S 职业学院品牌营销策略研究

Chapter Ⅰ Introduction

1.1 Research Background
With the popularization of higher education and the expansion of enrollment scale,higher vocational college, as a main part of higher education, has witnessed rapiddevelopment in recent years. Since its set up in early 1980, higher vocational collegeshave occupied half of higher education no matter in the number of schools or students.The number of schools expanded from 442 in the year of 2000 to 1256 in 2012,effectively taking the responsibility of training high-quality and high-skilled talentsfor our country. In 2014, the policy issued by the State Council "The decision aboutspeeding up the development of modern higher vocational college" stated “by 2020our country should form a concept of life-long education and a modern highervocational college system with Chinese characteristics and international level." TheChinese President Xi Jinping also made important instructions about this. In the thirdnational conference on higher vocational college held by the State Council, varioustasks of reforming and developing higher vocational college in the next period ofChina have been comprehensively arranged. This significant strategy comes from thein-depth implementation of "The decisions about some important problems oncomprehensively deepen reform from the central committee of the communist partyof China " in education field. It has greatly promoted the pace of reform of theeducation system. It also shows our country’s confidence and determination toenhance the modern higher vocational college. It is regarded as the "milestone" in thedevelopment of higher vocational college in our country.
As an upgraded vocational college in pharmaceutical industry, S vocational collegealso faces some problems in the process of brand marketing, including unclear schoolpositioning, no significant major characteristics, weak brand awareness etc. Thereforethe analysis of S vocational college’s existing problems in the process of brandmarketing can help to put forward the corresponding improvement ideas, increase thebrand image and brand awareness, and build its core brand competitiveness.
.....................

1.2 Research Objectives and Research Significance
1.2.1 Research Objectives
Brand is the symbol of a higher vocational college’s image and reputation. If highervocational colleges want to stand out in the fierce market competition, enhance theircompetitiveness and maintain a competitive edge in the long-term, they must shapetheir brand image, expand brand awareness and brand reputation. Brand marketing inhigher vocational colleges has become a new way of thinking to attract both parentsand students, and win their trust. In the light of the present situation of China’s highervocational college’s development, the implementation of brand marketing isundoubtedly the core and focus. So, the research of brand marketing strategy hasimportant significance for the management in vocational colleges. Branding is theonly way for their sustainable development.
Based on the way of thinking in higher education’s brand marketing, this paper aimsto analyze the present status and find out the main problems faced with S vocationalcollege in brand marketing. By using the relevant theories of brand marketingmanagement, questionnaire survey, and related experience and methods of domesticenterprises, this paper may propose some brand marketing strategies for S vocationalcollege in order to improve its competitiveness in the market and realize itssustainable, steady and long-term development.
Theoretically speaking, from traditional education’s point of view our country alwaysattaches great importance to theoretical education, while neglects vocationaleducation and practice education, which leads to comparatively weak vocationaleducation theory. This study can make contribution to developing the theory ofvocational education to a certain degree. Second, the study of higher vocationalcollege’s brand strategy has connected higher vocational education with brandstrategy, which integrates business philosophies in different areas. It improves therecognition of the importance of brand marketing strategy and promotes thedevelopment of higher vocational education. Thirdly, after the author reads a largenumber of literature on education branding strategy at home and abroad, shecombines the characteristics of higher vocational education with the present situationof management in China, and theoretically interprets problems of brand marketing inChina's higher vocational colleges. It has a theoretical significance to enrich ourcountry's higher vocational education and school management theory.

......................

Chapter Ⅱ Literature Review

2.1 The Theories of Brand Marketing
2.1.1 The Definition of Brand
1. The definition of brand
The emergence of brand can be traced back to the early nineteenth century, and theword brand is derived from the ancient Norse meaning "sear". The meaning of thismetaphor has vividly expressed the brand: how to imprint in the customer heart. Withthe continuous development of brand marketing, the connotation and extension ofbrand are also expanding. Many researchers such as American scholar David Ogilvy,American Marketing Association AMA, Duane E.Knapp and Philip Kotler hadsuccessively defined “brand” from different aspects. The table 2-1 shows some ofthese definitions of brand.


..........................

2.2 The Theories of College Brand Marketing Strategies
2.2.1 The process of College Brand Building
The process of college brand building is a long way to go. It includes activities suchas brand positioning, brand image design, brand communication, and brandmaintenance management. See Figure 2-1.

1. Brand positioning----serving the regional economy
The brand positioning theory is proposed by Al Ries and Jack Trout. The basic idea isto give products a clear position in the potential customer’s mind. Its basic method isto emphasize the first class and the uniqueness to form a psychological position.Higher vocational education in our country is now experiencing the transition fromquantity to quality, which requires vocational colleges to set a clear position, highlightthe characteristics, and promote the connotation construction, building a educationbrand. How the higher vocational education stand out in the fierce competition andcreate a psychological position in the heart of the audience? It depends on whether thedevelopment strategy of higher vocational colleges can effectively match the regionaleconomic structure and combine with the industry. Higher vocational education aimsto cultivate first-line skilled talents in the fields of production, construction, andmanagement service, and meet the needs of regional economic development,industrial upgrading and market demand. Compared with higher education, highervocational education has more distinctive local and industrial features. Therefore, thebrand positioning of higher vocational colleges must be based on the regionaleconomy, understand and hold the new development of regional economy andindustrial structure. In that way it can adjust the school-running scale and professionalstructure, explore the unique characteristics of "work and study combination, schooland enterprise cooperation" in regional economy.
.........................

Chapter Ⅲ Case Description..........................16
3.1 Brief Introduction of S Vocational College.................16
3.1.1 The Structure of the College and Staff.........................16
3.1.2 The Features of the College.......................18
Chapter Ⅳ CaseAnalysis.......................30
4.1 Customer Demand Analysis of S Vocational College.............................30
4.1.1 The Characteristics of Target Customers................30
4.1.2 Customers Demand Analysis................31
Chapter V Brand Marketing Strategy of S Vocational College.....................41
5.1 Market Segmentation and Targeting...................41
5.1.1 Determine the Market Segmentation Standard................ 41
5.1.2 Select the Target Market......................42

Chapter V Brand Marketing Strategy of S Vocational College

5.1 Market Segmentation and Targeting
Target market positioning is based on its effective evaluation of enterprise resourceand product characteristics, through a comprehensive investigation on the productmarket analysis, and then determine the enterprise products in the market position,and finally found a potential target customer base. It’s the matching process ofenterprise products and target customers.
5.1.1 Determine the Market Segmentation Standard
Market segmentation is based on the objectives’ demand difference. There are a lot ofdemand differences, especially parents, students and the society have various kinds ofdemand. Based on the investigation and brand marketing strategy of S college, theauthor thinks that the target market segments should be classified into the followingaspects :
(1) Segmenting the market according to the college entrance examination scores ofstudents, it can be pided into the following categories. The first type is thosestudents who have reached the first and second undergraduate university’s entranceline.The second type is those candidates who have passed the third undergraduateuniversity’s entrance line. The third type is a group of students above the vocationalcolleges entrance line. The four type is the students above lifted file scores. The fifthtype is those students under lifted file scores and did not participate in the collegeentrance examination. S college mainly focus on the third category of candidates.Therefore, it needs to accurately position customers. The more accurate theclassification is , the more favorable the follow-up positioning will be.
(2)Segmenting the market according to the geographic areas. In accordance with theadministrative areas’ location of the country, the market segmentation can be pidedinto Northeast China, North China, Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal areas, the PearlRiver Delta, Inner Mongolia region, Shanxi and Qinghai. S vocational college shouldchoose areas with relatively large demand of medicine and health care talents.Generally developed economic areas demand these talents more. Therefore S collegeshould choose the relatively developed areas such as Pearl River Delta, East China,North China, Zhejiang coast, and Northeast China.
...........................

Chapter VI Conclusions and Implications

6.1 Major Conclusions and Managerial Implication
With the increasingly fierce competition in education market, China's highereducation has entered an era of brand. If you want to take advantage in marketcompetition, brand marketing is a must, and they should form their owncharacteristics. S vocational college has been established for more than 50 years. As aresult of weak consciousness of brand, the brand construction and management lacktheoretical guidance, and consequently the brand marketing has not been very ideal.This paper, based on careful collection of S college’s related information, throughliterature review, the external environment analysis, questionnaires and depthinterview method, analyze the status of brand construction and management process.On the basis of comprehensive analysis, the author study its brand construction andmanagement problems. The analysis shows that the existing brand awareness is weak.It lacks brand culture, and the brand communication strategy is too conservative,lacking brand communication system, and effective maintenance mechanism of thebrand.
According to the results of preliminary investigation, this paper, combined with therelated theories of brand construction and management, proposed brand marketingstrategies for S college. The college can optimize the brand from the followingaspects, such as introducing school brand image design; strengthening theconstruction of teaching staff; strengthening majors construction; optimizing brandenvironment; increasing brand communication efforts; and establishing perfect brandmanagement system.
reference(omitted)