Education is now a global product. Educational worldwide are competing for student and finding more creative ways to satisfy student needs and preference and managing expectations.
Colleges and universities serve a variety of customers. The student is the most immediate consumer of their services.
To develop marketing for education institutions we have to bear in our mind the following:
1- Consumer needs:
The consumers (student) need a certain product from an educational institute. This is usually a certain qualification or certificate at the end of a certain period of study. To help market the school we need to ensure that the qualification gained by studying at the school is something that the student will benefit from either by gaining employment or moving on to a higher qualification. This means studying the education market and knowing for sure what the market needs. The qualification gained by the student has to be something the market needs. This means carefully studying the job market and the educational institutions market.
2- Consumer expectations:
The marketing strategy should concentrate on bringing to consumer’s attention the number of past student who made it into higher educational institutes or gained employment because of qualifications or certificates gained at the school. Marketing should emphasis the facilities at the school.
3- Consumer satisfaction:
The marketing of the school should find and publish evidence of consumer satisfaction from schools recent history. This can be in the form of testimonials from former students about how they benefited from studying at the school. These testimonials can be in the form written testimonials or short videos of former students telling about how satisfied they were with their period at the school.
4- Competitors action:
The school should study what competitor schools are doing and adjust marketing strategies accordingly. Marketing strategies should emphasis the advantages of the school over similar schools of the same type e.g. Location, lower prices for admissions, better facilities, better student residence, better teachers, past and recent successes.
5-price:
Marketing should emphasis the schools lower prices compared to schools of the same size and type. Prices should brought to the potential students attention even more if all competing schools are similar to each other in quality and staff.
6- quality:
The school should always try to hire the best teaching staff available. Sometimes the best teachers are already working for other schools so the school should entice them higher remuneration. Better teachers sometimes bring with them more student as some teachers have very good reputations. Marketing should highlight good teachers. This can be done by bringing teachers name and pictures in brochures, advertising special lesson programmer presented by these teachers and filming testimonials by these teachers about their work at the school.
Marketing should also highlight the investments the school made in acquiring better buildings, better labs, better libraries and better environment. This can be done by using television films, photographs and printed words.
The first product of a school is the taught material and the school has to make sure that this is chosen carefully and that references and support materials are easily available. This is important as sometimes future students will rely on the word of past students for choosing their school. This leads us into the next point.

7- Word of mouth:
Word of mouth is the marketing tool that is most out of marketing planner control for schools. However, if the schools succeed in ensuring consumer (student) satisfaction, then this is the key to ensuring that good words of mouth are said about the school.