Strengths

Market segmentation and integrated marketing communication play pivotal roles in ensuring high profitability of private organisations. The private organisations involved in diverse sectors have to integrate these two marketing concepts to ensure that they generate high profits to support their own businesses. The fact also applies to the private organisations operating in the education sector. This is because provision of education involves immense investments towards acquisition of fixed assets like property for erect the campus, furniture and set-ups like laboratories to simulate real life situations to impart education to students. The private educational institutes also have to recruit highly qualified teaching staff members to impart quality education to students which in turn attributes them with the market goodwill. Moreover, these educational institutes in order to ensure smooth operations, have to acquire highly qualified staff members in non-teaching departments like accounts. Thus, it is evident from the discussion that the private educational bodies have to target appropriate base of students which would attribute them with high revenue generation. They have to from power integrated marketing communication strategies to ensure that they are able to market their educational services before an immense base of prospective students to be able to generate high revenue. The aim of the report is to delve into the market segmentation and integrated marketing communication of IMC of one of the most prestigious private colleges based in Kuwait namely, the Algonquin College Kuwait, the Kuwaiti branch of the Algonquin College, based in Canada (Ac-kuwait.edu.kw, 2019).

The Algonquin College Kuwait is required to form a formidable market segmentation strategy in order to ensure that it is able to attract appropriate students’ base to impart education in graduation and diploma courses to generate high revenue. Huerta-Muñoz, Ríos-Mercado and Ruiz (2017) define market segmentation as the strategy of categorising the entire customer base into groups or segments based on common needs. The market segmentation takes into account factors like purchase power and lifestyle of customers which goes into creation of the common needs among several customers. Bruwer and Li (2017) strengthen the discussion by mentioning that markets segmentation does not only allow in marketing of products but also identifying the appropriate methods which can be used to communicate with specific customer bases. Thus, it is evident that market segmentation lays the substratum for appropriate integrated marketing communication strategy. The Algonquin College, Kuwait would be required to form a powerful market segmentation strategy prior to forming an IMC strategy. The following are the market segmentation strategies of the Algonquin College:

Weaknesses

The first segmentation category which the Algonquin College would consider would be geographic segmentation. Hemsley-Brown (2017) defines market segmentation as the process of dividing the customer base on the base of the countries, states, cities or any other geographic identification. The authors further go on to mention that the geographic segmentation stands on the assumptions that customers of specific regions have specific needs. As far as the Algonquin College is concerned, the college provides educational services to students, who are its end customers. The Admission Requirement’ section mentions clearly mentions that the mothers of prospective students should be Kuwaiti by citizenship. This refers to strong emphasis on geographical segmentation in the segmentation strategy of the college. Pérez and del Bosque (2015) support this discussion by linking geographic segmentation with corporate social responsibility. This opinion of the previous author is supported by Alvarado-Herrera et al.(2017). They mention that geographic segmentation of the customer bases of companies enable them to serve specific customer base within selected countries.  For example, the Algonquin College though Canadian by origin, clearly mentions that the college employs students who are Kuwaiti citizens. This way the college restrict entry of foreign students in the AC-Kuwait which minimises the competition which Kuwaiti students would be faced from foreign students. This availability of the facilities exclusively enables the college provide superior education to Kuwaiti students. This enables the college to educate the local community and ensure professional development of the students. Thus, the geographic segmentation of the market enables the college to partner with various stakeholders like local communities and bring about development among the latter. Thus, it is evident from the discussion that geographic segmentation enables the Algonquin College to generate high revenue by entering into attracting large number of students, its end customers.

The second segmentation strategy of the Algonquin would consist of economic segmentation. Manasakis, Mitrokostas and Petrakis (2018) defines economic segmentation as the process of differentiating between customers on the grounds of their income and spending capabilities. Amaeshi, Adegbite and Rajwani (2016) opine that the appropriate economic segmentation enables the private organisations to cater to appropriate customer base which would generate high revenue. Pérez and del Bosque (2015) strengthen the discussion by pointing out that generation of sufficient revenue enables the private organisations to mobilise funds towards support CSR initiatives like providing education to underprivileged children. As far as the Algonquin College is concerned, the college provides education to upper class students who can afford expensive educational courses. This enables the college to generate huge revenue which has established it a high-end private college in Kuwait. The college owing to its high revenue generation is able to invest in acquiring infrastructure like state of art computer laboratories which enables impart of quality education. This enables the college to partner with top multinational companies which employ the students after their completion of the courses. Thus, it can be established that the economic segmentation strategy of the Algonquin College paves way for partnerships with companies and other colleges.

Opportunities

Saha and Kumar (2016) defines psychographic segmentation as the division of the customer base on lifestyle, tastes and personality. The Algonquin College provides education to students who are career oriented. Thus, psychographically, the student base of the college can be termed as career oriented and ambitious. The official website of the college mentions clearly that the students can enjoy extra-curriculum activities like sports. Thus, in other the students are expected to be aligned towards sports and healthy lifestyle.

It is recommended that the Algonquin College should adopt an integrated marketing communication strategy as attached. The IMC should cover three objectives. The first objective of the strategy should be getting access to a large customer base of prospective base of students aiming to pursue higher education in renowned international colleges. The second objective should be building partnerships with companies like international publication houses of books and study materials which would enable the college to gain access to books and study materials at low costs. This would enable the college to provide superior education to students and keep the cost of operation low, thus boosting its net profit generation. The third objective of the IMC would be boosting the career placement capabilities of the college, thus enabling attracting highly talented students to receive education. The following are the IMC strategies which the college should adopt to achieve the aforementioned objectives:

The Algonquin College should use its official website to promote its services. The official website of the college should educate the stakeholders like the prospective students about the facilities and courses it provides. The official website should also provide information about the future courses which the college would incorporate in its product line. This method of communication would also enable the college attract highly qualified teachers to impart education at the campus in Kuwait. Thus, it is evident that this method of marketing communication would promote the business generation of the college.

The departmental heads of the college should visit leading multinational companies in Kuwait. This would enable the college to enter into partnership with these companies to employ the students of the college post their completion of education. These partnerships would enable the college to attract highly talented students from the upper class to receive education at its premises. This would boost the revenue generation of the college and enable it to attract more students.

The Algonquin College should partner with leading international publication houses of books and study materials. These partnership would enable the college to acquire these books and study materials at economic rates. This would enable it to provide superior education to students at lower costs. The college would be able to keep the cost of provision of education low and earn high rates of net profits.

Threats

The Algonquin College must promote its educational services on the social media platforms like Youtube and Facebook. The videos which the college would upload on the social media platform should give information about salient aspects of the college like the courses it provides and awards it has won. This would enable the college to get access to a large base of students among whom it would promote its services.

The tactics which the Algonquin College would promote would be first its high standard of educational service provision and the talented staff members which constitute its teaching staff board. The college should also use its state of art facilities and the campus to attract students from rich upper class families.

Conclusion:

It can be concluded that the Algonquin College Kuwait should use its segmentation strategy to attract a large base of students. The college as already discussed, should segment its market geographically, economically and psychographically. However, it can also be suggested that the management of the college should allow admission of foreign students from other countries as well to receive education at the renowned institute. This would enable the college to attract large base of foreign students which would ultimately boost its revenue generation. It can also be pointed out that the company should use IMC aggressive to acquire more students. The IMC should include its official website, partnerships and social media presence.

References:

Ac-kuwait.edu.kw. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.ac-kuwait.edu.kw/welcome

Alvarado-Herrera, A., Bigne, E., Aldas-Manzano, J., & Curras-Perez, R. (2017). A scale for measuring consumer perceptions of corporate social responsibility following the sustainable development paradigm. Journal of Business Ethics, 140(2), 243-262.

Amaeshi, K., Adegbite, E., & Rajwani, T. (2016). Corporate social responsibility in challenging and non-enabling institutional contexts: Do institutional voids matter?. Journal of Business Ethics, 134(1), 135-153.

Bruwer, J., & Li, E. (2017). Domain-specific market segmentation using a latent class mixture modelling approach and wine-related lifestyle (WRL) algorithm. European Journal of Marketing, 51(9/10), 1552-1576.

Hemsley-Brown, J. (2017). Higher Education Market Segmentation. Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions, 1-3.

Huerta-Muñoz, D. L., Ríos-Mercado, R. Z., & Ruiz, R. (2017). An iterated greedy heuristic for a market segmentation problem with multiple attributes. European Journal of Operational Research, 261(1), 75-87.

Manasakis, C., Mitrokostas, E., & Petrakis, E. (2018). Strategic corporate social responsibility by a multinational firm. Review of International Economics, 26(3), 709-720.

Pérez, A., & del Bosque, I. R. (2015). How customer support for corporate social responsibility influences the image of companies: Evidence from the banking industry. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(3), 155-168.

Pérez, A., & del Bosque, I. R. (2015). How customers construct corporate social responsibility images: Testing the moderating role of demographic characteristics. BRQ Business Research Quarterly, 18(2), 127-141.

Saha, N., & Kumar, B. (2016). Concordance of Psychographic Pattern of Junior College Students & Initially Employed Youths In Silchar, Assam: An Empirical Analysis. International Journal in Management & Social Science, 4(1), 279-292.