Abstract
This research investigates the implementation of marketing practices, strategies, and
tools in Morocco private universities. It also demonstrates how marketing affects and
determines universities’ brand image and the quality offered. This research highlights the
importance of affective marketing practices in Moroccan private universities and their
relationship to the institutional image. Undoubtedly, the main factors in the formation of a
university’s positive image and high quality are efficient marketing tools and strategies, only
insofar as they are embraced by all the organizational levels at the private university. The
researcher adopted a mixed-method approach in this study by combining qualitative and
quantitative research. The qualitative phase includes semi-structured interviews with
administrators and senior managers while the quantitative phase directed to students and
involves surveys to generalize findings and assess relationships between variables such as
marketing activities, institutional image, and student decision-making. The key findings in this
study show that university image is directly impacted by the marketing tools implemented.
Similarly, students’ decision-making relies heavily on the perceived image to select their
preferred future university. Effective marketing strategies related to word of mouth and quality
infrastructure are important in attracting students and improve the university’s image.
University managers and administrators underscore the importance of positive image; however,
they do not attribute a positive image to marketing efforts. Instead, marketing occupies a sunken
place in accordance with management. Limitations of this research include the exclusion of
other stakeholders like parents and employees owing to resource constraints and time limitation.
Another limitation is related to the focus on private universities alone. This fact limit the
generalizability of the this research. Outside all the affirmations, this study contributes to the
literature of marketing in higher education by introducing a model that can fit into higher
education in developing countries in general and Morocco in particular.