Wall Street Institute & Rosario University

How Wall Street Institute Colombia Responded Quickly To a Market Change in Their Highest Profit Center

New marketing strategy adopted after university partner changes requirements for Rosario Center's primary customer base.
By Marcela Chaves, National Service Manager
Wall Street Institute, Colombia

In 2000, Wall Street Institute Colombia was invited to bid on a government contract that would provide English training services to Rosario University students. Rosario University is a traditional university located in the city of Bogota with nearly six thousand students. Six different language companies participated in this process, and Wall Street Institute was the exclusive winner of the bid. We signed a contract that allowed us to open a center right on the Rosario campus. The center was in the perfect location for students who wanted to complement their traditional university studies with the WSI method of English education. At that time, Rosario students were required to take either the PET (the second level Cambridge ESOL exam) or the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exams in order to graduate.

One year after we opened the Rosario center, the university decided that students could substitute nine levels of WSI General English for the PET or TOEFL exam graduation requirement. Our sales increased dramatically because students preferred to take our courses to fulfil their graduation requirements instead of taking the exams. By 2004, the Rosario center accounted for 35 percent of total sales in Colombia. The center established good relationships with the university students, and the pool of prospective new students grew with the start of each new school year.

Requirement Change

In early 2005, our contract with Rosario University expired, and due to the university's internal globalization process to become more competitive at an international level, the university decided that the English requirement would no longer be for graduation, but for students to enter their fifth semester as is the European standard. The University also re-established the PET and TOEFL tests as the only methods for students to meet English entry requirements for the fifth semester. The WSI courses were no longer an alternative for students to meet the university's English requirement.

In order to offer their students more alternatives for taking the PET and TOEFL exams, Rosario University also established partnerships with WSI competitors Coningles and the British Council. The factors taken into consideration by the university to select the different English schools were methodology, teacher preparation, total cost of the program, tuition, extracurricular activities, intensity, and costs of materials. Fortunately, we were able to establish a new contract with the university as well, and the WSI center remained open on the Rosario campus. This gave us a big advantage over the other two newly established competitors.

Due to these changes, the Rosario center saw a significant decrease in sales in the 2005/2006 school year, which went down 12 percent compared to the two prior years.

Market Research

In April of 2006, we saw the urgency of conducting a market study in order to understand the student needs and their perception of WSI. This study was done through a personalized survey with twelve questions. We surveyed 1,985 Rosario students, 33 percent of the total Rosario University student population. This survey allowed us to discover students' knowledge and perception of our services and methods. We also surveyed the students on their knowledge of the new university requirement to take the international exams to enter the fifth semester. This survey also questioned students about their reasons for taking WSI courses in the past, so we could try to re-establish these customers as WSI students even though the university alternative to use WSI levels to meet the requirement was no
longer available.

This market research was further justified due to the fact that the university population constantly changes, which required the Rosario center to continually remind students about the characteristics and facilities that Wall Street Institute provides as a center of studies within the university.

Market Research Results

The research showed the following:

1. The students weren't aware of the requirement of taking one of the international exams to be able to register for the fifth semester.
2. Eighty-five percent of the sample-1,687 students-had the need to study English in order to fulfill the requirement, and only 5 percent of them were studying English at Wall Street Institute.
3. A high percentage of students who enrol in their first semester of studies postpone the English learning process until the last possible date before having to fulfil the university requirement, thus being forced to take intensive courses that are more expensive or even choosing to postpone entering their fifth semester.

Having exposed this, we saw the importance of creating a strategy that was conscious of educating students about our services that would help them pass the exams and meet the university's English requirements, and to establishing trust with the market due to the advantage of being the only English education center located on the university's campus.

A New Marketing Strategy

We decided to develop the strategy in three different phases:

First Phase: Target students during their first semester to educate them on the English requirement and urge them to fulfill the requirement well before their fifth semester.
Second Phase: Target students in their fourth semester who need English education in order to pass the required exams to advance.
Third phase: Target post-graduate students, university employees, and their families.

New students enrolled in their first semester on July 1st, 2006. Since the survey was only completed in May, time was of the essence to fulfil the first phase of our strategy. We decided to focus all our efforts on the first 28 days of July, which is when the university focuses attention on first semester students, showing them many different presentations and orientating them to campus life. It was the perfect time for us to make sure that the new students were aware of the university's English requirement and to urge students to start studying English as soon as possible. The goal was to convince them that Wall Street was the best place for them to study English to help them pass the exams and meet the university's English requirement.

How Did We Do It?

First, we installed a stand near the central auditorium where the new student presentations were being held. Two university students served as WSI promoters at the stand, handing out Wall Street material. The
material included a “Welcome to the Campus” greeting and information on when they should start studying English to help them meet the university requirement. These materials reinforced the advantages of studying at WSI and focused on location. We have a center right on campus that makes study convenient. As a promotion, we gave students a coupon to fill out and deposit in our Rosario center to participate
in a raffle to receive ten weeks of English education.

Second, we participated in the activities that the university organized each Saturday during the month of July for the new students and their parents to help them get to know the campus, and university policies, and regulations. We provided information to both the students and parents about the language requirement and invited them visit our center and learn about our method. Finally, we had the Center Director give a presentation to all the new students when they took an English test given by the university. New students are tested by the university to determine what level of English they are currently at and who needs to take English courses to help them pass the mandatory exams. This was a great opportunity for us to inform these students about our many benefits. By strongly targeting the first year students, we were able to increase sales dramatically. In April and May, we signed a total of 99 new contracts, but that number jumped to 332 during June and July.

What We Learned

The situation that arose due to -the change in the English requirements by the university taught us many lessons.

We must be constantly working with our marketing department to come up with new campaigns to help shield us from external changes and new competitors.

We must always know the reasons for our success. We have threats every day, and knowing what makes us successful will help counter the threats.

We must sell our benefits and services each day, through well oriented and timely marketing and sales.

Each WSI center must take action to maintain themselves as the first English training center people think about in their target market area.

With the successful completion of the first phase of the new marketing strategy, we plan to move to the second and third phases as the other students arrive on campus. This should further strengthen the sales at the Rosario center.

If your country would like to explore partnering with a university, we recommend that you do research to learn more about the specific needs of the university. Are their students required to meet a proficiency level in English? If so, how does the university support their English education? Are they satisfied with their students' level of English comprehension? What are the pass rates of their students? Build a case that specifically addresses that institution's needs, not just one that lists WSI benefits. This is how we won the original contract, and we are very pleased at the success of the Rosario center.

Advantages and Disadvantages of partnering with a University

Overall, we have had great success working with Rosario University.

The advantages include:

• Captive market of students that changes every year.
• The agreement that we have with the University works with special prices that are exclusive for Rosario students (undergraduate, postgraduate, employees, ex-students and teachers), extending our market reach and also extending the possibilities of expanding our services.
• We are located within the main University's branch, which if compared with the competition becomes a benefit for our students since they are saving time and money because they don't have to commute to a different location.
• The University allows us to hold advertising campaigns (although with some restrictions) for all the community of the University (special events, printed advertising, e mails, posters, stands, etc.). All materials do have to be approved by the University.
• Due to the excellent academic results of the Rosario students, we decided three years ago to promote Social Club activities designed specifically for this center and led by WSI/Rosario students that had started their course in low levels and that have achieved Upper Waystage Three. This is a strong motivating factor for other students to attend Social Club activities.
• We have a group of young promoters that are WSI and Rosario students that help us look for contacts among the Rosario community and that strengthen our sales team because they are involved with the culture and ideology of our target audience.

There are some disadvantages to working with a University:

• The English requirement is in the fifth semester, which is why some if not most of the students decide to study between six and nine months before the time they need to fulfil their requirement, speeding and limiting the acquisition process of the language because of time limits.
• The decision to study at WSI doesn't only depend on the students but also on the parents.
• The students excuse themselves for not taking the WSI courses on lack of time frequently, which is why according to our statistics our greatest rate of enrolments comes from old contacts (students that have received information three or sometimes even five times before the decision making point)
• Although Wall Street is characterized by motivation and follow up to students, the renewal rate is low since students are only required to reach Upper Waystage Three in order to be successful on the required International exams.

Working with a University

If you would like to establish a partnership with a university, there are some things that are important to understand.

• All the decisions and administrative agreements in terms of English language are handled by the university's chancellor's department and any academic process or marketing action that we do in the university must be approved by them.
• The university has delegated a group from its specialized teaching department (who have been called “the auditing committee”) who are in charge of verifying the quality and excellence of the academic processes held in our Rosario center.
• In our agreement, we must carry out satisfaction surveys every semester to measure our students' concepts and opinions in terms of quality of service of both our service and commercial departments.
• We must present a monthly report to the university with the global statistical information of the student population and their academic performance.
• There is a follow-up committee with WSI and university participants to periodically audit and monitor the learning process and to make sure that the objectives proposed in the offer are being achieved.
• Our Social Club activities must be focused on the academic areas that the university develops: business administration, law, and health services.