How higher education marketers should think about mental availability: A framework for graduate enrolment growth

Abstract

With the release of Byron Sharp's ‘How Brands Grow’ and ‘How Brands Grow Part 2’ and the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, marketing managers have benefited from the development of empirical marketing principles that provide guideposts for growth.1–3 However, the relevancy of these principles are often questioned when applied to marketing and recruitment for institutions of higher education. This paper will argue that small shifts in consumer behaviour and the increasingly competitive online landscape make mental availability even more important for higher education marketers to compete online. Using the tenets of Sharp's mental availability, the paper will show how to apply these principles to build a strong digital marketing ecosystem and contribute more effectively to marketing and recruiting specifically for graduate programmes.