Developing Marketing Strategies and Tactics in Higher Education Through Target Market Research

This paper describes research undertaken by a large midwestern university to determine the needs of the market it serves, to ascertain the image of the university, to develop procedures for identifying potential students with a high probability of matriculating and procedures for increasing the probability of matriculation. The population studied was prospective students who submitted ACT profiles. A modified Fishbein instrument was used for measuring their image of the university. Factor analysis was used to reduce 102 ACT variables to 20. These variables plus others developed through literature search and the image study were included in the set of input variables used in multiple discriminant analysis. The resulting classification functions provided a means for identifying variables important to each individual's matriculation decision and providing them with information designed to increase his/her awareness of the attractiveness of the university.