Executive Summary

Hope Christian Academy (HCA) is a private church school instigated by Hope of the City Church. HCA has been licensed to offer a childcare program. Another ministry by Hope of the City Church is the HopeKidz Foundation. This is a non-profit group that serves poor students in the Philippines to accomplish their education. A marketing plan will help HCA market the childcare program to improve their tuition fees and help support the HopeKidz Foundation. HCA exists to offer academic excellence founded on a Biblical worldview while nurturing authentic Christian character. HCA is renowned for its high test scores as well as caring teachers and employees. Hope Christian Academy childcare program desires to offer creative learning with an emphasis on independence and inventiveness. The SWOT analysis provides HCA’s key strengths and weaknesses and defines the childcare program’s opportunities and threats. HCA childcare is targeting the middle to upper class two-income professional households. Pertaining the marketing mix entails pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion, and excellent customer service. For effective marketing, the school will spend on social media advertisements for Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Typically, it will take up to ten months for the HCA childcare venture to yield better returns to support the HopeKidz Foundation effectively. The facility will use parent feedback, revenue earned, and market share attained to assess performance.

Marketing Plan for Hope Christian Academy

Company Description

Hope Christian Academy (HCA) is a private church school instigated in 2011 by Hope of the City Church. HCA has been licensed to offer a childcare program. Before this, it primarily serves students between four and twelve years who attended the church. God has helped them start a childcare program for both members and non-members, with the ability to register children, not of school age. Another ministry by Hope of the City Church is the HopeKidz Foundation. It is a non-profit group that serves poor students in the Philippines to accomplish their education. The ministry has helped bring numerous families to God since it currently serves one hundred and forty students in the Philippines.

In December 2020, the church obtained offerings and donations to help ten students locally and sponsor them to register at Hope Christian Academy through the HopeKidz Foundation. HCA uses ten percent of its monthly tuition fee from every student to help needy students in the Philippines through the HopeKidz Foundation. Hence, a marketing plan will help HCA market its new venture, the childcare program, to improve their tuition fees and further support the HopeKidz Foundation. According to Evans and Ballen (2015), a marketing plan is a document charting the actions to attain intended marketing objectives. Marketing plans help people focus their efforts on generating high profits for their business. It helps define the product or service, identifies clients and competitors, outlines a plan for enticing and retaining clients, and expected market changes.

Mission and Goals

The mission of HCA is to get ready for God’s kids for their life journey. It exists to offer academic excellence founded on a Biblical worldview while nurturing authentic Christian character. The programs are planned to meet the requirements of infant, toddler, and preschool kids in a safe, cultivating environment (Mission and Vision Statements, 2021). HCA’s goal comprises offering learning and developmental involvements emotionally, physically, as well as spiritually. It disciples children to be zealous followers of Christ and equips them to manage schedules, prioritize duties, and autonomously set and attain goals. Moreover, HCA prepares students to be Biblically equipped in their learning, ministries, professions, and individual lives.

Core Competencies                                        

Core competencies involve resources and capabilities, which consist of the strategic advantages of a company. Firms should define, nurture, and make the most of their core competencies to prosper against the market competition (Palacios-Marqués et al., 2019). HCA is renowned for its high test scores as well as caring teachers and employees. It is dedicated to offering outstanding value-based education, which trains, equips, and prepares preschool to 8^th-grade learners to nurture their God-given capabilities. The school trusts in the Word of God, focuses on Jesus Christ, and is devoted to assisting learners to realize God’s resolve in their lives. One of the institution’s most outstanding strong points is character development.

Competitive Analysis

HCA has a Child Care Certificate Program to help Families First applicants, parents transitioning from Families First, parents working or registered for post-secondary education, teenage parents, and kids in foster care. Hope Christian Academy childcare program desires to offer creative learning with an emphasis on independence and inventiveness. Children encounter such new challenges as crawling, walking, and running at a young age, which they learn best in an inspiring environment. There is music, stories, as well as outdoor play. The caregivers are devoted to helping every child nurture their skills via a believing and loving relation. A parental daily report will inform families on meal times, nap times, and toilet training conducted during the day. The program will have a low teacher-student ratio, customized amenities, and inventive learning packages.  The hours of operation will be more than ordinary business to accommodate working parents. The childcare program offers healthy and tasty food for children.

Typically, ten percent of the tuition fees obtained from the childcare program will be geared towards supporting poor students in Leyte, Bohol, Iloilo, and Cebu, the Philippines, through the HopeKidz Foundation. By partnering with parents, HCA will continually support and offer the poor students a better future by the grace of God. However, the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic might impede the acquisition of enough parents presenting their children for the childcare program. Therefore, the school will have to make strong promotion campaigns through social media and referrals to assure parents of their children’s safety at the facility. Firms are using social media platforms to grow their geographic reach to consumers, boost brand assessments, and build closer links with clients (Li et al., 2020). HCA will use Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to promote the new childcare program.  Facebook has numerous seasoned adults and the older generation, implying that many parents will see the advertisements. Instagram is used by young adults, permitting them to encourage young families or their parents and younger siblings to join. Finally, Snapchat is used by elementary, middle, and high school students. They may get interested and request their parents to enrol their siblings in the childcare program.

Situation Analysis: SWOT Analysis

The assessment of a firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a means of perceiving its internal and external marketing setup. The checking of prevailing macroeconomic forces impacts a business’s ability to earn profits by identifying trends and significant developments in the sector (Saari, 2015). This SWOT analysis offers HCA’s key strengths and weaknesses and defines the opportunities and threats fronting the childcare program.

Strengths

HCA childcare is a safe and sophisticated STEM-led learning hub, which concentrates on nurturing every kid’s critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. The program offers excellent training programs for all employees to be at par with the need to teach children Biblical-based standards via story-telling, songs, games, crafts, and involvement in physical undertakings. Boone and Kurtz (2019) hold that customer satisfaction is the capability of the client to get satisfied by the service or goods offered by a company. This is what HCA seeks to ensure through convenience. The facility is accessible based on its location in SeaTac, Washington.  It operates from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, offering parents enough time to accomplish their daily endeavours. Further, the facility is competitively priced because the full-time preschool monthly tuition fee is $ 1,300, the annual curriculum fee is $ 250, and the application fee for new students is $150.

Weaknesses

The HCA childcare program lacks visibility because of the newness of its operations. There is also difficulty in attracting and maintain well-trained workers to meet Christian standards. It is also hard to seamlessly predict the demand for services concerning the number of workers available.

Opportunities

There is a developing market with a vast percentage of target consumers who are not yet aware of the HCA childcare package. Also, an opportunity for more revenue exists because more individuals are working, thereby incapable of caring for their kids in the day. As the total number of preschool kids served increases, fixed costs get spread over a more significant client base.

Threats                                                        

However, there is high competition from reputable facilities, which enhance their service to be more modest compared to HCA childcare. In addition, there are baseless “public scares” concerning child care. Lastly, there can be legal liability concerns, such as a lawsuit against HCA childcare or substantial rises in premiums because of fluctuations in the operating setting of the sector.

Competitors

There are numerous competitors in the childcare industry. HCA’s childcare direct competitors include established, franchised childcare hubs, big and offer care to a broad array of ages.  The number of kids served is relatively large, the child care is sufficient, although slightly detached based on its large size. Also, competition will emanate from small home-centred childcare. These are individuals with a child care amenity outside their house.  The quality ranges significantly because some are great, while others are subpar. Finally, there are medium-sized businesses, which are independently held amenities.  Some tackle a wide array of ages, yet others focus on a particular age.

Target Market

The target market is the core of other marketing choices, including market mix selection, procurement, and supply chain. Market targeting entails some stages so that the appeal of every market segment is evaluated, and then the desired segment to go into is chosen (Aghdaie & Alimardani, 2015). HCA childcare is targeting the middle to upper class two-income professional households.  The group has both parents working, not permitting them time to nurture their child in the daytime. They have money for child care and are ready to spend some extra amount to obtain a greater intensity of care. The client segment is already teaching their kid such concepts as reading and singing. HCA childcare will keep developing the kids’ abilities and encompass them with some Christian values. Furthermore, the target group prefers a more organized learning environment instead of leaving their children with relatives. They prefer relatives for great nights out and weekends. They are aware that the structured program ensures better learning and development for their children.  With both parents as experts, they are determined to have their child develop well physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Hence, they are ready to pay to obtain HCA’s childcare program.

Marketing Mix

Marketing mix implies the product, distribution, promotion, and pricing approaches to create and conduct exchanges and attain the target markets. The marketing mix involves pertinent elements and solutions, which help consumers meet their requirements and achieve the objectives instituted by the company (Išoraitė, 2016). HCA’s childcare marketing mix is summative of pricing, which is done monthly for the tuition fees and annually for the curriculum fee. Regarding distribution, all childcare services will be provided at the SeaTac facility. On the other hand, advertising and promotion will be done through word of mouth referrals and social media ads through Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Finally, the customer service will be excellent because parents and their children will be amusingly astonished at how focused HCA childcare is concerned of their needs. The facility operates on the postulation that it will do what is necessary to keep the client contented and the child is led through Christian values.

Marketing Expense Budget

Schedule

The first month will be utilized to renovate the facility and cover stipulations for the state health and license requirements.  In the course of this, training programs and manuals will be offered to successful applicants to the position of caregivers.  Despite there being standard training programs for caregivers, HCA childcare will have to customize its own. This is because the facility is unique and aims to ensure it imparts Christian values to its students. The first week of the second month will be utilized in coaching the personnel.  By mid the second month, HCA childcare will begin admitting children for care.  It is expected that the amenity will be underutilized until the tenth month, mainly because of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, by then, things will have eased up, word will have spread about the new program, and classes will fill up pleasantly.

Monitoring

HCA childcare is still in the speculative phase as a child care amenity.  Hence, it will have to take a shy fiscal tactic, grow at a reasonable proportion based on the assessment of the economy; and keep building brand awareness to drive new clients. The facility will use parent feedback, revenue earned, and market share attained to assess performance. Because marketing is meant to persuade clients to purchase products or services, watching for customer feedback using polls and surveys are critical for monitoring marketing plan evolution (Price & Johnson, 2015). The generated revenue is significant, and with the marketing plan, HCA childcare seeks to find out the impact of the target market. The establishment will monitor social advertising costs to lower spending and maximize income to help fund the HopeKidz Foundation using ten percent of the tuition fee.