Kaitlin Simpson

So you want to win the Marketing Case Competition? That’s a good start.

My team and I won first place and the people’s choice award in the 2024 SMA Marketing Case Competition and, having entered the competition twice, there are a few things I picked up that helped lead us to success.

The Importance of Participating

The annual Marketing Case Competition at Western Washington University is an opportunity for students in the Marketing Program to showcase their learning and apply it to a real case. You’ll have to apply skills in problem-solving, time management, strategic thinking, teamwork, and communication. Because the competition gives you only a week to prepare your presentation, it will test your mettle, but what’s worth winning that’s easy?

Typically, within the WWU Marketing Program, students will only have one, maybe two, opportunities to participate, so it’s important to take the opportunity when it arrives. Otherwise, you’ll miss out on the opportunity to build friendships, meet mentors, and build your network so you have people to reach out to once you graduate. And beyond even that, it’s a place where you will get industry experts’ advice on how to improve and practice your public speaking skills. The Marketing Case Competition is an invaluable experience and gives back the effort you put in.

How to Build Your Team

The team you bring to Case Competition should have varied individual strengths. While no one should be “the creative” or “the math person”, having someone who feels comfortable taking the lead in those areas can help streamline your team’s operations.

Your team should also be composed of go-getters like you! If you must convince someone that they should do the Case Competition with you, they shouldn’t be doing the Case Competition with you—it’s that simple. Motivation is both intrinsic and extrinsic, and while extrinsic motivation is beneficial for pushing through unpleasant tasks, it loses its effectiveness over time, whereas intrinsic motivation is what propels you forward even external motivational factors lose their luster.

You’ve Got the Case, Now What?

As soon as you get the case, gather your team and review the case together—getting on the same page fast is critical to moving forward efficiently. I recommend going through the case to highlight the relevant facts, client’s problems, and make connections from related topics within the case. Then take any data provided within the case and pull it out into Excel, or some data processor, and see what insights you can quickly glean from there.

What you will notice is that there are big holes in the case where secondary research is clearly needed. Make note of what will need to be researched, what data might be able to be collected and combined with case data to give more rich insights, and what primary research might be able to quickly be done within the span of the Case Competition.

If by the end of this process you have more questions than answers, you’ve done it correctly.

Create a Workspace and Break It Down

Our team used Microsoft Teams and a Trello board to create a Kanban of all the things we needed to do and to consolidate where all our research was going. Creating a communal workspace, that is not the final presentation, to work within helps keep everyone up to date on what is going on, who is doing what, and where they can be of help. The Case Competition is a perfect use case for agile project management, so read my article on Agile Marketing to learn more.

A good place to start if you’re unsure of what deliverables to put in your Kanban are the basic elements of an integrated marketing communications strategy. Finding the answers to these questions will provide an outline of where your creative problem solving should be implemented and inform the solutions you create later.

Next, build the framework of your final presentation. Collect all the branding elements of the client and a marketing pitch template that suits your needs and rebrand the presentation from head to toe. This makes it easy for each team member to copy branded slides and then input the relevant information easily with increased efficiency.

Side note: if your having trouble finding the brand guidelines for your client, you can eyedrop the repeated colors used on their website, logo, and promotional materials to grab brand colors and highlight fonts used on their website or digital promotional materials, right click to inspect the code, and grab their fonts. Look at the way they use these in conjunction with each other to match their brand.

Research, More Research, and Even More Research

Market Research

At the heart of a compelling marketing pitch lies a deep, nuanced understanding of the market. This involves analyzing the target market’s size, demographics, psychographics, and buying behaviors. It’s not just about recognizing who the customers are but also understanding their pain points, preferences, and how they make purchasing decisions. Delve through the client’s social media, their investor reports, their product reviews, conversations about the brand, industry reports, academic journals, reputable news sources, and research through resources provided by the university. Accurate market understanding helps in tailoring marketing strategies that resonate with the target audience, ensuring that the proposed solutions are viable and likely to succeed.

Industry Trends

Staying ahead in a marketing case competition necessitates a keen eye on current and emerging industry trends. This involves analyzing competitors, regulatory changes, technological advancements, and economic factors that influence the industry. By identifying trends early, competitors can forecast future market shifts and propose forward-thinking strategies that not only address current market needs but also anticipate future demands. Incorporating trend analysis into your case competition entry demonstrates an awareness of the market landscape and the ability to think strategically about future challenges and opportunities.

Marketing Tools and Technologies

There are several market analysis tools you can access for free online or get a free trial for. If you are interested in getting depth data on a particular topic, look for ways to get it! Don’t just stop if you can’t find an article that spells it out for you, go find it. Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Social Mention, Think with Google, and Make My Persona are all FREE and are just a drop in the bucket when you see you can grab a free trial of tons of different paid software. With these insights, you can make your presentation stand out as you’ll have data that no other team has.

Be A Storyteller

People love stories. Storytelling has been around for ages, passed down from generation to generation, to help people understand different things, events, and ideas. People are hardwired to listen to stories, so it’s no wonder that the most effective presenters use the same techniques as storytellers. Follow this infographic in order to build a presentation people want to listen to.

Practice Your Pitch

Not every element from The Hero’s Marketing Journey needs to be put on the screen—a lot of it should come from the way to present the information verbally. When you practice presenting the information, you might realize the story makes more sense if you move different elements around into different spots and you’ll build a more cohesive presentation.

In addition, your team or you might not be as versed in public speaking, so running through your slides a few times can help ease nerves and make your team and presentation look more put together.

How to “Win”

The SMA Marketing Case Competition is an exhilarating, hands-on opportunities to apply knowledge, develop presentation skills, build candidacy for future employment, and is an engaging way to meet and mingle with potential employers as it is sponsored by New Engen and has representatives from a host of different companies and industries. Remember to prep your LinkedIn, your resume, your business cards, and anything else you might want to show others. You never know when you’ll need it!

In the end, the real way you “win” the Marketing Case Competition is by marketing yourself. Show up, talk to people, and enjoy the experience. I hope you have fun!