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Executive Summary
La Trobe University has built its reputation in a global stage. With the facilities provided to students headlined by its global rankings, La Trobe University has been a study destination for students coming from various parts of the globe. With the aim of increasing student enrolment into the post graduate program, the current situation does provide some curveballs and opportunities alike. The situation in the market shows an incline in both domestic students opting for post graduate studies and international students applying in the state of Victoria, Australia. However, the external environmental forces point towards a cautionary scenario due to changing geopolitical and economic conditions causing changes in movement of people and planned spending on academics.
The students targeted for enrolment have been divided into the two major segments such as:
• Postgraduate International Students
Indian international students who are interested in Management and Commerce courses.
• Postgraduate Domestic Students
Domestic Students who are interested in Health and Society & Culture courses.
The strategy then describes the best digital marketing platforms to market the above-mentioned postgraduate degrees for students with social media marketing and online forums, such as Quora, to be used for international students while social media marketing, specifically LinkedIn for domestic students. The budgeting is structured to be increased near enrolment dates of March and July and then steady out in between those periods.
1. Introduction
La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria. With over 38,000 students including over 8000 international students, the university prides in its diversity and multiculturalism while providing world class study facilities through its six campuses spread around the state of Victoria (La Trobe University, 2019).
La Trobe University offers post graduate degrees in fields such as Arts, social sciences and communications, Business and commerce, Education and teaching, Health, IT and engineering, Law and criminology and Science (La Trobe University, 2019). La Trobe has over 7000 post graduate students studying in these various fields, which make up around 17% of the domestic students and 43% of the international students (La Trobe University, 2017).
With continual growth of the organization, La Trobe is competing in the market to increase its enrolment numbers both in domestic and international market. Enhancing its digital marketing strategy has been taken as a pathway of sustaining organizational growth. This report shall present a situational analysis of the current scenario of student enrolment, the goals and objectives to address the opportunities and threats of the scenario and the specifications of the digital marketing strategy such as market segmentation, brand positioning and marketing mix. These analyses will be then structured into plans for engaging potential customers within a specific budget and timeline while specifying how the performance will be continued to be monitored through performance indicators.
2. Situation Analysis
Situation analysis is the study of conditions within the entity and the environment where the entity is operating. Situation analysis precedes designing and deployment of strategy as it provides an outlook on the strengths and weaknesses of the entity and opportunities and threats in the market (Lake, 2019). Latest situational analysis for La Trobe University is essential in order to understand the changes in target market and the conditions which attracts them towards enrolling in the university.
2.1 Microenvironment Analysis
Micro environmental analysis observes factors which have a direct effect on the entity. Micro environmental factors are firm specific rather than affecting the general industry (Chand, n.d.). The microenvironmental factors can be presented in the COSMIC framework (Surabhi, 2020), where COSMIC stands for competitors, organisation, suppliers, market intermediaries and customers. The contextual factors are analysed as follows:
i. Competitors: The competitors for La Trobe University are domestic universities based in Victoria and International universities. The major factors which differentiate universities could be recognised as university ranking, fee of degree and benefits provided to students. Benefits provided to students could be but not limited to scholarships and bursary packages.
There are 8 universities within greater Melbourne region (University Reviews, 2020). The domestic competitors for La Trobe University could be made specific to universities within similar rankings, fees and degrees offered such as RMIT (which also shares the suburb of Bundoora as main campus), Victoria University (both are within the global ranking of 250 to 350) (Times Higher Education, 2019) and Deakin University (both offer the only Postgraduate degree in Master of Business Analytics accredited by ACS) (Australian Computing Society, n.d.).
ii. Organisation: La Trobe University is the third highest ranked university (Times Higher Education, 2019) providing specialised schools in various disciplines. La Trobe has 13 schools each focusing on a special body of knowledge with the full list in Appendix 1 (La Trobe University, 2019). The university also provides flexible learning options through various campuses spread around Victoria. (La Trobe University, 2019)
iii. Market Intermediaries: Market intermediaries are the educational agents and representatives, who on behalf of La Trobe counsel students about the benefits of joining the university. Market intermediaries travel around spreading the marketing message and informing people regarding the benefits of enrolling in La Trobe University Post Graduate Programme. Market intermediaries have large student network and can affect flow of students towards education providers in the market.
iv. Customers: The major customer for the marketing strategy are the undergraduates who want to extend their educational qualification followed by people who are considering returning to school after some years of gap. Trend in the enrolment for post graduate degree present some contrasting cases in Australia. For domestic enrolment, the trend of female enrolments is inclining while male is declining. Also, the number of enrolments in post graduate is rising while undergraduate is declining signalling a probable restricted conditions for domestic post graduate enrolment in near future (Norton & Cherastidtham, 2018). Further, the number of international students applying is growing (Global Victoria, 2019) however certain determinants such as migration policy and net tuition fees remain determinants behind choice of applying for study in Victoria, Australia.
2.2 Macro Environment Analysis
Macro Environment Analysis studies factors which not only affect the entity but the industry. Macro environmental factors are external factors which are harder to control and have potent effect on the firm while being an external factor. For the analysis of macro environmental factors, PESTLE Analysis has been conducted.
2.2.1 PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE Analysis is the representation of the effects from Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technological Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) in the business environment. As all the factors might not be contextual, we will be focusing only on the factors which have a significant impact on the development of The PESTLE analysis for La Trobe University Post Graduate Program is shown in the table as follows:
External Factor Effect
i. Political Political stance on border measures and immigration of international students
ii. Economical Changes in income levels due to economic status, government funding and budget for
universities
iii. Social - Cultural Expectancy and perception of degree and choice of university
iv. Technological Changes in mode of providing education
The major political factor affecting current university intakes, especially for international students is the political stance taken by the government to close international borders for non-citizens (SBS, 2020). This restriction almost eliminates intake of new international students in the current time but indications are present of allowing exemptions for the arrival of successful student visa applicants in near future (Baker, 2020). Thus, marketing for international student will need to be extended to cover a longer term. The economic factor is the possible downturn in income and savings due to the current feeble economic conditions caused by coronavirus restrictions (Karp, 2020). Further, the changes in funding and budget provided for universities by the federal and state government might end up affecting the funding of post graduate research programmes or providing scholarships and financial assistance packages to students. Financial assistance is undoubtedly a large attraction point for applying students and lack of it might divert students towards other universities. The socio-cultural factor is the perception behind choosing a university, degree and decision regarding extending qualification into postgraduate. Various factors such as ranking of a university and industry networks might affect the choice of students. Similarly, expectation from family and peer group might prompt students to join university or extend qualification. Moreover, expectations from a postgraduate degree such as better job conditions or increased academic skillset also affect choice of university education. Finally, we can observe changes in teaching methodology with strong influence of online and remote learning currently (Koksal, 2020). Students can access resources and interact with teaching team remotely and study on a flexible schedule which they can determine at the ease of their home.
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