Higher education providers continue to face a volatile and an increasingly competitive landscape in the COVID-19 environment. Postgraduate education market in particular has become more intense than before with a significant drop in the number of applicants.   With the objective to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that is aligned with the new normal, a Marketing Strategy Workshop was recently organized by the Postgraduate Studies Unit UUM COB on the 13th – 14th July 2021.
 
The Director of Postgraduate Studies Unit UUM COB, Assoc Prof Dr. Subramaniam Sri Ramalu in his welcoming remarks shared the COB’s postgraduate student intake and enrolment trend since the outbreak of COVID-19. He also stressed on the importance of having workable strategy amid the challenges of COVID-19 to achieve KPI related to local and international postgraduate student intake and relate them to ranking, accreditation, internationalization, and income generation agenda.        
 
The participants of the workshop consist of the postgraduate program coordinators from the School of Economics, Finance & Banking (SEFB), School of Business Management (SBM), Tunku Puteri Intan Safinaz School of Accountancy (TISSA-UUM), Islamic Business School (IBS), and School of Technology Management & Logistics (STML). The workshop, which was conducted through the Webex meeting platform, was facilitated by UUM Marketing Division led by the Director, Puan Norazlin Abd. Jalil.
 
During the two days workshop, Puan Norazlin and her team shared various digital marketing strategies and tools that can be used to promote academic programmes. Participants were also involved in few hands on exercises such as developing TikTok video content and pitch deck to enhance the effectiveness of digital marketing communication though creative and appealing messages. “Our team has run rehearsals for two days in a row to make sure this workshop runs smoothly.” said Puan Norazlin Abd. Jalil.
 
The two-day session was concluded with marketing strategy presentation by the Postgraduate Coordinators from each school. During the presentation, various inputs and suggestions were given to further improve the proposed strategy which is then expected to be be tabled at respective schools. The exercise is also an opportunity to identify possible areas of collaboration between UUM COB and UUM Marketing Division.