5 Marketing Lessons for High School Students

A high school teacher’s top priority is to keep students engaged and interested. Marketing lesson plans are excellent opportunities to turn a lesson into more than a lecture. Here are five ideas for bringing your marketing lessons to life for students in high school.

• Collaborate To Develop a Product

Break the students into work groups or have the whole class come up with a product to sell. Encourage them to think of a need or pain point that consumers have. Are there products already on the market to meet that need? Are they effective? Do consumers need more choices? Can you improve on what already exists? These are all questions for students to consider as they work on conceptualizing a new product to bring to the market.

• Promote the New Product

New products can’t make money if no one knows about them. This is the point where advertising, marketing and promotion come into play. Students can work on a marketing campaign to get the word out about their new product.

Here is an opportunity to introduce the concept of a target audience. Ask students: How can you define your target audience? What is customer data platform and can it help you find people to buy your product? Who is not likely to purchase this item?

Branding is a promotional tactic. Students can design a logo and slogan for their product. They can also write a press release to introduce the product via media outlets.

Most high school students use social media, so they are probably savvy about advertising on those platforms. You can discuss implementing pay-per-click posts, finding which platforms their target audience uses, and discovering other ways to maximize social media.

Other forms of media are great outlets, too. Talk about the impact of newspapers, billboards, posters and television ads. Ask the students if they feel these media forms benefit their campaign. They should also consider where to focus their advertising dollars.

• Develop Price Points

Pricing is a complex task. Putting a low price tag on the product can mean a slimmer profit margin. It can also mean the public perceives the product as cheap or lacking in quality. On the flip side, pricing the product too high can make it inaccessible to the target audience.

Students will need to study similar products. What is the market value of competing products? Which sell well, and which do not? Are sales related to pricing? Does the students’ product have an advantage that makes it worth more money? Is it more cost-effective to produce, making it easier to lower the price? These questions can help students determine if their product will move quickly or collect dust on a shelf.

• Determine Product Placement

The students need to determine a distribution model for their new product. Once it leaves the production facility, where does it go? Do they have a warehouse or distribution center? How do retailers get the product? Where do retailers display the product in their stores? How do customers obtain it?

Distribution and placement are excellent ways to introduce supply-chain management. Students can learn about obtaining raw materials, creating the product and delivering it to the next point or points.

Online sales are an essential consideration. No matter what the product is, there is a good chance that consumers expect to buy it online. Therefore, students need to consider an e-commerce website part of the supply chain. Other options may include door-to-door sales or vending machines.

• Review Sales Performance

After the product has been on the market, students will need to look at sales trends. Did the product sell as expected? Were there peak seasons or low points? This part of the lesson may be difficult if there is no real-world example, but you can create different scenarios for students to consider.

A marketing lesson is an excellent opportunity to engage high school students. It’s a real-world, hands-on lesson that can last beyond the classroom and extend into real life.