Category: MBA Seminar Topics

Introduction to MBA Seminar topic on Advertisement Evaluation of Rasna Shake up TV Commercial:

This paper gives us an idea of advertising. Generally, Advertising means promotion of ideas, goods or services by a sponsor. Advertisement gives a great impact, they bring awareness about the product. At present this advertising trend is followed by retailers, industries, politicians, public services and many more. There are some advertising agencies also to design advertisements. Before advertising, research has to carried that is done at two life stages of an advertisement – before its birth and after its birth. Among all, huge expenditure is spent on product advertising because the results obtained from these are also huge.

Brief into advertising

Advertising mainly involves five decisions, they are mission, money, message, media and measurement. For advertising first objectives have to be set clearly and the second budget has to be decided. Third message has to be clear so that everyone understands and the fourth one is to choose media on which the message will be transferred more effectively.

After advertising the measurement has to be done i.e evaluation of sales after advertising. The evaluation process involves two things to be carried out by advertiser or agency, they are to carry out a plan of action and discover what had happened. Following this procedure leads to a success.

For example , rasna enterprises limited is the India’s largest selling soft drink concentrate. Due to the quality it promises to customer it holds the prestigious position i.e 90% share in the market. The analysis is done from initial stage.   

Download MBA Seminar Report on Advertisement Evaluation of Rasna Shake up TV Commercial .

As per the findings it is clear that, 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 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 and 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.

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 and 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.

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 and 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.

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. 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 and distribution of the product across education marketing is limited in India and also deciding upon the price is not possible.

Product and place also plays as the differentiation factors in terms of the marketing strategies and if the academic institutions can distribute the products at different levels they can gain more competitive advantages and also they can focus more on the promotional strategies. Positioning and segmentation also plays an important role in gaining more enrolments and thus if these marketing strategies are applied at the education level they can retain more students and the key among them is the word of mouth publicity which comes under promotional marketing strategy.

There are many students who are keen about the practical and research areas and in this context most of the academic institutions are concentrating on this particular segment and they are successful in fetching up the required enrolments. Segmentation plays a very important role across the enrolments and the institutions should only focus on the capabilities of the market segment and then implement the corresponding strategy to gain the enrolments and the best example for this is that focusing on the internet marketing strategies is really useless for attracting the rural students.

Recommendations 

Based on the conclusion from the work done there are few recommendations and they are as listed below 

• Indian private academic institutions can adopt more latest marketing strategies to attract the urban students and create a separate market segment across educational marketing
• Position marketing not adopted to the desired levels in India and in future they can concentrate more on this aspect using the latest promotional strategies
• Among the market mix, price has no role to play in India and if it is redefined they can gain more market place. 

Current education system in India also plays an important role in segmenting and positioning the market and in this context when one of the admin was asked regarding this, he replied that “Current education system is slowly changing in India and most of the students are attracted towards practical subjects and research areas and thus we concentrate on this particular segment”.

From this statement it is clear that there are many students who are keen about the practical and research areas and in this context most of the academic institutions are concentrating on this particular segment and they are successful in fetching up the required enrolments. When the same question was asked to one of the admin he replied that, “Education system in India has no greater improvements from last few decades and in this doesn’t affect the existing marketing strategies”. From this statement it is clear that there is no clear opinion for most of the private academic institutes regarding the current education system and its impact on the marketing strategies and thus positioning has become the crucial aspect across education marketing in India.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Higher education marketing has taken lot of forms these days and in this context there is lot of research done towards this and most of the researches has concluded that marketing strategies across Higher education are ever changing based on the changing attitude of the students. In general there are many marketing strategies across implementation and these strategies vary with the country and this is due to the fact that each and every country will implement the respective marketing strategies based on the current education system across the country.

The most common marketing strategies like segmentation marketing and positioning marketing has a significant role across the education marketing and in this context there are many aspects to be considered to convert these strategies in to the student enrolments. In this research two Indian academic institutions are considered and their marketing strategies are analyzed in different aspects like the traditional and latest marketing strategies they are implementing. As the research sample size is less for this research, a qualitative research methodology is adopted and the key respondents involved in this research are marketing heads and the administrative officers from the Engineering collages.

A simple case study approach is adopted in this research and to proceed with the research two Engineering collages from India like ANURAG Science and Technology center and SHAADAN Engineering collage are considered as the case study and the key respondents as mentioned in the above section are interviewed to gather the primary source of information. Key findings from the interview process are gathered and based on the findings the required analysis is done to understand the role of market segmentation and market positioning against the student enrolments across Indian private academic institutions.

Market segmentation and market positioning strategies: 

Market segmentation and market positioning plays an important role in education marketing and in this context there are many aspects to be considered before segmenting the market and also finding an appropriate position in the market and in this context the administrative officers are interviewed and the corresponding findings are given in this section.

When one of the admin was asked regarding their strategies to attract the local students, he replied that, “We reach the rural students at their entrance exam level and market ourselves by conducting campaigns and make them aware of the situations in academic private institutions”. From this statement it is clear that most of the institutions mainly focus on the rural students and communicate with them at the entrance exam center level and also conduct the campaigns and promote themselves.

When the same question was asked to one of the admin he replied that, “We mainly promote ourselves at the rural place by conducting campaigns and also distributing the broachers’ to the rural students, as we can’t reach them with the latest marketing trends”. From this statement it is clear that, when the institutions can follow the traditional way of marketing they can easily reach the rural students as well they are bit far away from the latest trends in the marketing like internet marketing. From this analysis it is clear that reaching the rural students comes under the market segmentation and also market positioning and if they are implemented on the right way they can be converted into ample enrolments easily.

Segmenting the market include attracting the students from different segments and implementing a separate strategy across these segments and in this context all the academic institutions should focus on a mix of traditional and latest marketing strategies. It is observed that there are some traditional marketing strategies that are not really useful these days and when one of the administrative officers was asked regarding this he replied that, “There are no such aspects expect focusing the price to market ourselves as there is no scope to decide the price as it is common for all the academic institutions these days”. From this statement it is clear that almost all the marketing strategies are useful and they can bring the admissions for the academic institutions.

When the same question was asked to the other admin he replied that, “Most of our students are from rural areas and I think there is no use of internet and online marketing for us and only the traditional ways of marketing can do this”. From this statement it is clear that segmentation plays a very important role across the enrolments and the institutions should only focus on the capabilities of the market segment and then implement the corresponding strategy to gain the enrolments and the best example for this is that focusing on the internet marketing strategies is really useless for attracting the rural students. 

In general there are different marketing strategies being implemented by the collages these days and among them there are only few successful strategies which can gain the required enrolments to the collages and when one of the admin was asked regarding this, he replied that, “Focusing on the core aspects like the products which include the courses and getting involved in different events by the students will enhance the brand and position value and gain more enrolments”.

From this statement is clear that, when the collages can focus more the product level marketing and also promote themselves against different aspects with including the students itself are the best considered marketing strategies. When the same question was asked to one of the admin he replied that, “Word of mouth and conducting different technical fares are the best marketing strategies”.

It can be understood from this statement that positioning and segmentation also plays an important role in gaining more enrolments and thus if these marketing strategies are applied at the education level they can retain more students and the key among them is the word of mouth publicity which comes under promotional marketing strategy. As per the discussion with the administrative officers till now it is clear that, when the products range is at the considerable level the overall business value of the private academic institutions can be increased and in this context when one of the admin was asked the role of courses across the marketing strategies he replied that, “Course are the best source to focus ourselves and if we can maintain a good level of courses and show the relative quality in the courses we can gain more enrolments”.

From this statement it is clear that if the collages can give the required quality in the courses they offer then they need not depend on any external promotional or marketing strategies as the quality in the product level will bring them the required enrolments. When the same question was asked to another admin he replied that, “Courses play an important role across the marketing strategies because most of the students look in to the list of course before they make any decision”. From this statement it is clear that if the collages can maintain a good product range and also offer the desired level of quality in the courses they can retain the students and also focus on the new promotional strategies to gain more enrollments. 

Apart from the product, price, place and promotional strategies, there are many latest marketing strategies being implemented by the private academic institutions and the key among them are internet marketing. When one of the admin was asked regarding the internet marketing strategies he replied that, “Internet plays a key role in getting the required path to promote ourselves and these days are promoting our websites and blogs where we focus on the success stories most of the times”.

From this statement it is clear that, even internet being is used by most of the academic institutions and the main aspects they are focusing across internet is their products and also the success stories which can be considered as the latest promotional strategies. When the same question was asked to one of the admin, he replied that, “Internet has a direct role in estimating the promotional strategies being implemented and even most of the students are attracted towards the internet marketing strategies”.

From this statement it is clear that most of the collages are adopting the latest internet marketing strategies also to attract the students as most of the students are driven towards internet marketing and thus they are promoting themselves at the internet level and gaining the required enrolments.

As it is discussed that internet is being heavily used these days across the marketing strategies, most of the collages focus different aspects in gaining the competitive advantage across the internet and in this context when one of the admin was asked regarding this he replied that, “We mainly focus on the previous placements, success stories, infrastructure and facilities against the courses being offered in the collages”.

From this statement it is clear that the main features they focus across the internet marketing is that they will expose the previous students placements in different organizations and the corresponding success stories and also they target the students against their facilities and the quality in education. When the same question was asked to another admin he replied that, “We mainly focus on the quality of education and the level of courses we offer in our institution”.

Product Quality:

From this statement it is clear that, most of the students are really attracted towards the product and the corresponding quality in delivering the products and thus most of the institutions are exposing their courses and the corresponding facilities to the students in learning the courses provided by the management. 

Role of Product and Place across education marketing:

When it comes to marketing strategies of education in engineering, courses plays an important role and they are considered as the product in this context and when one of the Administrative officer was asked regarding this, he replied that, “We offer all the related courses like CSE, IT, EEE, ECE, Mechanical, Civil and Chemical to gain more enrolments”.

From this statement it is clear that, most of the private academic institutions in India are trying to retain all the important courses across them and they want to show their expertise in every aspect by offering a good product range. When the same question was asked to one of the administrative officer, he replied that, “We offer all the courses like Mechanical, Computers, Information technology and Civil engineering”.

Thus even from this statement it is clear that education offered by most of the Indian private academic institutions has included most of the preferred products in terms of courses they offer and they are trying to retain all kinds of students with them with this trend. Competition is the thing that is mainly gained with the key promotional strategies and in this context when one of the Admin was asked against how they compare with the other collages in terms of their marketing strategies, he replied that, “The main differentiation we made in terms of the marketing strategies is that, we will focus more on the product and place based marketing strategies and we try to distribute in different places in the state level itself”.

From this statement it is clear that product and place also plays as the differentiation factors in terms of the marketing strategies and if the academic institutions can distribute the products at different levels they can gain more competitive advantages and also they can focus more on the promotional strategies. When the same question was asked to one of the admin he replied that, “We mainly focus on the number of courses and also market the course level advantages to the students, which is not done by most of the other collages”.

From this statement  it is clear that product variations plays an important role in deciding the marketing trends across the education marketing and also if they can expose the course level advantages that they are going to provide to the students then they can gain more share across the market and also enrolments. Thus from this analysis it is clear that product, promotion and place plays an important role in gaining the competitive advantage and also maintain a good market share when compared to the other academic institutions. 

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.