Marketing Promotional Objectives And Promotions At Central Queensland University

Central Queensland University: Overview

Question:

How To Marketing Promotional Objectives And Promotions?

The Central Queensland University is in Australia and is founded in 1965. The university was earlier known as Queensland Institute and was changed to the university in 1992. The university is located in Rockhampton, but it also has its institutes located in different areas of Australia. It is the first dual sector university in Australia, which is providing higher studies with vocational training. It has 25 campuses located in different parts of Australia (Australian Education Network, 2017). These are located in Emerald, Gladstine City, Rockhampton City, Mackay City etc. Various courses are offered by the university in different campus. It is also running various research programs to boost up the students for research activities. It is running various distance learning courses as well as regular courses in the campus. The university has come into partnership with other universities to make new developments in the university and to provide students with exposure to the learning and overall development. There are various national and international students studying in the university (CQUniversity Australia, 2017).

The main objective of the university is to provide a wide variety of courses to the students for the dual sector program and also make the university digitized so that it will help students in the research work in 2018. The research work of the students helps the university to make a good reputation in the market. Also, by adding a variety of courses the strength of the university increases, which will benefit the university in financial terms (Education, 2017).

By 2018 making all the courses running at the university to the top level in the country. To make good reputation of the university by making students indulge in various research works.

Marketing helps the customers to get what is desired by them. Marketing play a very important role in branding a name and making it popular among the customers. It helps in the growth as well as profitability of a business. Therefore, marketing and branding a University is also very important these days. It helps in bringing the competitive environment and growth to the university. Therefore, to make improvement and to gain competitive advantage over the customers the marketing of the university is done. It helps in determining the current position of the university in the market and determines where improvement is needed.

Due to the young population in Australia, the number of students want to join the university. Also, the university is offering a variety of courses which gives students the option of choosing the course in which he or she is interested. The Central Queensland University is providing students a digitized learning program and library which help them in their research work. The distance learning courses also attract the students from various areas who do not afford the regular classes. They are provided by distance learning courses so that they can study during the times when they want. Therefore, a good learning environment and online education facilities are helping the students as well as university to grow (Debrecht & Levas, 2014).

Central Queensland University: Objectives

There are many universities in Australia. Due to this the CQ University is facing a lot of competition. Therefore, to attract students, the university should have any differentiation so as to gain the competitive advantage. The Digitized system in the University and the distance learning program running in the university attracts a number of students to the University. Therefore, the student recruitment become easier due to the variety of courses run by the university. 

Due to the variety of courses offered by the university the target will be students from local as well as remote areas. Also, the students can also be recruited internationally. The students who want to choose the distance learning program could be the target. The students from the developing countries like China, India can be the international targets who can afford the fees and like to join the university.  Therefore, the target audience will the young students who have completed their school studies and are eligible for higher education.

PEST analysis helps in scanning the external environment of the business. It is a tool for determining the external factors like political, economical, social and technological. These aspects help in the analysis of the external environment that how much a business entity gets affected by the influence of political and social factors and also, technological and economic factors.

The political factors influence in the university, depends on the interference of government in the university. Also, the change in the government and its rules affect the university. The rules placed by one government over the university for the admission of international student changes when the other government rule is established. Sometimes the rules for admission are changed yearly, which affects the admission process. Also, the admission of students internationally is decreased due to the tough rules made by the government and the Asian countries are also opening institution there for the students. Therefore, political factors are important in case of any business entity and it influences the students for taking admission in the university (Stansbury, 2015).

The university is providing economic courses for local as well as international students. The percentage of international students in increasing every year in the CQU.  Due to the universities less expensive courses and learning environment the students get attracted toward the university (Mukherjee, 2015). Also, for local students government is funding the students who cannot afford the higher education. Therefore, it is also helping the universities attracting the national students as well.

There are a variety of students in Central Queensland University. The students come from different areas in the university. It has national and international students. Therefore, diverse students that are coming from different culture, background, age and race are coming together on one platform. Therefore, the students learn from each other. They learn different languages as well as different cultures. This helps them to develop an exposure to the world. This helps them to adapt to the environment that has diversification, which build up their capability of adapting.

The technology is changing day by day. The university is trying to build new labs and libraries which can help students in learning and research work. This will provide a better environment and a learning atmosphere for the students. CQ university is also providing online lectures, interaction with professors online, online access to the library that with help the students learning from home and also help distant learning students to understand the concepts and their course thoroughly. This is helping the students to grow technologically as well as developing the positive attitudes of the students towards the university (SDS University, 2013).

Marketing: Role in University Branding

The situation analysis helps in determining the actual market position of the University. It will help in determining the internal environment of the university with the help of SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis will determine the strength, weakness, opportunity and threats to the university. IT will help in the complete understanding of the strategies that will help in the eliminating the threats and weakness of the university.

Through this analysis the strategic situation of the organization can be identified so that the organization can set its objectives.

• Campus in various areas
• Variety of courses
• Dual sector programs
• Distance learning programs

The University has an advantage of running various programs in different areas which help students to study nearby their native place. The studies become less expensive also when students come from home to attend the lectures. CQU has campuses in different regions of Australia, so it will help them to credit transfer in any of the campuses in Australia. There are a variety of courses in the university that help students to pursue the education of their choice.  The digitized learning programs help students to learn from a distant location with the help of online assistance. The professors interaction online gives students a support in learning from a far area. The distance learning programs are also becoming the strength of the university who cannot afford to attend the regular classes (University of Arkansas, 2017).

• Ranking of the university
• Name recognition

The main weakness of the university is the ranking in all the courses of the university. The university has to improve its ranking so as to recruit students with a good academic base. Also, to attract renowned professors the ranking of the university should be increased. The university has to maintain the brand name for the recruiting purpose and also it is useful for the growth of the business unit (Vogel & Bodnar, 2011).

• National and international research activities
• Digitized learning

The students from all over the world make the environment in the university competitive. It helps in the improving the working with the students. Also the competitive environment helps in the motivation of the students that will lead to the quality research work and learning by national as well as by the international students. Also, the digitized learning programs can act as a major opportunity for the students. From this the students can learn a lot from their place. This will grab students’ attention and the recruitment of the students can be increased. This will lead to the opportunity for the university as well.

• Competition from other universities
• Removal of some courses for local students

Some courses are removed from the list for the local students by the department of immigration of Australia. Due to this the local students are getting annoyed and are preferring other universities. The university is giving priority to the international students for theses courses which can be a big threat to the university by the local students. Also, competition from other universities is a threat. The universities that are offering the same courses to the students can pose a big threat to the CQU (UNA, 2007).

There are many universities in Australia that gives competition to the Central Queensland University. These universities are running the similar courses that poses a great threat to the CQU.  The competition is in terms of ranking and reputation. All the universities are trying to get into a good place in the ranking, which help in making the reputation among the faculty as well as the students. The competitors of the university are Australian Catholic University (ACU) and University of Technology, Sydney. The students of distance education in CQU is about 46.7% and in UTS the percentage is only 2%, and in the ACU the percentage is 7.5%. The variation in the percentage is majorly due to the low fee structure compared to the other universities (Ferns, Hudghton, McGraw, & Merrywest, 2015). The ranking of the UTS is above than that of CQU which makes it a competition in terms of ranking.

Student Recruitment at Central Queensland University

The strategies must be developed in order to gain the ranking of the universities.

Strategy:

• By using technology in the research work, the work can be enhanced and will help the university to improve its ranking.
• By recruiting good academic students.
• By creating differentiation.
• By gaining competitive advantage.
• By diversification.

These all strategies will help the university to gain ranking by improving its reputation towards the studies. Also, incorporating technology will help in improving the rank of the university.

The main marketing aim of the CQU is to open a variety of courses and to make the courses digitized in 2018. The university has to run different courses in distance learning program so that the university can attract a good academic student and can improve its ranking as well as reputation in the market. This will help the university to gain differentiation which will lead to the competitive advantage (Willamette University, 2015).

• Properly defining the new courses.
• Adding the new courses in websites as well as on brochures.
• Promoting digitized learning with the help of highlighting the same with websites and brochure
• Sending emails to students and parents to increase awareness regarding the digitized learning.
• Adding the admission criteria regarding the new courses.
• Enhance reputation through media relations

These are the promotional objectives of the university and can be done with the help of giving the work to the outside vendor. The promotion can be done with the help of media and website. Also, the newsroom can be made in the university so that parents can look into the achievement of the university. This can also be a promotional tactic for the university. The properly defined brochures and websites play an important role in marketing (University, 2015).

The university is first in the Australia to introduce the dual degree courses. It is working in the direction to improve its ranking by adopting digitized learning programs and using technology to increase the research work at the university. The various distance courses in the universities are ranked in the top, but improvement is needed in case of getting the university in top position. The ranking of the university has increased from the earlier one. The university is making efforts by capturing media and by the introduction of new technology (Research, 2014). The University seeks to serve more people in the area, reposition itself in the marketplace, develop broad external support, and form community partnerships to foster academic outreach and economic development. A different policy of improving the ranking should be adopted by the university in 2018 so as to gain the ranking and reputation (ABS Team, 2017). Therefore, digitized learning is a first step in this. Research related activities can be enhanced with the help of technology and students from the distant program can also participate in research work with the help of improved technology.

1. In 2018, the introduction of variety of courses in the university.
2. Improvement in technology.

• Introduction of digitized learning.

Strategy: Increase external visibility and awareness that will highlight the CQ university.

Tactics

• More fully utilize key words on strategic web pages to maximize hits on search engines.
• Increase media mix to enhance presence in the media outside of print making decisions to maximize impact.
• Create measures to assist with evaluating placement effectiveness (Saludin & Mukaidono, 2012).

Strategy: Develop enhanced marketing initiatives for academic programs with significant growth potential.

Tactics

• Develop marketing initiative for each program to target specific messaging in target specific media outlets.
• Create stronger collaboration with admissions and these departments to enhance the admissions process for prospective students in these areas.

Strategy:  Enhance website to reinforce key messages.

Tactics

• Develop a homepage highlighting new courses
• Highlighting on the digital learning should also be given (Roberts, 2015).

Strategy: Enhance reputation through media relations

Tactics

• Explore tools that can increase opportunities to match faculty experts with hot topics
• Become active organizations that allow for casual contact with the media to build stronger individual relationships and greater awareness of the University.

Strategy: Creating the magazine of the university.

Tactics

• Creating the magazine will help in making the awareness regarding the achievements of the university and will enhance the reputation of the university among the parents as well as the students (Xiong, 2009).

Building a market position cannot be accomplished through advertising alone. The efforts should be made by each member of the university for the change in the websites, magazine and brochure. However, it is important that there be a continued commitment to messaging campaigns for all target audiences.

Print advertising (2018): $ 30000. This is the approximate budget for printing brochures and magazines. It also includes the budget for graphic designing. The detailed budget is as follows.

Marketing: $ 5000 is the approx budget that is required for the marketing.

Graphic Designing: $ 12000 is the approx budget given to the vendors for the designing of graphics.

Printing of magazines and brochures: $ 30000 is required for printing of good quality magazines and brochures.

Concept development and designing of magazine and brochure: $ 5000 to the vendor.

Television advertising and radio advertising: $ 20000 required for the advertisement purpose.

Web advertising: $ 2000 for running the advertisement on the website.

Conclusion

The Vision, Values, marketing strategies, goals and Strategy described in this plan will help in increasing the ranking profile of the University. The Central Queensland University is continuously making efforts to improve its position it the market. The efforts are being made in the direction of improving the technology in the university and by the adding of various courses in the university. The digitized learning is also one step further in this direction. Marketing plan suggested will add up in the reputation of the university. It will help the university in branding and upgrading its position in the market.

References

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Australian Education Network. (2017). CQUniversity (CQU) Profile. Retrieved from https://www.australianuniversities.com.au/profiles/cquniversity-cqu.html

CQUniversity Australia. (2017). CQUniversity Australia official website. Retrieved from https://www.cqu.edu.au/: https://www.cqu.edu.au/

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Roberts, J. (2015). CQUniversity 2015 annual report. Retrieved from https://www.cqu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/146129/CQUniversity_Australia_Annual_Report_2015.pdf

Saludin, M., & Mukaidono, M. (2012). Deriving consensus rankings via multicriteria decision making. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1201/1201.1604.pdf

SDS University. (2013). University Marketing and Communications : Strategic plan. Retrieved from https://www.sdstate.edu/sites/default/files/impact2018/plans/upload/UMC-Strategic-Plan.pdf

Stansbury, M. (2015). PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) Analysis Research from Fall 2015. Retrieved from https://www.ithaca.edu/diis/general/docs/strategic_plan/its_pest.pdf

UNA. (2007). University of North Alabama: SWOT analysis. Retrieved from https://www.una.edu/administration/docs/13-18%20swot_edited%207-20131.pdf

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