Strategic Marketing Planning on Private Secondary Education During the Recession in Greece

Apostolou Georgios, Papatsimpas Achilleas, Gounas S. Athanasios

(Department of Marketing, Alexander Technological Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece)

Abstract: The purpose of this research, which was conducted between 15 June 2018 and 10 September 2018 is to investigate whether, during the economic crisis, various private secondary-education organizations in Greece including secondary tutorial schools, private schools, foreign language centers, special course delivery services (private tutorial schools) and study centers, develop and pursue a marketing strategy. Other points covered include demographics, characteristics of organisations, specific strategy focus, amount spent on such strategy and possible changes on both an academic and a financial level. Possible correlations between specific marketing actions and results were calculated. The statistical analysis of the data, shown that the implementation of a marketing plan (and the amount invested on this project) positively affect students’ academic performance, new enrollments, organizations’ earnings and recruitment of new scientific staff. Twenty close-ended questionnaires were used to collect the data. During research period, many private schools had ceased their duties because of summer holiday time. As a result, a small number of the data were collected from these schools and it will not be possible to generalize any results for the ones.

Key words: marketing mix, educational organizations, Greek secondary private education