Promotion of a Higher Education Institution in the Educational Services Market Under the Conditions of Spatial Integration of Universities

Abstract

The article analyzes tools for the promotion of educational services taking into account the factors of the increasing spatial integration of universities. Taking into account a wide range of communication tools in educational marketing and the characteristics of the main target audience, the study focuses on online communication, namely the use of the universitys official website and the maintenance of accounts in popular social networks. Despite a rather intensive development of theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of educational services in the regional market, the strategy for their promotion to the regional educational market, including the diverse aspects of modeling promotion channels in the context of the digitalization of the economy, has not been sufficiently developed. The authors have studied the specifics of the promotion of educational services in the regional market, developed measures for the management of promotion channels, including the development of marketing tools. An important feature of the promotion of educational services in the regional market is that advertising and PR help solve the problem of expansion and integration of the educational space of a university. On the basis of the results of analyzing websites of Russian universities according to the criteria such as information content, usability, website design, functionality and location in search results, on the basis of the content analysis of accounts of Russian universities in social networks, as well as studies of the positioning of university brands in the market of educational services, the authors have determined the main strategic directions of using competitive advantages of the leading Russian universities. The measures are proposed to promote the universitys brand on the Internet for various target audiences in order to create a favorable public attitude towards the university and the universitys high reputation in the educational services market on the basis of the analysis of using advertising and PR technologies amid the digitalization of the economy.