Marketing Plan 2018 Of Melbourne University: Analysis & Strategies

Background Information of Melbourne University

The purpose of this report is to prepare the marketing plan of the Melbourne University through developing effective marketing strategies in order to run the sustainable business operations worldwide.  This report discusses several points related to the marketing plan 2018 of the Melbourne University by analyzing the background information, SWOT analysis, Pestle analysis, competitor analysis, value chain and brand positioning, competitive strategies, estimated budget allocation for the media sources, marketing mix concepts, product life cycle, BCG matrix, and marketing aims and promotional objectives for the Melbourne University for the year 2018 (CTI Reviews, 2016). 

The University of Melbourne is one of the most prominent and leading universities of Australia having its established business operations from last 164 years since its establishment in 1853. It is a public research university which is the oldest in Victoria State and the second oldest University in Australia after the Australian National University. It is ranked 33^rd in the world and 1^st in Australia by Times Higher Education and 40^th rank by the Academic Ranking of the World University. The University of Melbourne is headed by Allan Myers (Chancellor) and Glyn Davis (Vice-chancellor). The Melbourne University was established by the Auditor-General and Finance minister in his first budget announcement on 4 November, 1852 with the sum of 10,000 AUD. The Melbourne University was established by the Act of Incorporation on 22 January 1853 to provide degrees in arts, laws, medicines, and dance (The University of Melbourne, 2015). The university has total of 45, 411 students with almost 3.610 students studying for the doctoral programs. It has academic staff of 4068 for managing the university educational operations. The University of Melbourne has affiliations or Membership with Universitas 21, Go8, APRU, and ACU. 

The Melbourne University is the most prominent and top ranked university in Australia that provides the high quality of education and top class employment facility to the domestic as well as international students. In last few years, the Australian educational sector has experienced the significant growth due to the growing demand from the international students. The Australian educational industry contributes AU$ 20billion in the form of export income (2010) that is an increase of 24% while compared to the last financial year data.  The Australian education market is growing significantly because of the growing emergence of a range of universities, colleges, institutions, and educational centers that will also increase the demand of the courses of the Melbourne University (Ranchhod & Marandi, 2012).

Market Summary and Demand Assessment

The Melbourne University invests hugely into the R&D efforts, educational infrastructure, technological facilities, and experienced faculties to provide the high quality of the educational courses through its well-educated and experienced teaching staffs in order to meet the diverse needs, demands, and preferences of the Australians as well as international students. It is estimated that by 2020, the Australian educational industry will cross the projected revenues of100billion with the great demands from the students of the high-potential countries, the UK, Canada, China, Russia, India, and South Africa (Rogers, 2011). The demand of the online education programs, corresponding courses, and cultural and creative design courses has also caused for the high growth of the Australian educational industry.

The market segmentation and targeting strategies are important part of the marketing plan of the Melbourne University. The market segmentation is an important process of the segmenting market into different customer groups for focusing on the needs, interests, and expectations of the students. The Melbourne University uses the demographic, geographic, and psychographic segmentation strategy to segment the market on the basis of the understanding of the demographic variables (age, gender, education, income levels, and ethnicity), geographical (state, cities, rural areas, and postal codes), and psychographic criteria (personality, values, life styles, emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and educational preferences) to segment the marketplace into different customer groups so that their needs, interests, expectations, and preferences could targeted in order to provide the best educational solution to each student effectively (Schapers, 2016). The Melbourne University targets the segmented market based on the market size, customer demand, and their needs and preferences. It mainly targets the high class students or rich family students who demand for the quality education for their payment. By targeting the needs of the differences categories of the customers, the Melbourne University will be able to access the large customer segments or student groups.

The SWOT analysis examines the internal strengths and weaknesses of the Melbourne University by representing its strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats that are highlighted from the following table:- 

The PEST analysis is an acronym to the external environmental factors including the political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors to influence the university operations positively and negatively. The rationale behind performing the pestle analysis for the Melbourne University is to operate the sustainable business operations by exploiting the opportunities to grow and support the educational operations of the Melbourne University after gaining the proper understanding the external environment of the university. 

Segmentation and Target Market of Melbourne University

Political: The political conditions, stability status, terrorism attacks or violence activities, government spending pattern and regulation mechanism of the country may influence the operations of the Melbourne University. The Australian Government is highly supportive to the educational sector of the country to contribute to the overall development of Australian country. The government of Australia poses fewer restrictions or obstacles and supports the Australian educational system by providing an effective educational infrastructure for supporting the educational operations by the university or institutions (Campbell and Proctor, 2014). The Melbourne University has been successfully running its educational operations since last 164 years by taking advantage of the supportive political environment of the Australian country. 

Economic: The fiscal and monetary policies, such as taxation policies, economic conditions, fluctuations in interest rates, inflation rates, exchange rates, and currency value may affect the businesses and strategic planning of the Melbourne University. Australia is one of the most developed economies in the world that supports the Australian educational sector. The Australian country has high purchasing power because of the high trend for the educational sector among the local people that represents the high purchasing power of the customers in the country demanding for the quality education that will support the growth operations of the Melbourne University. 

Socio-cultural: the demographic differences, such as different age groups, buying behaviors, educational demands, life styles and financial status, and students’ attitude and educational preferences are such socio-cultural trends that affect the educational operations of the Melbourne University because different categories of the customers will demand for the different courses for offering them by the university.  The University of Melbourne influences the society positively and effectively by adopting and arranging the social awareness programs to promote the educational sector growth. The increasing competition in the educational markets in the Australian country has influenced the educational growth in the country (Buckley, Burton & Mirza, 2016). 

Technological: The rapid technological advancements and innovation trends, digitalization of the educational system, automation, and internet technologies have enhanced the standardization of the education in the Australian country. The inclusion of Wi-Fi internet technologies, cloud computing based classes, virtual communication technologies and State of the art technology will assist in providing the quality and standard education to the students.

The competitive strategic model of Porter’s five forces analysis will be used to analyze the competition level and attractiveness of the Australian educational industry. The Porter’s five forces including the bargaining power of Buyers, Supplier power, threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, and rivalry of the industry that will analyze the competitive positioning of the Melbourne University in the educational industry. The Melbourne University has high buyer and supplier powers. It is ranked 1^st in Australia and 33^rd in the world by Times Higher Education and 1^st in Australian and 40^th rank in the world by the Academic Ranking of the World University. The Melbourne University has total of 45, 411 students with almost 3.610 doctoral students. It has standardized and experienced faculties, 12 colleges, and academic staff of 4068 for managing the educational operations worldwide (West, Ford, and Ibrahim, 2012).

SWOT Analysis

The Australian Educational industry is rich and high-growth potential industry that provides the opportunities for the educational institutes, universities, and colleges to operate the educational operations within and outside of the Australian country. The Australian Educational industry is highly competitive that will create the high level of competition to the universities, colleges, and institutes. The Melbourne is top ranked and the second oldest university in the Australia that has been existence into the Australian educational markets from the last 164 years with successful operations within and outside of Australia. It faces the competition from the universities, like the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, Monash University, Canberra University, Queensland Central University, CQ University and the University of New South Wales that are threatening the established operations of the Melbourne University.

These competitive universities are aimed at attaining the high market share with the high sales revenues, huge gross profits, large customer accesses, and most number of students enrolled (Verger, Lubienski, & Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). Each of these tries to achieve the business objectives and goals with their competitive strategies and effective promotional campaigns for running the sustainable operations into the competitive educational market of Australia. The Melbourne University will also face the high level of competition from the entry of new entrants with the emergence of new universities, colleges, and institutions as well as increasing the number of substitute courses.  

The marketing mix of the Melbourne University comprises four components including Product, price, place and promotion. The marketing mix of the Melbourne University is following as:- 

Products/service Offers: The Melbourne University is the highest ranked Australian University that offers a range of courses in undergraduate, postgraduates, and diploma courses and doctoral level programs in subjects, like Arts, Science, Engineering, Law, Health and Medicine science, Business and Economics, and Finance and other integrated courses. The university focused on the core product idea of the quality education through its experienced and highly educated faculties. It also offers vocational diploma programs and crash educational courses in subjects like linguistics, dance, cooking, and architecture (Codita, 2011). 

Price: The Melbourne University is a world class educational institutional corporation that offers its courses at cost-effective or reasonable prices that are affordable to the average customers/students. The costs for its courses are slightly higher than other nearest or Australian universities because of the quality education through its experienced teaching staffs. The prices for its courses range between 9,000 AUD-12,000 AUD per year that is average cost for different courses and for the international students, the prices differ and range between 24,000AUD-30,000 AUD. 

PEST Analysis of Melbourne University

Place: The University of Melbourne offers its courses from the affiliated 12 different residential colleges including Trinity College, Ormond College and St. Mary’s College that are very renowned. Its libraries are effective source to provide education with more than 3.5million books, 32000 e-Books, and large number of articles and journals. The university also provides the cloud computing based data for providing the online education to the students (Richter, 2012). 

Promotion: The University promotes its educational courses and campus programs through its own website, social media posts, print media publication, channels, campus advertisement programs, sponsorship websites, and promotional events in order to create the university brand awareness and strong loyalty into the customers’ minds towards its educational courses. It also uses the direct marketing through the direct communication with the customers, conferences, seminars, leaflets and hoardings. 

The University of Melbourne is one of the largest universities in Australia that has its established educational operations from 164 years since 1853. It is the second oldest university in the Australian country after the Australian National University. The Melbourne University provides a range of certification diploma and degree courses in subjects, like Arts, Science, Engineering, Architecture, Health and Medicine science, laws, management, business, economics, finance, medicines, dance, culture, and languages. It has total of 45, 411 students with almost 3610 doctoral students and academic staff of 4068. It has 12 colleges located nearby the main campus, Parkvile for providing academic, arts, sports, cultural, language, and dance programs to the students (Selleck, Richard & Macintyre, 2014).

The Melbourne University is the 1^st ranked Australian university and 33^rd rank in the world by Times Higher Education and 40^th rank in the world by the Academic Ranking of the World University. The Melbourne University has main campus, Parkvile located at Melbourne Central Business District. The Melbourne University is a member of Universitas 21, Group of Eignt, Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), and ACU. It has 11 academic units and numerous research centers and institutes, and Melbourne schools for Law, Business, and medical science.  

The positioning strategy of the Melbourne University is to place itself among the top international universities by creating the high brand awareness and customer loyalty toward the university brand. The brand positioning strategy is aimed at attracting more international students for the certification diploma and degree programs, and other integrated courses. The brand name of the Melbourne University is more popular among the students because of its highest rank in top search engine findings and quality education through the experienced faculties (The University of Melbourne, 2016). Its branding strategy focuses on the youths and rich class students who are looking for the quality education in exchange for their funding. The Melbourne University has educated four Australian prime ministers and five governers-general as its students. Nine Noble Laureates of the Melbourne University have been launched that are most of any university in the world. 

The main marketing aim of the Melbourne University for the year 2018 will be ‘To become the one of the leading universities in the world with the position in top 10 universities globally by creating the high brand awareness and strong loyalty among the international students. To achieve this marketing aim, the promotional objectives will be set for the Melbourne University for the Year 2018 that are following as:-

1. To enhance the market share, sales revenues, and gross profits by increasing the total number of the enrolled students for different courses by 80,000 for the year 2018
2. To maximize the global brand positioning and reputation of the university in the world by creating the high brand awareness and loyalty in the youths and rich class students
3. To maximize the global corporate, environmental and social performance of the Melbourne University brand by adopting the corporate standards, corporate social responsibility programs, green environmental friendly and community relationship programs
4. To create the high brand awareness and loyalty among the targeted customer segments through the promotional campaigns, such as social media advertising posts, website promotion, sponsorship programs and promotional events, print media publications, TV channels, and campus placement advertisement (Armstrong, Adam, Denize, & Kotler, 2014).
5. To expand the businesses globally by developing the partnerships with the top educational institutions and franchises opportunities to the educational institutions, colleges, schools, and educational corporations in other countries
6. Promote the academic courses, certification diploma and degree programs and cultural, linguistic, art, and dance courses through organizing the sponsorship programs, promotional events, and brand ambassadors
7. To create the high awareness of the Melbourne University Brand through direct marketing by communicating the targeted customers/students directly, leaflets, hoardings, and templates

Melbourne University is the leading Australian University with the top positioning in the Australian Educational industry. The Melbourne University will use three competitive strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategy) of Porter’s generic strategic model for attaining the competitive advantage in the Australian Educational Industry.  

Product differentiation- The Melbourne University is the top ranked university in Australia that will offer the uniqueness and exclusive quality of the education by offering a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and doctoral level postgraduate programs in various subjects, like Science, Engineering, Arts, Law, Business and Economics, Health and Medicine science, and other integrated courses. It has experienced and highly educated faculties to provide the high quality of the education. It will also offer several vocational/professional and non-professional courses and other crash courses in subjects like dance, culture, cooking, linguistic, and architecture. Additionally, the university will provide the argument product, such as state of the art technology that is completely Wi-Fi Enabled campus program and other online educational courses (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016). 

Pricing Strategy: The Melbourne University is a top class international educational institute that will offer its educational courses at cost-effective that are affordable to the average students. The university will have the slightly higher costs or fee structure for its courses because of the high quality education and world class placement facility to provide employment in the reputed firms or service industries at attractive packages. The average prices for its courses will range between 10,000 AUD-15,000 AUD per year based on the type of educational course and average cost of 25,000AUD-35,000 AUD from the international students. 

Focus or Niche strategy- This strategy for the year 2018 will be aimed at focusing the high class youths or rich students from the potential developed and developing countries having demand for the quality education and top class placement facility to get employment in the reputed industries. It will use the demographic, geographic and psychographic segmentation to target the broad customer segments that are geographically distance customers demanding for different vocational and professional courses (Dibs and Simkin, 2013).  

The product life cycle (PLC) will be an important part of the marketing plan 2018 of the Melbourne University including four stages-introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage, and decline stage. The PLC will determine the growth of the Melbourne University in the form of educational courses, such as undergraduate and postgraduate courses of the science, arts, engineering, business and economics, economics, health, and medicine science courses for the year 2018.  

Introduction stage- this is the initial stage of the PLC that will introduce the graduates and postgraduate courses and its doctoral programs into the Australian markets through its college or institutions. This is the introductory stage that will be expensive because of relatively new markets, changing demographics, competitive trends, and customers’ changing needs. 

Growth Stage- This is the second stage that will create the high growth opportunities for the University for expanding its businesses by increasing the number of students. This stage will be effective to ensure the high growth markets with the acquisition of the youths or rich class customers having needs for the quality professional courses (Sowerwine & Garner, 2007). The Melbourne University can take benefit from the high-growth potential markets, profitable educational ventures, market acquisition, and high economies of scales of the Australian country. 

Maturity stage- this stage will tend to establish its strong markets for the Melbourne University with the proposed products/services. This stage is aimed at attaining the high growth markets in the competitive markets or saturated educational industry of Australia. In the saturated or mature markets, the modifications or improvements will be made in its product/service offerings to remain the competitiveness of the industry. 

Decline stage- the declining stage will tend to declining markets because of the economic recession or unfavorable economic conditions with the low customer acquisition or low purchasing power of the customers (Charnev and Alexander, 2014). The Melbourne University will not likely to enter this stage because this stage may tend to reduce its profits or lower the sales growth because of the low market demand caused from the low customer purchasing power. 

The Boston Consulting Group is a growth matrix that will provide the opportunities for the Melbourne University to grow its businesses by investing into strategic business units (SBUs) with the high growth rates and high market share. This matrix will include four SBUs that are following as for the Melbourne University:- 

Stars- these units are the market leaders in which the firm will like to invest to attain the high growth markets with the high market share. These are those high-growth business units that will determine the growth of the businesses of the Melbourne University globally. The Melbourne University will have the market share 3.5% with the relevant market growth rates of 18% for these SBUs. These SBUs will create the high growth potential opportunities for the businesses of the Melbourne University (Drummond, Ensor, Ashford, 2013). 

Cash Cows- these SBUs will develop the low growth markets for the Melbourne University with the high market share. These SBUs of the Melbourne University will have 3.8% market share with the growth rates of 12%. These SBUs will generate more cash for the university compared to the required cash. These SBUs will be effective for the university to create more profits on fewer investments. 

Dogs- these SBUs are lower units with the low growth rates and low market share. The Melbourne University will have 1.5% market share and 9% growth rates for these SBUs. It will not be effective for the Melbourne University to invest into these SBUs because these are not profitable units that will decline the markets for the university because of the mature or saturation markets. These SBUs don’t have potential to generate the cash and profits for the Melbourne University (Foxall, 2014). 

Question Marks- these strategic units are the stars of the future because of having capability to create the high growth markets with the low market share and will turn into the dogs if the cash flows are less. The Melbourne University will have 2.5% market share with the high growth rates of 18% to create the more cash, large sales revenues, and huge profits in the static market conditions. It will be profitable for the Melbourne University to invest into these units. 

The Melbourne University is the highest ranked Australian university that will use different promotional media campaigns including the social media, print media, and electronic media for the marketing plan of the year 2018. The Melbourne University will invest into the social media links and digital posts, campus placement advertisements, TV channels website promotion and sponsorship programs, promotional events and publicity programs, website programs, promotional events and seminars, direct marketing and print media advertising publications (hoardings, magazines, newspapers, brochures, and templates).

The main reason for using these media sources as promotional campaigns is to enhance the market share, sales volumes, revenues growth, and brand positioning of the Melbourne University for the year 2018 by creating the high brand awareness and strong customer loyalty amongst the targeted student markets globally (Shankar, Carpenter, Farley & Hamilton, 2012). The market plan 2018 of the Melbourne University will allocate the estimated the budget or expense on the media of total of 1 million AUD including 0.1 million AUD in the social media, 0.2 million in TV channels, 0.2 million in brand ambassadors or celebrity endorsement, 0.1 million AUD in the website promotion and sponsorship programs, 0.1 million AUD in seminars and promotional events, 0.1 million in direct marketing, 0.1 in campus placement advertisements and 0.1 million AUD in the print media publication ads. The estimated budget allocation for the media sources is clear from the following table-  

Conclusion

In the conclusive statement, it is identified that the SWOT analysis presents the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the Melbourne University. The PEST analysis analyzes the positive and negative impact of the political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors on the operations of the Melbourne University. The BCG matrix provides the market share and market growth rates of the Melbourne University for the strategic business units, star, cash cows, question marks, and dogs. The stages of product life cycle including the introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages analyzed the growth opportunities for the university. Along with this, the marketing aims and objectives, marketing mx strategies, media budget allocation, and competitive strategies were developed for the marketing plan of 2018 for the Melbourne University. The Value and Brand positioning, segmentation, and targeting strategies were also designed for focusing on the target market segments.

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