GLOBAL UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT - WHICH MARKETING STRATEGIES?

In Portugal as in many other countries Universities are dealing with two major problems: an economic crises and demographic decline. In the other hand, Portuguese universities have been working in the last years to achieve the attention of foreign students. In this context, marketing strategies are very important and have been changing with the introduction of web communications and social networks. Universities should define a marketing strategy to local market and at the same time have to determine what kind of communication tools use to reach students from other countries. Universities Marketing strategies are a special issue in the marketing field that have been study for different authors as Hammond, Harmon, & Webster (2007), Hemsley-Brown, & Oplatka, (2006), Hayez, (2007) in distinct lines. Others researchers focus the studies in a better communication between universities and their interested groups as for instance the students (Ivy, 2008). The main goal of this research is to analyses which marketing tools Portuguese Universities have been followed to reach prospect students in local market and international market. In this context this article, identifies communication actions and other elements directed to future and present students. The methodology used to attain the objectives of this study was web content analyses of universities websites. In the final are presented the conclusions and paths for further research in integrated marketing strategies in universities globalization.