MKT2BBM Branding And Brand Management- Target Market
You should consider at least the following:
- Brand awareness / consumer knowledge
- Points of parity/difference
- Brand elements
- Marketing support program
- Brand leveraging
- Brand extensions (existing and potential future)
Answer
Introduction:
La Trobe University is one of the renowned and oldest universities of Australia. It is a multi-campus university that has its campuses in various parts of the country. The university has been founded in 1964. It has secured the position of third largest university in the state by its efficient performance. Being one of the largest universities of Australia, La Trobe University possesses a large number of students. The man campus of this university is situated in Melbourne, central part of Australia. The university offers wide range of courses to its students who belong to various corners of the world (University 2017).
The following article has concentrated on brand marketing of La Trobe University. It has enlightened various aspects of the marketing plan, such as- brand positioning, target market, market segmentation and so on.
Marketing Objectives:
Target Market:
It is important for every profit and non-profit organization to identify their target market while designing market strategy, as consumers are the key elements of the organization and the primary objective of the organization is to provide quality service to their consumers (Pathan et al. 2015). It is of paramount importance for business to understand their number of customers and how the business is going to serve them.In this scenario, the target market of La Trobe University is the students to who are looking for various options for higher studies to establish a bright future. The potential consumers of the university are from different parts of the world. There are two types of target market, such as- primary target market and secondary target market.
Primary Target Market:
Primary target market of La Trobe University are the under graduate, graduate and post- graduate students, who wants to pursue higher studies and be established in life. The aim of the marketing strategy is to reach to this primary target market and draw their attention.
Secondary Target Market:
The secondary target market of La Trobe University is the parents of the students. Parents are now- a -days very much concerned about the future of their students. They want to enrol their kids in the best schools and universities of the world. La Trobe University focuses on these parents while promoting their brand name. The university creates a strong customer perceived value in the minds of parents. The brand elements and the brand image of the university are built by paying strong attention to parents. The University considers parents as an important part of their marketing plan and plan are designed mainly to grab attention of the parents (Kalra 2013).
Marketing Strategies:
La Trobe University stay close to their consumer and design their marketing strategy as per the requirement and availability of the consumers. They consider communication as an integral part of their marketing strategy. The key marketing strategies that are followed by the university management are:
Official Websites:
The management of the university operates an official university website where they provide all the relevant information to their potential consumers. By using official website, they can easily convey their messages to their consumers and promote their course structure via website (Ji et al. 2014).
Social Media:
Organizational management of La Trobe University implements all forms of new media to connect with students and their parents. Social media is one of the key weapons for the university authority to communicate with their potential consumers. They can interact and resolve all the queries of the students and their parents via social media and advertise their course structure and course fees in the social media in a lucrative manner, which will grab attention of the consumers from all around the globe (Ji et al. 2014).
Advertisement:
La Trobe University uses all type of conventional media to promote their brand name. It uses newspaper, magazine, handbill, posters and so on, to grab the attention of large number of consumers. It will encourage and engage students with the university procedure.
Mobile Promotion:
Advancement of technology has offered a wide opportunity to the organizations to reach to their desired target market (Sethuraman and Gielens 2014). Mobile is one of the major strength of modern technology. Thus, it is highly beneficial for the profit and non-profit organizations to convey their message to their consumers. Mobile is being used by the La Trobe University for their brand promotion. It helps them to interact with their consumers at any time. They are investing heavily in mobile promotion, so they can achieve their desired position in the industry.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):
The university authority of La Trobe has appointed an efficient SEO that can support the marketing activities of the university. He makes sure that all the courses and programs offered by the university are in the top listing, so that it can be visible to their consumers. SEO lays major role in modern business organization. In this competitive era, it helps the business organization to compete with the rival companies. Thus, it has helped La Trobe to beat its competitors by such practices (Sethuraman and Gielens 2014).
Brand Positioning and Value Objectives:
Brand positioning of La Trobe University is to provide high quality and modern educational service to the students and support their career growth. They have designed their course structure accordingly. They provide various courses in Heath Science, IT and Engineering, Law, Arts, Business and Commerce, Education and Teaching and Business and Commerce.
They have designed their special courses for international students. At the same time, they provide special privileges to the international students to grab attention of large number of consumers.
Brand Aspects:
Brand Awareness:
Large number of the consumers are aware of this university which is reflected on their student list. It has gained immense popularity by providing quality service to the consumers. As per the report,
Points of Parity:
A feature of La Trobe University that distinguishes it from other universities is its way to guide its mentees. It is often evident that many teachers of guides mentor their students at the initial stage of the career. However, in this scenario, students who require guidance can seek advice from mentors of the university. They are always ready to help their mentees. In every step mentors guides their mentees as per their requirements (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014).
Brand Elements:
Brand Message:
They convey their message prominently via advertisement and brand promotional event. The message of La Trobe University is to ensure bright future of the national and international students.
High Impact Communication:
The Organization use communication as the major strength to maintain healthy and interactive relation with the internal and external stakeholders. They use all forms of communication to maintain regular interaction with the students. They are eager to receive the feedback from the consumers by using official website and social media. It helps them to construct their organizational structure as per the market trend and structure. It helps them to meet the satisfaction level of the consumers. Thus, they maintain strategic communication (Erdo?mu? and Cicek 2012).
Visible Expertise:
University portrays its expertise in a lucrative manner. They use brand promotional events and promotional tools to present a transparent idea about the function of the organization. They use all kind of media where they promote their brand name and connect with their target market. They design their advertisements and promotional events in an attractive manner so it can grab attention of the large number of consumers (Neiger et al. 2012).
Marketing Support Program:
University often conducts several promotional events in various schools and colleges, where they will be able to communicate with their target market. At the same time, they often conduct online counselling sessions to guide students towards the right direction in their life, which helps them to grab attention of the large number of students and earn trust of their consumers. They conduct promotional events in offices as well, as it will help them to stay close to the parents and influence them to enrol their students in various courses (Galician 2013).
Brand Leveraging:
La Trobe University provides virtual counselling sessions to the students from different parts of the world along with their wide range of courses. The innovative online platform of the University helps students to reach to their desired goal in future. It is highly beneficial for both services of the university. It puts significant impact on the growth of the university and behaviour of the consumers. The organizational management of La Trobe University implements all the modern forms of new media within their organizational structure. By using social media, they often conduct various counselling sessions where they directly interact with students who require their support to decide their career path. It helps the university management to earn respect among the students and their parents. Use of social media and digital marketing tools are of paramount importance to be customer-centric. (Patil and Bisoyi 2012).
Brand Extension:
La Trobe University has adopted a new strategy for their university. They have taken an initiative to expand their research work, in order to support the mental growth of the future scholar. According to the management of the university, research plays major role in the development of any study. Thus, to support the development of their students they aim at strengthening their research quality along with various educational and professional courses (Smith, Fischer and Yongjian 2012).
Reference:
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Galician, M.L., 2013. Handbook of product placement in the mass media: New strategies in marketing theory, practice, trends, and ethics. Routledge.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer New York.
Ji, H., Chen, M., Greening, D.W., He, W., Rai, A., Zhang, W. and Simpson, R.J., 2014. Deep sequencing of RNA from three different extracellular vesicle (EV) subtypes released from the human LIM1863 colon cancer cell line uncovers distinct miRNA-enrichment signatures. PloS one, 9(10), p.e110314.
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