Acadia University overview and institutional profile

Marketing Segmentation, Targeting, And Positioning for Acadia University

This article reviews the marketing strategies for Acadia University, one of the higher education institutions that are trying to shine in the education sector. The article starts by identifying key issues related to the institution and thereafter evaluates and assesses the external and internal marketing situations. The paper also looks at some of the possible marketing strategies which the institution can employ to effectively segment, capture and penetrate its target market.

Acadia University was founded in 1838 and was one of the largest colleges in the Maritime colonies at the time. Acadia University is driven by the mission of providing rigorous and personalized yet liberal education. To this end, the university aims to promote a respectful and robust scholarly community and inspire students to become critical thinkers.

The university is perceived by many market analysts to focus more on customer needs and specifically the students, more especially after it shifted its focus to online marketing campaigns and developed new degree programs. In an attempt to address its customer needs satisfactorily, the institution launched a marketing strategy that involved dividing its clients and target customers into segments taking into account their respective financial positions, lifestyles and geographical position. In addition, Acadia University has diversified its product lines and has introduced new products including open distance learning.

Marketing Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning for Acadia University

Segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy for Acadia University comprise of a three-stage process. The first stage entails determining what kinds of customers exist in the market, which is the education sector. The second stage revolves around determining which category of customers it can best serve and the last stage is all about implementing segmentation by optimizing services and products for the chosen market segment and communicating the choice. Segmentation basically involves the University finding out what kind of customers exits and what their needs are. In the vast changing education industry, customers demand quality, efficiency and convenience while others are concerned with reduced education costs. To effectively segment its target market and position itself strategically, Acadia University will have to consider exploring a number of marketing strategies including concentrated and differentiated strategies.

Market segmentation may however call for tougher choices including choosing between various variables that can be used to differentiate between customers of a particular product variety. For Acadia University, several variables are available at its disposal and these can be used to segment its target market. These variables include demographic variables which refer to personal statistics like gender, income level, education, ethnicity, location (rural vs. urban) and family size among others. Researches indicate that most of the urban population prefers open distance learning and thus Acadia University can benefit immensely by developing differentiated products aimed at the urban population. The institution can also segment its target market in terms of values and market styles. Another basis for segmentation open to Acadia University is behavior. Some customers are brand loyal and tend to stick to their brands even when competitive ones are on sale.

In the next move, Acadia University requires to target one or more of its identified segments. The choice in this case should generally depend on a number of factors including the existing segments served by rival universities. Targeting will enable the university to reposition itself strategically in the fast changing and unpredictable education market. Already, the Acadia University has chosen to reposition itself as an education institution that provides high quality, market oriented education at pocket friendly rates. Accordingly, the institution has done impressive work in advertising to promote its products. As part of the positioning strategy, Acadia University has adopted chosen brand images that appeal to the chosen segment. To effectively seal the positioning strategy, the university has undertaken immense research and development programs to enable it understand how its brands as well as those of market competitors are perceived. This has easily been achieved though multi-dimensional scaling which involves the institution identifying how its products are perceived by customers on more than one dimension and this will enable it to plot brands against one another.

Evaluation and Assessment of the Institution's Market Position

Customer Value Proposition

Through its creative business development model, Acadia University helped students who are its customers acquire loans to facilitate tuition which they can repay after completion of their degree programs. Another value addition for Acadia University customers is the diversification of financial services offered to them.

Sustainable competitive advantage

By expanding and diversifying its products into the premium market through launching several market oriented degree programs and distance learning, the institution can gain a commanding competitive edge over other companies in the education industry. The university's recently unveiled new products with distinctive features targeted less than one percent of the students in the market most of whom the institution considered to be extremely important. To penetrate deeper into this new market niche, Acadia University has formed strategic alliances with leading financial and education partners in the market.

The other sustainable competitive advantage for the institution is the development of the electronic Customer Relationship Program (eCRM) which would address customer problems and satisfy increasing consumer needs. The aim of developing eCRM was to increase the quality of electronic correspondence and offer customers more customized solutions.

Institution strength

Strengths entail various aspects of an organization through which it achieves a competitive advantage over its rival in the industry. The main strengths of Acadia University include customer tailored degree programs, which are by far among the leading as determined by number of students. Previously, Acadia University was recognized as the most admired educational institution. Another one of Acadia University's strength is its interactive website whose traffic has long caught up with that of the other leading education institutions.

Weaknesses

In spite of its impressive performance and leading market share, Acadia University is exposed to some weaknesses which may eventually hinder it from realizing its strategic goals and objectives. The Acadia University showed signs of weakness in terms of weak market communication, less impressive brand awareness, delays in venturing into the international market and weak services. The institution is however making significant efforts to address these weaknesses.