Students’ Enrolment in Nigerian Private Universities: The Pull Effect of Corporate Image and Promotional Appeal

Abstract

University’s corporate image and promotional appeal are fundamental to students’ decisions during enrolment into the private ivory towers in Nigeria. The proliferation and high- rate competition among private universities has warranted the adoption of marketing communication strategies that could capture and retain the attention of prospective students and their sponsors. The main objective of the study was to examine the influence of brand image and promotional appeal on students’ enrolment decisions into Nigerian private universities. To accomplish this goal, a survey research design was adopted and 354 undergraduates from two (2) purposively selected private universities were sampled, using simple random sampling. data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Regression, were used for the data analyses. The results show positive significant influence of university’s brand image on students’ enrolment at F= 84.714, df= 353, sig. at 0.000. Similarly, the finding also shows that promotional appeal influences students’ enrolment at F= 291.125, df = 353, sig. at 0.000. This study contributes to the exiting knowledge in the area of brand image, promotional appeal and students’ enrolment. The insights discovered from this study would help to facilitate, develop and focus on building corporate brand image that will encourage students’ enrolment. This will also be useful for universities that wish to improve on the level of students’ subscription into different programmes offered by the institutions.