Marketing Plan for Auckland Institute of Studies: Sustainable Growth

This report presents a detailed marketing plan for the Auckland Institute of Studies (AIS), a privately owned educational institute in New Zealand. The report begins with an executive summary and situation analysis, followed by a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to assess the institute's current standing. It then outlines specific action programs, including course remodeling and aggressive promotional campaigns. The report also covers creative initiatives, such as utilizing social media and advanced technology, and a comprehensive media plan encompassing traditional and modern marketing tools. The goal is to enhance student enrollment and ensure sustainable growth for AIS by leveraging its strengths and addressing its weaknesses. The plan focuses on attracting students nationally and internationally by offering a variety of courses and adapting to the changing educational landscape.

Running head: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Marketing Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors Note:

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Executive summary:
Established in 1990, Auckland Institute of Studies (AIS) is one of most reputed
educational institutes in New Zealand and also the largest privately owned educational institute
in the country. The institute has two campuses Mt. Albert and Asquith Campus located in 28
Linwood Avenue and 120 Asquith Avenue respectively. The objective of the institute is to
provide quality education to the students. From the management point of view increasing the
number of student enrollment each year by attracting students from all over the country and even
outside is a priority. Importance of marketing management to achieve that objective is immense.
In this document a detailed marketing plan for the institute shows the importance of such plan in
enabling the institute to maintain sustainable growth in the long term future along with achieving
immediate short term goals of the institute.

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Contents
Executive summary:........................................................................................................................1
Situation analysis:............................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis:...............................................................................................................................4
Action programs:.............................................................................................................................8
Creative initiatives:..........................................................................................................................8
Media plan:......................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................11
References:....................................................................................................................................12

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Situation analysis:
Initially established at Downtown Shopping Centre in Auckland AIS moved its campus in Mt.
Albert in Auckland in 1993, i.e. three years after its inauguration in 1990. The conversion of
simple educational institute into a tertiary residential campus also took place at the time of
moving from Downtown Shopping Centre to Mt. Albert in 1993. It is important to conduct a
situational analysis of the institute to make an effective marketing plan for it to achieve its
organizational objectives both in short and long term.
The courses offered by the institute:
Currently AIS offers followings degrees:
I. Bachelor degree in business.
II. Bachelor degree in information technology.
III. Bachelor degree in tourism management.
IV. Bachelor degree in hospitality management.
V. Master degree in business.
VI. Master degree in information technology.
VII. Master degree in tourism management.
VIII. Master degree in hospitality management.
IX. Also offers number of English language course as it owns English Language Center.
The quality of courses offered in the institute is very high and it is closely affiliated with the
Centre for Research in International Education (CRIE) (Barnewall and Webster, 2017).
The study areas in the institute are as following:

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Finance and accounts: AIS offers courses in finance and accounting to the students.
Courses in business administration: The institute also offers Bachelor’s degrees in business
administration. AIS also have a special program to offer Master’s degree in Business
administration.
Despite number of different course offered by the institute the management is not quite happy
with the number of enrolments in the institute and looking to improve its operating parameters in
the short and long run by increasing the number of students enrolling to different courses in the
institute.
SWOT analysis:
A brief discussion on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of AIS in this part of
the document shall be helpful in formulating an effective marketing plan for the institute
(Blachetta and Kleinaltenkamp, 2018).
Strengths:
AIS has the following strengths:
I. It is one of the biggest and largest educational institutes in the country.
II. It is also the largest privately owned tertiary educational institute in the country.
III. The institute has two campuses in two different parts of the country.
IV. The institute offers number of different course to the students hence, the students
have the option to choose any particular course according to their preferences.
V. The institute provides continuity to the students as it provides both bachelor and
master degrees on most of its course. Thus, the students who have admitted in

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bachelor courses can maintain continuity by enrolling for master’s degree in the
institute.
VI. Since the institute is a tertiary education hence, the benefit of tertiary can be availed
by the students.
VII. The reputation of the institute is one of its biggest strengths and reason for its
popularity among the students in the country.
VIII. The campuses of the institute are modern and have all the modern facilities including
hi-tech and advanced information and technology facilities to help the students to
learn differently as compared to the traditional way of learning.
IX. 24x 7 learning facilities are available with online portal in the official websites of the
institute.
X. The institute provides concessional facilities for students with weak financial
conditions (Cameron, 2015).
Weaknesses:
The weaknesses of the institute are outlined below:
I. Though it is one of the largest educational institute in the country however, the
number of students learning in the institute have not shown any significant increase in
recent years. In fact the number of students have stayed stagnant over the last few
years. It is a cause of concern for the management.
II. The weak financial performance of the institute in recent years have compelled the
institute to reduce its allocated budgets on number of important aspects of running the

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institute including budgeted allocation for marketing and promotional campaigns of
different courses offered in the institute.
III. Lack of innovative ideas where it comes to offering new and improved courses to the
students.
IV. The teaching faculty is not quite up-to-date with advanced information and
technology and its usage in education sphere.
V. The official website and student portal of the institute have not been modified and are
not of highest standards (Mudambi, 2018).
Opportunities:
Despite the above weaknesses there are number of opportunities in front of the institute which it
must utilize to improve its performance in the future. The opportunities are outlined in the points
below.
I. Huge boom of educational sector in the country present the institute with a huge
opportunity to increase its enrollment in the future.
II. Advanced information and technology provides a huge opportunity to the institute to
provide top quality education to the students enrolling for different courses in the
institute.
III. The fact that students from different countries from all over the world are looking at
countries like Australia and New Zealand as their educational destinations is a huge
opportunity for the educational institutes in the country to attract new students from
all across the globe.

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IV. There are number of different courses that AIS offers to the students. Remodeling of
these courses will make the institute as one of the very few institutes with such
variety of courses for the students (Rexha, 2016).
V. The environment in New Zealand is almost perfect for tourism business and the
country is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world. AIS offers both
bachelor and master degrees in tourism management thus, the opportunity in a
country like New Zealand is huge for tourism management courses.
Threats:
The threats for the institute are as following:
I. The number of educational institutes have increased by multiple folds in last five
years. Thus, the competition in the education field is extreme.
II. The students are exposed to number of different courses from all across the globe
thus, the educational institute must make necessary changes to its erstwhile courses to
be relevant in the modern day and age.
III. The continuous innovation and technological advancement have made the educational
institutes operations very difficult. An institute must be on its toe to make regular up-
gradation to its courses to attract new students. Thus, the risk of irrelevance to
different course is extremely high if necessary changes and up-gradation are not made
to the course on periodical basis.
IV. The competition is forcing educational institute to lower its prices for different
courses offered thus, the profit margin are continuously declining making it difficult
for the institute to offer new courses (Singhapakdi, 2016).

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Action programs:
The above SWOT analysis has helped us to understand the current scenario of AIS. On the basis
of current situation and SWOT analysis of the institute a brief action plan is developed here.
Remodeling of courses offered currently in then institute:
The institute should remodel its courses and if possible repackage its courses keeping in mind the
requirements of the students. Use of advanced information and technology to remodel the
courses will help the institute to achieve its goals in the short run. The repackage and remodeling
must be a continuous process for the institute to achieve its long term goals in the future.
Bachelors and master’s degree must be relooked:
The current courses offering bachelors and master’s degree must be relooked as the students are
looking for different professional courses rather than normal bachelors and master’s degree.
Hence, the institute should include different professional courses in its curriculum to attract new
students from all across the country and globe (Piercy and Giles, 2017).
Aggressive promotional campaign:
The institute should promote all of its courses aggressively to attract students from different parts
of the country and globe.
Creative initiatives:
New technology and advanced information network across the globe provide the institute with
huge opportunity of being creative to achieve its organizational objectives in the future. The
creative initiatives will help AIS to improve its performance in the future. The following creative
initiatives shall be extremely helpful in attracting new students in the campuses of the institute.

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Use of social networking sites:
Use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Snap chat and other such social
platforms shall be made to popularize the different courses offered by the institute to the
students. Aggressive promotional and advertisement campaigns include use of these networking
sites thus, effective use of these platforms will help the institute to attract new students from not
only different parts of the country but also from different parts of the globe. This is because the
reach of the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Snap Chats are huge and
extend beyond national and international borders.
Use of advanced and improved technology:
The continuous innovation in the information and technology field shall be used effectively to
improve the quality study materials including providing online test and quiz facilities for the
students to improve their skills and knowledge in their respective courses. Thus, the action plan
must include effective use of advanced information and technology to improve the quality of
education (Novicevic et al., 2017).
Official website and students’ portal:
The official website and students’ portal of AIS must be of highest quality to allow the students
to avail study materials and other educational; resources necessary for their education 24x 7
without any issue. This would help the institute to increase its students’ base in the future.
Media plan:
The media plan of the institute is explained in brief here.
Aggressive marketing and promotional camping by using traditional means of advertisements:

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The institute should make effective use of traditional promotional and marketing tools to
aggressively promote the different courses offered in the institute. The traditional promotional
and marketing tools include the following:
Billboards: Effective use of billboards shall be made to advertise the courses of the institute by
airing such billboards in different places in the country.
TV advertisements: Television advertisements shall be used effectively to promote the different
courses and changes in courses to attract the students from different parts of the country. TV
advertisements shall be aired on prime time if possible after conducting cost benefit analysis of
such advertisements (The Importance of Ethical Marketing Practices, 2015).
Radio advertisements: Use of radio advertisements to promote the courses of the institute will
help it to attract new students from different parts of the country.
Advertisement in newspapers: Advertisements shall be published in newspapers to attract new
students. The advertisements in newspapers shall give detailed information about different
courses offered in the institute along with recent changes made in these courses to ensure that the
prospective students understand the courses offered by the institute properly. Contact details
shall be provided to ensure that the students can contact the institute without any difficulty.
Apart from traditional marketing and promotional tools AIS should make effective use of
modern marketing and promotional tools to promote its courses. The modern promotional and
marketing tools and the usages of these tools are explained in brief here.
Online platform including advertisements in different online academic journal:

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The online platform, i.e. internet allows users to access number of different resources including
academic journals. The institute must give advertisements of its courses in these journals to
promote the courses among the readers of such journals. In addition different websites shall host
information about the courses offered by the institute to attract new students from all across the
globe.
Use of social networking sites:
As mentioned earlier social networking sites provide unmatched reach thus, aggressive
promotional campaign by the institute by using the social networking sites such as Facebook and
other such sites will help the institute attract number of students from different parts of the globe
including New Zealand (V. Soke and A. Wiid, 2016).
Conclusion:
Taking into consideration the discussion above it is clear that the need to have an effective
marketing plan for the AIS is of paramount importance at this point of time considering its
stagnating student enrollment figures of recent years. The marketing and promotional outlines
provided in the above document will help the institute to increase the number of enrollments in
short and long term provided the above plan is followed effectively. It is important to implement
the plan effectively to achieve the objectives of the institute in short and long run.

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References:
Barnewall, G. and Webster, F. (2017). Marketing Communication: Modern Promotional
Strategy. Journal of Marketing, 41(8), p.120.
Blachetta, M. and Kleinaltenkamp, M. (2018). Dispersion of marketing activities in business-to-
business firms. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 1(1), pp.13-65.
Cameron, G. (2015). Small business is big business. Journal of Marketing Management, 5(3),
pp.31-37.
Mudambi, S. (2018). Branding importance in business-to-business markets. Industrial Marketing
Management, 34(9), pp.525-533.
Novicevic, M., Harvey, M., Autry, C. and Bond, E. (2017). Dual‐perspective SWOT: a synthesis
of marketing intelligence and planning. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 25(3), pp.84-94.
Piercy, N. and Giles, W. (2017). Making SWOT Analysis Work. Marketing Intelligence &
Planning, 11(8), pp.5-7.
Rexha, N. (2016). Integrating Relationship Marketing Activities with Offering Quality in the
Supplier's Relational Marketing Program. Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, 9(3),
pp.1-17.
Singhapakdi, A. (2016). Perceived Importance of Ethics and Ethical Decisions in
Marketing. Journal of Business Research, 48(5), pp.89-99.
The Importance of Ethical Marketing Practices. (2015). Journal of Business Management &
Economics, 2(5), pp.17-23.

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V. Soke, B. and A. Wiid, J. (2016). Small-business marketing in Soweto, the importance of the
human touch. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 14(4), pp.186-193.