A Case Study On The Marketing Strategies Of Undergraduate Economics Textbooks Of Guangdong Branch, X Publishing House

With the continuous development of China’s higher education, there has been a gradual expansion in the market of publishing higher education textbooks, which has become the most marketable domain in the current domestic textbook publishing sector. Compared with high school and elementary school textbooks, the higher education textbook publishing is less restricted by government policies. Therefore, large numbers of publishing houses are already involved in this area and are relatively market-oriented. In the recent years, not only have the traditional university publishers continued to expand their operation in higher education textbooks, many other publishers have also made a strong presence in this market. With that, the market competition for higher education textbooks has become white-hot. In order to take up a bigger market share, every publishing house has resorted to all sorts of strategies. However, there is still much room for improvement in the publishing industry in spite of its rapid growth.This paper uses the publishing of the economics textbooks for undergraduates by Guangdong Branch, X Publishing House as the background and attempts to carry out a case study into the marketing strategies they have adopted in the Guangdong region. The paper first gives brief introductions to the Guangdong Branch, its industry background, company profile and the current marketing situations of economics textbooks in the Guangdong region. Based on that, the paper then employs PEST and Porter’s five forces model to analyze the macro environment in which the company is currently situated and its sector competition structure, as well as SWOT to look into its own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in Guangdong region. Subsequently, the paper, on the basis of the feedback of those university teachers in Guangdong region who have personally used the economics textbooks, tries to conduct consumer analysis by means of market research method and then position the Guangdong Branch in Guangdong region. This paper also focuses on the analysis of the products, prices, channels and marketing strategies of this company in Guangdong region and points out their weaknesses in marketing strategies. The paper ends by making suggestions as to how to improve marketing strategies.