Case Study:

Career Training is a private registered training organisation (RTO) based in Geraldton, Western Australia. Career Training is recognised as an industry training leader delivering nationally recognised and specialised courses. Registered training organisations (RTOs) are the training providers registered by ASQA (or, in some cases, a state regulator) to deliver nationally recognised vocational education and training (VET) services.

Career Training provides qualifications in various subject areas, including business, community services, information technology and hospitality. There are currently 400 students enrolled across a wide range of courses. There are 35 staff members, including training staff and administration.

The levels of qualifications provided are as follows:

Certificates I, II, III and IV
Diploma
Advanced Diploma
Career Training follows the important standards of the industry and focusses on supporting informed decisions, engagement and participation. The RTO applies a systematic approach to ensure quality across all training and assessment services, including staff and systems. It seeks feedback from students and internal staff every month and conducts internal audits of the company’s policies and procedures to ensure compliance against the standards for registered training organisations.

Mission

Career Training aims to provide the highest quality and research-based vocational business education and facilitate a conducive environment to develop the global mindsets of students

Vision

To become Australia’s leading academy of business and develop well-equipped world’s leaders

Values

Providing a respectful and safe environment for all staff and students.
Integrity, transparency and accountability in work styles.
Fostering an inclusive learning environment for all students
Continuous improvement based on regular feedback from students and the community
Integrating principles of equity and non - discrimination.
Context of the Assessment

Management aims at exploring new marketing opportunities to enhance business growth by promoting courses in Business.

Career Training embraced a review of their present marketing strategies and found various things, including:

The market situation had changed, and the competition had evolved.
The target market characteristics had segmented further with globalisation.
The digital space and media preferences of their market had evolved.
The organisational requirements had become more complicated due to introducing new courses.
Presently, Career training is marketing their courses based on students’ references and word of mouth only. Due to this, marketing outcomes have not been satisfactory. Therefore, Career training is planning to implement new opportunities to promote the business courses.

Strategic objectives for marketing initiatives

To ensure the consistent and positive brand message for the RTO
To increase the enrolments by 10% annually
To promote the new courses through a marketing communication campaign.
To grow brand awareness and market share by 10% by the end of financial year.
Excerpts from the Career Training - Marketing plan (This can be viewed in full on the Career Training Website using the log in details above)

The marketing strategy of Career Training is the annual production and distribution of brochures containing detailed information about courses. There is focus on market penetration and product development. Career training also aims to organise promotional events for students, education agents, and other digital marketing to get more leads and make a brand.

Marketing prospects

Market segmentation
New market development
Promotional events
Upgrading of skills of human resources
Product development
Product diversification
Target audience

Characteristics:

Existing students, students who keep making enquiries of new courses or friends/relatives of existing students.
Students aged 18-25 years
Technology savvy young students


SWOT Analysis Completed:

Strength

• Commitment from stakeholders

• Providing quality training

• Industry contacts

• Experienced management and staff

Weakness

• New RTO

• Not offering a range of qualifications





Opportunities

• A new model for marketing and social media

• Introducing new courses

• Build a relationship across different sector

• To provide quality training

• Adopt new technologies to improve the training

• Global influences

• Market development

Threats

• Changes in the VET sector

• Changes in the Australian political system

• Increased number of RTO providers and competition

• Failure to invest in marketing and advertising appropriately





Marketing mix

Product

Product/services offered are Diploma and Advanced Diploma of Business. The upcoming planned new course, General English-speaking course.

Place

Product/service is intended for college/university students and faculty of Melbourne. It is available face-to-face and via the Internet on any electronic device.

Price

Pricing covers significant costs related to course design, development, resources required and cash flow for future growth.

Promotion

The product/service must be promoted in current and other prospective markets through market development.

The channels will include print media, advertisements and social media platforms

Marketing promotions

Career Training’s marketing promotions program is simplistic, out of date and not yet integrated.

The promotions are limited and predominately traditional. They don’t take into account the rise of social media and social media platforms.

Budget

The management has allocated 5% to 7% of the development budget for marketing opportunities. The development budget is $120,000 (One hundred and twenty thousand dollars)

Task:

The management has appointed you as a new marketing manager.As part of your new role, you called a meeting with relevant staff members to ascertain the key objectives required to move forward with the planned marketing outlines.

The meeting minutes are below including the outcomes and expectations.Use the information to identify the key areas that you, as the Marketing Manager need to focus on and follow the instructions on the assessment requirements.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Topics discussed: Discussion on business objectives:The marketing manager presented and target customers and current marketing strategies, Presentation on current market Market trends: product development and trends, potentially new markets and market diversification competitors,Discussion on the marketing opportunities identified.    And the following were the discussion held: The marketing manager confirmed the organisational requirements and current strategies, Market trends: product development and  market diversification, Potential markets: Other Australian cities through an online course, Competitors: RTO offering a similar course in a specific region and also discussed about *   Introduction of new course
*   Extend the target market into
* Sydney and Brisbane through online business courses
*   Increase the advertising campaign like social media, email marketing
*   Upgrade the ability and strength of the organisation by increasing the current quality service standards and upgrading the skills

For each one of the four (4) marketing opportunities that you have identified as being most viable, develop a report that addresses:

1. Alignment of marketing opportunities with the business’ needs and objectives
2. Overall benefits to the business of pursuing the opportunity
3. The calculated return on investment. This can be an approximate estimate considering the likely cost of the opportunity against the anticipated return.
4. Potential competitors – these may be existing competitors or new ones depending on the marketing opportunity pursued
5. Rating of the marketing opportunities and selection of two best opportunities