Question

Trinidad is saturated with business schools; however, you want to launch a new and private business school in the same market. Traditionally, the existing business schools have not always considered marketing and branding their schools because they are of the firm belief that their institutions are already known and nothing else needs to be done to attract new students.
Essentially, the existing business schools are not distinguishing themselves from each other. There is competition where a lot of new business schools are coming to the market, a lot of MBA degrees are being offered by minor business schools, the market is less and less clear, and there appears to be a brand proliferation and business schools proliferation. Additionally, in conducting your competitor research, you found that many of the existing schools have weak brands and there is a clear danger of bringing down the value of the MBA degree itself. Your continued research has found that the majority of the existing business schools have been plagued by low enrollment over the past five years. The reasons for this predicament range from prospective students not being interested in furthering their studies to financial challenges and poor quality programmes. Moreover, the pricing structure for the majority of the current business schools is extremely high, given the present economic challenges facing the country. As a consequence of these harsh realities, having an MBA degree will not be the important thing; rather the importance now lies in the school you got your MBA from.  
Notwithstanding these challenges, you are determined to launch your new business school by the next academic year (September 2017). Your chief intention is to make a difference with your new business school. In constructing your mini marketing plan for this scenario, you can create a name for your business school and choose your own location in Trinidad to set up your learning institution.

Construct your mini marketing plan around the following elements:
Market-oriented Mission Statement                                                                             

Marketing Goals                                                                                                           

Target Market                                                                                                               

Product                                                                                                                         

Competition                                                                                                                  

Threats & Opportunities Analysis                                                                                 

Marketing Strategies/Promotions                                                                                 

Pricing, Positioning & Branding                                                                                    

Controls/Evaluation                                                                                                      

Answer 1

For setting up my new business school named: Port of Spain Business School at Port of Spain, capital of Trinidad and Tobago, i will make my mini marketing plan as per below.

Market-oriented Mission Statement- My focus would be to give quality and affordable MBA degree to prospective students and i will advertise this mission statement through print and electronic media since presently Trinidad and Tobago is in financial distress and secondly, the level of quality of MBA degree is deteriorating and third the existing business schools are charging very high fee to their students and also considering that lots of new business schools are coming in the already saturated market. By pitching mission statement of (Quality and Affordable MBA Degree) i can establish my business school and win new admissions/enrolments also for imparting MBA degree to the the students.

Marketing Goals: My marketing goals will be to attract prospective students to take admission into my business school basis my mission statement(Quality and Affordable MBA Degree) because here students will be able to get quality and affordable MBA degrees since in current scenario prospective students are more concerned about from where they are getting their MBA degrees rather than just doing MBA degree from any business school without considering quality of that institute/business school and affordability in terms of fee of that business school. Since with clear marketing goals i can market my business school well to my prospective students and can gain admissions into my business school too.

Target Market: My target market will be the those prospective students who cannot afford costly fee's of other established business schools and simultaneously they/existing business schools are not able to give quality MBA degree too. Since prospective students are more concerned about affordability of fee and their financial conditions as well as quality of the existing business schools, i can easily target that type of students and can pitch them to take admissions into my business school basis my mission statement(Quality and Affordable MBA Degree). By considering clear goals into my mind and who my target audience is, i can easily target them too.

Product: Product will be the quality and affordable MBA degree which students will get in my business school since after getting their MBA degree students can easily get the job in the market since they will have quality in them in terms of what they have learned during their MBA course since my MBA degree is a mixture of theory, industrial experience, case studies, research as per the students interest and changing/updated syllabus as per the changing market environment and focusing more on market conditions and how students can gain out of that rather by focussing only on the books.

Competition: As my business school is having competition with existing business school and the new one which are coming in the market and also considering already saturated market, my focus will be on to market my business school a different one than others in terms of quality and affordability in times when people are facing financial issues and economy is also financially down and prospective students are more concerned about the kind of business school they are choosing rather than just getting an MBA degree. Since prospective students will get attracted due to my mission statement of Quality and Affordable MBA degree.

Threats & Opportunities Analysis - Threats in terms of already existing and established business schools and new one which are coming to establish themselves and how to establish my business school and compete with them when business schools market is already saturated and prospective students has lots of choice to choose from.

Opportunities in terms of lack of quality MBA degree which existing business school are giving with high prices as well as MBA degrees given by minor business schools, i can establish my business school with motto/mission statement of quality and affordability with a mixture of industrial experience, case studies, updated syllabus which is conversant with changing business environment and good job prospectus after completion of their MBA degree can establish my business school well in the market and i can gain good number of admissions/enrolments too.

Marketing Strategies/Promotions- I will take help of print and electronic media to market my business school and with the help of my mission statement i can gain admissions too since now a days print media and electronic media, social networking websites are the popular one among the young educated generations and this will be promote my business school very well and i can easily establish my business school by employing these marketing strategies.

Pricing, Positioning & Branding- I will price my MBA degree by considering affordability of the prospective students and economic condition of Trinidad and Tobago since pricing is the most important part in making success a product/MBA degree.

Positioning- By positioning my business school right at the capital city: Port of Spain which is well connected to other parts of the island country and is well secured by security agencies and is having good pool of talented teachers, i can easily gain new admission into my MBA degree course since prospective students will feel secure and can easily access the the capital city and being capital of the Trinidad and Tobago this will attract good number of students and quality teachers and also Port of Spain will have exposure of lots of MNC's(Multi National Companies) and this will position my business school at the right place.

Branding: By branding my MBA degree with tag of Quality and Affordability i can put good impression into the mind of my prospective students since in the current economic scenario students are more concerned about quality of the business school rather than getting an MBA degree. Since branding is very important to attract the students to get admission into my business school.

Controls/Evaluation : I will continuously check the quality of my teachers and the learning ability of students and whether any change in terms of industry exposure and case studies are required in order to give students and teachers the right kind of exposure which will finally help me to maintain quality of my MBA degree and to establish my business school among the many out there in the market and this control and evaluation process will ensure that my students gets motivated and new prospective students become keen to get admission into my business school.