Digital Marketing and Communication Strategy for Ad Astra Institute

This business report focuses on developing a digital marketing plan for the Ad Astra Institute, a university specializing in culinary arts and hospitality. The report begins with an executive summary outlining the institute's current operations, industry trends, competitors, and digital presence, highlighting weaknesses such as poor online maintenance. It then identifies the primary marketing challenge: a lack of brand awareness and inadequate digital presence, particularly on Facebook and YouTube. The report proposes an integrated marketing strategy, recommending enhancements to university partnerships, promotional activities, and digital presence. The core of the report is the digital marketing plan, which details strategies for social media marketing (increasing Facebook likes and YouTube subscribers) and mobile marketing. Recommendations include website improvements, active social media engagement, and consumer surveys to tailor services. The report concludes with a summary of findings and actionable recommendations to improve the institute's digital marketing effectiveness and overall brand visibility.

Running head: DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
Digital Marketing and Communication
Name of the University
Name of the Organization
Author Note

1DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
Executive Summary
The Ad Astra Institute is the organization considered in this assessment. The university offer
expert knowledge and hand-on experience to the students. This university also takes many
initiatives for prospering the career of the students in culinary arts and hospitality. The course
that is available in this institute enhances the market value of the students so that they can
suitable employment in hospitality sector. Ad Astra Institute operates in Melbourne City Campus
and South Melbourne Campus. The industry trends is the recruitment of expert staffs, who help
students to attain industry certified education. They also develop partnership with UCSI
University in Malaysia and Sunbird School in Chengdu, China so that international students can
also come to study in Australia. However, the concerned institute suffers from poor maintenance
of digital presence and providing match between research expectation & support. Thus, this
business report provide marketing plan through which the university can enhance their digital
marketing presence. The institute has Facebook and YouTube channels but it lack regular
updates and response to the visitors. As a result, not many people get aware if their brand and the
facility that the are providing to their nation’s and international students. This report will also
illustrate the goals and strategies to enhance their Facebook Business fan page and YouTube
Channel. However, it is recommended to the organization to create their social media channel in
all the media options like Twitter, Instagram and Google+. In this way, Ad Astra Institute can
target all the consumers through their preferable social media sites. This report also highlights
the importance of the presence of the mobile application through which the students of the
institute can access the class course easily and effectively.

2DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Current business mission, strategy and operations................................................................3
1.2 Company operates, industry trends, major competitors, client strengths and weaknesses in
relation to major competitors.......................................................................................................3
1.3 Macro environmental threats and opportunities and current digital presence.......................4
1.3.1 Macro environmental threats..........................................................................................4
1.3.2 Macro environmental opportunities................................................................................5
1.3.3 Current digital presence..................................................................................................5
1.4 Marketing strategy of current service offering and target markets........................................6
1.5 Customer segments and value propositions and service positioning strategies....................6
2.0 Integrated (traditional + digital) Marketing Strategy.................................................................6
2.1 Identification of the primary marketing challenge................................................................6
2.1.1 Recommendation for enhancing university partnerships...............................................7
2.1.2 Recommendation for enhancing promotional activities.................................................7
2.1.3 Recommendation for enhancing digital presence...........................................................8
2.2 Justification for changing the marketing strategy..................................................................8
3.0 Digital Marketing Plan..............................................................................................................8
3.1 Social media marketing.........................................................................................................8
3.1.1 Strategies to increase consumers likes in Facebook business page..............................11

3DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
3.1.2 Enhance the subscribers in YouTube Business Cannel................................................12
3.2 Mobile marketing.................................................................................................................13
3.3 Measuring the effectives of the digital marketing plan.......................................................15
4.0 Conclusion and Recommendations..........................................................................................17
4.1 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................17
4.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................18
5.0 Reference list and biography...................................................................................................19
6.0 Appendix..................................................................................................................................22

4DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Current business mission, strategy and operations
The major aim of Ad Astra Institute is to offer expert knowledge and hand-on experience
to the students for prospering their career in culinary arts and hospitality (Adastra.edu.au 2017).
The concerned organization also offer world class facility, student support facility, expert
teaching staffs, pathway to learning higher and farm experienced along with the homestay
accommodations (Adastra.edu.au 2017). The prime reason behind this strategy is to improve the
market value of the students so that they can find a suitable employment in hospitality sector.
Moreover, the aim behind providing student support facility is to offer comfort especially to the
international student and they endow the students with this facility through homestay
accommodation through the Australian Homestay Network (AHN) (Adastra.edu.au 2017).
1.2 Company operates, industry trends, major competitors, client strengths and weaknesses
in relation to major competitors
Ad Astra Institute operates their education services through two campuses- Melbourne
City Campus and South Melbourne Campus (Adastra.edu.au 2017). In Melbourne City
Campus, the classes are conducted and the location is convenient for all the students. It is near
the iconic Southern Cross Train Station, a tram stop and is close to restaurants, sporting
activities, shops, accommodations and Melbourne Park. On the other hand, the South Melbourne
Campus offers Commercial Training Kitchen to the Commercial Cookery students of Melbourne
City Campus (Adastra.edu.au 2017). Bosomworth (2015) stated that the term industry trend
refers to employment, consumer behavior, technological advancements along with the
competitors and new product development. In context of employment, the industry trends thus

5DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
described as recruitment of expert staffs, who are experts in their fields and helps the students to
attain industry certified education so that he students can place themselves in hospitality sectors.
Moreover, following the trends of globalization, Ad Astra Institute develops partnership with the
UCSI University in order to offer Malaysian student to learn hospitality knowledge in Australia
(Adastra.edu.au 2017). The partnership is also extended with the development of partnership
with Sunbird School in Chengdu, China (Adastra.edu.au 2017). In this way, the brand reputation
and awareness is enhanced in other nations. The industry trend of Ad Astra Institute also provide
language learning skills for making international students competent in communicating with
Australian or any customers. The trends can also be witnessed through their services like-
accommodations, holiday programs, career development programs and health covers for internal
students (Adastra.edu.au 2017).
The major competitors of Ad Astra Institute are William Angliss Institute, Academia
International and the Hotel School Melbourne. The strength of Ad Astra Institute compared to
these universities is that ad Astra has positive reputation in the external community, proactive
Partnerships with other universities especially in other nations, conducting accredited programs
and offering of learning skills development to enhance learning and effective student and campus
services. However, the weakness compared to these competitors is poor maintenance of digital
presence and providing match between research expectation & support.
1.3 Macro environmental threats and opportunities and current digital presence
1.3.1 Macro environmental threats
Some of the threats that Ad Astra Institute can face is the state budget crisis for
incorporating more advancement in the university services. Moreover, not all parents consider

6DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
employment in hospitality industry as a good profession; thus, negative public perception is a
threat for the university. Development of another hospitality industry with more diverse
functionalities and offering of facilities is a great threat for Ad Astra Institute.
1.3.2 Macro environmental opportunities
The concerned university have opportunity is developing more partnerships in support of
university initiatives, Diversity of region in terms of students and industry, formulating match
between the curricular and societal interests, creating external community and university
relationship through interest in expansion of cultural activities so that internal students can
communicate with local students and customers, expansion in terms of academic program
expansion and growth in terms of university services. Moreover, Ad Astra Institute have the
opportunity of Stockton by developing University Park, bring enhancement in university
connections and incorporating large student pool.
1.3.3 Current digital presence
Chaffey and Bosomworth (2012) stated that the occurrence of the business in online is
known as digital presence. In modern era, social media networking sites is a part of digital
presence. Ad Astra Institute has their digital presence through their online website, Facebook,
YouTube account and LinkedIn (See Appendix, Figure 1, 2 and 3). It can be seen that the
performance of their digital presence is not significant as total number of members in Facebook
are not high, there are zero subscribers in their YouTube Channel and also there is no recent
activity related videos uploaded in the channel. Lastly, in their LinkedIn profile, not much
response is there. All these aspects illustrate that there digital presence need to follow an
effective strategy so that more people get aware of their brand.

7DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
1.4 Marketing strategy of current service offering and target markets
The target market in this cases are the high school students in hospitality schools and
those, who intends to pursue their higher study or desire to be a professional in hospitality sector.
The current marketing strategy is to formulate partnership with other university of different
nations so that their students after completing their high school can pursue their higher education
is hospitality in Australia.
1.5 Customer segments and value propositions and service positioning strategies
The customer segmentation followed by Ad Astra Institute is educated families with high
income so that they can afford the fees of the university and the activities that are provided for
career development. The segmentation is also based on location (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick
2012). In this aspect, the concerned organization offers their services in Melbourne City and
South Melbourne. Considering the psychographic strategy, people with high standard living are
only targeted by this university. The value proposition of the Ad Astra Institute is “Ad Astra
Institute aims to provide students with expert knowledge and hands on experience to develop
their careers in hospitality and the culinary arts”. Lastly, it can be said that the positioning of the
market is only in Melbourne and even students of other nations, have to come to Australia is they
intends to study in this university.
2.0 Integrated (traditional + digital) Marketing Strategy
2.1 Identification of the primary marketing challenge
Thus, it can be said that, the prime challenge is that people are not aware of the services
and the educational course that Ad Astra Institute is providing. They do not have their branches
in other nations and students have to accommodate in their campus if they intends to study in

8DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
their university. Most importantly, their digital channels are not properly maintained especially
their Facebook fan page and YouTube channel. Ad Astra Institute thus has to enhance their
partnership in other nations and offer their services as a joint venture so that students can
experience their services in their respective nation. Secondly, for overcoming the adversity of
brand awareness, effective promotional activities should be incorporated. Thirdly, effective plan
should also be formulated so that the digital presence of the concerned university can be
enhanced.
2.1.1 Recommendation for enhancing university partnerships
Ad Astra Institute can initiate university partnership programs so that collaboration with
Hospitality University and high schools can be established. The concerned university can also
select some extra-ordinary student and offer them scholarships to study in Australia. Partnership
can also be formed with the business partners so that the local and especially the international
students can get the campus services and other accommodation services efficiently.
2.1.2 Recommendation for enhancing promotional activities
Advertisement can be done through traditional methods like advertisement in newspaper,
digital hoardings and magazines attract students and their family members. Moreover, the
concerned organization can also adopt the strategy of advertising campaigns, demonstrations
from successfully placed students and free sample campaigns, seminars on related topics along
with direct mail campaigns. However, in order to meet the recent trends, the concerned
university can adopt the strategy of digital promotional activity through online sites especially
social media marketing through Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter account and others.

9DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
2.1.3 Recommendation for enhancing digital presence
The design of the website should be enhanced so that people will find every small detail
in the website. Thus, it is recommended to develop a simple yet effective design, mobile-friendly
digital presence, incorporation of quality images and information related to those images and
most importantly presence of statistics. Moreover, for their social media page, one
recommendation is to stay active every time in the social sites. Based on the posts in the sites,
consumer survey should also be conducted so that the exact user demand can be observed and
relevant changes can be made on the services offered to the students.
2.2 Justification for changing the marketing strategy
All the recommendations are justified as it will enhance the brand awareness among the
community. In addition to that, these strategies will also enhance their promotional activities and
university collaborations and more people will desire to get admission in Ad Astra Institute.
These strategies will also redefine the target segmentation that is the concerned organization can
also serve their services outside Melbourne, Australia. Scholarships and other campaign also
attracts student with extraordinary merit irrespective of their family income and culture to learn
and study at their university. The digital advertisements and channel also allow the students and
their family to get aware of all the detail and contact the university directly through the details.
This transparency also enhances their brand awareness.
3.0 Digital Marketing Plan
3.1 Social media marketing
Goal Strategy Tactics
Goal 1 Audit the current social -Assess the different social networking sites and online

10DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
presence websites
-Optimize the networks like cover images, profile
pictures, contents of the programs and details future
activities
-Assess the effective network that brings most value
-Compare the competitor’s online presence and closely
target their upcoming strategies
Goal 2 Document ideal customer -Identification of the target markets and their most
preferred digital media applications
-Customers can be segmented based on the age, location,
job tiles and income and language preferences.
-Developing same social media sites with other
languages of nations, where the university intends to
expand their branch.
-If Facebook is the most preferred application, regular
updates of the content, future courses and the ongoing
scholarship programs should be present
Goal 3 Formulate social media
mission statement
The mission statement should be close to the consumer’s
demands and fulfill their queries
Goal 4 Identification of the key
success metrics
The effectiveness of the social media should be
maintained through some metric like- conversion rates,
time spent on website, total shares and comments of the
consumers on their existing and future activities.

11DIGITAL MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION
Goal 5 Creation of engaging
content
-Upload recent images and videos of the university
campus, and the new class offered
-Tutorial videos related to the hospitality subjects by
effective staffs can also be uploaded on the media sites
-Formulation of blogs related to the newly incorporated
courses and activity in their websites
-The online website can also include interview with
successful students and academic professionals and other
hospitality icons so that faith on the university can be
attained.
-Ebooks can also be published at a regular interval of
time containing recent newsfeeds
Goal 6 Analyzing and optimizing
the contents
-Reduce redundant data and more informative data
through which more knowledge regarding the college
campus, career opportunity can be obtained
-Evaluate the preferred post by the consumers and
introduce such courses and offers so that more people can
comment in the social media pages.
Table 1: Strategies to improve the social media marketing
(Source; Created by Author)
3.1.1 Strategies to increase consumers likes in Facebook business page
Complete the home page of the Facebook Business Page profile: In this aspect, it can be said
that the Ad Astra Institute should complete the details of their institute in Facebook. The details