Iternet and Electronic Communication: Online Marketing

Online Marketing
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Online marketing is an important element to raising awareness, as more people use the internet and electronic communication. Online presence cannot be ignored when marketing activities in businesses and education institutions. Having a network of influence using online platforms can be the difference between been known locally and reaching out to a wider audience. Each online campaign focuses on the client, product or message and the marketing channel to be used when reaching out to the target audience. Online marketing for education institutions is a new phenomenon as they seek to attract more students and address the students’ needs.
The objective of the online marketing campaigns is to increase brand awareness, generate interest among the targeted market, and build influence in online platforms while also connecting with brand evangelist. Changes in the global economy have affected education institutions and their reliance on marketing strategies as they seek to align their marketing efforts with the communication needs/. This extends to provision of up-to-date information, while allowing users to give their feedback. This contrasts with traditional media where feedback is delayed and the marketers may overlook some aspects of the marketing campaigns that have to achieve the intended objectives (Brown & Albright, 2013). This is especially when using social me, as this is a resource to reach out to the public including those who have not been reached.
The online media strategies are expected to increase awareness and online marketing will play a crucial role in ensuring the success of institutions of higher learning. Even though, this is a contentious issue, education institutions increasingly need to align their marketing strategies with students and stakeholders’ needs. Just like business marketing focuses on promotion and process to market services so is the role of online marketing. The education institutions need to manage relationships with various stakeholders by relying on different marketing tools. This extends to price, place, people, promotion and service, marketing in the education sector is not a new idea, but with online marketing there is renewed interest in how to leverage the use of electronic communication.
Online marketing of education institutions highlight the planning and implementation of programs that add value to the students and other stakeholders. There is a need to achieve institutional objectives even as communication, pricing and the distribution supports the marketing initiative. Education institutions are unique than businesses, where the profit motive is a top priority. Even though, marketing focuses on specific strategies regardless of the organizations involved, there are differences since the education institutions primarily seek to impart knowledge and undertake research. Hence, communicating directly with the target audience is critical to the success of marketing initiatives. Students are the primary target audience, while parents, donors, community members, financiers and employers are interested stakeholders who desire quality education without incurring high education costs.
Segmentation in online marketing is equally important to improve results and achieve the marketing objectives. The category of students include in state, out state, high- school graduates, mature students and the international students. Each group of students has different needs and online marketing strategies target them. Marketing is possible when there is some form of exchange, and this is in the form of value associated with the programs. students are committed by spending time and paying tuition fees, but then the institutions have to use positional strategies where possible to different them for other education institutions. However, this is a difficult endeavor since the education institutions offer similar programs, while location and reputation also influence the students’ choice.
The communication offices of higher institution have recognized the power of online and social media marketing strategies have been aligned with these changes to have better impact on the target market. Hence, online marketing is increasingly an important tool to approaching the public, and having proactive strategies has helped these institutions to achieve this. Not only is there is increased competition, but the rising tuition costs are putting off potential students who fear that their debt levels will increase substantially , with student loans one of the options to finance education for those who find it unaffordable. There is also expectation that students will get more from the education institutions and failure to get well paying jobs or failure to match required job skills is frustrating to students and this affects the education institutions negatively.
Another reason for supporting online marketing is that it enhances online presence, and popularity of the websites indicates that more people are interested in the institutions (Huang, 2012). However, online marketing goes beyond creating interest and awareness and the institutions mostly active online have the opportunity to market. The case for leveraging technology use then cannot be ignored. Online marketing will be targeted to influence online behavior and shape expectations, since online communica...