Marketing techniques as employed by two small, regional, liberal arts based, private colleges (1979-1989)

Although its credibility has been subject to scrutiny, marketing has had a major effect upon the success of business and industry throughout the history of commerce. The adoption of marketing by higher education was long in coming and its acceptance was turbulent. It took the anticipation of the first prolonged recession in post secondary enrollment in the nation\u27s history in order for colleges and universities to investigate the possibilities of adopting the marketing concept. Demographics facing higher education out to the end of the century, particularly the reduced number of high school graduates, made a sound marketing effort aimed at acquiring adequate numbers of students and their resultant revenues tantamount to survival. These measures took on even greater importance for the private sector, and within that sphere the small regional liberal arts based private college (SRLPC) is the most vulnerable. The study provides a history of two colleges representative of the SRLPC, and the marketing techniques employed by each during a ten year period (1979-1989). The focus of the study is on the analysis of two issues involved in these institutions\u27 employment of marketing, namely: (1) Were the marketing techniques employed directed toward gaining a larger market share from the competition or were they designed to create new markets? (2) To what extent were the marketing techniques ad hoc or fragmented, versus systematic and strategic? Results of the study should provide the two colleges with a comparative analysis as to how marketing was/is being employed in their institutions. In that there is a great deal of similarity among the SRLPC, the study would be illuminating to other institutions having similar configurations