Question

Topic: Website Critique

I Am Not The Expert But You Are!!

Posted by Anonymous on 3/21/2008 at 6:19 AM ET 250 Points
I need your help guys. I have just started my role as marketing director for an English language training centre in China called Kai En.

Since my arrival, I have been tasked to do many things and one of which is to look over the design of a new website which is almost completed.

Here is the link of the new site:
[inactive link removed]

Here is the link of the old site:
[inactive link removed]

What we want out of this website is not only for it to be an “online brochure” as some of our competitors namely:

English first:
www.ef.com.cn

Wallstreet English:
https://www.wselearning.com/

I am aware that we don't have a clear message at the moment and this needs improvement. Basically I can outline the different business models.

So simply put, I need you guys to look at the website without understanding the backgrounds.


If you are interested, then read on…

English first + Wallstreet uses a lot multimedia teaching aid. Their offices are usually located in prime locations and they even sign exclusive deals with the landlord to exclude other English training schools (they are much larger than us and have loads more mkt budget) They spend heavily on advertising and their prices are double of ours. In terms of actual teaching quality, they have very limited face to face teaching which reduces their cost (foreign teachers are expensive) and they claim that their method is 24-7 English learning. What this means is 70% of the time in front of a computer doing interactive exercise and only 30% or less face to face interactions. Only after completion of online stuff and test will you be allowed to RESERVE a time with a teacher.

In terms of value for money we offer so much more because a larger share of our costs actually goes into the delivery of quality academic content.

So now I need a nice package to create more perceived value. I also need an USP. In the past it has been “experts in spoken English” but now it does not suffice.

Thanks!!

[Moderator: Inactive link removed from post. 2/14/2011]
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 3/21/2008 at 9:12 AM Accepted
    Your unique selling point can be that you deal with the individual and are not just some interface, but much more than that. You deal with the person who wants to learn englsih as an individual, considering their needs. You need to brand yourselves cleverly and ensure the website gets across as being caring and 'their to help you'. A motto such as 'Helping you help yourself'.
  • Posted on 3/21/2008 at 9:27 AM Accepted
    It's difficult to give some specific recommendations without in-country/in-culture knowledge. However, in the interests of giving some thoughts that might spark some useful ideas...

    1) Since you are smaller than your competitors, do something they can't or won't do: focus on a meaningful market segment (younger, professional women; older folks). Tailor your service offering to their specific concerns (younger women: all-female classes, "safer" neighborhoods; older folks: less computers, more travel/cultural emphasis; older instructors.

    2) You seem to believe that computers might be seen as a negative with customers. I would test this assumption. Perhaps people feel using computers is better (especially when just starting out) since they can fail privately and the computer won't be judgemental. You can also set up a competition so that only people that achieve a certain "rank" will be accepted into your program. Of course you can set the proficiency score quite low, but at least the students will be emotionally engaged and committed to your lessons having achieved a certain competitive distinction.

    3) If foreign teachers are highly regarded, why not find some inespensive source of exchange student teachers. I believe there are MANY affluent, retired Americans, Canadians, Europeans and Australians (60-years and above) who would LOVE to have a six-month vacation teaching in China. They probably would do it for free simply for the adventure. I would search for organizations such as elderhostel, https://retired.teachers.net/, https://www.teachabroad.com/

    4) You might also go "narrow" in your marketing efforts by targeting specific industries/professions that have a higher than average need for speaking English: hotel workers, financial/banking, high-end real estate, etc. You can probably have lower overall marketing expenses by focusing on these channels. You can also consider paying current students from these targeted areas a "referral bonus" if they recruit new students. Since the incremental cost of adding one student to a class is essentially free, you can even afford to give away free classes if your recruiter is very productive. (Recruit 10 new PAYING students and your tuition will be 50% reduced).
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 3/21/2008 at 9:34 AM Accepted
    If you're focusing on the face-to-face aspect, then use a banner of people in a classroom learning.

    Have you found that face-to-face produces better/quicker results? If so, cite the statistics.

    If your competition is already well known, then create a comparison matrix to them, showing how you're different/better.

    As far as a USP: English Spoken Live Here and Everywhere.
  • Posted on 3/24/2008 at 10:39 PM Author
    Thank you guys for all your inputs.

    oliscottie:
    we are definately out there to help these people.

    David:
    Regarding your first point, i think at the moment in china everyone is after the white collar employees and unlike others we have not diversified into children etc. We feel that as an organizational strategy we wish to stick to our segment which is what we are best at.

    Regarding your second point, i sort of understand what you are suggesting. by creating a sort of barrier it will make these people want it more? sort of more exclusive? but the problem is that learning a language is not like learning a skill. there are 7 levels that we currently offer starting from non-english speakers.

    Third point. English teachers are highly regarded but we only recruit teachers with a degree in ESL (english as a second language) as well as having more than 2 years work experience. but i think we should do a comparative study between the quality of our teachers and the quality of other teachers.

    Fourth point. Excellent observation. this is something that i should focus on because my company has been offering transportation cards up to the value of 300RMB (42usd) and thats not a lot of incentive. however, if we start to give free lessons, that would interrupt with the class schedule because there are clear levels and lessons to progress through. it is hard to "create" a extra lesson for them. and money back is more difficult because then it involves the commissions between dfferent departmetns. but! where there is a will, there is a way. i'll figure something out with finance.

    Jay Hamilton-Roth:
    I agree with all your points. we should use more "user friendly" charts and graphs to do easy comparisons.



    NOW!

    there is another website that is related to this website.

    www.Freeonlineenglish.com

    is a website that we use primarily for people to register online and receive free pod English downloads. The people who register online will be used by our telesales for outbound calls. So it is quite important for our leads generation and eventual sales.

    Now, the primary “incentive” to register to this website is the pod downloads. However, we all know that moving into the network economy and web 2.0 and stuff that we must create a community feel to it.

    There are simple things that I can do to the website such as adding a forum, putting some polls and surveys in but that's all I can think of. So can you guys tell me what else I can do to this website so that I get more involvement from my users and have them generate the content for me so that it sort of sustains itself? Obviously I still have to have my staff do the regular recordings and make them available for download but I guess even that can perhaps be customized in some way or packaged to suit the web 2.0 nature that we want to become?

    Help me guys thanks!
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