Effective Marketing Strategies To Increase Enrollment In King Edward VII College

Financial Statements and Cash Accounting

1. King Edward VII College is in operation for more than 5 years with main registered campus in Melbourne. The college also has an additional campus in Sydney. The college currently offers courses on management, human resources, marketing and international businesses to the students. With around 500 students in aggregate, studying in different courses of the college, the college has a good reputation in the educational circle. The objective of the management of the college is to increase the number of students of the college in the future by attracting students from all across the country. In order to achieve its objective of attracting more students to the college it is certainly of necessity to continue its improvement in teaching and other facilities provided to the students (Hill et al. 2014). However, at the same time using an effective marketing strategy to attract students from different parts of the country will also help the management to attract students to the college. Marketing is a very delicate aspect of running an organization, whether profit oriented organization or non-profit organization. In modern times marketing has become a necessity and one of the most integral parts of running an organization successfully. Thus, along with other important aspects of running a business it is equally important to give necessary importance to marketing to attract attention of the customers, in this case the attention of the students from different parts of the country.

2. From the plain reading of the document it is clear that though the management of King College VII understand the importance of marketing to attract more students to the college, it is yet not ready to spend huge amount of money on marketing till now. Despite understanding the importance of marketing to attract students the management has only allocated a meagre amount of $25000 as the marketing budget which will be used in every single activities relating to marketing except the staff services that shall be paid by the college from other cost center (Marino 2014). The amount of $25000 is very less considering the importance of marketing. An effective marketing strategy shall include use of all modern day technologies and methods to reach to as many number of people as possible. According to the facts provided in the document the college will use the allocated fund of $25000 in the following marketing activities:

• Redesign of website: The management has decided to redesign the website of the college in the coming days to improve the branding of the college. The management expects to achieve the redesign improvement in the website to enhance the brand image of the college by spending $5000 in the year 2015-16.
• Incentive scheme: One of the effective ways to encourage students to involve in the process of motivating their fellow students to admit to a particular college is by introducing a lucrative referral system. In order to design and implement a lucrative and attractive referral system the management expects to spend about $2400 in the financial year.
• Advertisement is a necessity in today’s day and age for business organizations to introduce their products and services in the market. For the college also the management will use radio advertisement to let the students know of different curriculums and subjects that it is offering to the students. An amount of $10000 has been ear marked to use in radio advertisement campaign (Hyman 2014).
• On line communications such as using different networks, newspapers, blogs to advertise about the college and different courses will help the college to attract new students to the college. The management thinks no additional amount of money will be required for this purpose except the staff expenditures which will be beard by the college from other funds.      
• The college will participate in stand at VCE Careers Expo that will cost around $3300. Thus, the management has ear marked an amount of $3300 to ensure that the participation in the Expo can be sued by the college to attract more students in the coming days (Kumar 2015).
• Promotional brochure will be published by the management to publish the accomplishments of the college in the past along with its future road map to motivate the students to take admission in the college. It is expected that an amount of $1500 will be needed to publish the promotional brochure (Armstrong et al. 2015).
• Responsibility of an organization operating in a society is a very important consideration for any organizations at the present. Similarly, the college being an organization of sought has decided to spend an amount of $2000 to improve the local community profile.
• Considering that often the management expectation about different expenditures falls short of actual expenditure requirements the management has decided to keep a fund of $800 as contingency. In case such situation arise where the actual costs in certain heading exceeds the expected management cost then this fund shall be used (Sheth and Sisodia 2015).  

Use of television advertisement is very popular method of advertising about different products as it has been seen that the visual representation of a product or service tends to have a longer impact on the minds of the viewers of the advertisements compare to the listeners of radio advertisement of same product or services. Use television advertisement is a modern and effective method to attract customers to different products and services. In this case, the management expects to attract more students to the different courses that are being offered here in King College VII thus, using television advertisements is a strategic decision. Provided the management uses the above strategy carefully then it could have a very positive outcome for the college (Sheth and Sisodia 2015). Though the television campaign will cost around $30000 which is well beyond the whole budget of marketing of the college yet there are numerous reasons for the management to consider the above proposal of using television advertisement and campaign to attract number of students to the college. As already explained there have been number of research that have discovered that the impression on the minds of the viewers of television advertisements are many times more compare to the listeners of radio advertisements. Not only that the impression on the minds of television advertisements are more that the radio advertisements but also the fact that television advertisements remain longer in the minds of the people and provide long term benefits to an organization. in this case the use of television advertisements will not only help the college to attract students in the coming year only but the actual impact of the television advertisements will go beyond the next year. The long term impacts of television campaign will help the college to attract students for number of years to come (Sheth and Sisodia 2015).

The Importance of Marketing for King Edward VII College

Apart from the above it has been seen that organizations using television advertisement enjoy great reputation and positive goodwill compare to the organizations that do not use television campaign in their marketing strategy. Thus, use of television campaign will help the college to enhance its brand image in the long run in addition to improving its enrolment figure for the next and succeeding years to come. Considering this the management should spend $30000 on television campaign as though the amount seems a huge investment but the relevant return for the television campaign is huge (Armstrong et al. 2015) 

The budget for marketing based on the allocated amount of $25000 has been prepared and attached along with this document in excel format. From the marketing budget a clear idea can be made about the various marketing activities that will be used to attract students to the college. The following activities have been outlined as the prime marketing activities with the available fund of $25000 (Ferrell and Fraedrich 2015).

Redesign of website with $5000.

Incentive scheme design and implementation with $2400.

Radio advertisement with $10000.

Newspaper, online blogs, communication network to be used.

VCE career Expo 2016 participation will cost $3300.

Promotional brochure will cost $1500.

Improvement to local community profile with $2000.

Contingency of $800.

The above budget of $25000 for marketing activities is not sufficient to use television campaign to achieve the ambitious objective of the college. The television campaign will enquire the college $30000 in itself. Though the amount is huge but benefits that the college will derive from the television campaign will far outweigh the cost of $30000. In case shortage of funds the college should think twice about using radio advertisement campaign as the television camping itself will be enough to attract new students to the college and can be used as better replacement for radio advertisement (Kumar 2015). Thus, the management should enhance the allocated budget of $25000 for marketing by $30000. In case crunch of funds the also the management should increase the budget of marketing by at-least $20000 to use television campaign. In that case radio advertisement will have to be scrapped and the college will only have to use television advertisements (Bryman and Bell 2015).

Based on the above recommendations the revised budget of the college will be as following:

Option I: To increase the marketing budget by $30000: 

Marketing activity	Amount ($)
Website redesign	5000.00
Incentive scheme	2400.00
Radio advertisement campaign	10000.00
Television advertisement campaign	30000.00
Career Expo	3300.00
Promotional Brochure	1500.00
Community profile improvement	2000.00
Contingency	800.00
Total	55000.00

 Option II: In case the allocated marketing budget is to be increased by $20000.00;

Marketing activity	Amount ($)
Website redesign	5000.00
Incentive scheme	2400.00
Television advertisement campaign	30000.00
Career Expo	3300.00
Promotional Brochure	1500.00
Community profile improvement	2000.00
Contingency	800.00
Total	45000.00

3. 

Marketing activity	Budgeting expenses ($)	Actual expenses ($)	Difference ($)
Website redesign	5000	7000	2000 (Excess expenditure)
Incentive scheme	2400	3400	1000 (Excess expenditure)
Radio advertisement campaign	10000	10000
Career Expo	3300	3500	200 (Excess expenditure)
Promotional Brochure	1500	1500
Community profile improvement	2000	2000

From the above table the expenditures that have overrun the budgeted allocation can easily be identified, these are website redesign expenditures, incentive scheme and Career Expo expenditures.  

The variance in difference expenditures are mainly as following:

Redesign expenditures was expected to be $5000.00, however, the actual expenditures was $7000.00 that is an increase of $2000.00. Thus, the variation of 40% from the expected level. Incentive scheme expenditures have also increased by $1000 from expected $2400.00 that is also an increase of close to 38%. Similarly Career Expo expenditures increased by $200. This was a minor variation compare to other expenditures as it increased only by about 6%. The reason for variation are mainly the inability of the management to forecast different expenditures correctly along with inefficient utilization of resources (Peppard and Ward 2016).   

Allocated Budget for Marketing Activities

2015 – 2016 FY Projected expenses
Marketing Activity	Jun-15	Jul-15	Aug-15	Sep-15	Oct-15	Nov-15
Website Redesign	1250			1250
Incentive Scheme	$200	$200	$200	$200	$200	$200
Radio advertisement Campaign	$2,000			$2,000
Career Expo					$3,300
Promotional Brochure					$1,500
Community Organization
Contingecy			$200			$200
Total	$3,450	$200	$400	$3,450	$5,000	$400
2015 – 2016 FY Actual Expenses
Marketing Activity	Jun-15	Jul-15	Aug-15	Sep-15	Oct-15	Nov-15
Website Redesign						2000
Incentive Scheme		$200	$200	$200	$200	$200
Radio advertisement Campaign
Career Expo						3500
Promotional Brochure					1500
Community Organization
Contingency
Total	$0	$200	$200	$200	$1,700	$5,700

4. Profit and Loss – six months to Dec 15 – Brisbane

	Budget	Actuals
Income: Sales	$250,000	$275,000
Electricity and gas	$1,500	$3,000
Internet	$1,000	$1,100
Office supplies	$500	$500
Rent	$72,000	$72000
Stationary	$2500	$3500
Superannuation expense	$7500	$7500
Travel and accommodation	$5000	$8000
Wages and salaries	$105000	$115000
Water	$2500	$5500
Work cover insurance	$5000	$8000
Net Profit	$47500	$50900

• Necessary assumptions have been made in relation to the expenditures of which no information were given. 

Profit and Loss – six months to Dec 15 – Sydney  

	Budget	Actuals
Income: Sales	$250,000	$275,000
Electricity and gas	$1,500	$3,0000
Internet	$1,000	$1,100
Office supplies	$500	$600
Rent	$36,000	$36000
Stationary	$2500	$3500
Superannuation expense	$7500	$7500
Travel and accommodation	$5000	$8000
Wages and salaries	$105000	$115000
Water	$2500	$5500
Work cover insurance	$5000	$8000
Net Profit	$83500	$86900

Necessary assumptions have been made in relation to the expenditures of which no information were given.

None of the variances were extreme and thus, need not be reported however, the budget profit of $47500 was on a sale of $250000; though the actual profit increased to $50900 but it was on higher sales of $275000 from Brisbane campus. Similarly the expenditures on Sydney campuses were also not alarmingly different than budgeted hence, there is no need to make any report on such variances (Vogel 2014).   

From the net profits of the college from Sydney and Brisbane it can be said that the college had performed financially better in both Brisbane and Sydney campuses than expectations. Thus, the management needs to be congratulated for that however, there are many areas on which the management should further improve its performance to improve the overall operating performance of the college (Peppard and Ward 2016).

Both campuses have performed very well however, the operating performance of Sydney campus have certainly outshined the performance of Brisbane campus as the operating profit of Sydney was higher compare to that of Brisbane (Jeston and Nelis 2014).  

5. The payment due from client 120 days or more is in relation to an amount of $2714.00 which is about 25% of the total debtors of $10851.00. Due in respect of a client for a period of 90 days is an amount of $4356.00 i.e. about 40% of the total debt shows that the highest amount of debtor is on the due list of 90 days and finally the college has 60 days due for an amount of $3781.00 i.e. about 35% of the total debt. Considering that company’s usual term of credit is for a period of 14 days from the invoice the above due period in respect of debtors does not reflect a pretty picture for the liquidity position of the company.

It is not a good sign for the company to see that there are more than 65% of the dues that have a combined period of collection for 90 days or more. Considering that the average due term is 14 days from the date of invoice this is something that shows that the liquidity position of the company is not good and the management is unable to cash its due from the debtors on time (Brigham and Ehrhardt 2013).  

References:

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Brigham, E.F. and Ehrhardt, M.C., 2013. Financial management: Theory & practice. Cengage Learning.

Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Ferrell, O.C. and Fraedrich, J., 2015. Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.

Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.

Hyman, D.N., 2014. Public finance: A contemporary application of theory to policy. Cengage Learning.

Jeston, J. and Nelis, J., 2014. Business process management. Routledge.

Kumar, V., 2015. Evolution of marketing as a discipline: What has happened and what to look out for. Journal of Marketing, 79(1), pp.1-9.

Marino, R., 2014. Introduction. In The Future BRICS (pp. 3-18). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.

Sheth, J.N. and Sisodia, R.S., 2015. Does marketing need reform?: Fresh perspectives on the future. Routledge.

Vogel, H.L., 2014. Entertainment industry economics: A guide for financial analysis. Cambridge University Press.