A Marketing Strategy for International Summer School
Helsky-Lehtola, Ursula (2015)
Helsky-Lehtola, Ursula
Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu
2015
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015111316397
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015111316397
Tiivistelmä
This subject for the study was requested by Director of Higher Education Services and Head of International Office at TAMK. A summer school could be a great way to do marketing on the expertise of TAMK in the world. That is why the suggested summer courses in summer school are chosen from the fields of strong expertise at TAMK. The summer school could offer “appetizers” to the future students who might be paying for their studies in the future. The actual target groups for summer school are not defined. There is no strategy nor permanent staff resources for a summer school at TAMK. In addition, TAMK has tried to offer summer school courses in the period 2012-2015 with no financial success. The purpose of this thesis is to give recommendations and suggestions for the marketing and development of an international summer school at TAMK. Various suggestions and guidelines for marketing management, actions, and marketing channels were used as a background for this thesis. Moreover, the information was collected from the summer school participants of two courses and from the potential customers, exchange students at TAMK. This study was carried out using a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods where the quantitative part was done in the form of a questionnaire to the students and qualitative part was a deep in-terview at the University of Tampere and its summer school.
The theoretical background of the study focuses on the marketing strategy, marketing management and marketing planning. Our society is nowadays more and more digital, online and social media is very essential among marketing channels. The empirical part of the work introduces the results of the questionnaires of the students and of the deep interview at the University of Tampere as well. The last part includes recommendations and conclusions of the research findings, interviews and questionnaires and researcher´s personal suggestions and recommendations. The main result is that TAMK has not done enough marketing nor resourcing. Summer schools need a responsible person for its summer school, marketing plan and strategy to make its summer school known and later profitable. Therefore, further research is required to find out the best practices in Europe and how the best summer schools in Europe actually survive and thrive financially. The researcher suggests to benchmark the Utrecht Summer School in The Netherlands as one of the best, very successful and the oldest summer school in Europe. The researcher also proposes to think carefully, if it would be possible to organise a summer school in co-operation with other universities and HEI´s in the Tampere Region and in Europe. TAMK already has excellent co-operation with UTA and TUT, and a strategic partnership with the Munich University of Applied Sciences and, therefore, that could be deepened with a mutual summer school.
The theoretical background of the study focuses on the marketing strategy, marketing management and marketing planning. Our society is nowadays more and more digital, online and social media is very essential among marketing channels. The empirical part of the work introduces the results of the questionnaires of the students and of the deep interview at the University of Tampere as well. The last part includes recommendations and conclusions of the research findings, interviews and questionnaires and researcher´s personal suggestions and recommendations. The main result is that TAMK has not done enough marketing nor resourcing. Summer schools need a responsible person for its summer school, marketing plan and strategy to make its summer school known and later profitable. Therefore, further research is required to find out the best practices in Europe and how the best summer schools in Europe actually survive and thrive financially. The researcher suggests to benchmark the Utrecht Summer School in The Netherlands as one of the best, very successful and the oldest summer school in Europe. The researcher also proposes to think carefully, if it would be possible to organise a summer school in co-operation with other universities and HEI´s in the Tampere Region and in Europe. TAMK already has excellent co-operation with UTA and TUT, and a strategic partnership with the Munich University of Applied Sciences and, therefore, that could be deepened with a mutual summer school.