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The higher education sector faces challenges in attracting students due to increasing competition, disruptive forces of online education, social media and employment orientation of education. A differentiating factor can be created by focusing on student-teacher relationships by creating positive learning experiences inside the classroom. The present study indicates that caring behaviors displayed by teachers impact students positive learning experiences. A multi-dimensional construct incorporating relevant dimensions from Watson's caring behavior model was used for this exploratory study with a sample size of 267 millennial students belonging to higher education. Nurturing, direction setting, and supportive environment were significant dimensions of caring behavior that impacted students' positive learning experiences. While most institutes differentiate themselves based on cost, career opportunities, campus amenities, showcasing teachers' caring behaviors can give institutes the edge to market themselves since educational journeys experienced by students are at the crossroads of technology and human connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on university brand loyalty (UBL) has less focused on a marketing-oriented perspective, or relationship marketing, and its impact on testing UBL. The aim of this study is to identity the roles and impacts of trust and commitment, which are main factors that create a relationship, in the relationship between university service quality, student satisfaction (SAT), and UBL and discuss its implications for university approaches of the marketing-oriented perspective. A self-report study was conducted with a total sample of 301 undergraduate students from four universities in the USA. PLS-SEM and path analysis were employed to test each hypothetical relationship. This study identified that trust and commitment play important roles as mediators in the relationship between SAT and UBL. Therefore, the findings support contributions of this study by offering implications that universities need to focus on building and maintaining the quality of relationship with students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examines the conceptual foundations and drivers of relationship marketing ideologies and their marketing applications in the tertiary education sector. Towards these objectives, a series of semi-structured interviews have been conducted among students of leading tertiary education institutions in New Zealand. Results of the study suggest that education providers’ (EPs) service-oriented behaviours, trust, commitment and their infrastructure enhance student satisfaction and loyalty in tertiary educational institutions. The study suggests that higher education providers (HEPs) should commit themselves to customer-centric service-oriented tactics and actions, and must earn customers’ trust and build loyalty from their marketing practices. Based on the research findings, a conceptual model of relationship marketing in higher education is proposed. The current study contributes to marketing theory by reviewing and summarizing the key drivers of relationship marketing and discussing their applications in the formal tertiary education sector. The study also provides suggestions to tertiary education marketers in terms of priorities for developing and maintaining profitable customer relationships in this changing world and offers an agenda for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses a robust narrative of the relationship between higher education and the stakeholders in the digital era. It proposes an integrated higher education marketing framework using the Cue-Utilization approach with perceived situational appropriateness as the frame of reference. A multi-stakeholder perspective is explored using semi-structured in-depth interviews with India, the UK, Nigeria, and UAE participants. The study’s findings indicate that relationship quality associated with relationship marketing is critical for student engagement. The results further validate the cues that are the surrogate indicators of high relationship quality in an ecosystem of higher education. It illustrates through a framework the factors affecting relationship marketing and their role in enhancing stakeholder engagement. Digitization adds another layer of complexity in relationships and relationship marketing for higher education in the given context. Therefore, nurturing relationships and increasing digital scalability can constitute the most relevant factors for advanced higher education marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are no longer limited to traditional media platforms for recruitment advertising; increasingly, institutions are using online videos and social media to promote themselves locally and internationally. We analysed a sample of 81 YouTube videos that promote Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses in 40 Australian universities. We used quantitative content analysis to examine gender and ethnic representations, and qualitative content analysis to inductively find marketing themes. Videos used on the websites of both established and younger Australian universities had almost equal numbers of women and men. Students (including alumni) were the most common speakers in videos. However, representation of non-Caucasians remained low. Of the 17 reoccurring themes identified, Course Experience and Labour Market were most common. The lack of clear unique selling propositions was a key weakness across all videos. Overall, video content from Australian STEM faculties rarely went beyond vague platitudes and generally lacked specific STEM content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to find determinants for the commitment relationship between alumni and alma mater. Based on the literature, satisfaction and image are proposed as drivers of commitment. A survey applied to 2544 alumni in a Portuguese university provides data analyzed through a structural equation modeling technique. The results present ‘image of education’, ‘image of communication’ and ‘satisfaction with social and academic environment’ as determinants of the commitment relationship, which provide important clues for the marketers’ decision-making process when developing activities geared towards alumni. This process should emphasize aspects relating to their willingness to give back, academic and relationship quality, and institutional values. Within the Higher Education market, this study underscores the need to maintain and reinforce the relationship with alumni, and contributes to the scarce Portuguese literature on alumni matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that gratitude has a place in enabling us to understand students’ experiences of higher education, and this has an implication for higher education (HE) marketing. This research examines the evidence for and focus of gratitude within the context of an undergraduate course with high levels of student satisfaction. It finds that final-year students report feelings of gratitude and that students report that those feelings of gratitude are at their height within the final year. This exploratory research proposes that feelings of gratitude are driven by four factors: helping behaviors; care; perceived effort; and environment. For HE marketers, this suggests that there is merit in placing emphasis on academic-student interactions at the heart of marketing strategies, including branding strategies, open day events, marketing communications and social media content. There are clear opportunities for academics and marketing departments to benefit from the intention to give back that is central to the notion of gratitude. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Even though marketing in higher education (HE) is well established, there is a continued debate about who the customer is, with many still not accepting that students should be viewed as customers in HE. The student as customer model has its opponents and proponents. This paper reframes the debate using the framework of market orientation, customer orientation, and service (including co-creation) and relationship marketing. Using newer conceptualizations of the role of customers, the paper recommends exploring how to respond to students as customers instead of continuing to deny that students are customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]