Your views
Okay, we're going to organize our next Course Preview in the coming months for our school. Previously, we've used a very traditional approach. Advertise in the paper. Encourage people to sign up, call up or email us. They show up, we show them around the school and of course, the presentation itself. Students have been great as they have been very very helpful and many were on hand to lend a helping hand.For the next one, we're thinking of doing something different. We're thinking of using both print media and also our website as well. More specifically, we would like to see how many people will respond to the ad on our website and how we can increase traffic to our website. Here's how a section of our homepage may look like:
We're going to increase the interactive element of our website. The exact content is yet to be determined. The aim is to give the visitors a taste of our school. Some examples of what we may put up:
Note : Names and pictures have been changed so they're not real. Merely advertising in newspapers may not be as effective as perhaps not many students read the Straits Times. So I need your help.
- Do you think that students/prospective students your age, would be attracted to something like this?
- Also is this approach an effective way to reach out to students your age?
- Any other recommendations?
Please, any comments would be very welcome. Thank you. Your views and comments will help shape the next Course Preview for our school! Help make a difference!
posted by Inconspicuous @ 11:10 PM
17 Comments:
er.. the newspapers aint a good idea... like you mentioned. Not many students read them... perhaps NewPaper?
College tours? quite intensive to do but i suppose most effective in bringing the message across directly to students.
hmm.. i dont think many people know theres a TAS website. so unless you can get people to know theres a TAS website, they wont come.
this is the part where i should type in some things i have learnt from marketing but unfortunately, it has all gone back to Miss Chia.
haha.
Thanks guys for your input.
Gavin : For our previous Course Preview, we also did the tour around the campus and thankfully there were enough student volunteers to help out.
Alan : Yes, we are trying to promote more awareness of our website. I've optimized the website so that if you type in "Tourism Academy" in Google, we're No.1. There are, of course, much more to do.
Do you guys (or anyone else) have any ideas what would be a good and fresh way to reach potential candidates? I thought of WoW but I doubt Blizzard would approve! Hahah..
LOLZ.
WOW.
How about magazines?
Lime? Teenage? 8 Days? I-Weekly? U-Weekly? New Paper? Playboy?
HAHA.
Thanks Alan, I will consider Playboy within the next 50 years. :)
Yes, we are also considering magazines like 8Days. What's a popular one for students? 8Days or a chinese mag?
My 2 cents worth... i guess newspaper is a start. Not widely read by students but since we targeting 'A' levels students so they got to read somewhat for GP rite?
Refering from newspaper to website can give them more info at lower cost. Most definately good idea!
1)I second what Gavin propose to conduct presentations to market ourselves to selected schools to target potential students. Effective and highly impact.
2)Work with magazines like 8 Days, Mag U-Weekly and Lime etc to promote our course. May not be juz plain advertising but protray TAS as a lifestyle wth international appeal.
3)Lastly, maybe we can consider using Radio as a means of marketing. It is very effective for teens. eg. Perfect 10, Class 95 and YES 93.3. Cheaper den TV.
Thanks Tamon! Keep it coming. Thanks for the radio suggestion!
First of all, i feel that we must be clear whether who are the people you want to target first. Is it going to be students for HTM or HTB or for the whole TAS itself? Local or International?
It seems that currently there is little publicity done to make the school or even the HTB course known to the public. Not many people in Singapore know about our Tourism Academy not to say people from overseas. Some people in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry does not even know about such a school exist on Sentosa. Friends of my age only come to know about a school in Sentosa after i told them about the course I am currently pursuing.
For example, for myself, i come to know about this HTB course only through a friend who happens to chance upon the website. After that I had to go through the many hassles of calling people to gather more information as the information that is stated was quite limited. However, there is definitely improvements from the previous ones but there is still much to be improved.
I noticed that the HTB course is not stated in the TP website even though the TAS website is linked to the TP website. Some questions i foresee is that:
1.Is the HTB course a course that is not recognised?
2.If it is, how come it is not stated in the tp website?
3.Is TAS a subsidary of TP?
Some ways of publicity can include:
1. Getting a few TAS students to feature in popular magazines such as "8 Days" or "I weekly" with the Tourism Academy logo on top, having special interviews for them about this unique course.
2. Another way to do it can be putting banners at popular MRT stations to arouse interest and for publicity purposes. (But then again, we must know that whether are you trying to target local students? If not it will be kinda costly.)
3. I agree that Straits Times may not be a viable choice as not many people read them furthermore it is just a small ad which people might just oversee it like normal advertisement.
4. By using a blog or website is a great idea as more people are becoming more IT savvy nowadays and it can reach out to people from all over the world but much got to be done to the publicity of the website. Some ideas can be to link it to the STB website or other popular hospitality website or hotel website.
Ways to reach out to potential candidates during the course previews:
1. This can include having more interactions between the current students and potential ones. Special fun and interactive activities such as games (getting a student to whip up a simple dish in front of them, or playing volleyball in the parade sq, something similar to open hse)can even be catered to them.
2. You might even want to select the handsome dudes and pretty babes in TAS to "WOW" them to arouse their interest.
3. You might also want to bring them to real life ongoing lessons or to the kitchen if permitted to show them what they are going to experience.
4.You might also want to give them small TAS souvenirs so that they will remember the school and even help publicise. Some simple gifts can include stick-ons and TAS pins.
This are just some personal views, if i have any more ideas i will let you know again..Kinda long winded this time round.
Thanks for reading whoever is reading!
Thanks Melvin! Much appreciated. Great comments and observations! I acknowledge there is much more there needs to be done and we'll be tackling them one by one!
Thanks!
I got another few wacky ideas which might juz work. Friendster and similar websites are the rage among youngsters.
1)Create a account and a interesting profile. Link to past, current and potential students. The concept is similar to the blog site that ya trying now. Its the "in" thing and we can send out invitations via friendster to invite them for special events.
2)A forum that gives students a venue to express their opinions on current issues esp hospitality related ones. Hosted and moderated by TAS. Achieve publicity esp with the upcoming IRs giving fantastic topics for discussion.
3)Organise competitions and contests for local and internation students. E.g. Culinary contests or treasure hunts events.
Hi,
Hmmm...very interesting ideas. I thought that friendster is becoming a bit passe. Is that true?
Thanks for the ideas, will certainly explore to see if we can adopt them. Thanks!
Marketing is never easy..
but Playboy is definitely out.
hahah.
I have to agree with Melvin that HTB doesn't look recognised. I encountered confusions when TP website courses did not list down HTB as one of the official courses(even though TP web link TAS website from the main page) and it makes a potential newbie wonder why. For that matter, hope this little glitch can be rectified to avoid the same type of confusion from reoccurring to potential freshies.
Somehow, i'm not overly concerned with what we can do at TAS to capture their hearts and souls. I'm more concerned with how we can let tonnes of people know that TAS does exist, to begin with.
On targeting local market:-
1.) Advertising online is great -- Online banners on Yahoo sites can generate lodsa response to TAS website. Anyone from TAS who blogs or have personal webpages can be encouraged to put up banners that link to TAS as well. Anything can be worth a try.
2.) Friendster isn't passe! Really, it may be passe for us, but not passe for young pple below 18. (Coz my sis still fazed with it.) So that Friendster idea is workable, serious.
3.) And how can we forget Emails. My NUS friends always send me their marketing posters for any events eg concerts, performances play etc. I'm sure we have junior contacts. For my case, it's as easy as clickin 'send' to my current A level juniors and a simple mail will lead to god-knows-where after helpful forwards. An email with a catchy poster and a URL works wonders, believe me.
4.) There can be quizzes and interactive games on TAS website, with incentives such as book/gift vouchers. At the end of games, there are those blanks for participants to fill up friends' email addresses that forward
TAS URL to those pple.. Well a little step goes a long way :)
5.) Advertising can be in the form of banners, postcards(such as ZDcards) can be worth a try, but too costly. Moreover banners have to be placed in strategic locations. Strategic locations don't just mean town areas like Orchard. The heartlands such as serangoon, jurong east, choa chu kang can reach out to many many many crowds of students too. Really, i see them milling around all the time; teenagers are observant.
6.) Media advertising on Mrt, Bus stations, buses, NEL(the screenings box located at the top) can be plausible. I've observed the 2 existing type of bored commuters: either they sms or stare at advertisements. I am one of them.
7.) Media advertising on magazines is more worthwhile. English magazines are more helpful i feel. I've seen columns on Teenage and Seventeen puttin up stuffs on career guidance and courses available. It'll be helpful if we advertise TAS on such mags. U know, even SAF does their "propaganda" periodically on such teen magazines and it seems to work. (Uhhuh.)
8.) Media advertising on Straits Times holds parents' attention. Straits Times is generally deemed more reputable than other papers. Nowadays, parents are more actively involved in the academic pursuit of their children as society gets more competitive. Since parents are the ones who pay our school fees (since HTB fees are so expensive), that is to say that parents wields the ultimate consumer decision, let's not neglect Straits Times as a good catalyst of impression to target English educated parents. My older relatives (age 30s-40s) know of TAS through Straits Times and somehow, they make my dad feel better about me studying at TAS. However, if the emphasis is mainly on students, NewPaper is a better choice no doubt, as mentioned before by other students.
9.) Advertising can be done through using TP as a gateway. Tp has gathered accolades from many sectors and HTM/HTB can be promoted through the school. In a way, rectifying the above-mentioned feeling of
HTB-doesn't-look-recognised problem is but one of the small improvements that does not need more emphasis (or does it?). Career fairs, education seminars etc held at TP can promote HTB/HTM extensively. Some tertiary courses go right into schools to promote awareness of their courses.
10.) Media advertising can be in liason with government statutory boards such as STB. This is a small brainstorm perhaps some other students can develop on this already-mentioned point.
On targeting overseas market:-
Well... I think for this, we'll leave to the lecturers and course manager to ponder over. HAHAHHA. i'll write some other time.
Have fun; it's the hols!~
Oh hey, i miss out smthg.. somebody(tamon) mentioned advertising through radio, yupp i second that! radio advertisements are one of the most effective phenomenoms on earth hahhhaah. Students always listen to radio when studying for major exams. In the end, song lyrics and repetitious advertisements get stuck in the head instead of lecture notes. Yeah i'm one of them. Ehehhehe.
CheerZ~~
LL,
A big thank you to your post and ideas! All I can say is WOW! Great ideas, great feedback!
I will definitely take all your ideas and share with the others. Thanks guys and gals!
Oh yah....i definitely agree with layliang man...that's a long one eh... She mentioned something about the SAF advertising. It suddenly just struck me that TAS can even try to advertise on the SAF magazine(Pioneer Magazine)if it is possible. In fact, there are many keen former A'Levels students males who are keen to pursue this course and I believe they are some target market you may want to touch on. Most of them do not know about this school and course , so something can be done to rectify this.
We need more males man... Even though having a lot of gals can be a good thing for we guys, but i still believe we still have to strike a balance between the Yin and Yang if possible.
Oh yah, and if you want to touch on the overseas market, (i'm not sure whether the scool is doing this) we can try looking into our own usual magazines, talk, newsletters and see how the foreign universities or college are focusing on our Singapore market perhaps we can copy some ideas from this foreign schools.
Thanks Mel! Next time we meet, we'll discuss this further! Cheers!
good info
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