An Application of Marketing in Thai Higher Education

Jirawan Kamolmasratana
Thailand

Although marketing is generally accepted among business enterprises, it is negatively perceived by educators. In their perspectives, marketing is a tool that cheapens education. However, it is increasingly interesting to the educational institutions when they want to sustain stable or increasing enrollments and declining costs. According to my study, any universities that take advantages on an application of marketing are positively affected in term of an increase in student enrollments. In the study, marketing mix which is one of any marketing approaches is selected to investigate any activities that the universities implement so that the student enrollment is guaranteed. Theoretically, the marketing mix consists of 4 P's: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In general, these four elements are called 4 P's. The activities that the universities were implemented are categorized into these four elements. According to the finding of the study, the universities use marketing mix to guarantee student enrollments despite the different level of the marketing implementation. There are some doubts that why Thai universities need to implement 4 P's. There are two critical issues: economic crisis and a need to improve efficiency and flexibility. Thailand has faced an economic downturn since 1997 that impacts negatively every sector. Higher education is one that has to be adapted itself to cope with the situation. The higher education faces tight budget allocation to any universities, in particular, public universities. They are provided with a limited budget that guarantees their education quality. This allows them to become autonomous universities so they have to seek more financial support from other sources apart from the government. They need to compete in education market to compensate an amount that they lose. This situation involves an increase in a number of competitors in higher education. Its intense competition is eventually unavoidable. The fierce competition affects an institution's survival and extinction. Marketing is a helpful tool to help its survival and then prosperity. The philosophy of the marketing is useful when private and public higher education institutions know the customer needs and brings about a design of product, price, place and promotion to satisfy a various kinds of customers. Thus marketing is essential to ensure them an increase or stability of student enrollments.

In conclusion, it is a tough situation that the universities confront intense competitions among the higher education institutions. It is due to economic crisis that results in budget constraints. The universities have to compete for financial contributions. A way to increase that support is to raise student enrollments. Marketing is a suggested tool that essentially helps the universities prosperous in the education industry.