Student Target Marketing Strategies for Universities

Journal of College Admission, Summer 2007 by Lewison, Dale M, Hawes, Jon M

2. Value buyer: A student who demands good value as defined by a fair quality-to-price ratio. He or she looks for high quality for the money spent and expects service levels to match price levels.

3. Economy buyer: A student primarily interested m minimizing financial, as well as acquisition costs and tends to favor the least expensive and most easily purchased service offering. He or she is a consumer willing to accept marginal quality if the price is right and the acquisition is convenient.

The horizontal axis m Figure 2 represents the motivational forces that influence the behavior of educational consumers. The four motivational types of learners are:

1. Career learner: A student whose primary motivation for seeking educational services is career-oriented. This individual seeks specific skills and preparation that will enhance chances for successful job entry, advancement, mobility, and security, as well as improve chances for increased compensation, career satisfaction and social class advancement.

2. Socio-improvement learner: A student whose primary motive for seeking educational services is to improve the mind, broaden horizons, expand general knowledge, realize potential, do his or her own thing, and achieve other personal goals. Self-actualization is the major need that motivates this educational consumer.

3. Leisure-learner: A student whose primary motive for seeking educational services is the entertainment and/or recreational value provided by those services. This individual desires educational services that provide enjoyable learning experiences, allow escapism, permit socialization, enhance quality of life, broaden knowledge of subjects of personal interest and promote general mental welfare.

4. Ambivalent learner: A student learner whose primary motive for seeking educational services is other-directed, unknown or unclear. This individual seeks educational services in order to satisfy someone else (perhaps parents), to identify possible interests, to gam direction, or to avoid other life experiences.

Conclusions

In the final analysis, one might ask. "What's the point of having an accurate marketing segmentation structure?" The future of marketing for educational institutions lies in the more analytical and creative realms of direct interactive multichannel marketing. Well-defined markets and carefully profiled customers encourage the use of database marketing strategies and tactics that speak directly to and interact with individual students. Highly customized and personalized marketing offers can best be tailored to the particular needs and preferences of selected student prospects by using multiple marketing channels of distribution that support direct contact with students. The new era of direct multi-channel marketing requires creating multipletouch points with each student prospect. Gaming access to and securing response from existing and prospective students via electronic (Internet and email), print (direct mail, magazines, newspapers), broadcast (television and radio), teleservices (inbound and outbound telemarketing), and personal (direct sales and retail outlets) channels are rapidly becoming the norm for successful student marketing within the market context of higher education. Attracting and retaining students requires developing and offering a unique value proposition: the only way one can know what constitutes a different value equation is to know and understand the market as individuals and meaningful groups of individuals. Well-defined marketing segmentation structures are a precursor to well-executed direct marketing programs.