With the new off-campus space, the College is in many ways starting from a blank slate and with it an opportunity to transform some of the issues that have been associated with their brand in the past. It is important that clients know what the College stands for and what their values are. This is an initiative of the College to attract new students, bringing the College closer to the students.
Because their current campus is quite far from everything else, the new campus offers the opportunity for students from the Helsinki area to attend university without having to move or leave their current employee. This project comes at the right time for the College as providing some insight into creating a brand and strategy is critical at this time. Also with the move to Helsinki, the topics of marketing and branding are now important at the College as changes are made.
Branding and marketing have emerged to be some of the most important aspects of any business in the 21st century. Sounio 2010, 27) The education business is fiercely competitive due to the amount of opportunities out there for students.
Commissioner
Objectives and thesis scope
Research methodology
The theoretical framework section consists of concepts and theories that are directly related to the study. The primary source of concepts is literature and also online publications as well as online studies.
Branding
Definition
Marketing evolution
The essence of branding
Marketing
Strategies
The essence of branding and marketing strategy is in what is important to the company. Peter Doyle (2008) argues that the objective for CEOs in companies is to maximize and maintain shareholder value. This goal is the long-term sustainability of the company, by creating value for the long term.
Shareholder value is also often confused with profit maximization, but profit maximization for a company is often shorter term. Maximizing shareholder value, on the other hand, requires long-term thinking, identifying changing opportunities and investing in building competitive advantage.” Branding and marketing strategy is necessary to create patterns and goals for the long term.
All members of the organization must be coordinated in their efforts to satisfy customer needs, and also to reduce the amount of gaps that may appear in design, production or delivery.
Role of marketing strategy
The branding process
- Creating the core values
- Creating the mission statement and business plan
- Identifying the customer and environment
- Identifying the capabilities
The company promises a certain level of service and products, and the customer can trust that the company will continue to deliver on its promise. What this means that a brand, which consists of a large number of tangible and intangible assets, all come together to convey a certain message to the customer. That's why a simple logo, color or phrase can sometimes instantly connect the customer with the company.
Successful branding is communicating the brand to the public as effectively as possible while creating a message that the customer can recognize and resonate with. Therefore, research into the target market and understanding the audience is essential. Realization and research of a brand's core values, philosophy and ideology is probably the most important step in creating a more effective brand.
This can be an additional bridge between the company and the customer and create new relationships, which is useful for the company in reaching new people. It was created to help the marketing department and designers to then deliver on that promise by communicating with the customer. Typically, a mission statement includes emotional features that are associated with a business plan.
By purely reading the mission statements of these two organizations, you would have a general idea of what they are about, and in the case of the Make-A-Wish foundation, a pretty clear picture as well. The mission statement also serves as a guide for the marketing and branding team in creating the company brand as the brand needs to convey and convey the mission statement to the public. Without research it is impossible to know who the customer is and to understand their needs and desires as this is usually the solution the organization is trying to solve.
The visual appearance of the brand must match the eye of the customer, so it is essential that the design team identify who they are designing for and perform customer analysis. Identifying the company's capabilities and opportunities is finding competitive advantages for the model. Capabilities for competitive advantage can be found anywhere in a company, from a product line to a business idea to trade relationships with other companies.
Research process and data collection
IK College brand and business analysis
- Customer analysis
- Market analysis
- Competition analysis
- Macro and Micro environment
- SWOT Analysis
- Products & services
- Financial analysis
The earlier identification of the target customer creates a very small and tight market, of which IK College consists. It also creates a market where it is difficult to locate the customer, as the customer's situation must be quite specific for IK College to prove a suitable opportunity. According to the interpretation for the assessment, the results suggest that IK College has "a long way to go in developing a market orientation".
A large part of IK College's courses are full-time and thus force you to choose between one and the other and result in a career choice. Both IK College and universities offer degrees, therefore the student must make a career call in which career they would like to pursue and which university offers the nearest education. These courses are direct competitors to a course offered by IK College called FOLLOW, which consists of the same format.
Although IK Colleges courses are more in-depth, these courses will sometimes be substitutes for attending IK and the College has had to contend with these competitors in the past, and more than likely will have to battle them even more in the future. In the Christian movement, the slightest theological debates can be deal breakers between parties. Manufacturing rose to the highest in the region since 2011, with the turnaround particularly strong in France and Italy.
These promising indicators of rising trade in the European Union are important, even for a smaller college like IK. Furthermore, the improvement in the economic condition of the country will mean that the prospective students will have more in their pocket when they choose a study focus. Therefore, some students in the past may have been forced to choose to study elsewhere due to financial difficulties.
The financial turnaround could allow more students to choose IK College as their place of study in the future. In addition to the marketing budget, IK College allocated teacher hours in marketing. The marketing budget at IK College is very small compared to normal modern companies.
When a marketing officer was interviewed, it revealed that IK College has not provided much funding for marketing or more importantly, marketing research. Over the past 5 years, IK College has experienced a large drop in the number of students.
Core values
- Education
- Devotion
- Community
- Leadership
Commitment was chosen as a core value because while the College aspires to be an institution based on academics, an important aspect of the College is also commitment to God. For students, this includes different types of study activities that are designed to help improve their relationship with God. IK College aims to serve all types of churches in Finland with their teaching and weekend courses, and this can also be seen in the cooperation they have with many local churches.
They have a strong relationship with the local church in Keuruu and their new off-campus campus in Helsinki is also strongly based on collaboration and community with the local churches there. The local churches of Helsinki were a large part of the planning and decision-making process for the creation of a new campus. Leadership is embedded in the curriculum and a large part of the education offered at the college.
Second, IK College aims to be a market leader in offering the highest level of theological education. The launch of the new off-campus is also an opportunity for the IK brand to take on new features. If the school could act as a leader in its market, this would give it an advantage over other competitors.
Mission statement and business plan
Mission statement
Business plan
The customer
Capability
- Improved connection to local churches through off-campus
- Online courses
- Structure to innovate
- Structure for long term strategies
IK College, although a heavy structure, has the longevity to plan and innovate for the future. Do not own their own buildings as most rent or share with another organization o But are mobile, able to move locations quickly to follow need. Usually work within their own Christian movement o IK College has the ability to work across movements.
Because of the structure and foundation in place at IK College, because of the longer history. They are able to make plans and strategies related to brand and business that are longer than those of its competitors. Most of the competitors are smaller, therefore they live in shorter term and have shorter visions.
It makes competitors more mobile, but reduces their chances of planning for the long term. At the moment, one of the biggest problems at IK College is a lack of long-term plans and strategies. Creating a long-term branding and marketing strategy could clarify the company's core principles.
We recognize the existence of distinct groups or segments in our markets with different needs and we adapt our offerings accordingly. We place great emphasis on differentiating ourselves from the competition on factors that are important to customers.
Marketing cost comparison of various media channels
Market Orientation Assessment
