Analysis of the effectiveness of Internet promotion of educational services on the example of the Department of Marketing and Trade of the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service

Trapeznikov Elena Mikhailovna 690069, Russia, Primorskii Krai Gorod krai, g. Vladivostok, ul. Davydova, 14, kv. 42 minyaylova96@mail.ru

Petropavlovskaya Anna Andreevna Student, Department of Marketing and Trade, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service" 690014, Russia, Primorskii krai, g. Vladivostok, ul. Gogolya, 41, aud. 4311 annanikol0801@gmail.com

Introduction

In the conditions of high competition between educational institutions, including between higher educational institutions (hereinafter referred to as the university), existing today in the educational services market, there is a high need to find new effective ways to attract applicants. This issue is especially acute during the admission campaign, when competition increases not only between universities, but also between structural units (departments, institutes) of one university ^{[1, 2]}.

When conducting advertising campaigns, Russian universities have for many years used such methods of promotion as holding Open Days, advertising through "traditional" media channels (press, outdoor advertising, etc.).  But in recent years, more and more universities have been actively using various Internet marketing tools in their activities. First of all, this is due to universal digitalization, which is reflected in all spheres of human activity. The Levada Center's report on the media landscape in Russia allows us to conclude that users' trust in information from Internet resources is growing: over the past five years, there has been a trend towards a rapid increase in the audience of social networks, messengers, and online services. For young people, the Internet and social networks are ahead of all other sources of information today: in the 18-24 age group, there is an increase in the audience of news in social networks from 65 to 72 percent compared to 2020 ^[3].

The rapid development of Internet technologies opens up new opportunities for universities to attract applicants: the integrated use of Internet marketing tools allows you to successfully interact with the target audience in an online environment, while often this method of promotion is cheaper than promotion through traditional media channels. The methods of promotion using Internet technologies became particularly relevant in 2020, during the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection, when it became necessary for universities to master remote ways of interacting with the target audience and attracting applicants, which is one of the most important business tasks of any educational institution ^{[4, 5]}.

Currently, many articles, including the works of L. A. Korchagova, E. A. Muratova, I. A. Baykova and other authors, are devoted to the problem of promoting universities, as well as various associations within them, on the Internet, including in social networks, and evaluating its effectiveness ^{[6, 7, 8]}. However, the research papers do not consider the complex Internet promotion of the university during the admission campaign, while this and the periods preceding the start of the campaign are most important for their successful activities in terms of attracting the attention of applicants and gaining their trust.

An important component of any promotion campaigns is the analysis of the results obtained and the evaluation of the effectiveness of each tool involved in achieving the goals and objectives. Online promotion campaigns are no exception: today it is important not only to use modern methods of online promotion, but also to be able to evaluate their effectiveness. In particular, one of the main performance indicators is ROI (Return On Investment) — the most common economic indicator for determining the profitability or unprofitability of any business process. ROI is calculated as the ratio of marketing effect (profit received) divided by marketing investments.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Internet promotion of educational services of higher educational institutions, using the example of the Department of Marketing and Trade of the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service. The methodological basis of the research is the results of: monitoring and analysis of domestic and foreign publications on the identified issues; analysis of the report of the analytical organization "Levada Center"; analysis of the effectiveness of Internet promotion, including analysis of statistical data of the Facebook advertising cabinet; as well as the results of an online survey of consumers of educational services.

The main part

The primary goal of the Internet promotion campaign of the department was to increase interest in its educational services among the target audience. To achieve this goal, the following Internet marketing tools were used:

- content marketing;

- targeted advertising;

- single-page websites (landing pages).

Each tool was selected based on the promotion goals (Fig. 1).

 - Objectives and tools of the advertising campaign

The Department of Marketing and Trade is interested in promoting the training profiles implemented by it within the framework of the 38.03.06 direction of Trade: "Internet marketing and electronic commerce"; "International Logistics and Supply Management"; and in the 38.03.07 direction of Commodity Science "Commodity management in domestic and foreign trade". When using Internet marketing tools in promotion, it is advisable to use such a promotion channel as social networks, which allow interacting with the right consumer segments, personalizing appeals to each of them. Instagram social network was chosen as the main platform for promotion during the admission campaign of the 2021-2022 academic year as one of the most popular social networks in Russia and the leader in the number of active audience in 2020 (more than 42.8 million authors per month) ^[9].

The department has chosen a method of promotion by students and teachers of specialized areas of training within the discipline of the curriculum "Project activity".

In the 2020-2021 academic year, a content strategy was formed for the department's account as one of the most important components of maintaining an Instagram account ^[10], a content plan and a visual concept were developed. Since March 2021, regular account management has been carried out according to the developed content plan using the tools provided by the social network (posts, stories, videos). Potential applicants were selected as one of the main target audiences, for whom information content was regularly published: information about the department's training profiles, its teachers, information about the benefits of admission to the VSUES, etc.

Table 1 shows the main indicators of the effectiveness of the content strategy before the start of its implementation (February), for the period preceding the start of the admission campaign (May) and at the start of the admission campaign (June).

Table 1

Effectiveness of the content strategy

The average daily engagement (ERday) in this case was calculated as the average number of reactions (likes, reposts, etc.) per subscriber to the number of days in a month. Average engagement by posts (ERpost) is the ratio of the average number of subscriber reactions per post to the number of posts per month.

In four months of account management, according to the developed content strategy, there was an increase in account subscribers by 60 people. Also, the data in Table 1 show an increase in the number of subscriber reactions. The average daily engagement is steadily increasing – from February to June, this indicator increased by 0.5%. The average engagement by posts has increased significantly during the active account management, but in June a decrease is visible, which is explained by the excess of the optimal frequency of posting for this account and will be taken into account in the future. Thus, in general, the content strategy can be considered effective.

From May 30 to June 30, targeted advertising in stories was launched on Instagram as part of the admission campaign, for which banners were previously developed aimed at attracting the target segment of "applicants" (Fig. 2).

 – Banners for targeted advertising on Instagram

Through the Facebook advertising cabinet, the storis display was configured for the necessary target audience (17-20 years old, geography of residence: Primorsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Region, Sakhalin Region). The results are presented in table 2.

Table 2

The effectiveness of targeted advertising on Instagram

The most effective was 1 ad in storis because it has the lowest cost per click (CPC) and the highest number of clicks to the number of impressions (CTR), but it should be borne in mind that the most money was spent on it.

Also, with the help of the Tilda website builder, a separate Landing page was created for each training profile, the purpose of which is to collect contact details of potential students for further interaction through mail and SMS mailing. One key call to action was used – filling out a form with user contacts. Links to the pages were placed in the profile header on Instagram, SEO optimization of sites was also performed to increase the position of their output in search networks.

The structure of the page for each training profile looked like this:

- brief profile information and a unique trade offer;

- possible professions of graduates of the profile;

- key professional disciplines;

- skills and abilities that students will receive during their studies;

- instructions for admission;

- teaching staff;

- form to be filled in by the user;

- answers to questions that may arise after studying the page;

- contacts of the department.

This type of promotion did not bring the desired results – tracking user actions showed that they visited the pages and viewed the content, but did not leave their contact details, perhaps this is due to the exhaustive amount of information provided on the landing pages.

In order to analyze how the conducted advertising campaign influenced the final choice of applicants, the author developed questions (Appendix B) and conducted a survey of first-year students of the Department of Marketing and Trade. A total of 45 people took part in the survey, which is more than 75 percent of all first-year students of the department.

The overwhelming number of students surveyed (84.4%) chose Instagram as the social network in which they most often spend time (Fig. 3). This indicator indicates the correct choice of the promotion channel.

Figure 3 – Respondents' preferences for the priority social network, multiple choice, people.

Most of the first-year students entered the chosen areas of training purposefully (Fig. 4), which indicates their awareness of the training profiles implemented by the department.  At the same time, among the first-year students surveyed, almost a third (31.1%) saw stories with advertising of training profiles on Instagram, which could also affect their final choice.

Figure 4 – Division of respondents by motivation for choosing a training profile,

multiple choice, people.

Students were asked to assess the degree of influence of the advertising campaign of the department on their final choice (where 1 – did not affect at all, 5 – very strongly influenced). As a result, it turned out that 28.9% recognized its significant or very strong influence on their final choice (Fig. 5).

Figure 5 – The degree of influence of the advertising campaign on the final choice of respondents, people.

At the moment, the overwhelming number of first-year students surveyed are aware of the department's account, 68.9% are subscribed to the account and another 11.1% are not subscribed, but follow the news (Fig. 6), which provides an opportunity for further online interaction with respondents.

Figure 6 – Structure of respondents' awareness about the account of the Department of MT VSUES, %

The results of the admission campaign are presented in Table 3.

Table 3

The effectiveness of the admission campaign from the Internet promotion of educational services

When calculating the effectiveness, first-year students who estimated the impact of the advertising campaign on the final choice by 4 points or more were taken into account.

The resulting ROI shows the overall effectiveness of the advertising campaign: for every ruble spent on promotion, the department will receive more than 5 thousand rubles of profit already in the first month of study.

Conclusion

Thus, when conducting an online promotion campaign for the department's educational services, such tools as content marketing and targeted advertising proved to be the most effective. Landing pages proved to be ineffective in solving the problem of collecting contacts of applicants, but performed an informational and introductory function. Two other tasks (creating a positive media image of the department and attracting the target audience) were completed. The main goal of promoting the department's account to increase interest in educational services was achieved: it was possible not only to increase the department's audience on Instagram, but also to recruit first-year students for all implemented training profiles. The results of the study can be used by the heads of universities and its structural divisions in order to improve the promotion of educational services, as well as by researchers for further research in this area.

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