Honors Marketing / Lederman/Scrivanich /

Planetarium Marketing Research Project

The Northern Highlands Planetarium was created to inspire wonder in learning about space and science.The Northern Highlands planetarium has upgraded the facility to accommodate 62 guests. They have replaced the Spitz Space Systems 512 Projector with the Evans and Sutherland Digistar 3 Projecting System--a fully integrated turnkey system that features pre-rendered all-dome movie playback, a real-time graphics rendering engine, and a fully featured color digital planetarium system.

Your Job: Northern Highlands (client), has asked your marketing research team to help them figure out how they can increase the overall attendance and sales of their planetarium through a new marketing/advertising campaign. Your marketing research team will conduct the beginning stages of research to help NH hone in on this hole/problem in their market. By using primary and secondary research, you will be able to recommend solutions and apply your findings through a new marketing campaign to bring them much success.

All marketing teams MUST follow the outline below

I.Secondary Research: Using Secondary Research gather as much information as you can find to increase your knowledge of the Planetarium.

  1. Four P’s of Marketing: Research the Four P’s of Marketing and report your findings:
  • Product/Service – background of NH Planetarium, shows/services offered, average attendance, target market, options for use, history over time of usage
  • Price – costs, sales generated over time,
  • Place – details regarding location, demographic of area, other planetariums in NJ
  • Promotion – what is NH doing and what have they done to promote the Planetarium?
  1. SWOT Analysis
  • Will incorporate some of the above
  • Must include other factors
  • External Factors (Environmental Scan – P.E.S.T.)

II.Topic: Determine an overall Topic for your market research survey based on your findings from the secondary research above.

  • Using the findings above, decide what you want to focus your primary research on to Increase Attendance/Sales of the Planetarium

III.Objectives: Identify 4-6 Objectives

  • Write objectives that reflect what you expect to learn from your primary research

IV.Appendix: Include the questionnaire in this section – as a separate page. Develop your Questionnaire based on the objectives you determined in step number 3.

  • Follow notes from class on creating a survey to help write these questions
  • Be sure to include the various types of questions and styles discussed
  • Make sure the questionnaire is VALID - No question should be included unless it is based on one of your objectives
  • All questionnaires should be 8-10 questions
  • Don’t forget to pre-test the questionnaire with several people before finalizing

Be sure to utilize all resources possible for this assignment and all team members should be working collaboratively throughout.

Due Date: BEGINNING OF THE PERIOD – FRIDAY 10/23

  • Outline Part I – should be completed by Thursday/Friday 10/15, 10/16
  • Outline Parts II – IV – Tuesday, 10/20
  • Pre-test Questionnaire and all revisions in class – Wednesday/Thursday 10/21, 10/22