Category: MBA Projects

When the marketing managers were asked regarding the best marketing strategy among the segmentation and positioning, one of the marketing head replied that, “As per my opinion segmentation is the best market strategy as it is easy to concentrate on a particular group students and providing their requirements”.

From this statement it is clear that market segmentation is done as per the customer or students preferences across the private academic institutions and in this context it is the most preferred strategy by most of the institutions in India. When the same question was asked to one of the marketing head, “Market segmentation is easy all the time when compare to any other strategy and it fetches more enrolments”.

It can be understood from this statement that, if the market segmentation is done in a well defined manner across academic institutions in India and if they can attract a particular group of students against their interests in different aspects it will gain them more enrolments on a whole.

Findings from interview with Administrative Officers 

Administrative officers from both the collages are interviewed to understand the impact of the marketing strategies on the overall enrolments and the key administrative process and the key findings are as given in this section.

Brand positioning also plays a vital role across the marketing strategies and when this strategy is applied to the private academic institutions it will fetch ample enrolments and in this context when the marketing managers were interviewed the key findings are given in this section.

When one of the marketing head was asked regarding this, he replied that, “Positioning is done mainly to meet the core competition and we project ourselves with the quality of education we provide and also we meet the students from different colleges across the various occasions and students from our institution will enhance the positioning across such events”.

From this statement it is clear that positioning the brand image of the institutes mainly depends on their current students when they go across various national level events and the corresponding success stories will enhance the required value.  Positioning marketing plays a vital role across education business and the main factors that are useful in this context are the corresponding students and their active involvement at different national level occasions.

When the same question was asked to another market manager he replied that, “We use position marketing to improve the number of enrollments as positioning is done at the counseling level and also at different educational fares level as well”. It is clear from this statement positioning always improves the enrolments as they will focus on this at the counseling level where they can distribute the required broachers and prospects and attract the students using this positioning marketing.

Thus from the overall analysis it is clear that positioning the brand of private academic institutes will fetch the required enrolments and improve the overall business value to the academic institutes.  Market mix also plays an important role across education marketing the combination of Product, Place, Price and Promotion across the private academic institutions and when the marketing managers were asked regarding the role of 4P’s one of the marketing managers replied that, “We always implement the product, place and promotion successfully regarding across education marketing, where the price is not in our hands which is taken by the council level and thus price has no impact on the marketing”.

From this statement is clear that, among the 4P’s, price has no impact on the marketing strategy across engineering studies as the price is decided by the higher authorities and regarding the product, place and promotion most of the collages are following similar strategies as discussed earlier. When the same question was asked to another marketing manager he replied that, “Promotion and Product need more marketing strategies when compared to price and place as distribution of the product and deciding up on the price is not possible across education marketing”.

From this statement it is clear that, distribution of the product across education marketing is limited in India and also deciding upon the price is not possible. Thus from this overall analysis it is clear that if the private academic institutions can maintain excellent product quality and also opt the latest promotional and marketing strategies, they can gain more enrolments and when it comes to the case of price and place these two aspects are out of scope of the institutions in India. 

In general with the implementation of market segmentation the core business value of the organizations is increased and in this context when the marketing managers were asked regarding the role of market segmentation towards the student enrollments, one of the marketing head replied that, “With the perfect market segmentation strategy we can get more enrollments as we mainly focus on the key courses which were liked by the students like Information Systems and Managment”.

It can be understood from this statement that when the academic institutions can implement the segmentation marketing strategies they can gain more admissions and also attract a particular group of students against their level of courses being implemented and also attract the students who are really interested in technology related subjects.

When the same question was asked to one of the marketing head he replied that, “With segmenting the marketing we will make sure that each and every strategy will ensure some enrollments and we concentrate on the core areas preferred by a group of students which include their preferred course and also provide scope to develop their research skills for the students who are interested”.

From this statement it is clear that the main aspect they considered while segmenting the market across the education business is that they concentrate more on the student preferences and also gain their preferences like research and development into the required enrollments.

Thus from this analysis it is clear that when the private academic institutions can concentrate on the special group of students in terms of their preferences and interests and provide the same they can easily gain the market segments and convert them to the enrollments and thus increase the overall business value. 

Role of market segmentation, positioning and market mix on student enrollment:

Apart from the marketing strategies being implemented by the private academic institutions in India there are some key aspects like market segmentation and positioning that can completely change the phase of the marketing in education. Both the marketing heads are interviewed in this context and the key findings are given in this section.

When one of the marketing head was asked regarding this market segmentation he replied like “We adopt the market segments when it comes dividing the academic contents and try to attract students with similar interest in a particular course and we try to expose the required expertise in this context”. From this statement it is clear that segmenting the market across the education business involved more complexity as it is really a tough job to gather the students under common preferences and it is only possible with the case of courses being offered across the institutions.

When the same question was asked to one of the marketing manager he said that, “Market segmentation has a significant role across the education marketing and we try to segment the market in terms of different courses we offer and conducting technical presentations to attract a separate group of students”. From this statement it is clear that segmenting the market across education business should target special students who are interested towards in special areas like different courses and other activities like technical presentations.

From this analysis it can be understood that market segmentation is implemented by most of the private academic institutions in India and they feel like dividing the courses and conducting some external events tries to segment the market and attract a special group of students. 

Marketing Strategy and Relationship marketing also plays an important role across the education marketing and in this context most of the private academic institutes in India are adopting this strategy and when one of the marketing head was asked regarding this, he replied like, “Relationship marketing is the traditional way of marketing and it works fine with education marketing as it doesn’t involve direct communication and even there are few students who join out institutions based on reference”.

From this statement it is clear that, relationship marketing is widely adopted across the private academic institutes in India and in this context most of the students join their institutes based on reference from their seniors or friends and thus the private academic institutes can gain more admissions and maintain a long term relation with the existing and previous students.

When the same question was asked to one of the marketing head he replied that, “Relationship marketing is the best strategy as it helps to maintain a good relation with the customers all the time and as per my opinion we got more number of students with reference from the seniors”. From this statement it is clear that, most of the private academic institutes in India are adopting the relationship marketing to gain the admissions as they can maintain a long term relation with the students rather than adopting the latest marketing strategies. 

Relationship marketing and word of mouth marketing comes as a single term in most of the cases and in this context when one of the marketing head was asked regarding the role of word of mouth across the education marketing, he replied that, “Word of mouth has a significant role across gaining more admissions and we have lot of admissions with reference from other students who has seen our quality in past”. From this statement it is clear that, word of mouth marketing is the most successful strategy across education marketing and when the previous students are really satisfied with the quality of education offered by the academic institutions they will automatically refer more students and thus the institutions can gain more admissions without any external marketing strategies.

When this question was asked to one of the marketing head he replied that, “We have number of students who came to our institution only because of word of mouth and we try ourselves a lot to retain this popularity for the long time”. From this MBA Project Report statement it is clear that when the institutions can maintain the quality of service for a long time then can retain the required popularity from which the word of mouth publicity can happen and thus they can gain more admissions in this context.

Apart from the traditional way of marketing there are many latest marketing features across and the key among them are internet marketing and online marketing and most of the academic institutions are adopting these strategies these days. When one of the marketing manager was asked regarding this, he replied, “Internet has a significant role across the education marketing and we are creating our own portals and blogs to attract more number of students using social media as well”. From this statement it is clear that, academic institutions are using all the possible internet marketing strategies like creating the blogs and using the social media to get in touch with the students all the time.

When the same question was asked to one of the marketing head he replied that, “Internet has the direct role towards gaining more number of admissions and also most of the students these days are attracted towards internet and we find it is the right place to market ourselves”. From this statement it is clear most of the institutions are adopting the recent internet marketing strategies to attract the students and also internet is playing a direct role across their marketing strategies.  Thus most of the collages are adopting a mix of the traditional and latest marketing strategies to attract the students and also meet the competition across the market.

Educational fares and camps are the most common marketing strategy to promote the private academic institutions across India and when one of the marketing heads was asked regarding this he replied like “We generally conduct the campaigns across the counseling centers and regarding the educational fares we make our students to participate in different national level events and thus promote ourselves”.

From this statement it is clear that, most of the private educational institutes get a chance to promote themselves at the counseling centers and they guide the students in different aspects and gain the required admissions and also regarding the promotional activities most of the private academic institutions in India make their students to participate at different nation level competitions and promote themselves among different collages against their participation at the events.

When the same question was asked to the other marketing head he replied that, “We use to conduct the campaigns every year at the educational fares and technical symposiums and promote ourselves using the latest strategies all the time”. From this statement it is clear that conducting technical meets and making a separate stage for different collage students will also promote the brand value of the academic institutes and this is the latest strategy being followed by different private academic institutes in India. 

As discussed in the previous section, most of the Indian private academic institutes are following both the traditional and latest marketing strategies to attract the students and when one of the marketing head was asked regarding this, he replied that, “When it comes to private academic institutes both the mix of traditional and latest marketing strategies would work fine, but when they are compared traditional approaches are still in existence in India as most of the students are used to them”.

From this statement it is clear that, traditional marketing strategies like advertisements are the best approach followed by most of the academic institutes in India as most of the students are attracted towards this and when the technology is considered Indian academic institutes need to improve in some areas in this context. When the same question was asked to one of the marketing head he replied like, “The scope to apply the recent marketing strategies like online marketing is now a day’s being increased and most of the time we prefer the traditional way to gain the attention of the students as the core business value of Indian academic institutes rotates around this”.

From this statement it is clear that, most of the academic institutes in India prefer the traditional methods of marketing and when it comes to the latest marketing strategies like online marketing only few collages are adopting this practice and they are expecting that it would become the major marketing strategy later. 

Research methodology followed in this MBA Project research to gather the primary source of information is given in the previous chapter and this chapter holds the key research findings from the interview with Marketing managers and Administrative officers from two engineering academic institutions from India as mentioned in the case study section. Based on the interview with the key respondents involved in this research, their opinions and views against the questions asked in the questionnaire are categorized into different sections and their answers are elaborated and presented in this chapter and they are as given below 

Findings from interview with marketing managers 

Marketing managers are interviewed with respect to understand the role of marketing strategies across education marketing and the level of involvement of these strategies to gain the admissions. Different marketing strategies implemented across their institutions and their impact on the competitive advantages is also discussed in detail manner based on the interview findings from the marketing heads and they are presented in this section. A detailed discussion is made with respect to the traditional and latest marketing strategies being implemented by the institutions and they are given as below 

Current marketing strategies 

When one of the marketing head was asked regarding the current marketing strategies, he replied like, “We follow all the traditional marketing strategies like paper advertisements, advertisements in all popular portals and issuing broaches to the students at all the important places”. From this statement it indicates traditional marketing approaches are still in place across the private academic institution in India and the most common among them are advertisements across local news papers and national news papers and also distributing the brochures to the students at different collages and counseling centers.

When on the marketing head was asked the same question he replied like, “The most common marketing strategy we implement is to gather the student database from different junior collages and advertise to those students using latest methods like emails and mobile SMS”. From this statement it is clear that even some collages are following the latest trends in marketing like gathering the student database from different sources and escalating the key information related to the collages to the students using the electronic media and email communication. Thus from these statements from the opinion of marketing heads from both the collages it is clear that the current marketing strategies they are implementing include both the mix of tradition and technology and when they are compared most of the collages are opting for the traditional marketing strategies than the technical ones. 

In general any marketing strategy include both the direct and indirect marketing strategy and when the marketing heads were asked which is the best one in this context, one of the marketing managers replied that, “Direct marketing has small role to play across the education as we can’t reach the students directly in most of the cases and this indirect marketing is best as per my opinion”. From this reply it can be analyzed that when it comes to the case of direct and indirect marketing, most of the private academic institutions can’t reach the students directly and thus they always prefer the indirect marketing strategies and thus in this context indirect marketing has the significant to play across the education marketing.

When the same question was asked to the other marketing head, he replied like “As there are more number of collages across India we can’t reach students directly and to meet the core competition we always adopt the indirect marketing strategies like advertisements most of the time”.  From this statement it is clear when there are more academic institutions it is always better to depend on the indirect marketing strategies rather than going for direct marketing as the level of competition is more across the direct marketing strategies. Thus from these replies it is clear that indirect marketing is the best marketing strategy followed by most of the private academic institutions in India. 

Research methodology followed in this research to gather the primary source of information is given in the previous chapter and this chapter holds the key research findings from the interview with Marketing managers and Administrative officers from two engineering academic institutions from India as mentioned in the case study section. Based on the interview with the key respondents involved in this research, their opinions and views against the questions asked in the questionnaire are categorized into different sections and their answers are elaborated and presented in this chapter and they are as given below 

Findings from interview with marketing managers 

Marketing managers are interviewed with respect to understand the role of marketing strategies across education marketing and the level of involvement of these strategies to gain the admissions. Different marketing strategies implemented across their institutions and their impact on the competitive advantages is also discussed in detail manner based on the interview findings from the marketing heads and they are presented in this section. A detailed discussion is made with respect to the traditional and latest marketing strategies being implemented by the institutions and they are given as below 

Current marketing strategies 

When one of the marketing head was asked regarding the current marketing strategies, he replied like, “We follow all the traditional marketing strategies like paper advertisements, advertisements in all popular portals and issuing broaches to the students at all the important places”. From this statement it indicates traditional marketing approaches are still in place across the private academic institution in India and the most common among them are advertisements across local news papers and national news papers and also distributing the brochures to the students at different collages and counseling centers. When on the marketing head was asked the same question he replied like, “The most common marketing strategy we implement is to gather the student database from different junior collages and advertise to those students using latest methods like emails and mobile SMS”. From this statement it is clear that even some collages are following the latest trends in marketing like gathering the student database from different sources and escalating the key information related to the collages to the students using the electronic media and email communication. Thus from these statements from the opinion of marketing heads from both the collages it is clear that the current marketing strategies they are implementing include both the mix of tradition and technology and when they are compared most of the collages are opting for the traditional marketing strategies than the technical ones. 

However, there is no MBA Project study conforming this relationship and the contribution effects of each strategy in a college setting. The discoveries resulting from this study will have a significant impact to marketing in private academic institutions. Therefore this Examining the Marketing Strategies study will contribute to the academic fields of marketing. This Educational Institutions study will also impact the field of marketing in a positive way because it will create a new insight regarding the effects of implementation of different marketing strategies in private academic institutions settings in India. Following are the actual aims, objective and research questions identified in this research 

Aims, Objectives and Research questions 

Aim: To evaluate the role of segmentation marketing, positioning marketing and marketing mix across the Indian private academic institutions enrollments. 

Following are the research objectives 

• To critically review the current marketing strategies implemented across the higher education and evaluate the key limitations among them
• To understand the role of market segmentation, market positioning and market mix in fetching up the desired levels of enrolments across two Indian private academic institutions.
• To do a qualitative research methodology and evaluate the findings using the questionnaire and gather the primary source of information from the administrative officers and marketing heads of ANURAG institute of science and technology and SHADAN college of engineering in India
• To analyze the findings and understand the core aims and objective of this research
• To conclude the role of the identified factors against the student enrolments and make few recommendations 

Research questions 

Following are the main research questions identified for this Examining the Marketing Strategies research 

• What is the role of traditional and latest marketing strategies across enrolments in private academic institutions?
• What is the role of market segmentation against the enrolments across private academic institutions in India?
• What is the role of market positioning against student enrolments in Indian private academic institutions? 

Thesis Educational Institutions organization 

Chapter 1: This chapter discusses the main project background and the key problem identified across the research 

Chapter 2: A detailed level of critical analysis is done against the higher education marketing and key driving factors in discussed in this chapter. 

Chapter 3: The actual research methodology adopted in this research is given in this chapter 

Chapter 4: The key findings from the interview process are given in this chapter 

Chapter 5: A detailed analysis is done from the findings and the research questions identified are answered in this chapter

Chapter 6: Conclusion to the work done and few recommendations are made in this chapter

Higher education marketing has a significant role these days and most of the private academic institutions are adopting lot of latest and traditional marketing strategies to gain the enrolments and achieve the competitive advantage.

The main aim of this Examining the Marketing Strategies for Two Private Academic Institutions in India MBA project is to evaluate the role of market segmentation, market positioning and market mix against the student enrolments across two private academic institutions in India. A qualitative research methodology is adopted to proceed with this research and two engineering collages are considered as the case study and they are ANURAG Science and Technology center and SHADHAN engineering collage.

The key respondents considered in this research are the administrative officers and the marketing heads from both the collages and the key size is 4 and a separate questionnaire is prepared for both the respondents and the key findings are analyzed to answer the research questions identified at the introduction chapter. A semi structured interview is conducted with the respondents and the main intention in gathering the required primary information is to evaluate the role of marketing segmentation, market positioning and the market mix against the student enrolments at their institutions and also the key marketing strategies they are using are evaluated against the latest and the traditional marketing strategies.

From the key findings it is clear that across Indian private academic institutions the role of traditional marketing strategies is more when compared to the latest marketing strategies like internet marketing and online marketing strategies. When the market segmentation is considered the main strategy being used by most of the Indian private academic institutions is that they are categorizing the complete market based on the level of courses they are offering and also they are using the interest of the students towards the subject level aspects as the main input to segment the market.

As per the findings it is clear that, market positioning is not playing a great role across the marketing strategies and fetching up the student enrolments when compared to the market segmentation and in future they can concentrate on these aspects to gain more enrolments.