INTERNET MARKETING IN AN ENVIRONMENT OF UNIVERSITY INSTITUTIONS

The paper deals with internet marketing and internet strategy in university environment. It analyzes the forms of internet marketing used by Slovak universities - advertisement, sale support, public relations and direct marketing. It also compares this state with other countries. There are number of publications about internet marketing. Most of them are centred on companies or corporations. Books, articles and journals describe the procedures of how to increase the profits through internet marketing. We have dealt with the theme of internet marketing at Slovak universities due to the lack of information of this subject. We try to bring near this issue in this paper. We come out from the assumption that the Slovak universities have some limitations in this area. The success of the school in terms of achieving its objectives depends not only on the quality of university services, but also of the way in which the universities will informed their surroundings about their quality and how it will interact with the environment globally. The examined object in this paper represents all state, public and private university institutions in the Slovak Republic and also foreign universities placed in the top three rungs Webometrics Ranking of World Universities 2013. The examined subject was their internet marketing or their behaviour on the internet. The starting point of the observation represents set criteria of the marketing communication mix on the internet. Since it is a comparison of internet marketing of university institutions, it was necessary to determine whether the objects of comparison, i.e. domestic and selected foreign universities have websites and make marketing activities on the internet. The internet marketing communication was monitored from several perspectives. In this information technology era no university institution can exist without internet marketing tools. This work shows clearly that the Slovak universities are behind the foreign universities.