Reaching Potential Russian Students through Social Media : Case: Lahti UAS Ltd
Sogomonian, Diana (2018)
Sogomonian, Diana
Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu
2018
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018121421568
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018121421568
Tiivistelmä
Nowadays, digital marketing plays an important role in higher education. Lots of educational institutions contest each other through social media for attracting more students, increasing income and ranks. The fact of the tuition fees in higher education for non-EU/EEA students forced Finnish universities to build a new digital marketing strategy to attract potential international students. Russian students are one of the largest groups of international students in Finland. Therefore, the objective of the thesis is to support the case company, Lahti UAS Ltd, to obtain a better understanding of the customer journey of potential Russian students and how they can be reached through social media.
The theoretical framework of the whole thesis consists of two chapters that create a basis for the study. The following paragraph introduces the two chapters forming the theoretical part of the thesis. The first chapter of the theoretical part, chapter two, dis-cusses customers, how to get to know potential customers, build brand awareness and describes decision-making process as well as the location of potential customers in the marketing funnel. Chapter three moves on gives the meaning of digital marketing discuss inbound marketing and content marketing as well as social media in connection to marketing.
This thesis is written using a deductive reasoning approach. Quantitative methods are used for measuring results received from the online survey. In addition to that, data collected by primary and secondary sources. The survey was held online with potential Russian students to collect primary data. Secondary sources were collected from literature such as books, journals and electronic sources as web articles.
The empirical research results showed that potential Russian students start their decision journey mostly in high school or bachelor’s degree and gather information on Yandex, Google or web page. They are interested in international students’ content and feedback of students. Tuition fees highly affect their decision making. And relatives are considered one of the main influencing factors. Based on the results, recommendations to the case company on digital marketing strategy are provided.
The theoretical framework of the whole thesis consists of two chapters that create a basis for the study. The following paragraph introduces the two chapters forming the theoretical part of the thesis. The first chapter of the theoretical part, chapter two, dis-cusses customers, how to get to know potential customers, build brand awareness and describes decision-making process as well as the location of potential customers in the marketing funnel. Chapter three moves on gives the meaning of digital marketing discuss inbound marketing and content marketing as well as social media in connection to marketing.
This thesis is written using a deductive reasoning approach. Quantitative methods are used for measuring results received from the online survey. In addition to that, data collected by primary and secondary sources. The survey was held online with potential Russian students to collect primary data. Secondary sources were collected from literature such as books, journals and electronic sources as web articles.
The empirical research results showed that potential Russian students start their decision journey mostly in high school or bachelor’s degree and gather information on Yandex, Google or web page. They are interested in international students’ content and feedback of students. Tuition fees highly affect their decision making. And relatives are considered one of the main influencing factors. Based on the results, recommendations to the case company on digital marketing strategy are provided.