To Generate Valuable Ideas and Information That Are of Great Help to Students and Young Adults Who Seek Professional and Personal Development

TIP OF THE WEEK

1. Cover page
2. Executive summary
3. Situation analysis (internal, external, MOA, SWOT, Porter’s five, 7P’s)
4. Marketing strategy proposal
5. Marketing tactics proposal
6. Budget & time allocation and action plan proposal     

Mission: To generate valuable ideas and information that are of great help to students and young adults who seek professional and personal development.

Vision: To become the number one educational and professional development platform that will be the most resourceful center of information for students and young adults that want to upgrade in their field.

Tip of the week is a concept that started developing on the Macedonian market as a weekly e-mail newsletter in 2010. Writing about trendy yet practical concepts that easily catch the reader’s attention it quickly positioned itself as one of those newsletters that don’t immediately end up in your ‘trash’ folder on your e-mail, but as something you end up discussing about with your co-workers and friends. Soon after, publishing a book containing some of the most valuable tips written so far didn’t seem like a bad idea so in 2013 the first book was published. After a lot of great reviews, in 2015 the second book was published as well. The great reception from the public and the fact that there was no similar book that interacted with the readers in such a way, expanded the concept in the neighbouring countries in 2016. In the following year, the book was translated in almost every Ex-Yu language.

Now, Tip of the week is developing as an online educational platform that will offer much more than a few great tips about your professional and personal development. Becoming a resourceful center of information for students, young adults and young entrepreneurs that will add value and fast forward their personal and career development. Aggregating the knowledge from experts, authors and successful people from various fields writing about their stories and current events occuring in the Balkan region, together with information about universities, job-opening will create the type of platform that everyone would like to be on.

Competition analysis:

We conducted the competition analysis on the internet looking for similar platforms and concepts on the Balkan region. Our team came to conclusion that even though the main idea of “Tip of the week” platform is to become a generator of valuable information (tips, articles, studies, etc) and is looking to merge what all of the current similar platforms and websites have to offer, it still has competition on the market. We think that with the new platform there will be no more direct competition, however the indirect competition still exist.
Indirect competition for “Tip of the week” is:

- Fakulteti.mk – great content for readers that targets high-school and university students, and young adults starting in their career. Good advertisement sector for scholarships, jobs, projects etc.

It is ranked 108 899 worldwide according to easycounter.com. It has 8.77K daily visitors and more than 16.7K daily pageviews. 92% of its traffic comes from Macedonia where multiple times it has been proclaimed the best website by students, but also other part of the crowd comes from Germany 2.3%.

- Mladiinfo – excellent aggregator of info about scholarships, job positions, conferences, trainings, competitions, grants etc. Currently a leader in the Balkan region and Eastern Europe.

Mladiinfo is ranked 178 499 worldwide according to easycounter.com. It has 4.77K daily visitors and more than 11.5K daily pageviews. Around 3.2% of its total traffic is coming from social networks and the most active engagement is detected in Facebook (4.46K shares), and most its visitors are coming from Poland.

-Fakulteti.edukacija.rs - A Serbian website containing information regarding universities, tips for studying abroad, work&travel programs and other information of value to students.  

It is ranked 125 099 worldwide according to easycounter.com. It has 1.43K daily visitors and more than 3.57K daily pageviews. Edukacija.rs gets 74.3% of its traffic from Serbia, yet it has impact on other Balkan countries as well, since the other part of the traffic comes from BiH (13.1%), Croatia (4.5%), Montenegro (2.1%) and Macedonia (1.3%). Although most of its traffic doesn’t come from social networks, the most active engagement is detected on Facebook.

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PESTEL Analysis:
Politics - The political situation on the Balkan region is somewhat unstable, with most of the elections finished in the last year. Most of the governments have good policies for home and foreign investors and new businesses, yet the risk remains because of the policy uncertainty and structural reforms. The changes occuring in the region can always be seen as a good source of ideas and information for quality research and articles that can be put on the platform. Different points of view from different parts of the Balkan with people from different political beliefs and educational backgrounds offer a good plot for debate and critical thinking and interaction among the users of the platform.

Economic – Continuing growth in the Western Balkan region. Economies in Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo are expected to grow faster in the following period thanks to the large financed by foreign investors and the recovery in private consumption. In Macedonia and Serbia however, growth is expected to weaken due to political instability. The medium term outlook is positive, with consumption growth expected to grow because of investments and heightened exports. Of course, the Euro Area growth would also stimulate the increase in demand in the Western Balkan area.
The opportunity from the economic situation is that the company is based in Macedonia which has one of the lowest economic standards on the Balkans, yet it offers quality human resources that are working for a lower income while creating a valuable product that can be sold internationally.