Marketing strategies for evening business courses in metropolitan colleges

Marketing Community College Programs

A) A local college in a metropolitan area desires to increase its evening school offerings of business related courses such as marketing, accounting, finance, and management. Who are the largest market customers (students) for these courses?

The fact that the community college courses are part of the evening programs suggests that the primary customer market for this initiative consists of full-time working adults who hope to supplement their education in their spare time. Generally, first-time college students who begin their higher education immediate following their graduation from high school tend to attend traditional daytime residential college programs or part-time daytime college programs.

In light of the current consequences of the U.S. economic recession, there is a major new market for part-time evening community college programs: namely, unemployed and under-employed professionals who have lost their jobs or their own small businesses because of the economic recession. Likewise, many Americans are currently employed in fields other than those of their choice or of their professional training, simply because so few opportunities exist in the current job market that they have had no choice but to take any job paying a salary to make ends meet.

B) What actions involving the four marketing mix elements might be used to reach the target market identified in part A?

Product -- The community college's evening program should provide courses of instruction that relate as directly as possible to the specific needs of the target audience. Specifically, they should market course that teach computer skills and courses that lead directly to certifications and licenses in trades and professions where employment opportunities are currently available.

Price -- The community college's evening program should market its product to the target audience by giving discounts to recently laid-off workers and to those whose return to formal education is necessitated by circumstances attributable to the current economic recession.

Place -- The community college's evening program should include distance-learning (or virtual learning) opportunities in addition to traditional, on-

site classroom formats. In addition to lowering overhead costs whose savings can be passed along to customers within the framework of the Price elements, they also increase the flexibility of the programs to allow more potential customers to fit education into their busy lives.

Promotion -- The community college's evening program should be promoted most aggressively through online media, especially those linked to Internet job-search websites. That is because the Internet is fast becoming the primary way that people look for jobs.

C) What environmental factors (uncontrollable variables) must the college in part A consider in designing its marketing program?