| Course | BUS 530 Marketing Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 7 |
| Paper type | Communication and metrics plan |
| Length | About 1,058 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for BUS 530 Module 7
Selling 14,000 Season Passes Before the First Snow: An Integrated Communication Plan With Measures That Can Be Trusted
Student Name
MBA Program, Aspen University
BUS 530: Marketing Management
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Selling 14,000 Season Passes Before the First Snow: An Integrated Communication Plan With Measures That Can Be Trusted
Blue Spruce Mountain, a composite ski area in central Colorado, sells most of its revenue in advance. Season passes, priced at $499 if bought before the October deadline, give skiers unlimited days and bring cash in before the snow falls. Last year the area sold 12,200 passes. This year management wants 14,000, while the large multi-resort passes sold by national companies continue to grow. The area has a communication budget of $420,000 for the pass campaign. This paper plans the campaign and the measures that will show whether it worked.
Objective and Audiences
The objective is 14,000 season passes sold by October 15, an increase of about 15%. Three audiences matter. Past pass holders, about 12,200 people, are the most likely buyers; the goal is to renew at least 82% of them. Lapsed holders, about 5,400 people who held passes in the past three years but not last season, are the second target. Front Range skiers who bought day tickets at Blue Spruce last season but no pass, about 21,000 people in the area's database, are the third.
One Central Message
Blue Spruce cannot match the national passes in number of resorts, but it can offer what many Front Range skiers say they want: more time skiing and less time in lift lines and traffic. The central message is: Ski more. Wait less. One mountain, all season. Every channel will carry that idea with evidence, such as average lift line times and the drive time from Denver suburbs, and every piece will show the October deadline price.
Brand Building and Activation
Binet and Field (2013), analyzing hundreds of advertising effectiveness cases submitted to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, found that short-term activation, targeted messages that prompt immediate action, produces quick sales responses that fade, while broad brand building produces slower but larger and longer-lasting effects. Their analysis suggested that campaigns combining both, with the majority of spending on brand building, produced the strongest overall results. For Blue Spruce, brand building means reaching Front Range skiers repeatedly with the mountain's character over the summer; activation means deadline-driven email, search and offers in September and October. The budget is split about 60% to brand building and 40% to activation.
Channels, Roles and Metrics
Farris et al. (2010) emphasize that each marketing metric should answer a specific management question and have a fixed definition, so this year's figure means the same as last year's. The table assigns each channel a role and a metric that connects to passes sold.
| Channel | Budget | Role | Primary metric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email to past and lapsed holders | $15,000 | Activation | Renewal rate; lapsed holder conversion rate |
| Paid search on pass-related terms | $70,000 | Activation | Cost per incremental pass, from the holdout comparison |
| Social video, summer and fall | $150,000 | Brand building | Reach and frequency in target zip codes; brand recall survey |
| Front Range radio and streaming audio | $110,000 | Brand building | Reach; change in pass sales in exposed towns versus holdout towns |
| Partner events with ski shops and clubs | $45,000 | Activation | Passes sold with event codes |
| Direct mail to day-ticket buyers | $30,000 | Activation | Response rate; cost per pass |
Why Measurement Is Hard
Most of Blue Spruce's past pass holders will renew whether or not they see an ad, and many skiers who buy after seeing an ad would have bought anyway. Counting every pass sold after an exposure as caused by it would greatly overstate advertising's effect. Lewis and Rao (2015) analyzed 25 large online advertising experiments at major retailers and financial firms and found that sales were so variable relative to the effect of advertising that even experiments involving millions of people often could not measure returns precisely. If large firms cannot reliably measure returns from tracking alone, a ski area should not rely on attributed clicks.
The Holdout Test
To estimate the effect of the two largest brand-building channels, Blue Spruce will withhold radio, streaming audio and social video from two Front Range towns that resemble two others in population, distance and past pass sales. Email and direct mail will continue in all four towns. Comparing the growth in pass sales between the exposed and holdout towns will estimate how many additional passes the brand-building channels produced. The test will not be precise, as Lewis and Rao's findings warn, but it will give a more honest estimate than attribution, and it can be repeated each year.
Campaign Timeline
The campaign runs in three phases. From June through August, social video and streaming audio build the mountain's image with summer footage of uncrowded runs and short lift lines, and partner events at ski shops collect email addresses. In early September, renewal emails go to past holders with a reminder of the price increase after October 15, followed by a second email and direct mail to lapsed holders. In the final three weeks, search spending rises, radio shifts to deadline messages and every channel repeats the date. Sequencing matters: brand-building exposure in summer is meant to make the deadline messages in October more persuasive.
Lessons From Last Season
Last season's campaign offers a caution. The marketing team credited social ads with 3,100 passes because buyers had clicked an ad within 30 days before purchase. Yet most of those buyers were past holders who renewed at nearly the same rate as in the year before, when social spending was half as large. The comparison suggests that much of the credit belonged to buyers' existing intentions, the problem the holdout test is designed to correct.
The Dashboard
A weekly dashboard will report passes sold against a cumulative target curve based on last year's timing, renewal rate among past holders, conversion of lapsed holders and day-ticket buyers, spending to date by channel and cost per pass for email, direct mail and event codes. If renewals fall behind the curve by more than 5% in early September, money will shift from social video to an additional email and direct mail sequence.
Conclusion
Blue Spruce's campaign joins one message across channels, balances brand building with deadline-driven activation and assigns each channel a metric tied to passes sold. Recognizing how hard it is to measure advertising's true effect, the plan uses a holdout test instead of counting clicks and gives managers a weekly dashboard for decisions during the campaign.
References
Binet, L., & Field, P. (2013). The long and the short of it: Balancing short and long-term marketing strategies. Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
Farris, P. W., Bendle, N. T., Pfeifer, P. E., & Reibstein, D. J. (2010). Marketing metrics: The definitive guide to measuring marketing performance (2nd ed.). Pearson.
Lewis, R. A., & Rao, J. M. (2015). The unfavorable economics of measuring the returns to advertising. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(4), 1941-1973. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv023
What the BUS 530 Module 7 instructions ask for
Aspen's catalog for BUS 530 describes coordinating the tools of a marketing program, and a communication module usually asks students to plan a campaign and explain how its results will be measured. Your classroom's Module 7 prompt gives the specifics; this example builds an integrated plan with metrics. State a measurable objective and the audience. Write one central message and show how it adapts to each channel while staying consistent. Allocate the budget across channels with reasons. Choose metrics for each channel that connect to the objective, not only to activity. Explain the difficulty of attributing results to communication and propose a method, such as a controlled test, to estimate true effect. Present a dashboard or reporting plan that managers can use during the campaign.
How this BUS 530 Module 7 example is built
The paper begins with Blue Spruce Mountain's goal of 14,000 passes, up from 12,200, with three audiences: past pass holders, lapsed holders and Front Range skiers who buy day tickets. The message centers on more skiing, shorter lift lines and a lower price than the large resort passes. A budget of $420,000 is split about 60% to brand building and 40% to activation, following Binet and Field's evidence on combining the two. A table assigns each channel its role and metric, from email renewal rates to cost per incremental pass for search. Farris and colleagues' Marketing Metrics defines the measures. Lewis and Rao's Quarterly Journal of Economics study explains why even large experiments struggle to measure advertising returns. A holdout test withholds radio and video from two comparable towns, and a weekly dashboard closes the plan.
BUS 530 Module 7 rubric: what earns full marks
Communication plans in an MBA marketing course are marked on clear objectives, a consistent message, sensible allocation, metrics tied to outcomes and an honest approach to measurement. This example states a numeric pass target and defines three audiences before choosing channels. The channel table pairs every channel with a role and a metric, so the grader can see how activity connects to the objective. Farris and colleagues' text supplies standard metric definitions, and Binet and Field's IPA study supports the balance between brand and activation spending. Lewis and Rao's Quarterly Journal of Economics article justifies the holdout test, which shows the student understands that tracking clicks or exposures is not the same as measuring effect. The dashboard turns the plan into a tool managers will use weekly.
Common BUS 530 Module 7 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The most frequent weakness in Module 7 is a list of channels without a central message or a reason for each. Start with the objective and audience, then choose channels that reach them. Another is measuring activity, such as impressions or likes, instead of outcomes, such as passes sold or renewals. Choose metrics that connect to the goal. Be careful with attribution; counting every sale that followed an ad as caused by the ad overstates its effect. Propose a test where possible. Keep the message consistent across channels so that each one reinforces the others. Show the budget with reasons for each share. Include a timeline, since communication campaigns depend on sequence. Finally, explain what decisions the dashboard will support during the campaign, such as shifting money between channels.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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BUS 530 Module 7 questions, answered
What does BUS 530 Module 7 usually ask for?
Aspen's BUS 530 covers integrated communication and metrics in this module, so a campaign plan with a central message, channel allocation and measures of results is typical. Check your classroom prompt.
What is integrated marketing communication?
Coordinating messages across channels so that each reinforces the same central idea, rather than running unrelated campaigns in each channel.
Why is advertising return hard to measure?
Sales vary widely for many reasons, and the effect of advertising is small relative to that noise, so even large experiments struggle to estimate it precisely.
Where can I find a free BUS 530 Module 7 sample paper?
The full plan appears above: a ski area's season pass campaign with one message across channels, a brand and activation split, a channel and metric table, a holdout test and a dashboard.
What is a holdout test?
A test in which a comparable group or region does not receive a campaign element, so its results can be compared with those that did to estimate the element's effect.