Essay: Marketing Strategy For UWS 2018.

Market and demand assessment, including demography, segmentation & target market analysis:
PEST analysis:
Competitor analysis including their aim, objective and marketing promotion analysis:
SWOT analysis:
Value & brand positioning analyses:
Marketing aim and promotional objectives for 2018:
Marketing mix strategies:
Competitive strategies:
Media and budget allocation for 2018:

Market Summary and Demand Analysis

The New South Wales Parliament introduces the University of Western Sydney Act in 1988 and thus the Western Sydney University was established on 1 January 1989. A federated network university was created with the two existing colleges Nepean College of Advanced education and Hawkesbury Agricultural College. The Macarthur institute of Higher Education was incorporated in 1 November 1989. The university was restricted in 1995 and a new federated University system was introduced that comprised of interrelated and cooperative elements. The university acted as a single unit both at national and international level with a single set of objectives and goals. The advantage of a federated system is that the strength of each member can be utilized to achieve the goal. The University of Western Sydney act was modified in 1997 by the Parliament and the university was restructured in to a single multi-campus University. The university started acting, as a single multi campus unit from 2001 (Sherington, 2014). This is a report, which gives a detail description about the marketing strategy of the University for 2018. The strategy includes a in-depth analysis about the market segments, demand, positioning of the brand, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis and promotion.

Greater Western Sydney is the third largest economy in Australia and the Gross Regional Product (GRP) of the region is $97.1 billion. There are over 155,000 businesses in the Greater Western region and the projected growth areas are financial and professional services, education, healthcare and other business services. The population of the Greater Western region is more than 2 million and it is predicted to increase by 50% and reach 3 million by the end of 2036 (Credit & Foley, 2015). The number of students attending university is 4% for Greater western Sydney and the percentage of people having a degree between the age of 24-34 is 27. The percentage of the population born overseas in Greater Western Sydney is 35 and 39% of the population speak languages other than English. The Western Sydney contributes $845.3million to the region, which is approximately 1% of the GRP. Western Sydney is involved in over 260 engagement projects with government, industry and community. The university has the largest number of low SES students and its way above the sector average.   

The student data for the year of 2015 shows that the 89.2 students are domestic,54.8% are female, 82.4% students are undergraduate, 24.6% belong to low SES students and 1.5% student are Aboriginal or from Torres Strait Islands (Access Economics, 2012).

Market Segmentation and Target Market Analysis

The demands of the most popular streams have gone down significantly from the year 2015. The field of mathematics, economics and engineering has lost their popularity. The above diagram shows that information technology and engineering and related courses have lost their popularity. However, the amount of students opting for management and commercial courses is quite high and so focus has to be on the less popular courses. A proper guidance has to be provided to the students so that they opt for the less popular courses also.

 Market segmentation is the process of dividing and segregating a homogenous market into identifiable segments having similar demands, needs and want characteristics. The four basic factors that affect market segmentation are measurability of effective size, appropriateness to the policies and resources, accessibility through promotional efforts and clear identification of the segment. The four types of market segmentation are behavioral, demographic, psychographic and geographic. A university can generally follow either mass marketing or use target market. However, if the university follows mass marketing then it means that the university will ignore student differences and if they use target marketing then they will have to identify the potential differences among the students (Wedel & Kamakura, 2012).

 The analysis from the chart shows the decrement in the popularity of few of the courses and those courses are related to information technology, engineering technology, architecture and others. There are three kind of target marketing and they are differentiated marketing and concentrated marketing. According to differentiated marketing the university focuses on two or more market segments while in case of Concentrated marketing the University will on only particular consumer market segment. However, in this case the University will have to use differentiated marketing because they need to focus on multiple segments. The university will have to target maximum target segments so that they can increase the popularity of less applied courses (Hollensen, 2015).

However, there is a dilemma that undifferentiated marketing is cheaper while target marketing is much more expensive as it is providing customized needs. The cost will vary depending upon the segmentations in the differentiated market. Target marketing will help the university to satisfy the needs of the students and thus will enhance the marketing success. The competition among universities has increased a lot and universities using mass marketing will lose their competency if the rival universities are using target marketing. The market segmentation will be done demographically and the charts above show that the average percentage of people having a graduation degree between the ages of 24-34 is 27 that is less than the average in Sydney. Moreover, the percentages of foreign students in the university are relatively higher than the average so this belongs to one of the target segments.

PEST Analysis

The demographic segment shows the popularity of the university depending upon the geographic locations of the target segments. However, as the university is known both nationally and internationally so the demographics of the target market is quite different. The targeting cannot be done properly so psychographic segmentation is used. Psychographic segmentation is done based on the personality traits, attitudes, lifestyles and expectations. The psychographic segmentation is used to reduce the market size into a niche market and thus helps in identifying the key areas of focus. The key target market can be divided as quality buyer, value buyer and economy buyer. A quality buyer is willing to pay more for a higher quality of service and a value buyer expects a service equal to the price the buyer is willing to pay. However, the economic buyer mainly wants to trim down the expenses and is willing to acknowledge borderline quality (Baker, 2014).

 A PEST analysis is a tool used to monitor and analyze the factors of the macro environment that will affect the university (Ho, 2014). The various macro environmental factors that will influence the organization are as follows:

• Political
• Economical
• Social
• Technological

The external factors that may affect the University are changes in tax policies, changes in the government policies, the travel ban between Australia and United States and influence of the nonprofit organization. The change in the government policies may reduce the public funding and an overall reduction may reduce the resource allocation. The increase in tax may reduce the funding of the university. The travel ban, which has been set by Donald trump, will also decrease the number of foreign exchange students (Iveson, 2014). The nonprofit organizations may change the sustainable development requirements that will increase the resource allocation. The government policies can also reduce the cost of sustainable development and increase in tax in certain industries can increase the efficiency of the university. The nonprofit organizations may help in increase of the student opportunities for the various development initiatives.   

The factors affecting the economic environment are changes in the economic climate, legislation changes, changes in tax policies, changes in the energy cost and funding availability. A recession in the economy may negatively affect the development plans for the university however presently there are opportunities for the investment (Bunker & Troy, 2015). The changes in the tax policies may reduce the funding available for the university however, the increase in taxation may improve investment  in the field of development and infrastructure. The changes in legislation policies may increase the cost by the increase expenditure in the field of environmental management. The increase in the energy cost will decrease the funding availability and vice versa. The availability of funding from government will help many students to join in their desired fields.

The societal pressure and cultural trends may affect the university as the students try to follow their peer groups and peer pressure is one the key factors of a student in choosing their respective courses. The students have their own goals but the surrounding environment is a major influence in shaping up their decisions. The proper use of this environment will help in attracting more and more students (Fay, 2014).

The technological advancement will increase the cost of expenditure for the university, the cost of new technology is relatively high, and the payback period is long. The emergence of new technology will attract the curiosity of more students; the quality of facilities provided by the university will always be a unique selling proposition for the company (Hua, Oliphant & Hu, 2016). The funding available for technological development is quite high and the university is known for its research works (MacGregor & Middleton, 2016.).

The competitor analysis is used to generate a marketing plan for the organization. The university aims to be internationally recognized and to achieve excellence through learning, scholarship and research, initially focusing on the Greater Western Sydney community. The Western Sydney University wants to obtain accomplishments for the students through technological advancement and innovation (Grant, 2016). The top universities in the country are Australian National University, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, Monash University, University of Western Australia, University of Adelaide, University of Technology (Sydney) and the University of Wollongong (Ohashi & Ohashi, 2016). The University of Western Sydney is still emerging and its global ranking is quite behind the top ten universities in Australia. However, it does come within the top 20 bracket and the university that is its close rival is the University of Canberra. The University of Canberra falls under the same group ranking as that of the University of Western Sydney. The goal of the university is reach the next group-ranking bracket and in order to do so they will have to overtake own of their closest rivals, the University of Canberra.

The SWOT analysis is used to determine the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats of the microenvironment of the organization (Živkovi? et al. 2015). The SWOT analysis of the University is as follows:

• Strengths: The University has a positive reputation in the market and the present students of the university will provide positive feedback about the university. The university is technologically advanced and the research work of the university is highly praised. The faculty members are of high quality and they support the students. The student support is proactive and offers programs that will groom the students to be successful in their careers. The campus is huge and full of greeneries and is environmental friendly and the services provided are more than satisfactory.
• Weaknesses: The University has been restructured in 2001 and so the multi campus structure does not have any unique qualities. The university is relatively new and so it is difficult to compete with the best institutes of education. The university attracts more of foreign students, low SES students and students mostly from Greater Western Sydney so the university is not popular in the other regions of Australia. The colleges in Hawkesbury and Black town have low admission rates than compared to the other colleges in the university.
• Opportunities: The University has the opportunity to form partnership in order to fulfill their goals. The university has the opportunity to attract audience out of Western Sydney. There is a lot of growth potential for the university as there are lot of untapped overseas market and the percentage of overseas students is higher than the overall average in Sydney (Tan & Hugo, 2016). There are also opportunities in the field of societal trends, technological advancements and better connectivity among the various colleges within the university.
• Threats: The University has to face threats from the rival universities who are higher ranked and from those who are in the same bracket group. There is also threat from the Donald Trump‘s travel ban which will hamper the foreign exchange students and students who have dual citizenship (Shear & Cooper,  2017).

  The university will be rebranding their identity and positioning as an exceptional university that is academically excellent and is internationally reachable. The emphasis is on its unique geographic location and growing economy, which is fastest in the country and it, help the students and communities to tap into unlimited global opportunity (Urde & Koch, 2014). The university is willing to demonstrate change by accepting that the world has changed and so has the ways of education. The values that the university follows is based on academic freedom, ethics and accountability, excellence and quality, relevance and responsibility, scholarly rigour and integrity and collegiality   

The marketing aims of the university are to be a vivacious research university with impact both nationally and internationally, to be a new and energetic culture that will ensure success, to offer distinctive learning experience to the students, providing exposure to the community and the people in Greater Western Sydney and to expand the university bounds internationally.  

There have been many changes in the marketing world and the university will use two ways to promote their messages, one is online and another is offline (Armstrong et al. 2014). The use of social media is one of the ways of promotion; the students in this generation are more habituated with sharing and communicating through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (Vinerean et al.2013). The university will be using the social media to attract students by promoting about the university’s involvement in the various technological research papers and the various facilities provided by the university. The university website should have to be kept up to date and the Google search engine optimization ranking should be kept high. Thus, whenever a student shall search for career option the university website details should be among the top search results of the search engine (McIntyre, 2015). Advertising and print media is becoming obsolete, however; there is still plenty of use when the target customers are concerned. The parents and teachers of the students have an influence on their decision-making. Banners, posters, journals and flyers have to be distributed to attract the attention of the target segment and career-counseling workshops have to done so that the students can be guided and persuaded (Maehle & Supphellen, 2015).

The marketing promotion strategy of the university will have to focus on three key factors and they are what to communicate, how to communicate and whom to communicate to. The emphasis has to be made on four key factors selection, certification, knowledge and immersion.  The quality of students and faculties has to be kept up to the mark and that will strengthen the reputation of the university (Madsen & Walker,  2015). The idea of the courses offered and the distinction among them has to be clear to the students. The certification course should include important training and problem solving skills that will provide an advantage to the students. The environment or the vibe of the university will be as such that the both the students and the faculties should feel a profound bond to the university. The target audiences for the university are the young people who are ranging from the age of 18 to 30. Although the students are the main audience, the target segment includes parents, teachers, media and examination developers.

 There have been many changes in the marketing world and the university will use two ways to promote their messages, one is online and another is offline. The use of social media is one of the ways of promotion; the students in this generation are more habituated with sharing and communicating through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The university will be using the social media to attract students by promoting about the university’s involvement in the various technological research papers and the various facilities provided by the university. The university website should have to be kept up to date and the Google search engine optimization ranking should be kept high. Thus, whenever a student shall search for career option the university website details should be among the top search results of the search engine. Advertising and print media is becoming obsolete, however; there is still plenty of use when the target customers are concerned. The parents and teachers of the students have an influence on their decision-making. Banners, posters, journals and flyers have to be distributed to attract the attention of the target segment and career-counseling workshops have to done so that the students can be guided and persuaded. This above strategies will give the University of Western Sydney over its main rival, the University of Canberra.

There are two types of costs, one is direct and another is indirect. The direct cost includes the cost of research, travelling, maintenance and development of infrastructure. The indirect cost includes salaries of the investigators, advertisement and development for professional courses (Soma et al. 2014). The budget for the university should be around 10,000,00.

Conclusion

The outcomes of the report shows that the university will be using differentiated marketing to find out their target customers and is focusing on two or three market segments which is a weak point and has the possibility of growth. The marketing strategy used by the university is aggressive and the projected load for the coming year looks promising.

Thus, from the above report, it can be concluded that the university is already growing rapidly and as the economy is growing at a rate faster than any region in the country this is the right time for expansion. The university can definitely achieve the set goals they have set for 2018 and the forecast was reflects that the profit margin will increase. The university also wants to improve their international ranking and move to the next ranking group and they can very well make it if proper implementation of the strategy is carried out.

Reference

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