A strong position can be obtained only by a given marketing approach.

The universities evolving environment its turbulent and in such conditions, management
has to accomplish four main objectives: understanding the macro environment, environment
systematic research, opportunities and treats findings and environment acclimation.1
The best method to fulfill the forth objectives is marketing audit. Its the base for activity
decision making, information for client and resource attracting, anticipation and accommodating
with the educational market requirements. At the same time, audit researches the marketing
activities efficiency and effectiveness, measures consumer motivation intensity, establishes
realistic marketing objectives and offers increased capacity to predict and to go through changes.
Marketing audit is an important phase in the strategic planning, base of marketing
objectives and strategies establishing and sets sights on achieving them after implementation.2
The necessity happens by the fact that the higher education institutes develop
contradictious activities, on the one hand didactics, market oriented, on the other hand a
scientific research activity, hyper-centralized, formal motivated, only level market oriented.3
Methodology
Marketing audit exert a structured approach on collecting and analyzing data and
information about the complex universities environment. Involves marketing research and
historical data collecting about the institution and services provided. The audit follows a three
steps procedure 4:
a. Objectives, aim and approach setting
The audit target marketing operations from institution as a whole with the goal of
determining true value of institution on educational market, in order to provide recommends
maximizing results.
Grades from 0 to 100 are attributed for performance to all the activities that are classified
in 21 general types. Every activity is analysed by interviewing staff and analyzing information
from various documents. Are settled five levels of performance: critic (0-15), alarming(16-35),
average(36-65), satisfying (66-85), amazing (86-100).
b. Data collection
1

Avram, G., Dan, A., Curs Marketing educaional n sistem descentralizat, disponibil la
http://promep.softwin.ro/promep/news/show/4185, accesat la 01.05.2012
2
Cetin, I., Locul i rolul auditului de marketing n procesul planificrii strategice de marketing, Analele
Universitii Constantin Brncusi din Trgu Jiu, Seria Economie, Nr. 4/2010, p.113-119
3
Olteanu,V., Planificarea strategic orientat spre pia n domeniul serviciilor de educa ie, Revista de Marketing
Online, Vol.1, Nr. 2,p.1-2
4
Kotler, P., The Marketing Audit Comes of Age, Hamilton Consultants, Cambridge, MA, 1977, p. 4

The audit is based on interrogating some staff categories about precise issue. The
questions are institution, context and circumstances adapted. For time economy, the
question, time and place have been settled from the beginning. The used data are public
data, from ASE website, profile websites, scientific articles and private data obtained
from staff inside BMCOC (Marketing, Counseling and Career Orientation Office),
Acquisition office and student spokesman in ASE Council.

A review of current marketing theory produced no useful results, and we sought to develop an
marketing audit model from which to make recommendations to higher-education institutions. To
start this process, we began an in depth literature search, coupled with informal, personal
discussions with the staff and public data.
Based on the information gleaned from this research period, in I drafted a marketing list of
questions, correlated with .. for univeristies. This questions. asked openended questions
about NPOs' current marketing practices, use of volunteers, and areas where marketing efforts
needed improvement (Appendix). It was mailed to random samples of NPOs from the U.S.
International Revenue Service list of over 42,000 NPOs (or NPO chapters) in the state of
Michigan (Internal Revenue Service, 2003). We mailed a hardcopy of the survey to a random
sample of 400 NPOs, and subsequently mailed invitations to complete the same survey online to
four additional random samples of 500800 NPOs. In all, 3,301 surveys or invitations to
complete the online surveyand followup reminder post cardswere mailed to NPOs
throughout Michigan in 20062007.
These mailings resulted in responses from 124 NPOs (3.8%) of varying types and sizes (Tables 1
and 2) and 96 returns from the U.S. Post Office (2.9%). We read the responses, searching for
patterns and trends in the data, and then analyzed the results. The 29 survey respondents that
indicated that marketing was only somewhat important or not important to their NPO and
the 17 respondents who did not complete the survey because they did not do marketing were
pulled aside and examined separately.
We also conducted inperson interviews with the executive directors or board presidents of 43
NPOsmost of which were located in or near the city of Grand Rapids in the western lower
peninsula of Michigan. Although these NPOs were asked the same questions that were on the
written survey, the respondents provided more detailed answers and we were able to ask follow
up questions. Using the snowball method to obtain additional interviews (Denzin & Lincoln,
2000), we increased the interview response rate to almost 90% (87.7%): 43 of the 49 NPOs
contacted agreed to an interview. Some of the NPOs contacted were more willing to be
interviewed if we had been directly referred by a colleague or business associate. All interviews
were recorded onto coded audio tapes, but several were unusable due to technical problems. As a
result, 38 interviews were transcribed by student workers. The responses were analyzed using the
same methodology as the survey responses.
RESULTS

This study has revealed several key findings that both support and contradict previous research.
Unlike most studies, this research focused on marketing from the viewpoint of the NPO, rather
than on marketing from the perspective of either donors or forprofit corporations. Furthermore,
unlike other studies, such as Andreasen and Kolter (2007), we focus specifically on smaller, local
nonprofits. This provides a unique view into the world of the NPO. When asked about
limitations to their organizational marketing efforts, interview and survey subjects answered
almost universally the same: money, time, and/or resources (personnel). This refrain is also a
common theme in the literature. However, the results here show several other impediments to
marketing efforts for the NPO.

Study Limitations and Future Research

As is common in studies relying on survey data, the response rate for survey respondents in this
study was quite low (3.8%). Although more than 3,000 NPOs were invited to participate in the
survey, only 124 NPOs responded. Of those, 13.7% responded only to say that they would not be
participating in the study. A small number of NPO respondents indicated that they did not have
the capability to access the online survey. Although we sent paper surveys to the NPOs that
contacted us about this problem, it is likely that there were other NPOs that discarded the letter if
they did not have the technological ability to easily respond to the survey. Another 2.9% of the
total sample never received the invitation to participate in the study, because the address on file
with the Internal Revenue Service was outofdate. However, the response rate from NPOs
invited to participate in inperson interviews was very highalmost 90%. We should note, these
data were less random and more centralized to one region in western Michigan, but the indepth
responses we received made the interview data very helpful to our final analysis.
While this study examined the marketing practices of NPOs specifically in Michigan, to properly
develop a new strategy of nonprofit marketing future studies will need to include NPOs in other
states, and perhaps other countries. While it is anticipated that the results will be similar, NPOs
in different areas of the country or with different cultural settings may provide additional insights
into the motivations of donors, clients and volunteers, and into the other processes underlying
NPO marketing strategy for NPOs. All of this information will provide the underpinnings for the
development of a new, model nonprofit marketing strategy.
CONCLUSION
This preliminary study examines some of the marketing strategy implications for NPOs in
Michigan. Previous studies have only adapted existing forprofit strategies to the NPO, and they
have discovered that these do not really fit the needs of NPOs. This study is the first step in
developing a new model strategy of nonprofit marketing.
NPOs must reevaluate the importance of marketing, and place it higher on their hierarchy of
organizational priorities. Specifically, NPOs should include marketing as a desired skill set for

their board of directors, place marketing as a lineitem on their annual budget, and take
advantage of the resources available to them through local academic institutions and NPO
service organizations. This will allow NPOs to address brand development and recognition, and
any shortfalls they might have in all three NPO market areas: obtaining funding, reaching out to
a diverse clientele, and effectively utilizing good volunteers.
This study reveals several marketing and managerial issues for NPOs that provide a starting
point for the development of a new model nonprofit marketing strategy. NPOs struggle with a
general lack of understanding of the true functions of marketing, difficulties in branding, and an
inability to reach out to all of their target markets. Future studies will have to delve deeper into
these topics in order to develop a functional marketing strategy that caters specifically to the
needs of the NPO.

The conceptual framework of the marketing audit has been well developed
by different contributors since the late 1950s. At the present time, the
popular marketing textbooks and the published academic and general
literature deal primarily with the theoretical and practical aspects of the
marketing audit without offering any rigorous empirical justification of the
practice. The teaching of the marketing audit appears to be based on the
logical expectation of its usefulness, isolated case studies, and anecdotal
evidence. There is very small indication of how the marketing audit is
actually being used, the procedure in conducting it, and most of all how the
universities perceives and evaluates marketing and marketing audit benefits.
This paper attempts to explore practice of the marketing audit in the best
economy university from Romania.
The results of this industry-based survey of 216 large Australian businesses
indicated that about 48 per cent of the respondents have used the marketing
audit, with 75 per cent using the self-audit method in conducting it. The
respondents
perception
was
that
the
implementation
of
the
recommendations of the marketing audit had contributed mostly between
one per cent and 10 per cent to their organisational performance.
Limits
After Kotler and Zaltman introduced the new concept of social marketing, was created an
autonom zone as educational marketing. Marketing apparition in education can be explained by
the necessity of rentability , to capitalize environment opportunities. The biggest contribution to

marketing development in education have had the universities that always adapted the offer to
population needs (students, family, comunity). As Wirt and Kirst emphasize, the relation
between school and community may be considered a main goal of educational marketing,
relation capable to increase performance for both sides.