A MARKETING STRATEGY FOR INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL Ursula Helsky-Lehtola Master’s Thesis December 2015 Degree Programme in International Project Management 2 ABSTRACT Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu Tampere University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in International Project Management URSULA HELSKY-LEHTOLA: A Marketing Strategy for International Summer School Master's Thesis, 96 pages plus appendices 12 December 2015 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 sugges- tions 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 col- lected from the summer school participants of two courses and from the potential cus- tomers, exchange students at TAMK. This study was carried out using a mix of quanti- tative 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 interview at the Uni- versity 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 partner- ship with the Munich University of Applied Sciences and, therefore, that could be deep- ened with a mutual summer school. ______________________________________________________________________ Key words: marketing, marketing management, marketing strategy, marketing channel, summer school, international, internationalisation, higher education 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank all those who have supported me along the way with my thesis. I thank Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) for commissioning this thesis research. I have been privileged to have a short study leave from my work at TAMK to finish this study. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor Dr. Mauri Grönroos for his contribution, given boundaries, for asking questions and for his most valuable advice regarding this thesis. I also want to express my gratitude to my other supporting teachers in this new Master´s programme in International Business at TAMK and the teachers of the summer school courses in the summer 2015. Furthermore, I would like to thank my colleague, teacher and my friend Marja Keränen for her professionalism, personal coaching and mental support for this thesis. I am really grateful for all the students, who participated in this study by giving me their answers to the questions. I thank also The International Office of TAMK for their co-operation. My warm thanks also go to the library service of TAMK as without their professional help I would not have found all the needed material. I am really grateful to my friend Heli Nurmesniemi-Kickken who helped me with the English language. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to all the people who have understood that my Master´s studies and thesis writing have been one of my major priorities in 2014-2015. This work is dedicated to my supporting parents Tapio and Malgorzata Helsky who always have supported their children to go abroad and discover the world. This work is equally much dedicated to my dear son Alex who has been really understanding towards my studies, writing and reading. I truly hope that I have managed to give him an encouraging example of how important education is in life. I constantly encourage him to dream big - anything is possible, as long as you work hard and want it enough. This journey of studying and lifelong learning will continue. Pirkkala, 5 November 2015 Ursula Helsky-Lehtola 4 CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Background on the topic ...................................................................................... 8 1.2 Structure of the thesis .......................................................................................... 9 1.3 Purpose and scope of the thesis ......................................................................... 11 1.4 Strategy at TAMK and about strategy ............................................................... 11 2 INTERNATIONALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND SUMMER SCHOOLS ................................................................................................................. 14 2.1 International TAMK .......................................................................................... 14 2.2 Internationality in Higher Education in Finland ................................................ 18 2.3 International students in Finland ........................................................................ 19 2.4 International Summer Schools in Finland ......................................................... 21 2.5 International Summer Schools in Europe .......................................................... 23 3 RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODOLOGY ................................................ 27 3.1 Research objective and research questions ........................................................ 27 3.2 Research methodology ....................................................................................... 27 3.2.1 Mixed research method ........................................................................... 29 3.2.2 Data collection and analysis .................................................................... 30 3.2.3 Ethics and validity of the research .......................................................... 31 4 MARKETING MANAGEMENT, STRATEGY AND PLANNING ....................... 33 4.1 Marketing management ..................................................................................... 33 4.1.1 Holistic marketing ................................................................................... 35 4.2 Communicating value ........................................................................................ 37 4.2.1 Marketing mix ......................................................................................... 38 4.2.2 Brand and reputation ............................................................................... 39 4.3 Marketing channels ............................................................................................ 41 4.4 Marketing strategy ............................................................................................. 42 4.4.1 Choosing the marketing strategy ............................................................. 44 4.4.2 Implementing the strategy ....................................................................... 45 4.5 Marketing plan ................................................................................................... 46 4.5.1 International marketing plan ................................................................... 48 4.6 Social media marketing ..................................................................................... 48 4.7 Services Marketing ............................................................................................ 50 4.8 Analyzing the current situation .......................................................................... 53 4.8.1 SWOT analysis of TAMK´s international summer school ..................... 54 4.8.2 Porter´s 5 analysis of TAMK´s international activities........................... 55 5 4.9 Marketing of Higher Education ......................................................................... 57 5 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH .......................................................................................