In a survey asking what balloons and IT consulting have in common, the answer might be: nothing. Katharina Rochau, a master’s student enrolled in a program for General Management at the School of International Business and Entrepreneurship (SIBE) at Steinbeis University Berlin, didn’t think that answer was good enough. As part of her project competence degree, she headed the development of new marketing measures for her employer, IT.TEM GmbH, an IT consulting firm in Stuttgart. Among other things, she organized the customer event called “summertime.”
Katharina Rochau’s project aims to establish strategic and operative marketing measures at IT.TEM. Although at first glance it may sound a bit rigid, in reality, the project event looked more like this: more than one hundred guests wandering around 300 sqm of office space in the highest building in Stuttgart while drinking cocktails, enjoying finger food and making new contacts. That’s the idea behind the “summertime” event. It is all about cultivating existing contacts and establishing new ones.
IT.TEM invests a lot in finding and supporting new recruits. It is a partner of the “Fair Company” initiative which, among other things, tries to ensure that junior staff members are given suitable and fair entry options for new careers. During their work with junior staff support measures, a collaboration with SIBE was born, as well as a project to establish strategic and operative marketing measures at IT.TEM GmbH.
During the course of her studies, Katharina Rochau’s job is to set up these new activities, in addition to analyzing and testing existing marketing strategies. She is also responsible for the development of tools which support and simplify the integration of these measures into strategic planning and operational implementation, while making results measurable. The aim is to use fixed criteria to analyze, develop, implement and measure the results of marketing activities.
The first marketing action used to test these tools was the “summertime” event. Here SIBE transfer thinking took center stage. It was a great opportunity for Katharina Rochau to implement the many theoretical aspects and tools learned in the seminars of her study program. “summertime” is an event designed to support the process of positioning IT.TEM. This support comes from developing and implementing tools that help identify a suitable target group for the event, accurately planning the time and resources needed for preparation, defining the purpose and aims of “summertime 2012,” and ascertaining the overall success of the evening, making “summertime” an all round successful affair. Katharina Rochau’s biggest challenge was identifying the right target group. Once that was achieved, the invitations could be sent out. The theme of the evening was “Dive into summer with us!” – and what is a better way to send out invitations than to include a pair of diving goggles.
“summertime 2012” was a great success: through targeted marketing, Katharina Rochau was able to increase attendance numbers for the event 3-fold in comparison to the previous year!
Patricia Mezger
School of International Business and Entrepreneurship der Steinbeis-Hochschule Berlin (Berlin/Herrenberg)
su1249@stw.de
Katharina Rochau
IT.TEM GmbH (Stuttgart)