INNOVA Research Journal, ISSN 2477-9024  
Enero, 2016). Vol. 1, No.1 pp. 34-39  
(
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33890/innova.v1.n1.2016.6  
URL: http://revistas.uide.edu.ec/index.php/innova/index  
Correo: innova@uide.edu.ec  
Marketing strategies in enrollment management: Direct mail and financial  
aid  
Estrategias de marketing en la gestión de inscripción: Correo directo y ayuda  
financiera  
Ab, Aldo Maino Isaías, MBA  
Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Ecuador  
Autor para correspondencia: amaino@uide.edu.ec  
Fecha de recepción: 21 de Diciembtre de 2015 - Fecha de aceptación: 18 de Enero de 2016  
Resumen  
El aumento en instituciones de educación superior ha resultado en la comercializacion de  
educación superior, el cual ha aumentado la competencia entre las instituciones que proveen este  
servicio. Las universidades tienen una necesidad económica de reclutar a nuevos estudiantes y  
retener a los que ya han sido admitidos para asegurar sus ganancias y tener los fondos para seguir  
ofreciendo sus servicios educativos. Las dos maneras que más utilizan las instituciones de  
educación superior para atraer estudiantes son por medio de correo directo y ayuda financiera. Se  
esfuerzan por ofrecerles paquetes financieros atractivos a los estudiantes más calificados para  
hacer que elijan su universidad en vez de otra. El siguiente artículo describe y analiza los procesos  
de reclutamiento en la esfera de educación superior.  
Palabras claves: marketing; educación superior; ayuda financiera  
Abstract  
The increase in private institutions of higher education has led to the commercialization of higher  
education, which has increased the competition between the institutions that provide this service.  
Universities have an economic need to recruit new students and retain the ones that they have  
already admitted in order to remain profitable and have the funds to continue offering their  
educational services. The two main ways that institutes of higher education attempt to entice  
students are through direct mailings and financial aid. They strive to reach the students that are  
most likely to be eligible for their institution and offer the most qualified students attractive  
financial packages that will sway them towards choosing their university over another. The  
following article describes and analyzes these recruitment processes in the higher education  
sphere.  
Key words: marketing; higher education; financial aid  
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Introduction  
Marketing and advertising in higher education have radically changed since 1970’s. From  
an environment where public institutions obtained much of their financial support through state  
and federal funding to the current environment of increased competition with new private  
institutions that have revolutionized the marketplace and started a period of “commercialization”  
of higher education. Moreover, the US economic crisis has decreased the state funding for public  
institutions and has made them not only compete with an aggressive market fight from private  
universities, but also to start promoting their programs in a different ways that make them able to  
at least preserve their market share or even grow in order to survive.  
The rise of for-profit institutions, especially with online programs degrees, has prompted a  
new market strategy in enrollment management for the entire higher education sector. For these  
institutions marketing strategies have positively impacted their enrollment. On average they spend  
approximately 20% of their budget in marketing and advertising (Strout, 2006). Student  
enrollment, retention, and academic performance are making universities to operate more of a  
business than an academic institution. These strategies are working well for many institutions,  
considering admission and retention trends.  
Marketing in higher education is a form of service marketing. Services are intangible and  
customers don’t know what they are purchasing until after the service has been provided (Clark &  
Hossler, 1990). One of the important responsibilities of enrollment management officers is making  
sure that customers receive what was advertised or marketed. Hossler (1996) credits Mcguire with  
coining the term enrollment management to explain administrative functions that were being put  
in place at Boston College in the late 1970’s to support institutional enrollment goals.  
Colleges and universities have unique characteristics that must be considered in their  
marketing strategies. These set of strategies are the result of an institutional strategic planning and  
research; analyzing and selecting target markets and developing a coordinated and appropriate  
marketing strategies that meet the enrollment goals of each institution.  
Among different marketing activities are direct mail, inserts, high school visits and  
promotions, internet, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, yellow pages, pricing,  
telemarketing, financial aid, merit aid and awards. The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze  
and perceive the impact of direct mailing strategies and financial aid strategies as part of the  
strategic marketing plan and the recruitment institutional goal.  
Ethical Marketing of Higher Education  
Higher education is exposed to competition in marketplace conditions where institutions  
are compelled to compare their offerings with others to attract students. Higher education market  
is now well established as a global diverse phenomenon (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka, 2006).  
Universities promote education as a commodity, offering successful careers and a  
wellknown reputation degree. Some marketing strategies take students more as customers and  
teachers more as service providers. According to Arpan Raney and Zivnuska’s (2003) study of  
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INNOVA Research Journal 2016, Vol 1, No. 1, pp. 34-39  
major US universities found that various non-academic aspects, for instance athletics, contributed  
greatly to their reputations.  
However, marketing and advertising has to be done with caution and questioning.  
Advertising is an insidious and implicit attack on our ability to develop as a human being and more  
difficult to isolate and defend against education consumerism (Lippke, 1989). If marketing  
practices involve consumerism, as Hunt (2007) suggest, an exercise of ethical practical judgment  
is required. It requires the development of enduring relationships between stakeholders to the  
judgmental decision (Gibbs, 2006)  
Ethical marketing throughout an institution requires professional ethics, institutional  
ethical policy statements that include values and principles and ethical culture of collegiality and  
fairness (Gibbs & Murphy, 2006).  
Marketing and Advertising Higher Education, Trends and Competition  
A combination of factors over the past forty years has contributed to colleges and  
universities to start a race o marketing efforts. Since early 1970’s Congress could not continue to  
support research and growth in higher education as it has done in the 1950’s and 1960’s (Bok,  
2
003; Zemsky, Wegner, and Massy, 2005). As a result, among the economic downturn, rapid  
inflation and raised unemployment, the number of student started to decline.  
Colleges and universities had to retool their strategies and a new kind of higher education  
began to emerge. Competition from for-profit organizations started up; in an effort to reduce cost  
and be more efficient, online platforms were used by successful models such as University of  
Phoenix, American InterContinental University and DeVry University. Traditional colleges and  
universities had to adapt and respond or risk losing students. They had to overcome the adverse  
environment with new techniques and strategies in a form of marketing and advertising. The  
strategic marketing plan started to be considered a critical component of the organizations  
academic mission (Hesel, 2004; Keller, 1983). Good marketing knows the product, it understands  
the price structure, and it understands how to appeal to consumers based on what is for sale (Kotler,  
1
999). Good marketing is well researched, highly coordinated, and professionally delivered  
(McCarthy, 1960). The competition for students is real and so too must be the response. Resources  
in higher education are always scarce; tight budgets and increased scrutiny require that every dollar  
be spent wisely and with the greatest chance for maximized returns (Anctil, 2008).  
Direct Mail  
With the exception of some elites institutions, most colleges and universities are battling  
for enrollment. As a result, marketing and advertisement have become key aspects of institutional  
strategy. A study on today’s American colleges and universities reveals that most presidents and  
their advertising personnel choose direct mailing as the single most effective medium for student  
recruitment (Burdesnki & Shanklin, 1987).  
It was shown that direct mail is used for recruitment strategy as its most essential use, but  
also for fund raising, marketing continuing education programs and keeping alumni informed.  
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Other tools followed by direct mail, are newspaper, radio, television, magazines, outdoor and  
transit adds.  
Students search service providers have substantially boosted, for instance colleges and  
university might select the students enrolled in a particular high school on a specific geographical  
area, that students meet or exceed a minimum grade point average and intend to matriculate at a  
private institution of higher education. Geodemographic database provides individuals and  
households in various geographical areas (Curry, 1993; Sachs & Elston, 1994). A college or  
university also can receive names of high school students who indicate on their college board  
examinations that they have some interest in a certain institution.  
It was found that the easier it is for a student to respond to a direct mail solicitation from a  
college or university, the higher the response rate. However, the easier it is for the student to  
respond the lower the final enrollment rate.  
As a consequence, direct mail strategies need to be closely tailored to institutional  
objectives. Some large universities with great investments and high recruitment goals are better  
taking a quantity approach making easier response tactics, meanwhile small colleges and  
universities are better avoiding an easy to apply approach and make them appeal as more elitist.  
In the study in reference, it is contradictory that even though direct mailing was considered  
the most essential tool for student recruitment, most colleges and universities were allocating a  
bigger portion of their advertising budget to newspapers rather than direct mail.  
There are good reasons for direct mail for being the most effective tool, according to  
Burdesnki & Shanklin (1987), and they are because they allow college or universities to target  
their prospective and identify their specific interests. Use of direct mail has continued to increase  
as written communications continue to increases as well, especially with development of  
technology. Many colleges and universities use mailing lists that contain information compiled by  
national testing agencies. Names can be purchased and search criteria can be selected, such as  
geographical location, size of the institution, programs offered, grade point average, standardize  
test scores. Many private colleges and universities send eight or more written communications to  
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prospective students .  
Financial Aid as a Recruiting Tool  
The decade of the 1990’s was influenced by student aid policy and ultimately enrollment  
management decisions. Student consumerism, public skepticism about value of higher education,  
institutional concerns for fiscal and enrollment viability and calls for reform for undergraduate  
education are characteristics of this influence (Coomes, 2000).  
The 1990’s were the decade of student’s loans with the creation of programs such as Pell  
Grant to Federal Family, Educational Loan Program FFELP and Hope Scholarship and Lifetime  
Learning Credits.  
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http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1858/College-Recruitment-Practices.html).  
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Competition is fierce for students and enrollment goals are set high. To meet the demand  
for students, colleges and universities employed sophisticated marketing techniques and  
econometric to target aids at groups of students they felt they were most likely to meet enrollment  
criteria (Coomes, 2000).  
The debates about financial aid strategy are contingent upon a complex and standardized  
approach to students and families financial need and thereby determining eligibility for financial  
assistance. At many institutions merit aid is used fulfill enrollment strategies and call academically  
attractive students who are able to pay more of their own tuition. Tuition discounting is a way of  
merit-based aid that occurs when institutions compete for the best students. Regardless, the typical  
concern is that a non-need-based merit scholarship diverts resources form lower income students  
who need assistance to those who do not.  
Senior enrollment management and trustees have as an important role to ensure that  
financial aid technique does not overshadow institutional purposes and priorities. The selectivity  
rating of an institution correlates to the likelihood that they will offer merit-based aid (McPherson  
and Schapiro, 1994). As part of techniques, institutions of lesser prestige may award merit-based  
to high-ability students to fulfill their enrollment goal by tempting student from more selective  
institutions.  
Financial aid has been increasingly used as a recruiting and marketing tool, in special for  
private institutions in their effort to compete with public institutions. Merit-based scholarships are  
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used to discount tuition as an important tool to increase enrollment .  
However, now that institutions can no longer meet full need and are using their own  
resources to target the most admissible students, applicants recognize that they have the  
opportunity to bargain for the most favorable student aid award (Coomes, 2000). Offering noneed  
merit based aid ranks as the 3rd most effective marketing and recruitment strategy for both public  
and private four-year institutions for reaching institutional goals (Noel-Levitz, 2008). Institutions  
have multiple goals from academic to sports. Perhaps, the intent is to balance an enrollment  
portfolio by filling some programs through targeted scholarships.  
Discussion and Conclusions  
Students have become the customers for marketing and advertising purposes, and are the  
most important thing in the institutions strategy. Internal strategies such as faculty motivation are  
as important as external strategies such as direct mail. Financial aid strategy can affect both internal  
in terms of economic impact of income and external in terms of prestige and reputation.  
Marketing is a valuable tool for institutions and university leaders. It can encourage and  
expand market participation and share, but also can confuse and divert the mission and values of  
the institution. It is important for colleges and universities to apply ethical practices in marketing  
and advertising tools in order to maintain professional ethics, institutional ethical polity statements  
and ethical culture. As implication to practice, it is highly recommended that institutions perform  
and ethics marketing audit, approve reports from marketing seniors on marketing ethics, perform  
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http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1858/College-Recruitment-Practices.html)  
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student surveys on reporting on unethical marketing and perception to reality service. Marketing  
efforts should be align towards organizational goals, be aware and responsive to stakeholder’s  
needs and requirements, and be dynamic and adaptive with the community rather than reactive.  
From different successful marketing tools, studies have shown that direct mail is the most  
successful tool for recruitment goals; however there are other instruments that need to be address  
and surprisingly have larger budget allocation than direct mail such as newspaper. Marketing and  
advertising are likely to become more sophisticated as technology develops. Colleges and  
universities cannot afford to lose a student and will need to recruit them from their very first point  
of contact. Traditional recruitment practices will still be around probably with more emphasis on  
internet-based initiatives. Each institution must adjust their needs to available tools and according  
to their strategic plan as well as to be creative and aggressive.  
Financial aid and tuition discounting are practices to enhance student’s admissions from  
different economic and academic levels. Financial aid in the form of merit-based aid is a strategy  
that colleges and universities are adopting to attract better qualified students in the programs. It is  
important that these aids keep their original goal which was helping the unprivileged secure an  
education.  
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