower 2.0

Empower is a business leadership program by Poornatha for entrepreneurs, a Simple,

Interactive and Practical learning for entrepreneurs, whose goal is to provide established
entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools to further succeed in managing their businesses,
where entrepreneurs will learn Combination of world class knowledge and local business
expertise and which Help entrepreneurs strengthen their people management skills, decision-
making capabilities, and financial literacy to be more confident leaders for their businesses
and beyond.

The program will be an Interactive web-based training program conducted on Zoom which
will be delivered in cohorts in the entrepreneurs own local language (vernacular languages).
The program caters to growth-oriented entrepreneurs to increase the understanding of
business numbers, to build structed decision making capabilities and to broaden the view on
role of leadership.

It will be the 10 -15-hour program conducted over a period of 2 months on an online platform
zoom delivered in vernacular languages. The sessions will consist of simplified, interactive
and practical approach delivered with the help of relatable examples and SME case studies.
To make it interactive our facilitator will ask questions based on the concepts in between and
also conduct other interactive exercises such as breakout rooms (group discussion), polls and
chat box. The only requirements for participants to attend the session would be Laptop,
Stable internet connection- Fiber Net or broadband or 4G, Headphone, Notebook or paper,
Pen or pencil, Worksheets & calculator, and an open mind!

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Task 1: Marketing Strategies for Empower Program

Customer Expectation
Customers would expect to get relevant knowledge regarding their businesses. This
knowledge should be based on mostly marketing, finance, and general management.
Considering the age of customers, there might be a little old for fast learning. So, the content
should be designed such way so that it is easy for them to grab. We also expect some specific
knowledge towards their business instead of generic knowledge. On any point of time, if they
feel difficulty with the system or the devices, some SPOC from Poornatha will solve the
problem as soon as possible.

Customer enrolment motivation

Small businesses and small start-ups are part of the unorganised business sector . Hence, they
always lack fundamental business operational knowledges like general management, finance,
marketing, etc. This gives them a motivation to ease off their difficulties in running the
businesses and applying for such programs.

Similarly, they also need to have the interests which are mentioned in the customer persona
excel sheet. Only then our programmes will be lucrative enough for the customers to apply
for.

Customer buying concern

As usual as every other customer, they might be concerned if value for the money is being
delivered to them or not. Also, if they are financially capable enough to enrol for such a
programme. In this regard, the shared experiences of our previous batches will come into
play.

Product Empower

Price Value for money, no hidden

charges
Promotion Social media
Words of mouth

Place Online mode

People Highly skilled mentors

Processes Highly efficient and rapid

Physical evidence Feedbacks

Success stories

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How to reach potential customer

• Words of mouth: Talk to people about our program, try to connect with more people in
the same domain and pitch for Empower 2.0.
• Social media posts: It’s a very essential part of advertising Empower; we need to
publish several posts on regular interval. If possible, throw one live session on LinkedIn
or on YouTube just to tell our target audience about the programs and what they get from
it.
• Social Media Marketing: Its a paid advertisement segment and it will require time to
reap the reward so try to publish ad as soon as possible.
• Referrals: We can ask our previous batches for referrals
• Approaching groups and association: We can connect to several association for bulk
registration also it will help in long term relation. Some of the association that we should
target are:
• Tamil Nadu Small and Tiny Industries Association
• Thoothukudi District Tiny and Small-Scale Industries Association
• Coimbatore District Small Scale Industries Associations
• Tamil Nadu Plastics Manufacturers Associations
• Approaching individuals: Registering on Startupindia.gov can help us to get
wholesome connection between incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurs. Around
8858+ entrepreneurs from Tamil Nadu are present on the portal and we can access their
details. We can approach them individually through phones, cold emails, social media
messages.

Value Proposition of the program

Problem: Gap in their knowledge due to that They are not able to adapt to the business
environment, most of them are not aware of business practices like skills attitude matrix,
apart from those Lack of Leadership & managerial skills among entrepreneurs, Problem in
managing cash flows and handling finance and Lack of entrepreneurial mind-set are the few
problems today’s entrepreneurs are facing.

Solution: Mentoring, online education to entrepreneurs to fill this gap and provide them with
the knowledge to make them stand out in the market against the competitors.

Product: Empower, a business leadership program by Poornatha for entrepreneurs, a Simple,

Interactive and Practical learning for entrepreneurs, whose goal is to provide established
entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools to further succeed in managing their businesses,
where entrepreneurs will learn Combination of world class knowledge and local business
expertise.

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 Responsibilities

The key responsibilities included the following:

• Market research, analysing all market players, government and non-government

organisations in the same industry, with the focus on Tamil Nadu.
• Competitor analysis.
• Fabricating a positioning statement for the new product.
• Coming up with a positioning statement for the new product
• Prepared marketing deck
• Cold emailing to potential customer

Task 2: Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing, it’s a paid marketing segment and with this we can reach tour target
customer several folds, but it will require time to fetch some result, normally it 2-3 months to
see the result.

I ran our test campaign on Facebook, LinkedIn and on google ads on the basis of location,
age, type of ad, interest groups of our target customer and objective.

Now understanding objective is very important and should be clear for media marketing,
people start advertising without understanding the purpose of host website. For example-
Facebook is use for brand awareness not for lead generation on the other hand google ads
focus on lead generation not brand awareness. So keeping these things in mind we are getting
expenses of around Rs.44,000 for LinkedIn, Rs.22,500 for Google Ads and Rs.8,467 for
Facebook.

Target Reach
Age Ad
Objective Location Audience Time per Expense
Group format
size month
Single
Brand Tamil 25 to 18,000-
LinkedIn 13,000,000+ Image 45days Rs.44,000
Awareness Nadu 55+ 40,000
Ad
More
websites website
Google sales/ Tamil add 1,050-
_ _ 45days Rs.22,500
Ads signups, Nadu with no 1,790
Get more image
calls
1,400-
Brand Tamil 29 to
Facebook _ image 45days 4,000 Rs.8,467
Awareness Nadu 55
per day

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Selection of social media platform for alumni network

Social media platforms are online networking sites that enable you to communicate, interact,
share and display everything that you want to highlight. Some notable uses of social media to
mention are communication, collaboration, sharing of opinions and reviews, brand
monitoring, entertainment, and media sharing. The entire world can benefit through this.
Having said that, there are plenty of available platforms today like Facebook, WhatsApp,
twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, snapchat, telegram, YouTube and so much more.
Which platform would be the most appropriate for an alumni association to function on? If
we talk about SME sector in India most of the entrepreneurs don’t have multiple social media
accounts, they mostly concentrated on WhatsApp and Facebook, in fact only from last couple
of years there is a social media boom in our country and most of the entrepreneur not even
present on social media and when we are talking about SMEs we have to think about urban as
well as rural India. Also Considering the average age of the alumni of the Empower sessions
which is 40+ and background of SMEs in our country most of them are actively using
WhatsApp and Facebook. Looking in depth into both these options.

Considering these options, Both Facebook and WhatsApp would be equally apt for an alumni
association. The main platform we suggest is Facebook where entrepreneurs could socialise,
use the platform to market their products, bond with Poornatha and exploit other
opportunities. The network can be kept active and at the same time alumni can spend their
free time to go through the various activities happening.
Some features that can be used in a Facebook group are creating rules for the group,
mentorship / mentee option and setting up learning modules.
Why we are not opting WhatsApp because the main reason is there is a limit of 256
participants for group and we don’t want to irritate our alumni by messaging them
continuously. Also, we can’t provide all the benefits of alumni association on this app.

Suppose we can’t create a poll in WhatsApp, or we can’t create the events and many more
such things are there, if we use WhatsApp eventually, we have to use some other application
for drafting events-n-all stuff and then we have to send the links. But all this can happen at
Facebook, also alumni on Facebook can be very useful for social media marketing, our media
posts can easily reach to masses, we don’t have to spend too much time to see the result of
the SMM campaign. At the same time, we don’t want to push our alumni to use new
application because they may not interested to install it or don’t know how to operate it.
However apart from these two platforms LinkedIn is a very resourceful social media platform
as well when it comes to the business front, not only to maintain a network but also to each
one’s professional aspect. Currently not many SMEs entrepreneurs in India would be aware
of the benefits of this platform and Poornatha could take an effort to introduce then to
LinkedIn in the future and use the available benefits like networking, connecting with like-
minded people and learning from each other to improve the efficiency of the network as well.

Responsibilities

The key responsibilities included the following:

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 • Ran live campaign on LinkedIn, Facebook and on google Ads.
• Creating a delivery timeline for marketing plans, media posts
• Research on newspaper marketing
• Made teaser videos, social media post for the Empower program

Task 3: Alumni Network

Alumni networks are groups of former colleagues whose purpose is to maintain a strong bond
with their colleagues and institution while also advocating for the welfare of the members of
the network. Alumni can make business contacts, arrange reunions, and serve as role models
for the types of individuals that attend same institute. It's especially beneficial for people who
are truly interested in their old colleagues' lives and want to know what they're up to.

‘Everything in One Place’

The Alumni Network's goal is to bring all alumni news, correspondence, events, activities,
photographs, and more together in one place. This platform serves as a single hub for alumni,
ex-employees, current employees, and employers to stay engaged throughout their careers.
Keep up with key news, projects, and events, and understand how our community can make a
valuable impact in your life right now. Good alumni relationships bring many benefits to both
the institution and the alumni.

Use alumni network in Poornatha

Staying connected: through an alumni network poornatha can stay connected to a huge
number of people who are aware of our programs. Even if we put up a post on his social
network Spaces, the post can get higher reaches due to the involvement of the alumni
network.

New program beneficiary:If a new program is launched, it might be possible that a few of
our alumni are potential customer.

Boost in referrals: Poornatha might get new customers by the referrals from our alumni to
their acquaintances

MSME employee training: a few of the MSME Businessman or the entrepreneurs might
want to get their employees trained by Poornatha. These delivers value to both the alumnus
and the company.

Integrated Survey scope: for product improvement or any other purpose Poornatha can Roll
out a survey to its huge network. This might be more relevant rather than the non-relevant
sample pool.

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Review point: a huge network of alumni and their shared experiences might act as a proof of
work for the potential new consumers. This might act as a review site where new consumers
can get an idea of the work done in Poornatha.

Word of mouth: On many occasions our alumni my to talk about Poornatha to their
acquaintances or share any post on their social media platforms.

Responsibilities

The key responsibilities included:

• Researching and creating a list of alumni.

• E-mailing, messaging alumni individually to onboarding them on alumni network.
• Asking for referrals for new programs and taking their feedbacks.

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Learning from Internship

• I understood the real meaning of entrepreneurship, what require to be an entrepreneur.

• Gain more knowledge on accelerators, incubators, and business capacity builders.

• Hands on practical working on Social Media Marketing.

• Purpose of SMM and how to choose host website for advertising.

• Collated target audience data from Startupindia portal.

• First time worked on Cold E-mailing to pitch our target audience.

• On boarding people on Alumni network.

• Apart from this, after working for two months at Poornatha, I was able understand more

about corporate culture and Organisational behaviour.

***

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