Library Boards, Parent Groups and a Teacher Guide in August: Mapping the Journey of Two Target Segments and the Channels That Reach Them
Student Name
American College of Education
MRKT5003: Marketing Management: Strategy, Impact, and Engagement
Module 5 Assignment
Instructor Name
March 11, 2028
Why the Journey, Not the Channel List
The most common weakness in a channel plan is a list of platforms addressed to no one. This plan starts instead from the two segments chosen in Module 2, parents of children under five and teachers of kindergarten through third grade, and asks where each of them is at each stage of deciding. Lemon and Verhoef (2016) described the customer journey as a sequence of prepurchase, purchase and postpurchase stages, each with touchpoints that may be owned by the brand, by partners, by customers themselves or by outside sources, and argued that firms control fewer of those touchpoints than they assume. For a small orchard with a limited budget, that point is practical: most of the touchpoints that reach these two segments belong to someone else, so the plan is largely a plan for partnerships. The best channel for a parent of a two-year-old is usually another parent.
Parents of Children Under Five: Before the Visit
Parents of very young children in the region find weekday activities in three main places: local parent groups on social media, six of which have about 48,000 members combined in the orchard's 60-mile area; the 31 public library branches within 30 miles, whose story-time programs gather exactly this segment on weekday mornings; and the 74 licensed preschools and child care centers within 30 miles, which send weekly notes home to parents. Each is a partner-owned or customer-owned channel, and each is chosen because Module 2 showed the segment is reachable there.
The plan uses each channel in the form it already takes. Library branches will receive a small printed card for their activity boards and an invitation for children's librarians to hold one story time a month at the orchard's pavilion in summer, which puts the orchard inside a program parents already trust. Preschools will receive a short note for their weekly newsletters in May and September. In the parent groups, the orchard will not advertise; instead, the first 200 families who book will be invited to post a photo if they wish, and the orchard will answer questions in those groups when asked. Paid regional advertising is excluded because it would reach weekend families, the segment Module 2 decided not to grow.
Parents of Children Under Five: Booking and After
The purchase stage is where the orchard owns the touchpoint, and it should remove every obstacle a tired parent might meet. Booking will take three steps on a phone, the confirmation will say exactly where to park and which gate to use and the evening text reminder will carry the weather and what to wear. On arrival, a staff member will meet each group at the stroller path.
After the visit, the plan aims at engagement in the sense Brodie et al. (2011) described: a state that arises from interactive experiences with a brand and shows itself in thought, feeling and behavior, including repeat visits, recommendation and participation. Three design choices support it. Each child's height is marked on a painted board beside the dwarf block, and parents are invited to photograph it each visit, a small ritual that gives a reason to return as the season changes. Season pass holders receive the monthly note described in Module 4. And every family that books can send a friend a code for a free first session, since Trusov et al. (2009) found that referrals on a social networking site had a larger and longer-lasting effect on new sign-ups than traditional marketing did.
Teachers: Before the Visit
Teachers decide on autumn field trips in late August and early September, often as a grade-level team and with a principal's approval. The channels that reach them at that moment are narrow and specific: the district field-trip coordinators in the 14 districts within 40 miles, the principals of the 212 elementary schools and the teachers themselves, whose school email addresses are published in staff directories. The orchard's own website matters only after a teacher has heard of the trip.
The central channel is the teacher guide from Module 4, sent in the second week of August by email to each kindergarten through third grade teacher and in print to each school office, with a cover note offering a free visit for any teacher who wants to see the orchard before booking. District coordinators will receive a one-page summary and the scholarship information, since coordinators field questions about cost from schools that serve low-income families. The orchard will also ask to present for ten minutes at the county's regional teacher professional development day in August, which reaches about 600 elementary teachers in one morning.
Teachers: Booking and After
Booking will use an online calendar showing open mornings, with a deposit of $50 and a confirmation that includes the teacher guide, a chaperone information sheet to send home and a map for the bus driver. After the trip, each class will receive a photo of the students in the orchard within two days, which teachers can share with parents, and a set of post-visit activity cards. The orchard will then ask each teacher for a two-sentence comment that can be shared with other teachers, with the teacher's permission and name, because a teacher's recommendation carries more weight with another teacher than anything the orchard could write. Teachers who book will be invited to a teacher evening in June at the farm market, the first step in making the program a yearly habit for a grade-level team.
Channels Deliberately Left Out
Three channels that a larger attraction would use are excluded, each for a stated reason. Regional radio and billboards reach mostly adults who are free on weekends, the segment the plan has chosen not to grow, and their cost per weekday booking would be the highest of any option. Paid social media advertising aimed by age and parental status is technically able to reach parents of young children, but it competes with the free and more trusted recommendations of other parents in the same groups, and the orchard's small budget would buy only a few weeks of it. Coupon and deal websites are excluded because they would train buyers to wait for discounts, which Module 4 ruled out. These exclusions are provisional. If the booking-source codes show that the partner channels fall well short of the session and field-trip targets in the first season, paid social media is the first channel the orchard would test in the second.
Tracking Every Channel
Every channel will carry its own booking-source code: each library branch, each preschool newsletter, each parent group post, the referral codes, the teacher guide email, the print mailing and the professional development day. The booking form will ask for the code or, where none is entered, how the family or teacher heard about the orchard. By the end of the first season, the orchard will know how many sessions and field trips each channel produced and what each cost. Module 6 uses those measures to set the budget allocation and to decide which channels continue in the second year.
References
Brodie, R. J., Hollebeek, L. D., Jurić, B., & Ilić, A. (2011). Customer engagement: Conceptual domain, fundamental propositions, and implications for research. Journal of Service Research, 14(3), 252-271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670511411703
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.15.0420
Trusov, M., Bucklin, R. E., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: Findings from an internet social networking site. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 90-102. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.73.5.90
How this MRKT 5003 Module 5 example is structured
MRKT 5003 Module 5 typically moves into channels and engagement aimed at the named segment; your classroom's instructions decide whether the plan covers digital channels only or all touchpoints. This example uses the customer journey as its structure, so every channel is placed at the stage where the segment meets it, and then treats engagement as a design problem after the purchase. The final section explains how each channel will be tracked, which prepares the budget and measures in Module 6.
MRKT5003 Module 5 questions, answered
What does MRKT5003 Module 5 usually ask for?
MRKT5003 Module 5 often asks for the channel and engagement part of the marketing plan, aimed at the target segment chosen earlier. Many sections expect each channel to be justified by where the segment can be reached. Your classroom's instructions decide the scope.
How do I choose marketing channels for a small business?
Map where your target buyers are at each stage of deciding, then choose the channels already present there, including partners and customers themselves. A short list of well-chosen channels usually beats a long list of platforms.
How do I measure whether a channel worked?
Give every channel its own code or link and ask new customers how they heard about you. Counting bookings by source lets the next budget follow results rather than habit.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.