Using Online Marketing to Enhance Military Educational Institutions

The Internet provides opportunities for military development as well as higher education advancement. The researchers Minculete & Chisega-Negrila (2014) conducted a case study of a military academy within the military higher education to determine how technology and marketing is being adapted for greater learning. Their work moves into the nature of online commerce and how virtual learning is improving the system in accordance with NATO standard requirements. 

All academies and colleges must market their offerings in order to attract new students. Marketing strategies of military academies is cyclical in the sense that it collects and shares information to use in their planning and adjustment processes to reach target markets. The same process can be applied to colleges in general that use technology to enhance their product quality and reach. 

The standard approach is for academies to provide information regarding an institutions history, mission, policies, and the products or services they offer (Close, 2012). The website becomes an information tool that displays information in hopes that passive search visitors will frequent the site. The sources of informational power can be enhanced to gain information and adjust processes at a higher level.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a primary marketing method that rests on three broad aspects that include the search spider that crawls information from websites, the search software on the user’s computer, and the directories that categorize websites for recall. The process works a little like the human brain and is designed thus based upon psychological principles. 

There are a number of marketing methods that include:

Search Engine Marketing: The method of data collection, search software, and categorization of information. This is the bones behind the Internet.

Email Marketing: The collection of emails and dissemination of information using this medium. 

Viral Marketing: Creating content that users will willingly pass onto their social networks. 

Affiliated Marketing: Displaying a company’s banner and advertisements on sites for additional revenue. Most people know this as Google Adwords and similar type programs. 

Internet Advertising: The process of creating advertisements and purchasing places and locations in high traffic areas and sites. 

Web-logs: The use of blogs to create content that draws search engine and user interest. 

Social Networks: The social media networks that try and engage physical and virtual communities. 

Online Reputation Management: The use of reputation management to ensure one’s online image is strong. 

Mobile Internet: Using personal products, cell phones, tablets, etc… to reach customers. This is common in the applications and music download industry. Newer technology includes streaming. 

Web Communities: Marketing within chat rooms and forums. 

Webcasting: Creating videos and other advertisements that can be posted on Youtube and other areas to draw interest. 

According to the authors the use of online media sources is a major component of drawing in new interest to the military academy. The same process can be applied to higher education in general. They recommend that institutions 1.) create an efficient webpage; 2.) optimize the site; 3.) promote educational programs and their results; 4.) chronically analyze the site for improvements; 5) promote the institution through online mediums; and, 6.) create interactivity between the institution, current students, potential students, and stakeholders. The process of building stronger marketing programs using the Internet has the potential to raise the strength and value of not only online education but also its public interest.

Close, A. (2012). Online consumer behavior. Theory and Research in Social Media, Advertising and E-Tail. Editura Taylor & Francis Gropu, NY.

Minculete, G. & Chisega-Negrila, M. (2014). Online marketing. Challenges and opportunities for the military higher education. Journal of Defense Resources Management, 4 (2).

How Multiple Forms of Media Impact Our Social Understandings

Communication is seen as a process of information transference from one person to another. Few think about the cognitive models that develop from information transference and how different communication channels influence meaning. Dennis, et. al. (2008) discusses the nature of information conveyance and convergence when dealing with groups and how media synchronicity impacts meaning making among recipients.

Media richness theory indicates that task performance will improve when task information are matched to the medium’s information richness.  Difficult tasks require more information when compared to simple tasks while less rich media are better suited to tasks that require less information. The media used to transfer information should be based on the type of task.

For example, someone who wants to complete a simple task such as changing a wiper blade on a car will need few instructions to successfully complete this task. Changing a car transmission may require multiple forms of written instructions and videos to successful complete this task. The more difficult the task, the more media synchronicity can help.  

In communication we prepare information, transfer it through a medium, and others will process this information into their mental models. Different people obtain varying levels of information from media and process that information according to how their particular mental models work. Two people can see the same thing but each will notice the information that fits within their understanding while selectively ignoring information that does not fit within their personal models.

In groups, the meaning of information is based more in the interactive interpretation of multiple persons. Meaning requires a level of negotiation among members that are engaged in tasks. Meaning is subjective depending on the cognitive models others are using. Each group will come to their own slightly different interpretation of the information.

When transmitting information to groups it is important to understand the processes of conveyance and convergence. Conveyance processes provide transmission of diversity of new information that allows individuals to create revised mental models of situations. Convergence processes is the way in which people interpret and make models out of the information to come to mutually agreed upon understandings.  We can see this as receiving information, building models of that information, and then coming to an understanding of that information.

It is possible to see this in an example. The latest gizmo makes its way on the market. The type of spokes models, celebrities, music, and impressions provided through the media make their way into everyday conversations. Each interpretation adds to the collective development of a fad product. When the product becomes old people will leave it for something new. That is the nature of fads and hype which are socially constructed concepts of “coolness”.

The researchers found that when individuals have experience with tasks and each other they have fewer convergence processes and less need for media synchronicity. In other words, they are familiar with each other’s cognitive processes and a small amount of information is enough for them to come to a shared understanding (i.e. a tight group of teenagers who like a product). When individuals have little experience with each other or the tasks it is beneficial to use multiple rich forms of media to transfer needed information.

The study helps highlight how we use media and information to build cognitive models. When tasks are unfamiliar it is beneficial to use multiple forms of rich media to help us build new models (i.e. learning) and come to a social understanding of those models. Once the models are built, lower forms of media are enough to transfer information. Thus, understanding is based on cognitive models and they are individually constructed and then negotiated against others cognitive models to come to mutual understanding.  Therefore, understanding is a social construction process fostered by the information we receive from our environment and multiple forms of media (i.e. phone, Internet, face-to-face, music, television, You Tube, etc…).

Dennis, et. al. (2008). Media, tasks, and communication processes: a theory of media synchronicity. MIS Quarterly, 32 (3).