Marketing Communications Plan For Navitas Professional Darwin

Communication market analysis

Navitas Professional Darwin is a global university, based in Australia, that provides educational services across 31 countries to the students, professionals and clients (navitas-professional.edu.au 2018). This university mainly focuses on the providing professional skill building training through courses and internships to the students, which would meet the industry requirements and also to the professionals to enhance their hard and soft skills to accelerate their career growth. This paper presents a marketing communication plan for Navitas. An integrated marketing communication (IMC) plan includes the strategies to send the messages for the products or services to the target market audience (Keller 2016). Hence, communicating about the features and value propositions of a product or service to the target customer markets and integration with the technology and objectives are the fundamental agendas of an integrated marketing communication plan. In this report, an IMC plan will be developed for Navitas Professional Darwin, which will include communication market analysis, communication objectives, budget plan, communication strategies and tactics to match with strategies and evaluation and measurement metrics.

Customers 

Communication marketing always focuses on a specific target market. As Navitas is an educational service provider, the target market for Navitas includes the Australian and international students and young professionals across the 31 countries in which it operates. To make the communication plan successful, the professional university should further dig deep into the target market profile. Being an education provider, it already has a target market. However, to achieve competitiveness, it should target a certain group of audience in Australia in an extensive manner (Camilleri 2018). The market segmentation is based on few factors, namely, demographic, and geographical.  

Demographic: The audience of this university is young students and young professionals. Hence, the people aged between 18 to 40 years are the major target market of Navitas, irrespective of their gender. Students who are high school pass outs, graduates, looking for professional and vocational trainings to get a suitable job faster and the young professionals, who want to enhance their hard and soft skills, such as, software knowledge, managerial aspects to get a promotion or a better job, generally belong to the age group 18-40 years and are the major target of this university.

Geographic: Navitas has aimed to target the Australian and international students, migrated to Australia, for promoting its educational services in an extensive manner. The purpose is to increase its popularity among the domestic students and professionals, which will automatically give a boost its popularity among the international students.

Competitors 

The major competitor of Navitas is the Vocational Eductaional and Training (VET), which are provided by the Registered Training Organizations (RTOs), which are the Technical and Further education (TAFE) institutes in Australia and New Zealand. Some of these TAFE institutions are StudyGroup, Shorelight Education, Real Institute, Kaplan, Laureate International universities, Apollo Education group, etc. It has been found that Navitas Professional Darwin earns good revenue than the competitors. While Navitas earned almost 955.2 million AUD as revenue in 2017, the revenue of StudyGroup was less than half, almost 358.5 million AUD (owler.com 2018). However, majority of these institutions are not international institutes.

Customers

Table 1: Top 10 competitors of Navitas Professional Darwin in 2017 and their revenues

 (Source: owler.com 2018)

SWOT analysis of Navitas Professional Darwin 

Marketing mix and positioning of the products of Navitas 

Marketing mix refers to the combination of marketing techniques and elements that help a company to endorse its product or service to the target market. Once the market segmentation and targeting are done, the organizations focus on positioning of the product or service. This refers to the promotion of the product or service to the particular segments of the market in a manner to meet their specific needs (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014). For the professional education programs of Navitas, the target market consists of students and professionals aged between 18 to 40 years, irrespective of their gender and geographical locations. The 4P’s of marketing mix for Navitas are as follows:

• Product: Various vocational and professional courses, career readiness training, internship programs, such as, Professional Year Program (PYP), targeted to the international IT, engineering and accounting students, supported by the Department of Home Affairs of the Australian government, Career Experience Program (CEP), Study to work programs, integrated with Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and English training courses for the international students are the products of Navitas Professional Darwin (navitas-professional.edu.au 2018).
• Price: Navitas offers all the above programs at a very reasonable price, so that students belonging to all types of economic class can afford the study packages. For example, the price for 18 weeks CEP is AUD 2,950 with installment plans available (Career Experience Program 2018). The PYP price is variable, depending on the subjects, from AUD 8,750 to AUD 15,200 for 44 week, which includes 12 weeks of internship (Professional Year Program 2018). This is a professional development program and the price is generally affordable to the working people in Australia.
• Place: Navitas Professional Darwin has locations in Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney apart from Darwin in Australia (navitas-professional.edu.au 2018). Thus, people in any region or state can access the nearby campus of the university.
• Promotion: Navitas has been promoting its professional training courses and internship programs and their effectiveness through various mediums for advertising, such, television, radio, social media and hoardings to create brand awareness.

Thus, Navitas has positioned its products, that is, educational programs, as an effective assistance for knowledge and skill building for the students and young professionals, which would be helpful in getting a suitable job in the industry and increase the chances of career development. It aims to increase its brand awareness and highlight the effectiveness of its courses not only for the Australian students, but also for the international students, as per their needs.

Communication Objectives

The communication marketing plan is developed to reach out to a wider group of people in Australia to make them aware about the courses offered by Navitas and their effectiveness in the industry, thereby to create brand awareness. Hence, the objectives of the IMC plan are:

• To build an awareness about the effectiveness of the professional training programs among the students as well as their parents
• To develop a strategy with a clear message to the target market
• To ensure that the communication happens effectively with the target market
• To launch the promotions at the right time
• To fit the plan within the allocated budget
• To ensure that the content of the marketing programs are aligned with the objectives of the educational group.
• To ensure that the marketing mediums are selected efficiently and that works effectively to spread the message of the campaigns.

Communications Budget

Communication Strategies

Communication strategies are a crucial part of any IMC plan. These are composed of elements that directly connect the organizations with the customers. These strategies are important as these are the mediums which helps the promotional or marketing steps of an organization to reach to the target market effectively (Kitchen and Burgmann 2015). The IMC strategies for Navitas include the promotional techniques and channels that should be implemented to reach out to the target market.

Advertising: This is a paid promotional technique that conveys the message of the company regarding the product to the target audience. This helps in not only attracting the customers towards the products but also convinces them (Belch et al. 2014). Navitas must highlight the specific features of its programs for specific market, that is, it should make different advertisements promoting different programs. For example, the advertisements on Study to Work program should only feature the characteristics and message of that particular study programs for the specific target market, that is, tertiary and university students. Similarly, English courses are very much helpful for the foreign students and professions, working in Australia and that should be highlighted in the particular advertisements, which would be especially made for the students and professionals from the Asian and other countries, where English in not the first language. This would reduce the chances of confusion regarding the other programs and attract only the specific customers. It is important that the customers should relate to the content of the advertisements. The AIDA model of advertisement is a relevant technique to approach the consumers (Lee and Hoffman 2015). As per the model, the objective of an advertisement is to create awareness about the product or service among the consumers and then develop an interest on the content (Patti et al. 2017). Hence, Navitas should place the content in a way such that it creates not only the awareness about their brand and different types of study programs among the target audience but also creates an interest about the message conveyed through it. This technique includes print and digital advertisements, such as, in newspapers, magazines, hoardings and ads in television, Youtube and radio channels.

Competitors

Digital marketing: This is a contemporary marketing technique, which uses the ICT in promotion of the products. This is beneficial to reach out to a very wide range of target audience with minimal effort, time and cost (Ryan 2016). Navitas must employ digital marketing techniques, such as, search engine optimization, content marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, email and SMS marketing, and pay-per-click advertising to implement the marketing communication plan effectively and reach out to the wider audience, beyond the existing locations. This type of marketing is beneficial to gain competitive advantage in the market. If Navitas can implement search engine optimization technique and search engine marketing effectively, then the competitors would lose some marketing space in the search engines and Navitas would get the advertisement priorities, thereby creating awareness about their programs among the domestic and international students. This will also reduce the geographical barriers of communications.

Public relations: This is an important technique to connect with the audience directly. As stated by Austin and Pinkleton (2015), public relations help an organization to gauge the public opinion about its products in a first hand manner. Navitas should participate in the education and job fairs and sponsor some educational events and competitions to develop awareness among the students and professionals. It should also collaborate with the corporate houses and conduct seminars and sessions regarding the benefits of their part time internships and professional training courses that would help the professionals to enhance their skills and achieve better career growth.

Direct marketing: This method is used when an organization wants to push its products or services to the customers. Emails, text messages and telecommunications are the direct marketing techniques which are pushed to the customers. Personalized approach of communication, especially about the effectiveness of an education program in the job market would be fruitful among the people (Fill and Turnbull 2016). It will also be helpful in handling the pressure of other competitors in the market, as it would generate interest among the target audience due to personalized content.

Sales promotion: To sell the education programs, Navitas should print pamphlets and brochures and circulate them in the public places. It should also offer special discount prices for a limited period to attract more students.

Matching the Tactics with Strategies

An IMC plan also includes the techniques to match the tactics or mediums with the communication strategies. This is an essential factor in the IMC plan, as to spread the message of the organization, it is important to implement those using the proper techniques or mediums. Using a wrong medium or channel would ruin the purpose of the communication marketing plan (Belch et al.  2014). Hence, to achieve the maximum output from the communication strategies, Navitas should choose the communication channels or tactics appropriately, especially those channels that are most popular with the target market.

Television: it is the most effective means of communicating with the target market. As of 2014, almost 9.01 million households in Australia have television (Statista.com, 2018). Audio visual contents are very useful in drawing the attention of the viewers. Navitas should create 4 audio visual advertisement clips for 31 seconds and 61 seconds and release those in the popular news, media and sports channels networks such as ABC and Network 10.

SWOT analysis of Navitas Professional Darwin

Radio: As stated by Blakeman (2018), the young people prefer to listen to the contemporary FM channels. Hence, two audio advertisements with creative content and jingles will be developed and aired on the popular radio channels of Australia.

Digital: Email, SMS, digital billboards, and social media platform will be used by Navitas to connect with the younger generation. As the young generation of Australia is more involved with the digital world, it is easier to catch their attention through these platforms. The reach of this medium is significantly high.

Print media: Navitas will release its print advertisements in two leading newspapers of Australia, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian. The ads will appear in the front page of the paper on the day of their launch and later on those will be put on the educational section and general news section of the papers. In the other news papers, the ads will be printed at the bottom right corner. Navitas will also collaborate with the educational article writers of the two leading newspapers to write about their courses in a particular article. All these will be done in a prioritized basis during the end of the semesters in the next year.

Navitas will also release the ads in The Australia Times and Australia educator magazines. The university will also print pamphlets and brochures to implement the public relations, and direct marketing strategies. It will also highlight the discount offers on the early bird course booking in the print and digital ads to implement the sales promotion strategy.

Social media: To catch the attention of the young generation, social media now plays a very significant role. People mostly live in the virtual world now-a-days and hence, it is the best way to connect with them (Fill and Turnbull 2016). Navitas will release its still and audio visual ads in its Facebook page, Twitter handle and Instagram account to reach out to a very wide audience, irrespective of their geographical locations.

Evaluation and measurement 

To evaluate the effectiveness of the IMC plan for Navitas Professional Darwin, it will conduct a market survey at the end of three months of launching the new ads on various platforms. Through this survey, Navitas will get an idea about the response to their ads, that is, why the ad was different, what element of the ad stood out, how the target audience felt by seeing the ads, and if they remember the course and brand name (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo 2015). It will also get an idea about if there is any issue that the target market faced during this time. It should check whether the objectives of the IMC plan have been fulfilled.

The measurement of the IMC plan can be best done from the increment in the enrollment in the courses, and rise in subsequent revenues in the upcoming session. However, the other measurement methods should also be used for an unbiased outcome. Landing page performance from the website, referral traffic measurement from the target website using Google Analytics, data from the click on ads and social media insights are some of the measures that can be used by Navitas for measuring the effectiveness of the IMC plan. The social media insights such as, number of followers, comments, forum discussions about the courses and on their relevance in the job market must be tracked down and evaluated by Navitas as that would give a firsthand reflection on the effectiveness of its communication marketing plan (Keller 2016).

Marketing mix and positioning of the products of Navitas

Conclusion 

It can be concluded from the discussion that an IMC plan reflects the strategies of involving different forms or platforms of mass media within a limited budget to reach out to a wider audience. Navitas Professional Darwin is a university that offers vocational or professional courses to make the students and young professionals of Australia and other countries ready for the job market. Although Navitas has been operating in Australia since 1994 and has a wide student base, yet, there are many new competitors in the market with latest professional courses. Thus, an IMC plan is developed for Navitas to retain its market share. This plan will be implemented using various different print and digital platforms to reach out to the target audience, that is, tertiary students, graduates and young professionals belonging to the age group of 18 to 40 years. The plan expects to increase the awareness among the mass about the new education and training programs by Navitas and thereby increase in the number of students in its courses in the next education session. However, along with marketing, Navitas should also develop its infrastructure and upgrade the courses to meet the demands of the students, as well as that of the industries.

References 

Austin, E.W. and Pinkleton, B.E., 2015. Strategic public relations management: Planning and managing effective communication campaigns. Routledge.

Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., 2014. Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.

Blakeman, R., 2018. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.

Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated Marketing Communications. In Travel Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 85-103). Springer, Cham.

Career Experience Program, 2018. Career Experience Program – Navitas Professional. [online] Navitas-professional.edu.au. Available at: https://navitas-professional.edu.au/programs/career-experience-program/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

Fill, C. and Turnbull, S.L., 2016. Marketing communications: brands, experiences and participation. Pearson.

Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer, New York, NY.

Keller, K.L., 2016. Unlocking the power of integrated marketing communications: How integrated is your IMC program?. Journal of Advertising, 45(3), pp.286-301.

Kitchen, P.J. and Burgmann, I., 2015. Integrated marketing communication: making it work at a strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy, 36(4), pp.34-39.

Lee, S.H. and Hoffman, K.D., 2015. Learning the ShamWow: Creating infomercials to teach the AIDA model. Marketing Education Review, 25(1), pp.9-14.

Luxton, S., Reid, M. and Mavondo, F., 2015. Integrated marketing communication capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), pp.37-46.

navitas-professional.edu.au, 2018. About Navitas Professional. Navitas Professional. [online] Available at: https://navitas-professional.edu.au/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

owler.com, 2018. Navitas Competitors, Revenue and Employees. Owler Company Profile. [online] Available at: https://www.owler.com/company/navitas [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

Patti, C.H., Hartley, S.W., van Dessel, M.M. and Baack, D.W., 2017. Improving integrated marketing communications practices: A comparison of objectives and results. Journal of Marketing communications, 23(4), pp.351-370.

Professional Year Program, 2018. Professional Year Program – Navitas Professional. [online] Navitas-professional.edu.au. Available at: https://navitas-professional.edu.au/programs/professional-year-program/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.

Statista.com., 2018. Number of households with a TV in Australia from 2009 to 2019 (in millions). Statista.com. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/622099/australia-total-tv-households/ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2018].

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