Application of Marketing Mix Strategies in Innovative Management of Universities in North Eastern Nigeria

The issue of marketing is becoming more significant as a focal point of institutional functions in Nigerian universities. Universities are facing increasingly complex challenges, in particular, their operating environment is undergoing major transformation such as changing demand patterns, intensifying increased national competition and government funding is declining. Using different market mix strategies can lead to achieving competitive advantage in the education market. The focus of these paper is to determine the application of the 7ps model of price, programme, promotion, place, processes, physical facilities and people on innovative management of universities in North Eastern Nigeria. The population of the study comprises of 390 academic and nonacademic management staff with knowledge of strategic management from thirteen (13) public and private universities in North Eastern Nigeria. All the 390 management staff were utilized for the study. An instrument tagged “Application of marketing mix strategies determination questionaire (AMMSDO) with 35 items from 7ps model, having a five-point likert scale collected the relevant data. The findings show that application of price,programme, promotion,process,physical facilities and people strategies was to a low extent in innovative management of universities in North Eastern Nigeria. The study concluded that application of marketing mix strategies in innovative management of universities is justified to share their service offerings to students.The study also recommended among others the syntheses of marketing mix strategies in innovative management, because the design of each of the strategies is dependent on student behavior analysis.