Session 8: Capstone Pitch & Project Review

This is the culmination of the module. You have built a digital sandbox, optimized it for search, mapped out paid acquisition campaigns across Google and Meta, established an email retention sequence, and learned how to measure the results.

View lecture slides: Session 8 Slides

Today, you put it all together and pitch your integrated digital marketing strategy.

1. Pre-Work: Preparing the Pitch

As a future manager or business leader, your ability to execute a campaign is secondary to your ability to communicate the strategy and defend the investment.

You will prepare a 7-10 minute presentation. Use Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva.

Pitch Deck Structure

Your presentation must cover the following elements:

Multichannel marketing framework to structure an integrated capstone strategy

  1. The Business Objective: What is the concept and what is the North Star metric?
  2. The Target Audience & Journey: Who are you targeting? Walk us through their journey from Awareness to Conversion.
  3. The Owned Asset (Live Demo): Show us your live digital sandbox. Highlight the Value Proposition and CTA.
  4. Acquisition Strategy (SEO & SEM): What keywords are you targeting? Show your Google Ads mock-up.
  5. Acquisition Strategy (Paid Social): Who is your Meta audience? Show your visual ad mock-up.
  6. Retention Strategy: Walk through the logic of your 3-step email sequence.
  7. Budget & Measurement: If you had a NPR 150,000/month budget (~USD 1,100 at illustrative rates—state your assumption), how would you allocate it across channels and why? How will you use Analytics to measure success?

Sample budget allocation framework:

Channel Allocation Rationale
Google Ads (SEM) 40% Highest-intent demand capture
Meta Ads 30% Demand creation & retargeting
SEO/Content 20% Long-term compounding asset
Email/Tools 10% Retention, near-zero marginal cost

You may adjust allocations — but you must defend each line with a KPI. “I put more on Google Ads because it captures people already searching for our service, and I can measure CPL directly in the account.”

Real-world proof (capstone standard)

Defend like the home services stack: cite Ads and SEO as separate evidence layers, not one made-up blended ROAS.

Strong pitches name the URL and the number. Weak pitches say “studies show digital works.”

2. Lab Session: The Capstone Pitch

During this session, the instructor (and potentially guest judges) will act as the “Investment Committee.” You are pitching for budget approval.

Peer and Instructor Q&A

Be prepared to defend your choices. Common questions you might face:

  • “Why did you allocate 70% of your budget to Google Ads instead of Meta?”
  • “Your landing page CTA is below the fold. Don’t you think that will hurt conversions?”
  • “How are you planning to lower your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) over time?”
  • “What happens to your strategy if your Google Ads account gets suspended or Meta changes its algorithm?” (Channel diversification is a key MBA-level concern.)
  • “At what ROAS or CAC payback period would you recommend the business scale up vs. pause paid spend?”

Feedback will be framed around business impact, feasibility, and strategic cohesion.

Self-check: Pitch rubric

Which evidence set scores highest with the investment committee?

3. Deliverable

Use the MBA DM Deliverable Toolkit (Templates + Samples) before submitting.

Final Pitch Deck and Live Sandbox URL.

  • Ensure your website is live and functional.
  • Submit the slide deck used for your presentation.
  • (Optional) Include a 1-page executive summary.

Submit immediately following your presentation.

4. Summary & Review

The capstone pitch brings the module together: the problem and objective, the customer journey, the live sandbox, the channel plan across SEO, SEM, social and email, the budget allocation, the KPIs and the measurement plan. A strong pitch leads with the business outcome, supports every claim with evidence, and handles questions on budget, risk and measurement calmly. Phase 2 builds on this sandbox in an agency setting.

Key Takeaways

  • Lead with the business problem and the outcome.
  • Every channel in the plan needs a role, a budget and a KPI.
  • Show the live sandbox; working proof beats slides.
  • Prepare for questions on CAC, risk and measurement.

Review Questions

Short answer

  1. List the main sections of the capstone pitch deck.
  2. Why should a budget allocation be linked to funnel stages?
  3. What three questions should you expect from investors or managers?

Applied (case) questions

  1. Prepare a five-slide pitch outline for your sandbox business, with one KPI per slide.
  2. An examiner asks: “Why not put the whole budget into Meta ads?” Write a 100-word answer using the CAC and funnel logic from this module.

Congratulations!

You have successfully completed the MBA Digital Marketing module. You now possess the strategic framework and hands-on experience needed to lead digital initiatives, evaluate marketing talent, and drive measurable business growth.