Digital Marketing Strategies for University Student Recruitments in Sri Lanka

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of digital marketing strategies in attracting students into the non-state higher education sector in Sri Lanka. Many students in Sri Lanka sit for Advanced Level Examination but a few of them enrol in the non-state higher education institutions due to the ineffectiveness of marketing strategies of these institutions. Hence, the objective of this study is to explore the effectiveness of digital marketing strategies for university selection, and the effectiveness of involvement excellence (which includes first impression, brand recognition, intuitive navigation, and application submission) arising from digital marketing strategies for university selection. This qualitative study utilised judgemental sampling to select marketing managers for conducting structured interviews as the data collection method. The collected data have been analysed through thematic analysis. Findings show the effectiveness of social media, optimised website design, and search engine optimisation for university selection and the effectiveness of involvement excellence consisting of first impression, brand recognition, intuitive navigation, and application submission experience for university selection. Keywords: Digital marketing; social media; optimised website design; search engine