2018 Marketing Plan For CQ University

Mission and Vision of CQU

It would be correct to say that marketing is the critical function for organizations across different industry verticals. There was a time when marketing was considered only as a support function. However, in recent times, the perception of people has changed and today, market has emerged as a key organizational function. Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups gain what they want and need through generating, offering, and replacing products of value with others. Further, a consistent proactive marketing strategy is key of success.The objective of this paper is to discuss the 2018 marketing plan for CQ University. CQ University, Australia has been on a phenomenal trajectory in recent years. Its remarkable growth in student numbers, new courses, new campuses, infrastructure and reputation has seen it emerge as one of Australia’s truly great universities (Andaleeb, 2016). This paper would discuss the market needs and based on the market need analysis, the paper also discusses some of the recommendations for CQ University. The mission and the vision statement of the organization can be discussed as:

The CQU is committed to provide quality education to students. The mission and the vision statement of university can be discussed as:

Mission: By creating connections with our communities and offering personal attention, we engage our students and partners in an innovative and learner-centred environment that creates opportunities for working in the global community.

Vision: To be recognized nationally and internationally by our communities as an innovative, inclusive and engaged partner of choice in learning and research.

It is important that the leaders and marketers should realize the key to success before making any tactical decisions about the marketing. The three key drivers of success for CQ University can be discussed as:

• The ability to provide quality education to students. The University would be able to achieve its goals and objective only when it can continuously provide quality education
• The ability to change itself and its offerings with the change in the market dynamics and external environment. It is critical that CQU must have a watch over the internal and external factors so that it can change its product and service offerings, whenever required.

The Univeristy would be able to achieve its goals and objectives only when it can overcome its internal issues. The key or critical issues for CQU can be discussed as

• The competition is at al time high in the education industry in Australia. There are number of universities that caters to the need of domestic and international students.
• It is not easy for universities to recruit the best talent from the market that can impart quality education. One of the issues is that people do not want join the industry as teachers.

Any marketing plan could be successful only when marketing plan is supported by SMART marketing objectives (Andaleeb, 2016). The marketing objectives for CQU for the next year can be discussed as:

• Increase in the enrollment of student by 15%
• Increase in brand reputation of university to emerge as a social responsible brand

The key financial objectives for the university can be discussed as:

• Increase in the top line (revenue) of the university by 10% over the next year
• Increase in the bottom line (profitability) of the university by 8% over the next year

The university has the objective to provide best education to students. The underlying product for CQ University is the ability to provide quality education. The University would be able to provide the quality education only when it has the support of internal and external resources (Abraham, 2006). A crucial aspect of imparting quality education would be the presence of qualified teachers. At the same time, university must also have world-class course-curriculum in place.

CQU is amongst the top 2% of university in the world. The university provides variety of courses in different fields. Some of the unique courses are Master of management for engineers and a Sonography and Nursing. The fees of the courses are low compared to another university of Australia and USA. There are so many international students studying in university because of their good market reputation and effective promotion strategies. The university has also many campuses in Australia and also provides distance learning education service. It would be correct to say that CQ University has got the correct product offering (Singh, 2012).

Key to Success

The education market in Australia is highly competitive market. There are number of players in the market. Students have the options to choose from various universities. The good thing about the education market in Australia is that demand is always good. The market could be considered as healthy with the presence of both domestic and international students. For the universities in Australia, like CQU, the dependency also exists on international students due to high enrolment of international students.

In general, the universities in Australia have nice reputation in market because of their success. The market can be summarized with the number of courses that CQU offers. The table that shows the number of courses can be shown as:

CQU Course	Year – 2014	Year – 2015	Year – 2016
Vocational Education and Training	6000+ students	9000+ students	8500+ students
Undergraduate and non-award	14000+ students	15000+ students	16000+ students
Postgraduate Coursework	4500+ students	4900+ students	5200+ students
Research Higher Degree	400+ students	420+ students	410+ students
Total	26000+ students	29000+ students	30000+ students

The CQU is determined to provide best education to its students. The customers for CQU are not only the students but also the parents.  Therefore, it is important that the need analysis or need assessment should be done with the perspective of both students and parents (Hutchinson & Donnell, 2015). The market need assessment of CQU would suggest that the organization should seek to accomplish or attain the below benefits:

• Focus on quality education for domestic and international students: The marketing for university would be successful only when the university is able to provide the quality education in long term.
• Focus on brand reputation and credibility in the market: It would be achieved if the university were able to provide good placements to its students. The customers (students and family) would feel or get the ROI only when the students can get good jobs with the education.  

The analysis of the current trends in the education sector in Australia would suggest that the students want to join the university that can help them to get good job. Among the Australian universities, a lot depends on the market reputation and market credibility. The latest market trend in the market is to check the alumni of the university and then take the decision (Hassan & Craft, 2012).

The objective of Market segmentation is to divide the consumers into different groups based on similar interests and characteristics (Moutinho, 2000). CQU has variety of students from different countries. In fact, the number of International students is much more than the number of domestic student. The main area of students in CQU is Bachelor Degree, School Study and Masters. So promotion should be done according to student’s age group. CQU has done the market segmentation based on education. The university wants to target the consumer set that wants to get the quality education in Australia. The high level split of domestic and international students in CQU can be shown as:

The market growth has been decent in the education industry. The education industry in Australia has been growing at a stable growth rate of 6% to 10% over the past few years. In fact, the CAGR for the last five years has been more than 6%. The market growth over the last five years can be shown as:

Year	Market Growth Rate
2011	8%
2012	7%
2013	8%
2014	9%
2015	6%
2016	7%

The education industry in Australia is a billion dollar industry. The country has more than 1000 universities and the competition is high among these universities. The universities in Australia provide employment to more than 100,000 people. It is expected that the industry would continue to grow at a decent growth rate of 6% to 8%.

It would be correct to say that SWOT Analysis is a very effective and powerful tool to identify internal strengths and weaknesses. The tool also helps the organizations to assess the external opportunities and threats (Rahmani & Emamisaleh, 2015). It is important that organizations should assess the internal strengths and external opportunities before making any expansion decision. The SWOT matrix for CQ University can be shown as:

STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
· The university has positive reputation in Market · The university has expert and qualified faculty · The university has Quality academic programmes and services · The university has proactive student support · The university is also famous among international students · The campus environment is also positive	· The university has limited resources for employees, staff and faculty · The university has Lack of Financial resources from external funding · It is believed that university has limited number of courses to offer · The university has limited hostels for residents students · The university has a relatively small executive committee that manages the operations
OPPORTUNITIES	THREATS
· The biggest opportunity for CQU University is to target the international students · There also exist opportunity or University to focus on technological advancements · The university can also focus to develop the residential hostels so that it can scale up its existing courses offered to students	· The biggest threat for CQ University is from other universities or the threat from competition · There also some negative perception about the university as it has emerged as a home to number of domestic students · The university is home to number of international students and as a result, the exchange rate is also an external threat for CQ University.

Critical issues for CQU

The competition is high in the education industry in Australia and there are number of domestic and international players. The competitive matrix of CQ University with the other known players in the Australian market can be shown as:

	Specialization Index (rounded of)	Total Research (rounded of)	Teaching & Learning: Undergraduate student satisfaction	Teaching & Learning: Entrance score	Rank in international standing (rounded of)	AACSB (2010) accredited
Canberra	60	4	86	86	27	X
CQU	40	3	76	84	36	X
Curtin	21	17	87	91	17	X
Griffith	25	23	87	86	14	√
JCU	19	10	90	84	24	X
Macquarie	54	24	87	97	9	X
Newcastle	23	22	87	88	13	X
QUT	27	28	84	90	10	√
SCU	49	7	94	70	27	X
Swinburne	76	9	94	80	26	X
Tasmania	23	18	86	84	14	X
UQ	30	82	87	96	4	√
UniSA	36	16	84	79	20	X
UWS	28	16	80	71	24	X
Wollong	35	20	96	88	11	X

Typically the marketing strategy would revolve around the segmentation, targeting, positioning and 4 Ps of marketing. It is important that organizations must understand the basis of 4Ps of marketing and all the 4Ps should be synchronized together (Ellson, 2004). The marketing strategy for CQU is to focus more on the promotional element of marketing mix through social media marketing. The focus on the promotional element would help the university to increase its reach and presence in the Australian market.

The target market strategy for CQU should be divided into two groups as below:  

• Target market strategy for domestic students: The target market strategy for domestic students would be to target through various local means and the combination of offline and online promotional elements.
• Target market strategy for international students: The target market strategy for international students would be to target the international students through online mediums, primarily focusing on social media platforms.

CQ University must position itself as a university that provides values to students. It is important that the students and the family members should get a feeling of positive ROI with CQ University.

The most common and recommended form of advertisement for CQ University would be social media marketing. In this era of high technology, social media is the most efficient way to reach out to targeted audience. Moreover, most of the target audience of CQU is students that have high presence on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (Ross & McGowan, 2012).

The marketing mix consists of four elements of marketing mix. These four elements of marketing mix for CQ University can be discussed as:

Product: The underlying product for CQ University is the ability to provide quality education. The University would be able to provide the quality education only when it has the support of internal and external resources. A crucial aspect of imparting quality education would be the presence of qualified teachers. At the same time, university must also have world-class course-curriculum in place.

Price: The price element of CQU is nicely placed, as the fee of the university is reasonable. It is suggested that the fee of CQU should be less than the fees charged by competitors.

Place: CQ University is located in 15 different places of Australia. The North Rock Hampton campus is main campus in Australia. It can be said that the place element of the marketing mix of CQU is also good.

Promotion: The most common and recommended form of promotion for the university would be social media marketing. In this era of high technology, social media is the most efficient way to reach out to targeted audience. Moreover, most of the target audience of CQU is students that have high presence on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

The stakeholders of CQ University can use secondary research to get the insights about the market. It would help the university to maintain the balance between the demand and supply. It is suggested that CQ University can also take the help of external consultants to get insights about the market and industry (Moller & Parvinen, 2015).

The focus on any marketing activity demands investment. The marketing budget for the coming year for CQU can be discussed as:

	Amount in AUD
	Quarter_1	Quarter_2	Quarter_3	Quarter_4
Market Research / External Research
Focused study	1500	1500	1500	1500
Fee for Secondary Research	1000	1200	1200	1500
Survey Cost & Expenses	700	900	900	900
	3200	3600	3600	3900
Online channels Investment
Facebook_Marketing	1500	1500	2000	2000
Twitter_Marketing	750	750	1000	1000
Web Advertising_Marketing	750	750	1000	1000
	3000	3000	4000	4000
Offline Channels Investment
Television Cost	1500	1500	1500	1500
Newspapers Cost	800	800	800	800
Direct marketing Cost	500	500	500	500
	2800	2800	2800	2800
Other Investments
Travel Investment	2000	2000	2000	2000
Postage Cost	500	500	500	500
Equipment Cost	500	500	500	500
	3000	3000	3000	3000
Total Budgeted Cost	12000	12400	13400	13700

Conclusion

The above paper discusses the marketing plan for CQ University. Based on above discussion it can be said that social media marketing is a powerful tool for the university and social media marketing would be important specially to attract and target the international students. Therefore, it is recommended that CQU must invest heavily on social media tools. It is good to have the short-term annual marketing plan. However, it is recommended that the company should also have a strategy in place to manage the long tern growth and development. It is recommended that the organization should also have five years plan in place to manage the marketing needs and to achieve the business goals and objectives in long term.

References

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