Marketing and Student Recruitment Policy and Procedure

Question: Discuss about the Marketing and Student Recruitment Policy and Procedure. Answer: Introduction The report describes about the marketing plan of Central Queensland University. Marketing plan is a kind of road map for the university considered. For brief understanding to the university marketing strategies, Sydney campus has been considered by the report (CQ university). Central Queensland University is a dual sector university of Australia. Here dual sector university means that the university is involved in providing vocational education that is skills based and higher education that is academic education based. It is a public company, headquartered in North Rockhampton, Queensland. The university is founded in 1967. The university has a mission of becoming one of the largest universities by 2020. The management of university is planning to introduce courses like on campus program and distance learning program. The university has been affiliated by Regional universities network. The marketing summary of the university management is to recruit students, and implementing the marketing strategies like branding. The university issues publications, implement marketing policies and advertising tools. The management of university is highly indulged in ensuring that whether Australian marketing activities and marketing vehicles are matched with the goals of university. Demand assessment Demand can be assessed by determining the place and courses offered by the university. The university has provided its course on Bundaberg, Brisbane, Geraldton, Emerald, Mackay, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Melbourne, Adelaide, Noosa, Sydney, New South Wales, Adelaide, cairns, Victoria, Townsville and Australia. The university provides a wide variety of programs like postgraduate, graduate, certification programs, research programs, undergraduate programs and diploma programs. In certification program the university provides four categories of certificates. The university provides approximate 42 bachelor programs, 6 preparation courses and 5 PHDs programs. Besides this, the university also provides various learning programs such as speaking and writing language courses. The variety of programs offered by the university increases the demand of university for students and individuals (CQ Australia, 2017). Segmentation and target market Segmentation can be understood as dividing the market into small segments so that they can be targeted easily by the marketed by the company. The university has a wide area of segments in Australia. In case of Sydney campus, it has a huge number of student populations. While in case of targeting, the university implements marketing strategy for its segments. This helps the university in converting the interested individuals in becoming the student of university. The university targets the students of Sydney by offering them facility of multimedia labs, theatres, student lounge, bookshop and many more. Positioning means that how the university designs its strategy to make a brand image in the mind of its students. Positioning strategy plays a considerable role in comparative analysis of universities providing same variety of courses. The university has positioned itself as an excellent education provider that is the reason it has maximum enrolled students that are approximately 2000 (Singh, 2012). Current market mix analysis In Sydney, the university offers courses like business, law, accounting, arts, humanities education, engineering, health programs, information technology, media, psychology, science, and preparation of English, study and work. The university has focuses on domestic and international students. In case of international students they can apply online for the courses. The promotional strategies adopted by the university are newspaper publications, online resources and word of mouth. The price charged as fees by the university from students, is in Australian dollars. The fees are charged for full time courses and it does not include cost of books and accommodations. The fee varies from 24000 to 30000 Australian dollars (Mastersportal, 2017). Political (P): the rules and regulations formed by Australian government intervenes the regulation of university programs. Economical (E): the fees charged by university are very high. For international students studying in Australia is preferred due to strong economic cycle. Social (S): These factors comprises of choice of student in selecting the university. Besides this, the availability of facilities also plays a considerable role for selecting the university. Technological (T): CQ university provides excellent technological environment for its students that is all the data are recorded at central location, and students are provided with high speed internet facility (Richter, 2012). Competitor analysis of a close competitor or competitive brand The top three competitor of CQ University are University of Melbourne, Deakin University, and University of Western Australia. However the CQ University has 401th rank in world for providing educational programs as provided by times higher education (Duckett, 2014). SWOT analysis Strengths Wide variety of courses offered by the university, and maximum number of students registered with the university. Weakness The university has weakness in its educational faculty. Opportunity The Sydney has approximately four million of population; hence the university has an opportunity in increasing the student base. Threats Lack of funds and skilled force can create a threat on development and advancement in offerings by the university. Value and brand positioning strategies The university provides value to its students by ensuring them high quality of education that would help the students in achieving their dream career. In brand positioning, the university provides counseling facilities, so that student could choose the course according to his caliber (Edurank, 2017). It has been observed that the university is at its growing stage. Hence to remain competitive in nature for longer period, the management of university must incorporate the changing trend of education in its syllabus (CQUniversity Australia, 2017). Conclusion By analyzing the report over central Queensland University, it can be said that the company offers a wide variety of courses to its students, but it fails to utilize all its resources in an effective manner. It has been analyzed that the price charged by the university are quite high, hence to remain competitive in education industry, the university must set its prices at competitive level. References CQ Australia,. (2017) Marketing and student recruitment policy and procedure. Retrieved on 21st March, from https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=3cad=rjauact=8ved=0ahUKEwiWjvXmp-fSAhXELo8KHbCDD4sQFgglMAIurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cqu.edu.au%2Fpolicy%2Fsharepoint-document-download%3Ffile_uri%3D%257BBE8380F3-F86D-4C55-AC0D-84A81EAFD6A2%257D%2FMarketing%2520and%2520Student%2520Recruitment%2520Policy%2520and%2520Procedure.pdfusg=AFQjCNFYZPtT7c6uJ5QwvAG1vGjWSRrnGA CQ university,. (n.d.) Vision and values. Retrieved on 21st March, 2017 from https://www.cqu.edu.au/about-us/about-cquniversity/vision-and-values CQUniversity Australia,. (2017) International courses and fees 2017. Retrieved on 21st March, 2017 from https://my.cqu.edu.au/documents/10165/106248200/International+Courses+and+Fees+2017_V1.pdf/bec955c2-154d-4103-b21a-b23fc19d4085 Duckett, S,. (2014) The PEST (political, economic, social and technological) environment graduation address. Retrieved on 21st March, 2017 from https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Graduation-address-LTU-14-October-2014.pdf Edurank,. (2017) Social media measurement for the education sector. Retrieved on 21st March, 2017 from https://edurank.net/ Mastersportal,. (2017) CQUniversity Australia. Retrieved on 21st March, 2017 from https://www.mastersportal.eu/universities/11909/cquniversity-australia.html Richter, T,. (2012) International marketing mix management: Theoretical framework, contingency factors and empirical findings from world-markets, Logos verlag, Berlin Singh, M,. (2012) Marketing mix of 4Ps for competitive advantage, Journal of business and management 3(6)