IMC@SLC

IMC@SLC (Integrated Marketing Communications at St. Lawrence College) is a focus program in the Limestone District School Board. Students in this focus program come to St. Lawrence College and, with their classroom as a MacLab room, get team-taught by both college professors and a high school teacher to gain 4 high school credits (one is a co-op) at the same time as gaining 3 college credits. Students in this course take part in a co-op the entire month of May where they go to a business in the community and become their official marketing person during that month.

So far I am really enjoying this course. Learning about marketing is much more interesting than I thought it would, and may actually use this in the future as a job to make money – not necessarily a career, though.

As far as the experience in this course for getting to know how college is; I think that is by far the most valuable lessons we can learn here.  Being in the actual college, being taught by real professors, and having the college expectations applied to your work, deadlines, etc, is a great way to get prepared for college. And the best part, I think, about it, is that because students ARE technically still high school students while in this course (but also officially part-time students at SLC and have full access to everything but the gym membership) if you have extreme issues with work, or meeting deadlines; their is a high school teacher to buffer a little bit and help mediate any issues you may have and advocate for you. So you are not completely overwhelmed by being thrown into college because you do not have to move from classroom to classroom and get lost, or have all the expectations with absolutely no room to move those; you get to “safely” have a backup, but are still being “baptized by fire”.

I think IMC@SLC should almost be a mandatory part of high school, or a course similar to it should be made; because high school just does NOT prepare students enough for post secondary.

Target Marketing Teens

Teens can be tricky to market to sometimes. Sometimes they can be easy to market to, but other times they can be extremely skeptic and it not affect us at all.

Marketers wanting to market to teens need to know exactly what they are marketing, and be aware how teens respond to marketing in that exact area. Different things need to be marketed different ways to different teens. A good angle for most things with most teens is to market that your thing is the best, coolest, and newest; make them feel they have to have it because everyone else does, and most of the time you have them. But marketers have to be careful that their product matches that image. If you market your product as the coolest, newest, sleekest thing, and it looks boring or normal – you’ve missed the mark for teens.

Some other teens are much trickier to market to, however. Some teens are not interested in the slightest about the next big thing and being “cool”. Some teens are only interested in what they need. But do not be deceived  Even these teens can be marketed to, and can be convinced to buy something if you hit just what they want and how they want it. If marketers are looking to market to these teens, they need to do their research and find out exactly what they want and how.

Marketers must also be very careful WHAT the product they are offering is – some products teens would have no interest in whatsoever. Having a product that teens do not want will tank your marketing – unless you are really lucky and market it just right so they THINK they absolutely need it.

Also if you have an amazing product that teens want and will love, but market it wrong – you’ll be screwed. Good rules to keep in mind that generally work for teens in general are; fun, cool, trendy, popular. And if you can find some really new cool way to market something; even better!