Designing a Model for Higher Education Marketing in Iran

The aim of this study is to design a higher education marketing model in Iran which can be used by the educational system in order to provide informed, purposeful and more specialized educational services. The research method is applied in terms of purpose, and in terms of the data collection method, exploratory mixed method which is specifically used by the Strauss and Corbin grounded theory procedure. The statistical population includes three groups of university administrators (university heads, vice presidents, faculty deputies and department managers), higher education policymakers, and university experts in the field of marketing from them 39 subjects selected via snowball sampling method and semi-structured interviews were conducted by heads of higher education institutions. In order to analysis of data, open, axial and selective coding was used. Findings revealed that the model of study consists of six components: causal conditions (internal and external systemic factors), contextual factors (educational policy-making at macro level and privatization of educational institutes), axial category (higher education marketing), strategies (at micro and macro levels), environmental interventions (role of the government, sociocultural factors, and economic factors) and outcomes (individual, organizational and social) which make up 11 categories and 97 items.