Digital Marketing Communication Strategies and Its Impact On Student Higher Education Decision Making Process – A Review Of Relevant Academic Literature

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the Indian education sector especially the university student admissions and enrolments to a great extent. The rise in competition among the higher education institutions for student admissions and enrolment makes them invest a huge amount of ad spends in Branding, Advertisement & PR activities. This research paper highlights the impact of Digital Marketing Communication Strategies which helps in leveraging the Student Admission Decision Making Process, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. The increasing usage of the internet by students recommends that higher education institutions need to make use of digital media to reach out to prospective students for admission and enrolment by feeding in continuous and engaging user-generated content through text, images, infographics, videos, and podcasts. It is also noted that there is a drastic shift in traditional decision-making to digitalized decision-making. The article emphasizes that both prospective students and university marketers should effectively use digital marketing communication tools. The article suggests strategies and conclusions to manage the corona crisis and structuring a conceptual model to increase admissions by using digital marketing communications as the primary promotional tool.