Marketing strategy for an online business degree program

Marketing Campaign for Online Business Degree

Target audience and reasons for identification

An online campus lacks some of the amenities of a campus in the real world. It does not have the sense of community of a traditional university setting. However, for busy adults with pressing work and family commitments, online learning can provide a way to add to the adult's resume of skills through the process of convenient, at home learning, using materials and a format that can be scheduled around other aspects of the student's life. A person seeking a B.A. In business is likely to be an adult who, upon graduating from high school, did not have the motivation or financial resources to pursue financial education and has found his or her niche in the business world. But a lack of a university degree has become an obstacle to career advancement. The adult has confidence enough in the online format to seek higher learning through the online process, but does not have the time to go back to school, or the desire, given his or her personal or vocational position. Thus the target audience is likely to be people in their 20s and 30s, already pursuing careers who wish to add to their credentials.

Pricing and how courses are priced

Because the campus is virtual and not brick and mortar, it would demand less financial overhead than a regular university, but it should not be so inexpensive that good teachers could not be recruited and salaried at a competitive rate. Furthermore, too low a price could cause prospective students to view the university as potentially illegitimate.

Effectiveness

Online professors could grade essay exams, and standardized tests, especially for the introductory courses, would provide a point of comparison between different sections of the required sequence of classes for the degree. These statistics could be monitored, to ensure quality control, and possibly published in an anonymous format as testimony to the consistency of the different sections. Also, an alumni section on the promotional website could document the success of future graduates, and testimonies to the effectiveness of the program.