HELP FILE#1:  MARKETING of an EDUCATIONAL SERVICE or PRODUCT
 

1.0 The Concept of Marketing

Demand-driven institutions must respond to the demands of clients for skills or learning products. This idea is not new to educators. After all, meeting students needs has always been the objective of education. Being demand driven in TEVT is the most direct way to meet the educational mission of satisfying industries needs for skilled technicians and at the same time helping people find jobs. Institutions respond to the demands of the educational market; that is the expressed needs of students and industry for appropriate skills. TEVT institutions are a key part of the marketplace for education and if they choose not to work there, they will be marginalized by employers who set up their own training programs and by government who will be delighted to partially fund employers rather than underfund current TEVT colleges.

The traditional educational community does not easily accept the marketing of an educational service or product. As Government servants and educators, the concept of marketing is foreign and the notion of education as a product is often offensive, conjuring images of carpet salesmen. On the other hand, the private sector has approached education as any other service and has effectively understood the market, and responded with products and services tailored to individual client group needs. The private sector is being successful. The public sector is failing.

Responding to the market leads to sound TEVT education. It is also the basis of cost recovery.

Cost recovery in education depends on marketing our institutions’ products and services to clients. These clients are Business/Industry, individual full and part-time students, government, and donors. If an ESU/PU is developed, then, the clients of that activity are also customers.

Collectively, this is the market for institutions’ products and services. Understanding how to work in this market is the basis of cost recovery. There can be no cost recovery without a direct, positive interaction with the market place.

Each institution is situated in a unique market and because of the unique product mix (courses, staff skills, equipment, etc.) in each institution, the marketing approach outlined here is institution based, not system based.

Marketing in TEVT is built on the premise that institutions will identify the clients they wish (or are mandated) to serve and will determine the learning needs of these clients. To do this, the institution must ask the client directly what he wants, not ask academics or government what they think the client needs.

As an example, as employers are the market for graduates, the institution must ask employers what graduates must be able to do on the job to become effective employees. Knowing this, the institution can then design a learning program to meet the employers’ needs for skilled graduates and to meet students needs for a job. We find out what the market wants BEFORE we design the product.

Once a service or product is designed to meet the clients needs, the next step is letting the client know that our service or product is available. This is advertising.

Traditionally, educational advertising by Government institutions has been the notification of the public by institutions of the availability of courses. Most has been visually unattractive and has communicated a message that has said “we really don’t want you and we will make it difficult for you to register even if we find you to be good enough for us”. In the new demand driven, market centered environment of cost recovery, advertising of learning services and products must be quite different. Look at Private Sector Institution advertising for ideas.

Colleges and Polytechnics are not presently seen as trainers of choice by industry. Interviews with industry and industrial associations at the regional and national level suggest that employers do not see real value in these institutions. International experience suggests that changing employer attitude is a long-term activity. Nevertheless, ensuring that the primary market has a positive feeling about Colleges is absolutely essential if cost recovery through income generation is to have a chance.

2.0 Changing Employer Attitudes
 

2.1 Do not offend the client
Institutional leaders often attack industry on the basis that industry should be helping the institutions. Industry feels that through taxes it already supports Colleges. Equally, industry generally does not see why it should support the suppliers of workforce skills more than it supports other suppliers of inputs to industry, i.e. land, energy, capital equipment, materials inputs or transport. Industry feels that supplying skilled labor is a supplier’s function and private sector trainers are responding to this demand by industry. Telling your client that he is not doing his job properly is not usually an effective marketing strategy.

2.2 Use direct interviews in plants and factories
Identify current bottle-necks, quality problems, equipment failures or management constraints that can be directly related to an absence of workforce skills. Have the company or industry determine a cost to their bottom line of this problem. Propose a joint solution that solves the problem in the short run and the long run.

The core role of the Technical College is to meet industries’ needs for skilled workers now and in the future. In doing this, the needs of students for jobs and the State for economic growth will be met. If employers sense the commitment of the Technical Colleges to their training needs, they will work with Colleges. On this basis, the Colleges can sell training as other suppliers sell their services or products to industry.

2.3 Focus on quality
Employers will be cautious, even suspicious of Government Colleges. Experience has not been positive. The first training programs will be carefully watched. Only use the very best trainers with he very best materials. Pick the best from inside the Institute or hire the best part-time trainer from industry. If the first courses go well, the entire industry will respond. If the first courses are weak, the College has lost its chance at cost recovery for another generation. The best marketing is the quality of what you do. The best advertising is a delighted customer.

2.4 Work with the regional or national association
If possible bring in the Executive Director (CEO) of the association that represents the commodity that your client produces (cloth, leather, auto parts, computers). As the course develops, suggest a regional or national marketing partnership. Being industry insiders, they can achieve what the institution can not achieve on its own. Their involvement also suggests to the industry an assurance of quality and up-to-date technology.

2.5 Get local media coverage of your training partnership
Visibility in the press reassures the industry of the decision they have made and gives them a socially responsible image. It also gives the institution a marketing lever with other members of the same industry suggesting that their competition is moving ahead of them in technology application.

2.6 Support the IMC
Make them delighted to be part of the College. The change in the institutional attitude will be broadcast quickly and will affect industry attitude towards the College.

2.7 Finally, start by promoting small successes
Speak with industrial associations, employers’ groups, business clubs and chambers. Do not berate them or attempt to instruct them on what they as employers should do. Rather, show them the institutions’ commitments to meeting their skills needs by giving real, measurable examples. Momentum will build.

3.0 Continuing Education – Marketing

The international demand for part-time learning is growing dramatically. For students it is a cost-effective means of developing new employment skills while remaining employed. It is the easiest way of improving employment skills for promotion or of learning new technology for continued employment.

Private sector institutions are proving that the demand for CE exists while most Government institutions close their doors in the early afternoon or are unable to create mechanisms to share revenue with their faculty so as to make evening teaching attractive. Petroman, the British Council, Private Universities all are working in this market.

The market exists for CE. Institutions can generate significant income by simply responding to that market.
 

Step 1: To start, identify the department (or even one teacher) in the College with the best links with industry. Identify where there are employment needs (new workers on skills upgrading) in industry. Organize that department so that the best teacher can teach the highest demand course at the most popular time for part-time students.

Step 2: A quick way to determine high demand courses is to check what private sector Colleges are offering in your designated field and to interview employers in your areas of competence.

Step 3: Charge fees slightly less than private Colleges, but high enough to pay instructors at the Private College part time rate. If the quality is there, students will come. Price is not the most important factor – as seen in current private sector part-time enrolment. The perception of quality is vitally important. Give IMC members a 10% fee discount for their employees.

Step 4: Place an attractive, welcoming advertisement in the appropriate newspaper. Find out the newspaper that the student group you hope to attract read most frequently. Place the advertisement in that paper, not the newspaper that College management reads.

Step 5: Make the registration process simple and positive. Serve tea on registration night. Clear up the registration area and paint the classroom and shops to be used for teaching. Greet them as customers, to be valued, not students to be disciplined.

4.0 The Marketing Team

In a Technical College, staff who will benefit financially from Continuing Education activity will want to become part of the marketing team that develops that activity. If the Principal (or Vice Principal, CE), who leads the development of a Marketing Strategy, makes the economic benefits clear to staff, and trains those who are interested (and qualified) in basic market assessment techniques, the College can be fundamentally changed quickly. The core of this process is the freedom to act of the Principal and his or her entrepreneurial mind set. If there is an acceptance of the role of the market, the Institution will change. As always, leadership is the most important factor.

5.0 The Role of Government in Marketing

All cost recovery activities might be organized under the authority of the Institution Management Committee (IMC). Governments do not change quickly. Treasury departments of Governments are the most conservative of all. Hoping that Government will give Principals freedom to act with Government funds may lead to disappointment. Therefore, separating earned income under the IMC from Government funds managed by D.T.E. probably makes sense.

Equally, if Government takes cost recovery income from the institution, there will be no incentives for the institution and the program will fail.

Therefore, the primary role of Government is to approve the concept of the IMC, ensure that the IMC is Private Sector lead, with a majority of members from Industry and that appropriate external auditors are appointed. The Government must then step aside and give the institution freedom to act in market responsive activities while it does what it is required to do in the grant funded activities.

The second role of Government is in the training of Principals for the new demand-driven, industry responsive institution.