There is significant different between the choice and application of marketing strategies in other sectors in comparison to the education sector.
Our approach:
- Typical product and service is created by the manufacturer and is consumed or used by the customer. In educational institutions, the experience is co-created by and experienced by the consumer (students and faculty)
- The access to buy or experience a typical product or service is just limited by the capacity to pay by the consumer. In educational institutions, capacity to pay may not be sole driver for the selection of a student and compensation provided by the institution may not be the most important factor for the choice of an academic institution by a faculty
- Marketing success of most products and services could afford to be agnostic to deep ‘qualitative’ attributes of the buyer. For an educational institution the success is primarily measured by the quality of student and faculty who choose to engage with the institution.
- For most products and services, more money on advertising and promotions may directly increase the sale of products or services. For educational institution, large scale advertising loaded with claims and promises may help attract attention of a large number of ‘customers’ but may potentially signal poor quality for the most talented students and faculty. This may also land the institution in a ‘position’ which may very well go against its long term aspirations.
Our services:
- Understanding the context and goals:
- Vision and aspiration of the brand
- Financial goals and constraints
- Positioning and the segment which is being catered to
- Benchmarks of quality that the institution aspires to
- Institutional objectives of diversity of gender, geographies, socio-economic backgrounds
- Existing competition in the domain of operation
- Pre-existing positioning attributes
- Team strengths and areas of improvements
- Development of the strategy and the plan as a mix of:
- Direct engagement plans with students, parents, school leaders
- Customized experiences that showcase USPs and attributes
- Strategic public relation campaigns
- Social and digital media
- Co-promotions and alliances
- Targeted advertisement
- Execution:
- Preparation of a well researched marketing strategy and execution plan
- Recruiting the right team for the plan
- Commission brand identity and collateral development teams or firms (brochures, flyers, communications, website, apps)
- Commissioning partners and associates required for PR, social and digital media
- Hand hold and roll out of the plan and maintain oversight on progress and budgets
- Engage all stakeholders to ensure successful execution of different pieces of plan
- End to end responsibility to ensure marketing success