MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION PLAN

Marketing and Communication Plan

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Objective of the Assignment1

Background2

Problem Statement3

Target Groups4

Discussion4

Marketing and Communication Approaches to be adopted5

The Media Richness Theory in Education6

Media richness theory in marketing and management6

Media Richness Theory in University Selection7

Opinion Leaders7

Word-of-Mouth Communications8

Conclusions9

References11

Marketing and Communication Plan

Introduction

Each term, thousands of university students face registration decisions as universities are selected. Like consumers, these students gather information about possible options before making purchase decisions (Moogan & Baron, 2003). As part of the information gathering process, students may consult with traditional resources like parents, peers, and academic advisors (Lee et.al, 2008)). Alternatively, students may also consult technological resources like Ratelvlyl'rofessors.com" to gain a better understanding of professors' teaching styles (Knight et.al, 2008).

This paper aims at discussing the marketing and communication plan adopted by the University of Hull, Business School for countering the expected decrease in the number of students that apply for undergraduate admissions every year.

Objective of the Assignment

This paper is aimed at providing a brief background of university selection and the media richness theory. The paper discusses the above mentioned concepts for the purpose of devising a comprehensive marketing and communications plan for the University of Hull that should enable it to interact with its potential students in a better way. For this, the paper starts off by providing a background of the various issues and problems that the University of Hull and other similar institutions face in the current market environment. Next, the problem and purpose statements will define the need for the study, while the theoretical framework will discuss how the topic relates to the field of marketing and communication. The study's research questions and hypotheses will indicate the study's direction. The nature and significance sections will provide a guideline for how the research study was conducted and how the study relates to current issues in marketing. Finally, a list of definitions will be provided to assist individuals who are unfamiliar with the terms included in the study.

Background

University administrators facing funding cuts in difficult economic times may seek to lower costs by evaluating academic programs to determine viability (Kishi, 2008). As a result, college faculty members and administrators must recruit students for their academic programs or possibly face course or program cuts (Habley, 2004). A decrease in courses may result in fewer instructional opportunities, and the loss of programs may lower enrolment and institutional revenue as students transfer to other schools (Finck & DeLine, 2008). To better market their programs to students, educators must understand students' decision-making processes in the institution selection process (Ferguson, et.al, 2010). By identifying the key opinion leaders in these decisions, faculty members can develop effective marketing strategies to promote their universities while also taking advantage of different forms of communications and marketing mediums (Edwards et.al, 2007).

To date, little research has been performed regarding the relative influence of information sources in the university selection process. Caspi & Gorsky (2005) conducted one of the first studies on this issue by exploring the influence of computer-mediated and face-to-face ...