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Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image and increase
parents' loyalty

Article  in  International Journal of Management in Education · January 2015

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2015.068761

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180 Int. J. Management in Education, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2015

Survey on marketing tactics used to build private

school image and increase parents’ loyalty

Shahab Alam Malik*, Amna Mushtaq,

Laeeq Hassan Jaswal and Shujah Alam Malik
Department of Management Sciences,
Faculty of Business Administration,
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT),
Islamabad, Pakistan
Email: shahab@comsats.edu.pk
Email: amush16@hotmail.com
Email: laeeq_hassan@comsats.edu.pk
Email: shujah.alam.malik@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract: This study aims to explore the elements of marketing tactics used by
private sector elementary schools by observing the relationship between the
marketing tactics and parents’ loyalty along with mediating effect of school
image. The seven elements of marketing tactics were used in this study,
namely, place, price, promotion, people, physical evidence and process.
Feedback was sought from the parents of children of primary level schools
through survey questionnaires. A final sample of 529 respondents was used for
data analysis, using multiple regression method to analyse the effect of 7P’s of
service marketing in building strong and distinctive private school image and
parents’ loyalty. Product, people, and process were the three elements of
marketing tactics that were found positively related to parents’ loyalty.
Findings of this survey can serve as a guideline for school management to build
effective marketing strategies to enhance their school image.

Keywords: marketing tactics; school image; parents’ loyalty; Pakistan;

management in education.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Malik, S.A., Mushtaq, A.,
Jaswal, L.H. and Malik, S.A. (2015) ‘Survey on marketing tactics used to build
private school image and increase parents’ loyalty’, Int. J. Management in
Education, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp.180–199.

Biographical notes: Shahab Alam Malik is an Assistant Professor at Department

of Management Sciences, Faculty of Business Administration, COMSATS
Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad, Pakistan. He received
his PhD in Management Science and Engineering with specialisation in total
quality management from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, and
Master of Business Administration from Hamdard University, Islamabad.
He has extensive teaching, administrative and supervision experiences.
His research interests are TQM, SERVQUAL, HRM and education. He has
published articles in International Journal of Management in Education,
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, International Journal of
Productivity and Quality Management and other journals. Furthermore, he has
also published numerous articles in IEEE (EI Indexed) and other conferences.

Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

181 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

Amna Mushtaq is a PhD scholar in Department of Management Science,

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad. She obtained
her MS in Management Sciences from CIIT. Furthermore, she holds degree of
BBA with major in Finance from Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU),
Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Her research focus is on evaluating different marketing
tactics used by academic institutions.

Laeeq Hassan Jaswal is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and Manager at

Centre for Policy Studies based at COMSATS Institute of Information
Technology (CIIT). He teaches services marketing and integrated marketing
communications. His current research interests are legal and ethical issues of
marketing in Islamic society, educational reforms in third world, academic
polices and Islamic banking. He teaches courses in undergraduate and
graduate composition. He has been associated with fashion industry, energy
conservation, development of bio-metric enterprise wide solutions and banking
before joining academics.

Shujah Alam Malik is a PhD scholar at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM),

Malaysia. He holds a MPM (Master in Project Management) degree from
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad, Pakistan,
and MBA (Master of Business Administration) from Arid Agriculture University
(AAUR), Rawalpindi, Pakistan. His research interests are organisational identity,
project management, HRM and education.

1 Introduction

Education is considered as the systematic process opted by educational institutions for

the growth and development of physical, character and mental abilities of human beings.
It is the right of every individual that he/she must get adequate education. It is the right of
every single child to get educated without having any ethnic, cultural, racial and social
differentiation. Education plays a vital role in the development of a child’s mental
capability and personality. Similarly, education also plays an important role in the
nation’s development. Furthermore, education enhances economic growth of country
through knowledge, expertise and innovative strengths of its pupil. The process of a
student’s education starts from school, followed by college education, and ends at higher
education at the university level. In the first phase of school education, primary schools
offer services from play group to 5th class level.
Private sector primary education institutions in urban areas of Pakistan are facing
fierce competition in the educational market which is fostering threat to existing
educational institutions. The business environment is becoming very multifaceted plus
complex, and is thus observing continuous and rapid changes (Doherty and Delener,
2001). Schools, at the one hand, are focusing on delivering quality education and on the
other end, are trying to sustain their profits by keeping their customers’ loyalty. At the
embryonic stage of primary level, the customers of schools are parents of the juveniles.
Marketing is considered as one of the important factors in promoting about the
quality of education in schools and making them competitive in the market. The school
name, its standing and status are getting more importance in academic sector. There is a
rise in recognition among both academic and learning institutions (Friedman et al., 2006;
Friedman et al., 2007; Hausman and Goldring, 2000; Li and Hung, 2009). The current
 S.A. Malik et al. 182

business environment is becoming competitive day by day as customers have certain

alternatives available in market. Different marketing tactics are being used by the
management of private schools to make customers loyal. Businesses indeed utilise the
goodwill and image of firm to gain the trust of potential customers and to make them
devoted and loyal.
According to Landrum et al. (1998), image in this competitive market is a valuable
asset for the organisation/institution. Moreover, Kotler and Fox (1995) determined that
rather than quality, organisation’s name, present standing as well as its image are more
valuable and important because potential parents’ choices are mainly influenced by the
perceived image of institution. The area of educational marketing has adopted the idea of
corporate reputation with the eagerness that the school will possess parallel positive
effects if a particular school has glowing reputation (Safon, 2009; Vidaver-Cohen, 2007).
An organisation’s image is viewed as an asset for the firm that must be catered
professionally and competently. One of the previous researches has demonstrated that the
parent-based school reputation measure consists of four dimensions namely: parent
orientation, learning quality, safe environment and good teachers. The strongest effect of
satisfaction was on parents’ views of learning quality, followed by a safe environment,
and good teachers (Skallerud, 2011).
At the early stage of relationship, customer primarily relies on perceived trustworthiness
of service provider, and shows faith in reliability and superiority of service. So, the image
of the school must be properly portrayed and should be modified carefully. If the image
of school is not properly tailored then the school might observe decrease in profits,
lower students’ enrolment and decrease in parents’ loyalty. Some of the past researches
reveal that the school environment, parent involvement, school communication and
involvement, academic achievement, staff expertise, and transportation facilities are
significantly related to parents’ satisfaction towards their child’s school (Bond and
King, 2003; Erickson, 1996; Goldring and Shapira, 1993; Griffith, 1997; McGrew and
Gilman, 1991).
Loyal customers generate stream of profits for a company. They bring out ample
profits and cause reduction in marketing costs. Oliver (1999) defines customer loyalty
as person’s overall satisfaction, intense attachment and deep commitment with the
company, brand, product or service. Customer’s loyalty is predicted in variety of
behaviours, the most commonly as repeat purchases of a product/service, positive word-
of-mouth and recommending product or service to other people (e.g. Lam et al., 2004;
Zeithaml et al., 1996). Parents’ loyalty is related to parents’ positive attitude towards a
particular school. It is parents’ willingness that their child/children must continue to
study in the same school. Li and Hung (2009) argue that loyal parents will carry on their
kid’s study in the same school. They will take actions to promote the school by
suggesting the particular school to new parents and thus in a way helps school to grasp
the attention of new customers (Li and Hung, 2009). Loyalty may be manifested in
multiple ways such as parents expressing their preferences for one school over others,
and continuing their child/children studies from the same school. Bejou (2013) conducted
a study in public schools and observed that parent satisfaction was an important
variable in the public school setting. Moreover, parent satisfaction was significantly and
positively correlated with school climate, school ethical climate, school service quality,
parent empowerment, and parent’s loyalty.
To undertake the study, some of the elements of marketing tactics are used. In
particular, there are four key marketing elements: product, price, place and promotion
183 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

(especially in the case of product marketing). But in the case of service marketing, these
four P’s are extended to 7P’s, namely: product mix, price mix, place mix, promotion mix,
people mix, physical evidence and process. The place is where the service can be easily,
frequently and conveniently be availed. Considering schools, main focus of parents is
that whether the school can be easily accessed and whether the transport facility is
available. The price component for schools is composed of admission fee plus monthly
fee of the school. Promotion includes advertising and promoting school name and
activities like exhibitions and conventions either by using electronic media or print
media. The people element of service marketing mix consists of the staff, their skills,
expertise and ability to entertain students plus parents. As services are intangible so they
require some cues that help customers to judge the service quality. Physical element of
service marketing consists of tangible items of service like the infrastructure, equipment
and playground of schools. In the end, process that starts when the parents buy
prospectus of school and ends when students receive final certificate.
Marketing is no more new to the education sectors now. Many authors pointed out
the progressively essential and main role that marketing is playing in student enrolment
and recruitment (Cubillo et al., 2006; Ivy, 2001; Maringe and Foskett, 2002). This study
will check the effect of marketing tactics on parents’ loyalty for school mediated by
school image. The study aims to check whether the proposed model of marketing tactics
and parents’ loyalty may possibly be relevant to Pakistani culture (although there are
minor changes done in the actual model encountering the cultural gap present in the two
countries). It is important to check model in different cultures in order to generalise the
results. One of the major considerations of research is to know the major marketing
strategies that lead to build strong and distinctive school image and ultimately lead to
parents’ loyalty. Furthermore, what are the strategies that schools must adopt in order to
remain competitive in the market.
In Pakistan, two different types of high school education systems are currently in
practice, i.e. matriculation system, which is offered by local government, and O/A levels
which is offered by a board established in the Britain and is a part of General Certificate
of Education (GCE). In Pakistan, the public schools are offering only matriculation
system of education, whereas the private sector schools are offering both O/A levels and
matriculation system.
Both of these systems have their merits and demerits. While choosing between the
two, one of the important factors is the financial requirement. Generally speaking, it is
rather more costly to do O’ levels than matriculation. The examination fees vary from a
few hundred Pakistani rupees in matriculation to three–four thousand rupees per subject
in O’ levels. Moreover, the schools offering O’ levels ruthlessly demand a high monthly
fee. Matriculation schools, on the other hand, particularly government schools, claim
nominal fee which is easily affordable by many.
Primary education institutions in Pakistan are facing severe competition in the
educational market that is threatening the survival of already operating educational
institutions. More and more new schools or branches of already established ones
are opening in different localities. Furthermore, there is no proper procedure and plan
present for schools registration. The registration department of schools and Ministry of
Education observes merely that the opening school possesses a building and teachers.
 S.A. Malik et al. 184

2 Literature review

2.1 Marketing tactics

Harvey (1996), in her article, points out the commercial implications of concepts of
marketing in the educational sector. Harvey also discussed that methods and concepts of
marketing if properly applied by the administrators of schools and colleges will turn out
to be favourable and beneficial for schools and will be helpful in rather high enrolment of
students.
Marketing mix is a marketing tool used by the organisations/institutions to generate
certain response from its target customers. In case of schools, it comprises certain
different acts/policies that school undergoes to manipulate in order to increase the
demand for the services it offers. Marketing tactics include the analysis, planning,
implementation and control of carefully formulated programmes and plans designed to
bring about intentional exchanges and interactions of values with a target market
to achieve organisational objects. As services are quite different from the products,
so to market the services, the marketing concepts are rearranged. The seven strategic
marketing elements for services include product, place, price, promotion, people,
physical evidence and process.
Ivy (2008) finds out the effect of new marketing mix which is based on MBA
students studying in business schools of South Africa. Ivy observed the attitudes and
opinions of students regarding the marketing initiatives taken by business schools. Using
principal component factor analysis, 25 commonly used marketing tools indicate that
four new, unique and independent elements are presented apart from the three elements
from ordinary marketing mix. Programme made of the curriculum of the MBA degree;
prominence, prospectus, both the hard copy provided to students or directly mailed
to the potential students, and premiums, considered not important as a marketing tool.
However, the price, people and promotion elements remained unchanged.
Mason and Staude (2008) aimed to point out the marketing tactics recommended for
the multifaceted turbulent environment, where environment and marketing is inspected
through the complexity lens. The research results uncertainly confirmed that by using
destabilising marketing mix, the company will be flourishing, and the use of complexity
theory is helpful in turbulent and unstable environment. Oplatka and Brown (2004), in
their research, focused on the understanding of marketing practices prevailing in the
educational institutions especially schools. They found that the practice of marketing
concepts in the educational sector has brought competition among schools. In addition to
this, promotion and advertising are one of the important strategies of service marketing
held at schools like promotion by using brochures. Finally, the roles of principals and
teachers are also discussed in the paper that how their involvement is necessary in
school’s marketing research process.

2.2 Organisation image (school image)

Keller (1993, p.3) defined brand image as “the perceptions about a brand, reflected by
the brand associations held in consumer memory”. Keller (1993) further explained three
important aspects of image: favourability, strength, and uniqueness of brand and
associations. Firms usually try to create positive image of the brand by linking favourable
and positive associations (Keller, 1993).
185 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

Organisation’s image is a social form of identification in which the employees feel an

association with the firm. According to Kotler and Fox (1995), educational institution’s
reputation and current image is a lot more important than quality because potential
students’ choices are significantly influenced by the perceived image of the institution. In
some researches, it was found that educational institution’s reputation and its image
strongly affect retention behaviour and loyalty (Helgesen and Nesset, 2007; Nguyen and
Leblanc, 2001b).
According to Kennedy (1977), the image has two distinctive components: functional,
which is related to intangible stimulus and thus can easily be measured, and emotional,
which is linked with psychological conditions becoming evident in feelings and attitudes.
Above all, image is the perception of a customer that he/she has about a product or
service. Image of a school can be build by various different factors and establishes after a
certain time period and by undertaking different marketing activities. School image can
be destroyed if particular needs are not accordingly catered and it can be maintained by
adopting new technologies.
Landrum et al. (1998) and Parameswaran and Glowacka (1995) suggested that the
higher education institutions must create or sustain a different image in order to gain
competitive advantage in a highly competitive market. According to these authors,
students’ willingness to enrol in a particular university totally depends on university’s
image. Dowling (1988) emphasised that a company could have multiple images. People
build image of a firm depending on the experiences that they have with the product or
service encountered. So company image is multifaceted.

2.3 Customers’ loyalty (parents’ loyalty)

Marketing activities are undertaken by the organisations to bring about certain outcomes,
i.e. whether to increase profit, market share and make customers loyal. One of the most
reliable success indicators of a firm is the loyalty factor (Zeithaml et al., 1996). Dick and
Basu (1994) argued that loyalty can be determined by the strength of association and
connection present between the relative attitude of the customers and repeat purchase
behaviour. Moreover, it is composed of attitudinal and behavioural elements of the
customers who have purchased the product or encountered the service (Dick and Basu,
1994). The aim of marketing activities is to develop, retain and enhance customer’s
loyalty towards an organisation. Higher customers’ loyalty indicates that the company
has high market share and it has the ability to demand comparatively higher prices as
compared to their competitors (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001).
Loyalty is the state of being loyal, a feeling of keen attachment and associations.
Loyal customers are the ones who allocate proportionally more of their finances to their
‘first choice’ store than customers who switch (Knox and Denison, 2000). In other
words, loyalty is also defined as customers’ forgiveness if there is service failure or any
mishap and there is no effect if the service provider increase prices (Mattila, 2001).
Moreover, loyal customers are means of promotion as they spread positive word-of-
mouth about the organisation and customer referrals. The term ‘parents’ loyalty’ means
that parents hold a deep obligation to enrol their child/children at a preferred learning
institution again and again in the future, to provide positive word-of-mouth, to suggest
the service to others, and to persuade others to use the service.
The most important stakeholders of companies are the customers. They are the ones
who generate the sales and revenues for the company. With respect to educational service
industry, in higher education sector students are considered as one of the most important
buyers or stakeholders, as students are the main source who generate tuition revenues
 S.A. Malik et al. 186

and school fees (Helgesen and Nesset, 2007; Safon, 2009). So comparatively, parents
are viewed as the primary stakeholders and primary source of revenue generation for
schools. Therefore, there is solid justification present to study the views of parents
concerning school image.
There are very few published studies conducted in the area of school image and
parents’ loyalty at the primary school level. Moreover no researches have been done on
parents’ loyalty with their children’s school despite of the fact that parents are the one
who will have critical influence on the future of school survival and income. As the
educational services are intangible in nature, so it becomes difficult for parents to
evaluate these educational services. Service sector including schools get highly affected
by the loss of reputation and rumours that affect the school image impressively.
Therefore, it is argued that school reputation is of greater importance because parents’
choice for school not only depends on physical evidence but also on subjective proofs
(Zabala et al., 2005).

3 Research methodology

3.1 Sample and data collection

The basic theoretical framework is adapted from the study of Li and Hung (2009).
However, some alterations are made. Instead of 5P’s, this research incorporates all the
7P’s of service marketing mix. Moreover, this study finds out the direct impact of 7P’s of
marketing on parents’ loyalty with educational institutions (schools) as well as indirect
impact of marketing tactics on parents’ loyalty encountering school image as mediating
variable (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Predicted relationship among marketing tactics, school image and parents’ loyalty
(see online version for colours)

Marketing Tactics:
1. Product mix
2. Place mix H1 H2
Schools’ Image Parents’ Loyalty
3. Price mix
4. Promotion mix
5. People mix
6. Physical evidence
7. Process

The questionnaire before data collection was discussed with the head and teachers of
private schools as well as with some parents. All of them were requested to evaluate the
wordings and sentences and to give their views regarding the length and depth of
questionnaire and their understanding about the questions’ statements. Keeping in view
the main objective of study and feedback received from these teachers and parents, some
questions were modified according to proposed suggestions. The questionnaire employed
was bilingual in nature, i.e. English and Urdu, for the convenience of the parents. The
questions were phrased in such a manner to minimise the fallacy, misconception and
ambiguity.
187 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

For data collection, convenience sampling technique was used. The survey covered
parents from 14 randomly selected private sector schools using a final sample of
529 responses, yielding an effective response rate of 75.57%. The unit of analysis
were parents of students studying in 4–5th classes of private sector schools. School
administration was formally approached who distributed the questionnaires through class
teachers to final respondents. Students received the questionnaires from their class
teachers, got them filled from their parents and returned to teachers which were later
fetched by the researchers.

3.2 Measures
The survey instrument used in this study was adapted from the study of Li and Hung
(2009), who developed items of marketing mix and which was used as independent
variable. Dependent variable parents’ loyalty’s five items were adapted from the study of
Zeithaml et al. (1996), Nguyen and Leblanc (2001a) and Helgesen and Nesset (2007).
School image was mediating variable and consisted of seven items, which were adapted
from the study of Martinez and Pina (2005) and Pina and Martinez (2006). Questionnaire
had overall seventy items that measured all the variables of research interest. The
response options were anchored on 5-point Likert-scale ranging from ‘1’ (strongly
disagree) to ‘5’ (strongly agree).
Table 1 depicts demographic information about respondents (parents). Majority of
survey questionnaires were filled by fathers (58.2%), followed by mothers (36.3%) and
guardians (5.5%). Education-wise majority of respondents had maximum qualification of
graduation, i.e. 39.7%, and income-wise belonged to middle-class (41.6%) (i.e. income
ranges between Rs. 20,001 and 40,000).
Table 1 Demographic Information of participants

Schools (n = 14)
Demographic Variables
f %
Participants 529 100%
Relationship with student
Father 308 58.2
Mother 192 36.3
Guardian 29 5.5
Child Studying in the school is your
Son 162 30.6
Daughter 216 40.8
Both 151 28.5
Maximum Education
Matriculation 88 16.6
Intermediate 83 15.7
Graduation 210 39.7
Masters 117 22.1
Others 31 5.9
 S.A. Malik et al. 188

Table 1 Demographic Information of participants (continued)

Schools (n = 14)
Demographic Variables
f %
Nature of Job
Government Employee 117 22.1
Private Employee 153 28.9
Businessman 114 21.6
Retired 8 1.5
Unemployed 25 4.7
Other 112 21.2
Monthly Income (Pak rupees)
Less than Rs. 20,000 165 31.2
20,001–40,000 220 41.6
40,001–60,000 82 15.5
60,001–80,000 30 5.7
80,001 and Above 32 6
Number of children studying in this school
1 153 28.9
2 211 39.9
3 119 22.5
4 48 8.7
Child/children studying in this school for
Less than a year 91 17.2
1 year 43 8.1
2 years 54 10.2
3 years 47 8.9
More than 3 years 294 55.6
How do you come to know about school?
Relatives/Friends 435 82.2
Newspaper 29 5.5
Television 8 1.5
Radio 2 0.5
Others 55 10.4
School has different branches?
Yes 331 62.6
No 198 37.4

Majority of parents (39.9%) had two children studying in the same school; 55.6% parents
were those whose child/children were studying for more than three years in the same
school. This higher percentage symbolises their satisfaction with the performance of
189 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

school. Customers’ loyalty is predicted in variety of behaviours, e.g. most commonly,

repeat purchases of a product/service, positive word-of-mouth, and referring product or
service to some other people (Lam et al., 2004; Zeithaml et al., 1996).
Major source to know about the school were relatives and friends, i.e. 82.2%.
Services are not tangible so the risk involvement factor is high. People while availing any
new service normally prefer positive word-of-mouth. As the educational services are
intangible in nature, so it becomes difficult for parents to evaluate these educational
services. Service sector including schools get highly affected by the loss of reputation
and rumours that damage the school image immensely. Therefore, it is argued that school
reputation is of greater importance because parents’ choice for school not only depends
on physical evidence but also on subjective proofs (Zabala et al., 2005).
Finally, it was inquired whether this school has different branches and majority of
respondents agreed (62.6%). Most reputed school brands in Pakistan have opened their
branches throughout the country and majority of parents prefer to avail their services
instead of experiencing an unknown/new one. These reputed schools pay substantial
attention in promoting their achievements and participate actively in extra-curricular
activities.
The objective of this study is to find out the impact of marketing tactics (independent
variable) employed by several private schools operating in Rawalpindi city, Pakistan.
The study examines the relationship between marketing tactics (independent variable),
school image (mediating variable), and parents’ loyalty (dependent variable). The details
of seven service marketing tactics are given in Table 2.
Table 2 Independent, mediating and dependent variables details

Factors Details
In schools (educational institutions) what is being offered or sold is highly discussed.
Product
Students are considered as customers and degree as a product (Ivy, 2008).
Services are frequently selected for their place convenience/utility. Place is
concerned with various methods of transporting and storing goods, and then making
Place
them available for the customer. In a school, the main issue for parents is whether
the locality of school is accessible and transport services are available or not.
The price component of the services marketing mix is actually what is being charged
for the degree or tuition fees that are compulsory to enrol at the university (Ivy,
Price 2008). In the case of schools, fee is the major and yet the most critical factor which
is acknowledged by the parents, before admitting their children in any educational
institute.
Promotion especially in case of services leads to brand recognition. For school and
Promotion university, the promotion mix refers to information sharing with students or parents
via formal or informal media (e.g. leaflets, letters, brochures, internet portals).
In schools, people mix incorporates teachers’ skills, ability, experience, knowledge,
People and care for the students. The people element of the marketing mix comprises all the
staff of the school who interact with students.
It incorporates the tangible element of the services. School facilities like equipments,
infrastructure, playgrounds, building, etc., are the main tangibles that influence
Physical parents’ perception regarding their choice of school. When these facilities are
Evidence provided to the students, it results in satisfaction and moral and physical
development of the students. Hence the customers feel satisfied with these facilities
(Friedman et al., 2007).
 S.A. Malik et al. 190

Table 2 Independent, mediating and dependent variables details (continued)

Factors Details
In educational industry, the process starts with the purchase of institute’s prospectus
Process and ends when the student is finally graduated from the institute and receives final
certificate.
Keller (1993) explained three important aspects of image: favourability, strength and
uniqueness of brand and associations. Image is the perception of a customer that
School
he/she has about a product or service. Image of a school can be build by various
Image
different factors and results after a certain time period and by undertaking different
marketing activities.
Dick and Basu (1994) argue that loyalty is determined by the strength of the
relationship between relative attitude and repeat patronage, and that it has both
Parents attitudinal and behavioural elements. The term ‘parents’ loyalty’ means that parents
Loyalty hold a deep obligation to enrol their child/children at a preferred learning institution
again and again in future, to provide positive word-of-mouth, to suggest the service
to others, and to persuade others to use the service.
Notes: Independent variable: marketing tactics; product, place, price, promotion,
people, physical evidence, and process.
Mediating variable: School image.
Dependent variable: Parents’ loyalty.
To find out that whether school image has any mediating effect or not, the study
investigated two hypotheses which are stated below:
Hypothesis 1: Marketing tactics and school image
H1: A selected school marketing mix, namely (H1a) product, (H1b) place, (H1c) price,
(H1d) promotion, (H1e) people, (H1f) physical evidence, and (H1g) process, is positively
related to school image.
Hypothesis 2: Mediating effect of school image
H2: A favourable school image is positively related to parents’ loyalty.

4 Analyses & results

The results are explained in three stages: firstly, Cronbach alpha was used to check the
internal consistency of items used in the survey instrument. In social sciences, some of
the variables are complex and complicated to measure; so to check how well the items
are measuring the construct, reliability analysis is used. Overall reliability statistics for
scale was 0.962.
In the second phase, mean and standard deviation was measured and Pearson
correlation was conducted to compute the degree of association between various
variables of study. At the last, multiple regressions were run to find out the variance
explained by independent variable(s) in dependent variable. Table 3 depicts the results of
mean, standard deviation and correlation. The mean and standard deviation scores are
within the expected range.
 191

Table 3

Pearson Correlation
Construct M SD
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Product 3.84 0.643 1.000
2 Place 3.99 0.934 0.585** 1.000
3 Price 3.30 0.700 0.350** 0.207** 1.000
4 Promotion 3.21 0.736 0.185** 0.034 0.494** 1.000
5 People 3.94 0.780 0.444** 0.232** 0.459** 0.483** 1.000
6 Physical Evidence 3.24 0.748 0.227** 0.100* 0.508** 0.654** 0.609** 1.000
7 Process 3.87 0.687 0.496** 0.319** 0.474** 0.438** 0.764** 0.579** 1.000
Mean, standard deviation and correlation results

8 Parents’ Loyalty 3.96 0.903 0.478** 0.245** 0.424** 0.360** 0.708** 0.450** 0.679** 1.000
9 School Image 3.97 0.794 0.487** 0.267** 0.441** 0.403** 0.752** 0.522** 0.722** 0.857** 1.000
Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.
Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image
 S.A. Malik et al. 192

Results presented in Table 3 reveal that there is a strong positive relationship between the
independent variables, marketing tactics and dependent variable, parents’ loyalty. Strong
positive correlation presents between the people, process and parents’ loyalty, which
means that parents keep in view that the schools should have educated staff and easy
access to get admissions. People, process and school image are positively and highly
correlated. This indicates that if teachers are highly qualified, teach students in a proper
way and deliver education effectively, this enhances school image. It depicts that well-
educated teachers add to school image. Teachers deliver their services to the students and
if these services are up to the mark then it will have good school’s image (Banwet and
Datta, 2003). On the other hand, product, place, price, promotion and physical evidence
are weakly associated with parents’ loyalty.
In addition to correlation, regression was used to identify the relationship between the
independent variables, mediating variable and the dependent variable. For testing the
hypotheses, linear regression (in three stages) is used in which impact of one variable is
checked on the other variable. To test the mediating role of school image, four conditions
as prescribed by Baron and Kenny (1986) were fulfilled, i.e. marketing tactics must be
related to school image; school image should be related to parents’ loyalty; marketing
tactics must be related to parents’ loyalty; and, marketing tactics must have no effect on
parents’ loyalty when school image is held constant (indicating full mediation) or should
become significantly smaller (indicating partial mediation).
According to Table 4, all the three models were found significant. The hypothesis, H1,
included all the seven service marketing elements and their impact is checked on school
image. The product mix (β = 0.141, p < 0.001), people mix (β = 0.430, p < 0.001) and
process mix (β = 0.285, p < 0.001) are positively and significantly related to school
image. F-statistics has the value of 128.759 (p < 0.001) statistically significant. It identifies
significant relationship presents between the variables of interest. R2 of 0.634 explains
the model fit; therefore, 63% of the changes in school image are explained by the seven
elements of marketing tactics. Value of Durbin–Watson test is 1.896 which corroborates
the existence of the relation. Further, H2 examined the relationship between school image
and parents’ loyalty. H2 was also supported, as the findings presented in Table 4 depict that
school image positively and significantly influences parents’ loyalty (β = 0.857, p < 0.001).
H1 and H2 supported first and second conditions (Baron and Kenny, 1986). To
validate the third condition, marketing mix elements are regressed with parents’ loyalty.
The results indicate that marketing tactics, product mix (β = 0.165, p < 0.001), price mix
(β = 0.070, p < 0.05), people mix (β = 0.428, p < 0.001) and process mix (β = 0.275,
p < 0.001), are positively and significantly influenced parents’ loyalty. The value of
F-statistics is 98.120 and is significant at p < 0.001. R2 of 0.569 shows that 56% of the
change in parents’ loyalty is due to change in the seven elements of marketing tactics. It
also means that there are other factors as well that determines parents’ loyalty other than
product, place, price, promotion, people, physical evidence and promotion. Value of
Durbin-–Watson test is 1.969 which validates the existence of the relation.
To check the final condition, models 1 and 2 is compared. Results show that product
mix (β = 0.065, t = 2.124, p < 0.05), people mix (β = 0.124, t = 3.126, p < 0.01) and
process mix (β = 0.073, t = 1.924, p < 0.05) are still significant; however, their strength
are decreased (evident from β-values and p-values). Therefore, the relationship between
marketing tactics and parents’ loyalty was mediated by school image. The VIF (Variance
Inflation Factor) of all the variables is less than 10, thus eliminating the multicollinearity
effect. F-statistics has value of 196.449 at p < 0.001, indicating significant relationship
between the variables.
 193

Table 4

DV

IV School Image Parents Loyalty Model-1 Model-2

(H1) (H2) IV – DV IV + MV – DV
β t-value β t-value β t-value β t-value
Product 0.141*** 3.860 0.165*** 4.149 0.065* 2.124
Tests of the hypotheses

Place –0.020 –0.612 –0.049 –1.364 –0.035 –1.271

Price 0.043 1.273 0.070* 1.918 0.039 1.431
Promotion –0.009 –0.238 –0.010 –0.256 –0.004 –0.133
People 0.430*** 9.736 0.428*** 8.919 0.124** 3.126
Physical evidence 0.049 1.208 –0.030 –0.688 –0.065* –1.937
Process 0.285*** 6.401 0.275*** 5.685 0.073* 1.924
School Image 0.857*** 38.140 0.706*** 19.550
F 128.759*** 1454.689*** 98.120*** 196.449***
R2 0.634 0.734 0.569 0.751
Adjusted R2 0.629 0.734 0.563 0.748
Durbin–Watson 1.896 1.918 1.969 1.916

Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

IV = Independent Variable; DV = Dependent Variable; Model-1 = Independent Variable – Dependent Variable; Model-2 = Independent
Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

Variable + Mediating Variable – Dependent Variable.

 S.A. Malik et al. 194

5 Discussion and conclusion

The major findings of this study are as follows:

 Product, people and process are the three elements of marketing tactics that are
positively and significantly related to parents’ loyalty.
 School image has mediating effect in building relationship between marketing tactics
and loyalty of parents.
The results of this study are quite different from the study conducted in Taiwan where
Li and Hung (2009) found that promotion is the most significant factor followed by
people, product and price tactics. Moreover, place was one of the marketing tactics
having comparatively weak effects. In our research, product, people and process are the
marketing tactics that are significantly related to parents’ loyalty. The variation in results
is due to the cultural gap and individual characteristics and differences.
From the demographics analysis, it was found that the percentage of parents in
contact with school for more than three years is relatively high as compared to the other
categories. As the time period increases, there is increase in loyalty as well. Coulter and
Coulter (2002) put light on the matter in this regard that as the customers are more in
touch with the services availed, thus will increase the trust factor; customer will perceive
service more reliable and thus lowers the threat of switching behaviour. More the time
period the service provider and receiver remain in touch, more the customers are familiar
and habitual of interacting with the service provider, and thus there will be loyalty.
In this study, significant relationship is found between the image of school and parents’
loyalty and results suggest that if various marketing tactics are wisely employed, that
would be helpful in building a favourable school image. These results are consistent with
the results of Ostrowski et al. (1993) where researchers found the significant relationship
between the image of an airline and customer (passenger) loyalty. Unexpectedly, there is
much attention gathered in building relationships between satisfaction and loyalty.
However, very little research work has been done in finding out the relationship between
image and loyalty.
From the results of regression, it is clear that image has mediating effect in building
relationship between marketing tactics and parents’ loyalty. This result is consistent with
the results of Andreassen and Lindestad (1998), who had found significant effect of
image on loyalty rather for satisfaction. Some of the researchers concluded that image
has only an indirect impact on customers’ loyalty (Bloemer and Ruyter, 1997), which is
mediated by the variable, satisfaction. Moreover, for the services that are complex and
expensive involve risk, multifaceted and infrequently availed; in such cases image rather
than satisfaction is the important and key predictor of loyalty.
From the results presented in Table 3, it is evident that a strong positive relationship
presents between the independent variable (marketing tactics) and dependent variable
(parents’ loyalty). Strong positive correlation presents among people, process, and
parents’ loyalty, which means that parents keep in view that the school should have
educated staff and easy access to get admissions. On the other hand, product, place, price,
promotion and physical evidence are weakly associated with parents’ loyalty.
195 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

People as well as process and school image indicate strong positive correlation
presents between the variables. If teachers are highly qualified, teach students in a proper
way and deliver education effectively, this enhances school image. It depicts that well-
educated teachers add to school image. Both the variables are highly and positively
related to each other.
In this research, it is found that best predictors of parents’ loyalty are process of
school and people working in that school. Discussing the results with some of parents it
was found that mostly parents prefer a school that has well-educated and friendly staff so
that they could easily communicate with the management and teachers in case they
encounter some problems. In addition to this, the school’s admission process should be
easy and the administrative work should be done in an effective way so that parents
should not face any difficulty regarding the admission of the child/children. These results
are consistent with the research of Skallerud (2011) where it was observed that parents’
view of the school as having good teachers had the strongest effect on parents’ loyalty
intentions, followed by parent orientation.
Schools should work properly to build their distinctive and competitive image, as
parents evaluate schools on the number of elements which are composed of teachers,
staff skills, curriculum, facilities, location, technology, transportation, and fee structures,
etc. In Pakistan, these elements highly influence parents’ loyalty and parents’ satisfaction
with primary schools. So, if the school has competitive educational image then it will
strongly affect the retention behaviour and loyalty of parents.
Results of this study help schools to utilise their resources more successfully and
should develop effective marketing strategies by focusing their efforts on strategically
important antecedents, such as parents’ school satisfaction and consequences such as
parents’ loyalty.

6 Limitations and future research

Likewise other studies, our research does have certain limitations that need to be
considered. Our first limitation stems from data which were gathered from parents having
children studying at the primary level only; from limited number of schools willing to
participate, and from a specific geographical area. So, whether the present study’s
findings generalise to other populations in higher level schools, reputed schools, which
were reluctant to participate and other cities are unknown. Second, as Li and Hung
(2009) mentioned that parents’ choice of an elementary school is influenced also by
individual differences, so further research ought to consider family differences as
moderators.
Further research could be done by increasing representation of parents from different
cities to make results more generalised. A longitudinal study should be conducted in
order to establish the causal relationship between variables which will help to get deeper
insight about the loyalty of parents with schools. Besides, the association between
marketing tactics, school image, student satisfaction and parents satisfaction can be
 S.A. Malik et al. 196

examined in the schools that are also worthy for the educational institutions and its
performance. Furthermore, certain other antecedents of loyalty should be taken under
consideration such as trust, satisfaction and customer’s experience with the service.

7 Managerial implications

For managers of educational institutions, an important insight gained from this study is
that school should focus on creating favourable image of school, as school reputation and
good image is an asset for school. One of the previous studies revealed that parent-based
school reputation can be easily assessed using an inexpensive measurement tool. It is
shown that parent-based school reputation not only has an impact on important variables
of parent behaviours (i.e. parents’ loyalty) but also has impact on parents’ satisfaction
with school (Skallerud, 2011).
Managers and administration of private schools should focus on the promotion
activities because these activities are done very rarely. They should participate in
promotional activities in order to create awareness and to convince parents that their
school is providing quality education.
This academic endeavour for identifying marketing tactics by using all the 7Ps, which
foster parents’ loyalty, could be of great importance to schools management in terms of
implications. Schools management can benefit from the survey results of the paper in
understanding which of the marketing tactics are significantly related to parents’ loyalty,
and that, if used wisely can enhance their school image. A strong and distinctive image
can help them to survive in an aggressive competition and can help in attracting loyalties.
School management needs to realise that mostly parents seek guidance about
selection of a school through family and friends. If the parents of enrolled children are
truly satisfied and loyal, they can play a more convincing role in motivating potential
customers to avail services of the same school. The existing customers of the schools
bring new customers for them. Therefore, they should conduct open days in order to
grasp the attention of new customers. It is also observed that parents normally give
suggestions to the school management because they have serious concerns regarding
their children’s education. So, the school management can take advantage of parents’
suggestions and their desire to help with their children’s academic programmes and
extra-curricular activities. School management should focus on introducing and
implementing a carefully crafted programme to enhance parents’ loyalty and to improve
their school’s image.

Acknowledgements

Cordial gratitude to Chung-Kai Li, an Associate Professor in Department of International

Business, Ling Tung University, Taichung, Taiwan, for granting permission to use her
survey instrument in Pakistani private sector schools and for all the guidance rendered
generously with her expert knowledge.
197 Survey on marketing tactics used to build private school image

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