Marketing Communication Practices in Bulgarian Higher Education

This study presents the results from the second end-stage of a project on the topic of “Marketing Communication and Developing Competitive Advantages in Higher Education”, financed by the “Scientific Research” fund at Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski” for the period 2017-2018. The main goal of the conducted empirical research is describing and comparing communication practices and activities by the Bulgarian state higher schools and universities in relation to their target groups – candidate students, current students and employers. The object of study are the public higher schools and universities operating on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria. The subject of study is the marketing communication as a factor in building competitive advantages by Bulgarian higher schools and universities. Questionnaires were prepared and distributed online among experts in the statistical units in order to solve the posed research problems. Among the significant conclusions derived from the results are that surprisingly larger high schools rarely have their written communication strategy and medium and smaller ones seem to be more engaged with active strategic marketing communication planning; only 1/3 of higher schools are trying to track and evaluate the impact of marketing communication in changing their reputation what should be one of their long-term communication goals if planned effectively.