ACFE: Marketing Literature Review on International Student Recruitment

This marketing literature review examines the strategies and policy initiatives employed to attract international students, particularly focusing on the Australian market and companies like the Australian Centre of Further Education (ACFE). It highlights Australia's growing market share in international student recruitment, driven by coherent national frameworks aligned with immigration policies and institutional strategies. The review emphasizes the importance of market research, leveraging alumni success stories, and providing virtual campus tours to attract students. It also discusses the significant role of education agents in student recruitment and the increasing importance of digital marketing to augment agency-based relationships. The review concludes that Australia's early adoption of the agent-student recruitment model has contributed to its success as a leading destination for international students.

MARKETING LITERATURE REVIEW
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Literature Review
While the world market for the international students is booming with major likes being inclined
towards countries like US and UK, it has been identified that Australia has emerged as a major
contender with a rapidly increasing market share which currently stands around 13.2% there is a
gap in the literature regarding the contributions of policy initiatives which is inclusive of trade
agreements to attract the inbound international students especially from emerging contenders
such as Australia. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the policy and strategy
initiatives which can be taken into consideration by companies such as Australian Centre of
Further Education (ACFE) (Acfeonline.edu.au, 2018). It should also be noted that in this context,
the major role is also played by the market research as well.
During the tenure of internship, it has been learnt that in comparison to the American and British
institutions, Australian institutions have been more successful in proactive recruitment and
retainment of the international students in Australia. The enrolment of international students and
education opportunities in the country has been increased from 12.5% in 2000 to 18.3% in the
year 2014 as per the data of OECD (Oecd.org, 2018). In comparison to the education industry of
USA, the higher education system of the country has remained stagnant at a rate of around 4%.
Image: Share of international students as a percentage of tertiary level enrolment in 2014 (%)
Image Source: Oecd.org. (2018)
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There are several reasons behind the effectiveness of the plans made by Australian institutions to
attract the international students. One of the most important roles in this strategy is played by the
effective implementation of a coherent national framework that is aligned with the immigration
policies and institutional strategies.
As per Altbach (2015), for a company like ACFE, it is important that the company should pay
attention in the right areas as the lack of same would impact the financial structure of the
company. During the tenure of internship, it has been learnt by the author that it one of the major
strategies that might be taken into consideration by the educational institutions to attract
international students is by the means of sharing the achievements of international alumni. This
leverage of stories would help the institution to highlight the benefits that would be enjoyed by
the students after joining the institute (Altbach, 2015). This can be done by the means of creating
video testimonials and web-based contents which focus on why they made a decision to join that
particular institution.
Another strategy that has been used by the Australian institutions to attract the international
talents in heavy amount is by providing a virtual tour of the campus. It should be noted that it is
not easy for the international students and their families to pop up instantly for the purpose of a
campus visit. In order to save their cost and finances, it is one of the most rapidly emerging
concepts in which the international institutions can help the students to gain a virtual experience
of their campus without flying across halfway across the world.
According to Marginson (2015), there are the certain steps which could be taken into
consideration by the educational institutions like ACFE to attract international students in
Australia in large number. Apart from the steps and internal strategies that are constructed by
these institutes, it should be noted that a major role played in attracting these students is of the
market research. The market research and penetration techniques used by the companies allow
them to analyse the needs of the students and cater to them accordingly (Marginson, 2015). This
market research also allows the institutions to gain insights on the emerging markets of education
which might be used as an opportunity to foster financial growth of the organisation.
In the marketing of the educational facilities, a major role is played by the education agents.
With the increment in student mobility, the education agents have become an important aspect of
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the overall recruitment landscape with inclusion of universities, language, community colleges
and k- 12 schools as well. The agencies can help in provision of important services for schools
which gives them a presence on the ground and also the specialised market knowledge which is
strategically important in targeted countries.
This model can be stated as the agent-student recruitment model. This model might help the
companies to generate profits in an increasingly competitive market. This makes digital
marketing a valuable supplemental tool as well which helps the institutions such as ACFE to
augment their existing agency based relationships with a wide-reaching online strategy. These
marketing techniques help the students to increase international awareness of their brand and
also help them in getting leverage over its competitors as well (Education Marketing, 2018).
It should be noted that the prevalence and influence of the education agents can vary from
country to country. Australian education model has identified to be one of the earliest adopters of
agent-student based recruitment model. This helped the country to be established as one of the
leading countries as an international student destination. According to the figures of Australian
Universities International Director’s Forum (AUIDF), 2014, it has been identified that around
62.1% of the total students in Australian Universities have come through agencies. This can be
seen in the case of ACFE which itself is a subsidiary agent of Vocational Education, Training
and Employment Australia (VETEA) (Olsen et. al., 2015).
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References
 Acfeonline.edu.au. (2018). Agents | ACFE. [online] Available at:
https://acfeonline.edu.au/agents/ [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018].
 Altbach, P. (2015). Foreign study: Patterns and challenges. International Higher
Education, (30).
 Education Marketing | Google Analytics | SEO | Higher Education Marketing.
(2018). Diversifying Your International Student Recruitment Sources With Digital
Marketing. [online] Available at:
https://www.higher-education-marketing.com/blog/diversifying-international-student-
recruitment-sources-digital-marketing [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018].
 Marginson, S. (2015). Is Australia overdependent on international
students?. International Higher Education, (54).
 Oecd.org. (2018). Australia: World Class Universities or a World Class University
System? by Ellen Hazelkorn - OECD. [online] Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/education/imhe/australiaworldclassuniversitiesoraworldclassuniver
sitysystembyellenhazelkorn.htm [Accessed 17 Jul. 2018].
 Olsen, A. J., Burgess, Z., & Sharma, R. (2015). The comparative academic performance
of international students in Australia. International Higher Education, (42).
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