Education
Marketing
An important question may be raised here that why do
we user the term marketing for literacy. Since we have been investing huge amount
of money and deploying a good number of personnel and sophisticated
technologies to literate the masses, it is judicious to know about the results,
if we4 invest more for removing illiteracy (inputs) but the literacy (output)
is not increasing proportionately, the policy would be deemed to be
unproductive since it is cost-ineffective. The very essence of marketing is to
make our policies and programmes cost-effective so that we cross the target or
atleast even touch the target without crossing the financial and time limits.
The marketing particles bear the efficacy of improving the input-output ratio
since we frame a service mix keeping in view the sensitivity of target
prospects, attempt to promote the same by suing modern sophisticated devices,
frame a fee-structure in the face of holistic concept of management and
channelize the services with the support of efficient and personally committed
personnel acting and behaving professionally.
In view of the aforesaid facts, we use the term
marketing for literacy, education and development of knowledge. Here, it is
also to be clarified that by using the term marketing we are not bound to
generate profits. Since most of the not-for-profit making organizations are now
found liberal to the generation of profits, it is also significant to mention
that whatever they generate as surplus should essentially be re-invested or
ploughed back for the development and expansion of world class services. The
simple logic in using the term marketing is to make available to the prospects
the quality services either free of cost or for the free- structure they are
supposed to pay. The marketing practices would simplify the processes of
qualitative-cum-quantitative transformation in the process of efficiency
generation.
The universities, colleges, institutes, studies and
research centers are found engaged in the process of offering higher education.
Scientific inventions and innovations, techno9logical advances, professional
excellence, managerial proficiency are some of the important dimensions playing
a decisive role in shaping the destiny of a nation. The system of higher
education is found efficacious in making available to the society a dedicated,
committed, devoted and professionally –sound team of human resources who decide
the future of a nation. Against this background, the crying need of the hour is
to manage the system of higher education in such a way that sets a right
direction for the developejmnt of human resources in the national and
international perspectives.
The
universities, colleges, institutes, research centers are found in depleted
condition. The financial crunch is a major problem which has been disallowing
these centers to importance the time honoured changes in their curriculum even
if they are found dying. Except a very few almost all the centers are engaged
in producing substandard outputs resulting into unemployment, poverty and
backwardness. It is in this context that we talk in favour of marketing higher
education which according to the holistic marketing principles attempts to
enrich the efficiency of these centers vis-à-vis offer quality services even to
the poor persons having an outstanding educational background. This is based on
the principles
of societal marketing in which the educational
institutions are not supposed to make profits. Thus, the marketing practices
pave ways for the development of human resources in the face of international
specifications. Here, the qualitative transformation establishes an edge over
the quantitative transfiguration.
Marketing
of Distance Education
The distance education system has come into stay as
an accepted form of education and has been gaining wide-spread popularity in
recent years. This is evident from the fact that more than 70 countries are
offering educational programmes though distance education all over the world
today. The distance education has made in possible for those in inaccessible
areas; the drop-outs, who want re-entry into education and the economically
weaker sections to avail of educational opportunities. It can be a particular
boon for women, since parents are unwilling to send them beyond their immediate
locale for education after the completion of school education.
At present there are 10 open universities in India.
Further, among 229 conventional Universities, 62 are dual mode Universities
offering education both under regular and distance education modes. Distance
education now caters over 7 lacs of students. It is expected that this growth
would outnumber the formal system itself in the near future. Thus there is
potential market for distance education.As many as 72 Universities are vying
each other to attract higher enrolment of their distance education programs. It
is partly due to the fact that almost all the Universities greatly depend on
distance education programmes for generating their own financial resources.
Hence, unless these Distance Education Institutes adopts systematic and
effective marketing, it would be very difficult for them to survive in the
long-run. This paper makes an attempt to explain the strategies to be adopted
for successful marketing of distance education programmes by the Distance
Education Institutes.
Market
Segmentation
The distance education learners belong to different
segments. The major segments of distance education learners are –rural and
urban, drop-outs, elder persons who did not have the opportunity to learn
through regular stream in their early age and those who want to update
knowledge and acquire special skill. Besides these, other specific segments are
women, socially backward and physically handicapped. Appropriate marketing
strategies need to be evolved for reaching these unreached group through
distance and open learning.
Learner-orientation
The learner oriented marketing approach is concerned
with identifying the specific educational needs of the target market and
tailoring and delivery of those educational programmes to the satisfaction of
learners. It involves identifying the right type of product mix of educational
programmes, offered at right price, through effective delivery mechanisms and
with appropriate promotional tools. In other words, all activities and
strategies of DEIs ultimately aim at satisfying the learners.
Marketing
Mix
The marketing mix concept is a well established tool
used as a structure by marketers. It consists of the various elements of a
marketing programme which need to be considered in order to successfully
implement the marketing strategy for any service business. The major elements
are Products, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, People and Process.
The underlying concept in developing each of these elements is to user them to
support each other, to reinforce the positioning of the product and to deliver
appropriate service quality to achieve competitive advantage.
Product
mix
Distance Education is a service product and has a
complex set of value satisfactions. People attach value to distance education
in proportion to the perceived ability of the service to do this. Value is
assigned by the buyers in relation to the benefits they receive. Augmentation
of the expected product represents a means of creating product differentiation
and thus added value from the customer perspective. In Distance Education
service, the academic programmes offered are core products. The expected
product consists of the generic product together with the minimal support
facilities which need to be met. The augmented product is the area which
enables one product to be differentiate from another. They differentiate by
„adding value‟ to the core product in terms of reliability and responsiveness.
Thus, in Distance Education, the academic programmes offered are core product;
the quality learning materials and effective contact programmes are expected
products and specialized programmes are augmented products.
Service
Product Decisions
DEIs offer a range of academic programmes. Decisions
on the range of services to be offered need to be considered in the context of
the DEIs positio courses to be offered should also be consistent with the
competence of the DEI to deliver them.
Market
Penetration
Market penetration by DEIs is concerned with how to
exploit the current position in the market place better. This can be achieved
by more focused segmentation, a more clearly defined positioning strategy or
through better application of the marketing mix elements. Essentially it is
concerned with gaining greater productivity from the marketing mix elements and
building market share for its distance education programme.
Market
Development
An alternative strategy to service development is to
undertake market extension, which seeks new groups of buyers with a firm‟s
current servic
Study
Centres in overseas to attract foreign clients.
The Distance Education Institutes (DEIs) should have
a right type of product mix to suit the requirements of different segments of
distance education learners. Different educational programmes should be
designed in such a way that it suits to different segments. A particular
segment which would like to acquire a higher qualification for the sake of
higher qualification looks for a course which would like to acquire a higher
qualification for the sake of higher qualification looks for a course which
they would like to acquire without much effort and a specific need. The
Distance Education Institutions are also able to get a good enrolment for such
type general academic programme. A degree in history is a good example that
suits for mass marketing. Another segment of learners which belong to class
marketing is a specific group which require specialized knowledge and skill in
their chosen area of interest. The Distance Education Institutes have to
identify such type of specialized academic programmes suited to specific
segment of learners. For instance, the Distance Education Institutes of the
Alagappa University offer specialized courses on bank management, sports
management, corporate secretary ship, women‟s studies,instrumentation
childandwaste watercare, treatment.
The important aspect of Distance Education
Institutes is that they have to constantly study the requirements of intending
learners and must develop need based new educational programmes. Such
programmes are to be developed for different levels such as certificate,
diploma, under-graduate and post-graduate depending on the learner‟s need.
Because of increased sophistication, each individual
must be a multidisciplinarian. He may be an expert in one field but necessary
requires considerable knowledge in related fields also. For example, even a
physician need to have basic engineering knowledge due to advanced medical
equipments he has to deal with. Though Computer Engineering is a specialized
field, the knowledge of computer operations has become a basic need to every
individual working in any field. For instance, course on E-Commerce, Medical
Transcriptions, Information Technology Enabled Services are in great demand
now. Hence, there is a great potential for information Technology education
with the DEIs can effectively explore by developing appropriate programme
suited to different segments.
Similarly, the curriculum and the course materials
of the existing course need to be revised/ modified periodically, depending on
the requirement. For instance, the curriculum on computer education, economic
legislations, and tax laws require frequent revision and up-gradation.
Physical
Evidence
This is the service firm‟s physical e
environmetheservice provider and customer interact, plus nay tangible elements
that are used to communicate or support the role of the service. In a service
business, the marketer should seek to compensate for the intangibility
dimension by providing physical clues to support the positioning and image and
enhance the product surround.
Physical evidence can be divided into two types
–essential and peripheral. Essential physical evidence in distance education
represents the key decisions made by the DEIs about the design of the learning
resources such as, print materials and pre-recorded audio-video cassettes.
It is the fact that the success and effectiveness of
distance education systems largely depend on the study materials, because the
learners have less contact with the institution / teachers. Hence, they have to
be supplied with specially prepared teaching materials prepared under
Self-Instructional Pattern. The course materials are presented in such a way
that a learner can learn from the materials independently and the materials
themselves have to perform the functions of a teacher such as expounding,
explaining, guiding, motivating, reminding, evaluating etc. this is a the
essential part of physical evidence. It is worth mentioning the role played by
Distance Education Council (DEC), common wealth Educational Media Centre for
Asia (CEMA) and Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education
(STRIDE) and Educational Media Research Centres (EMRC) in conducting training,
research and guidance in the area of preparation of self-instructional
materials, multi-media, staff development, computerization and networking.
The logical arrangement of contents, the lucid
style, conversational language, use of personal pronouns and division of
content into small manageable learning steps shall increase the effectiveness
of learning. Beside these, even the quality of paper used, printing and the
size of letters also count in stimulating the learners to user the course
materials. This forms the peripheral physical evidence of the product and adds
tangibility to the value of the service provided to the learner segment to
which it is directed.
Quality
The distance education
system is criticized for the lack of quality. It is argued that for the sake of
quantity, quality is very often sacrificed. The DEIs should ensure that quality
is maintained along with the increase in enrolment. Hence, what is required is
some sort of „ISI Mark‟ for the Distance Education institutes to ensure
quality. The Distance Education Council in consultation with the National Assessment
and Accreditation Council is in the process of developing some sort of Quality
Assessment and Accreditation that will be relevant to the Distance and Open
Education system.
Public relations
Public relations is
defined by the British Institute of Pu effort to establish and maintain
goodwill bet all the groups of people and organisatoins which have an interests
in the distance education programme.
An example of the main publics of distance education
is shown in the following figure:
Public relations is concerned with a number of
marketing tasks. These include the following :
•Building or maintaining image
•Supporting the other communication activities
•Handling problems and issues
•Reinforcing positioning
•Influencing specific publics
•Assisting the launch of new services
A service organization‟s „image‟
isudesmadeandbeliefsup o held about it. Public relations can sue a range of
communication approaches to improve or maintain the
image of a DEI. Overall the objective with image is
to ensure that a particular DEI is viewed more favorably than competitors in
the market segment it serves.
A
wide range of tools can be used in the design of a Public Relation programme.
These could include-
·Publications including press releases, annual
reports, brochures, posters etc.
·Press conferences, seminars and conferences
·Exhibitions and trade fairs
As with other elements of the communications mix, a
Public Relation programme should follows a process, which consists of the
specification of objectives, determining the mix of Public Relations activities
to be undertaken. Implementing an integrated programme and evaluating the
results.
Word-of-mouth
promotion
Research points to personal recommendations through
word of mouth being one of the most important information sources. One of the
most distinctive features of promotion in Distance Education marketing is the
greater importance of referral and word of mouth communications. Thus
highlights the importance of the people factor in services promotion. Learners
are often closely involved in the delivery of a service and they talk to other
potential customers about their experiences. They are glad to offer advice on a
specific DEI. Thus, word of mouth can have an important impact that other mass
or personal communication mix elements in distance educations.
Gronroos has outlined a communication pattern that
illustrates the role of word of mouth and referrals have to play.
·Expectations / purchases
·Interactions
·Experiences
·Word of mouth / referrals
An existing or a new distance education learners has
certain expectations. Once the decision to join distance education has been
made, the candidate begins interacting with the DEI and discovers the technical
and functional quality of the service being supplied. As a result of the
experiences, that follow from these interactions and the judgments made about
service quality, the candidate may or may not return. Positive or negative word
of mouth communication will then influence the extent to which others use the
service. It is said that the „satisfied consumer is a better sales force‟.
When the programmes are offered with better issues
materials, effective delivery system, proper organizations of Personal Contact
Programmes, effective student support services, proper conduct of examinations
and timely announcement of results –the satisfied learner will be acting as an
effective ambassador for Distance Education Institute.
The multiplier effect from word of mouth varies from
situations to situation. However, negative experiences tend to have a greater
impact than positive experiences. Learners who are dissatisfied tend to tell
more than twice as many people of their bitter experiences. Thus, negative word
of mouth can significantly reduce the effectiveness of advertising and other
elements of the communications mix and positive word of mouth can result in
less expensive formal communications programmes being needed.
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