Market Entry Strategies
The Market
The nature of the global education market is shifting rapidly. New sources of students are challenging recruitment professionals and their institutions to develop new knowledge and skills. At the same time, new destinations are upsetting the traditional orthodoxy and institutions are having to fight harder to maintain market share.
New market entrants need to implement a market entry quickly, coherently and effectively, or face years of trial and error trying to get come to grips with a complex marketplace. This is both time-consuming and cost-inefficient. Using a consultancy to design a tailor-made strategy that fits the clients range of offerings and budget make perfect business sense.
Our market entry strategies are two-staged:
1) to develop a market entry strategy that can be used as a user’s manual, from which clients can implement on on-the-ground strategy on their own if they wish to do all of the implementation themselves;
2) assisting with the strategy implementation, either managing 100% of the process, or assisting the client through the initial “baton-passing” phase, traveling with them to the markets and introducing them to key contacts.
Strategy
 To enhance student recruitment performance, individual strategies focus on developing recruitment networks across the East Asia region that feed into client institutions. Two key sources of students are education agents and institutional alliances - with junior colleges, specialist colleges, universities and, sometimes, secondary schools. Various other activities form the strategy, such as student fairs, seminars, workshops and advertising campaigns.
IVE can also manage the design and development of marketing materials. Services include copy-writing, graphic design, document translation and print management.
We visit Japan three times per year, for up to three weeks each time; Korea three to four times each year; Thailand and Taiwan at least twice; Singapore more than five times, and so on. Travel costs are shared between clients, providing a cost-effective way to reach target markets.
Outsourcing Recruitment Channel Development: The Rationale
The success of this approach to international education marketing - i.e. why it is viable to outsource - is in IVE’s fundamental strength of having access to a remarkably broad range of institutional and agency contacts across the region, built up over ten years running education promotional offices across East Asia and another ten years of consulting in the region.
In markets where personal connections are paramount, using a consultant who can assist an institution to circumvent years of relationship-building makes sound business sense and helps realise a much faster turnaround on investment.
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