Coursera Marketing Plan: Objectives, Strategy, and Analysis

This Coursera marketing plan outlines key strategies and objectives to enhance market penetration and development, particularly in the Indian market. It focuses on increasing course completion rates, enrolments, revenue, market share, and website traffic. The plan emphasizes brand awareness, personalized learning experiences, and strategic partnerships with job portals. Key strategies include targeting newly identified segments like students deferring higher education and back-to-work mothers, alongside traditional segments. The plan allocates budget towards brand promotion, course development, and smart-TV integration. A PEST analysis highlights the promising future of e-learning in India, while a portfolio analysis using the Directional Policy Matrix (DPM) informs investment decisions for growth and improvement across different market segments. The marketing mix strategies include product enhancements tailored to each segment, such as supplementary courses, career support, and personalized learning experiences.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary ................................................................................................... 3
1.0 Plan Objectives ................................................................................................ 4
2.0 Market Audit .................................................................................................... 4
2.1 PEST Summary ............................................................................................ 4
2.2 Perceptual Map ............................................................................................. 5
2.3 Segmentation Analysis .................................................................................. 5
2.3.1 Buyer Personas ...................................................................................... 6
2.3.2 Value-in-use Diagnostic .......................................................................... 8
2.4 Key Assumptions .......................................................................................... 8
3.0 Marketing Strategy Formulation ....................................................................... 8
3.1 Marketing objectives ......................................................................................... 9
3.1.1 Market Penetration ................................................................................. 9
3.1.2 Market Development .............................................................................. 9
3.2 Portfolio analysis ........................................................................................... 9
3.2.1 Market-attractiveness factors ................................................................... 10
3.2.2 Critical Success Factors ........................................................................... 11
3.3 Portfolio Summary ....................................................................................... 12
3.3.1 Directional Policy Matrix ....................................................................... 12
3.4 Conclusion from DPM Analysis ................................................................... 13
3.4.1 Invest for growth ................................................................................... 13
3.4.2 Invest to improve .................................................................................. 13
3.5 Marketing objectives and strategies ............................................................ 14
4.0 Resource allocation and monitoring .............................................................. 17
4.1 Budget: ........................................................................................................ 17
4.2 Monitoring: .................................................................................................. 18
Appendix .................................................................................................................. 20

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References ............................................................................................................... 22

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COURSERA MARKETING PLAN
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This plan is expected to deliver the following key results (over and above current
forecasted growth):
1. 10% increase in course completion rate
2. 40% growth in enrolments in India
3. 10% growth in revenue
4. 10% growth in market share
5. 60% growth in website traffic
6. 100k enrolments through referrals
It will implement the following key strategies:
1. Increase emphasis on brand awareness and social media campaigns
2. Provide personalised experience to the learners, a major demand of Indian market
3. Partner with job portals to deliver on career support and increase traffic on the website
It is based on the following key assumptions of our relative strength and market
attractiveness
The high market attractiveness and relative business strength for Coursera - Deferred Dev
and Coursera – Studious Shubhi should be addressed with heavy marketing campaign to
capitalize on growth opportunities. Even though relative business strength of Back-to-work
Baani and Professional Pranav is low, they should also be targeted to capitalise on the
growth of e-learning market during Covid-19 pandemic.

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It will require investments principally as follows
70% of the financial year marketing budget will be allocated to brand promotion activities like
job-portals partnership, paid PR and social media management. 26% should be allocated for
new courses and feature development that will increase the value-proposition of the product
for the Indian market. The remaining 4% should be allocated to smart-TV integration of the
video courses.
For key assumptions used in the plan, please refer to section 2.4.
1.0 PLAN OBJECTIVES
Coursera is an online education platform that is revolutionizing education by
providing “world-class learning for anyone, anywhere”. Launched in 2012, it has
helped 40 million learners across the world to access over 3000+ courses from 170+
top universities and companies (Coursera.org, 2020).
Marketing objectives will relate to greater market penetration through enhancement
of value proposition to existing user-base, along with market development through
identification of new user segments in the Indian market. Strategies will aim at
improved user-engagement, acquisition, and brand awareness. The objectives will
specifically aim at their B2C business.
2.0 MARKET AUDIT
2.1 PEST Summary
PEST analysis (Appendix-1) shows that future of the industry is very promising with e-
learning being part of the Digital India Programme by the Indian Government (Mahalakshmi,
2019). The industry is projected to reach INR360 billion by 2024 with 43% CAGR
(Businesswire, 2020). Covid-19 has had the biggest impact on the industry, as a result of
school and university closure and shift of traditional education to online learning.
However, some social (e.g. lack of human interaction and increase in screen-time) and
technological (e.g. lack of internet infrastructure in rural areas) issues exist, which can be
converted to business opportunities in the near future.

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2.2 Perceptual Map
Coursera is internationally-renowned (offering courses from highly-prestigious institutions)
but to make further inroads into the Indian market, it needs to compete with local players
who are catering to the needs of the local audience, such as providing a personalised
learning experience. This has been found to be as important a driver for customer
experience as content-quality (Singh, 2019). Refer to Appendix-2 for a detailed competitor-
analysis.
Figure – 6: Perceptual map
2.3 Segmentation Analysis
Segments were identified after analysing user-stories on blogs, app-store reviews, and
interviews with colleagues. In addition to segments already targeted by Coursera, two new
segments were identified – students who deferred higher-education due to job-market

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uncertainty, and mothers who want to take opportunity of work-from-home concept. These
were created as a result of Covid-19’s social impact.
2.3.1 Buyer Personas
Newly-identified Segments
Figure-1: Persona-1
Figure-2: Persona-2

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Existing Segments
Figure-3: Persona-3
Figure-4: Persona-4

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2.3.2 Value-in-use Diagnostic
Figure-5: Value-in-use diagnostic
2.4 Key Assumptions
• Total revenue for Coursera is USD 140 million. Out of total website traffic, 9% comes
from India (SimilarWeb, 2020). Assuming, a similar share, revenue from India is
estimated to be USD 12.6 million or INR 1 billion.
• Around 10% of total revenue is utilised for the marketing plan.
• Number of Indian mothers are approximately 45 million (Pandit, 2019), of which 1% are
assumed to be back-to-work mothers.
• Number of students studying overseas was 7,50,000 in 2018 (Monitor ICEF, 2019). 61%
of these deferred this year (Chopra, 2020), bringing the total to 457,000.
3.0 MARKETING STRATEGY FORMULATION

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3.1 Marketing objectives
Coursera saw a one-time spike of 400% YOY growth in enrolments during 2020 in Asia-
Pacific region and India is the second-largest consumer base for Coursera with 9.8 million
learners (Coursera Impact Report, 2020). Hence, majority the growth can be attributed to the
Indian market.
The marketing objectives based on the initial evaluation of segmentation analysis and
perceptual map should be around profiting from the newly created opportunities and serving
the requirement of the Indian learners by improving the value proposition of existing products
to provide more personalised experience and career support.
3.1.1 Market Penetration
Coursera should aim to increase penetration into traditional segments – Studious Shubhi
and Professional Pranav since these are the largest markets by volume – 37.4 million
(Nanda, 2019) and 29 million (Ceic, 2011) respectively, with high growth potential.
3.1.2 Market Development
The Covid-19 impacted segments – Deferred Pranav and Back-to-work Baani - should be
targeted for market development. Coursera should make use of short-term, high-impact
opportunities.
Figure-6: Ansoff matrix
3.2 Portfolio analysis

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3.2.1 Market-attractiveness factors
S SxW S SxW S SxW S SxW
Market-size 25% 6 1.5 4 1 9 2 8 2
Growth Potential 15% 5 0.75 8 1.2 7 1.05 6 0.9
Competition 20% 8 1.6 8 1.6 5 1 6 1.2
Profitability 30% 7 2.1 7 2.1 5 1.5 9 2.1
Customer loyalty 10% 5 0.5 7 0.7 5 0.5 7 0.7
Total 100%
Professional
Pranav
6.45 6.6 6.3 7.5
MAFs Weight
(W)
Deffered Dev Back-to-work
Baani
Studious
Shubhi
Table-1: Market Attractiveness analysis
Market Size and Growth: As highlighted in section 3.1.1 and 3.1.2, Studious Shubhi and Professional
Pranav are the largest market segments, followed by Deferred Dev and Back-to-work Baani. It is
assumed that since the Deferred Dev segment was created due to Covid’s impact, segment size
should witness a decline once social-isolation rules end and students are able to resume in-class
learning. It is forecasted that demand for work-from-home employees will remain stable even post-
Covid, thus Back-to-work Baani will remain a growing segment (Lister, 2020).
Competition: Since Studious Shubhi and Professional Pranav are already being targeted by Coursera
and its competitors, competition is high for these segments. On the other hand, Deferred Dev and
Back-to-work Baani are newly-created segments, thus, competition is lower.
Profitability: Professional Pranav is a working professional employed in a medium- to-high level
position at a corporate job, thus purchasing power and profitability are high. Deferred Dev is assumed
to have a medium-high purchasing power since he is able to spend on an overseas education. Back-
to-work Baani comes from an urban or big city household with medium-high purchasing power, thus
profitability is again on the higher end. Studious Shubhi, however, being a student lacks decision-
making ability and purchasing power, thus profitability is lowest.
Customer Loyalty: Studious Shubhi is looking for free courses and is likely to follow the brand that
offers her that, thus loyalty is low. Deferred Dev, again, will commence his studies from the next
academic year, thus demand will crash thereafter. Professional Pranav and Back-to-work Baani have
medium-high loyalty, and are likely to remain with the brand as long as critical-success-factors are
met.

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3.2.2 Critical Success Factors
For a detailed analysis of critical success factors, please refer to Appendix-2.
Coursera – Deferred Dev
CSFs Weight
(W)
Coursera EdX Great
Learning Upgrad
S SxW S SxW S SxW S SxW
Recognized by employers
worldwide 30% 8 2.4 8 2.4 5 1.5 5 1.5
Courses from top
universities 40% 8 3.2 7 2.8 5 2 4 1.6
Courses aligned with latest
industry trends 30% 9 2.7 8 2.4 7 2.1 6 1.8
Total 100% 8.3 7.6 5.6 4.9
Relative Business Strength: 0.7
Table-2: CSF analysis of Coursera – Deferred Dev
Coursera – Back-to-work Baani
CSFs Weight
(W)
Coursera EdX Great
Learning Upgrad
S SxW S SxW S SxW S SxW
Courses aligned
with latest industry
trends 20% 9 1.8 8 1.6 7 1.4 6 1.2
Self-paced learning 20% 9 1.8 5 1 5 1 6 1.2
Career support 30% 4 1.2 4 1.2 9 2.7 7 2.1
Enhance interview
skills 30% 4 1.2 4 1.2 8 2.4 7 2.1
Total 100% 6 5 7.5 6.6
Relative Business Strength: -1.5
Table-3: CSF analysis of Coursera – Back-to-work Baani
Coursera – Studious Shubhi
CSFs Weight
(W)
Coursera EdX Great
Learning Upgrad
S SxW S SxW S SxW S SxW
Courses aligned with
latest industry trends
20% 9 1.8 8 1.6 7 1.4 6 1.2
Access to financial aid 35% 9 3.15 3 1.05 3 1.05 3 1.05
Courses from top
universities
20% 8 1.6 7 1.4 5 1 4 0.8

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Personalised learning
and support
25% 3 0.75 7 1.75 9 2.25 7 1.75
Total 100% 7.3 5.8 5.7 4.8
Relative Business Strength: 1.5
Table-4: CSF analysis of Coursera – Studious Shubhi
Coursera – Professional Pranav
CSFs Weight
(W)
Coursera EdX Great
Learning Upgrad
S SxW S SxW S SxW S SxW
Courses aligned with
latest industry trends
40% 9 3.6 8 3.2 7 2.8 6 2.4
Personalised learning and
support
10% 3 0.3 7 0.7 9 0.9 7 0.7
Interactive and gamified
learning journey
25% 5 1.25 8 2 9 2.25 8 2
Mentorship from industry
experts
30% 3 0.9 5 1.5 9 2.7 8 2.4
Total 100% 7.4 8.65 7.5 6.05
Relative Business Strength: -2.6
Table-5: CSF analysis of Coursera – Professional Pranav
3.3 Portfolio Summary
3.3.1 Directional Policy Matrix