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1 INTRODUCTION

In a broad sense Maritime education and training

(MET) includes the upbringing of seafarers and sea

port specialists. In the global education market MET

strongly depends on the changes in labour market due

to digitization, which created a wide range of possible

study programmes in MET. The digitalization of

social processes involved a lot of people into the

digital social environment where they could be found

as potential customers. But it is only one reason for

looking for solutions on increasing MET popularity

effectively.

Another reason is the increasing competitiveness

between study programmes from the point of view of

study programme scientific direction. Based on the

case of Lithuanian Maritime Academy (LMA)

maritime education study programmes are placed in

different scientific areas such as engineering,

technology, management, economics and computer

sciences and all of them are dependent on the

competitiveness with another study programmes

from the same scientific direction. And from this point

of view the problem of MET attractiveness could be

found. This second reason influenced the needs of

higher maritime education to increase the

attractiveness of the MET study programmes between

adolescents and the needs to increase the exceptional

attractiveness of maritime sector by adding some

important facts about this sector in the digital

environment which is friendly for the most part of

potential customers of MET institutions. Thus, the

contextual awareness of customers which could be

interested in MET supposes the fact that main pool of

customers could be found in the digital environment.

Modelling the Effectiveness Index of Digital Marketing

Strategy Oriented to Increase the Popularity of

Maritime Education

R. Mickienė & E. Valionienė

Lithuanian Maritime Academy, Klaipeda, Lithuania

ABSTRACT: Digitization of the maritime transport formed a paradoxical situation of an increased interest in

informatics and data sciences among youth, whilst the level of interest of these programmes in the maritime

education and training (MET) field remained relatively low. Based on theoretical modelling the solution to the

problem is divided in two parts, one of which is related to adding data sciences to MET and the other refers to

increasing intensity of digital advertising to solve the problem of low knowability index (KI) of MET. The

research showed that KI is the output of effective digital marketing strategy. Thus, all parameters characterizing

effectiveness could be divided into categories and by applying AHP methods the weight of each criteria could

be assessed. Based on the weights and on the analytical measurements collected from monitoring tools the KI

was calculated. Analysis of KI component and whole KI found out main ways of increasing MET popularity,

which could be implemented through on increasing advertising intensity in the social networks the whole year

and also by adding new content which are related within the digitization into MET study programmes’

modules.

http://www.transnav.eu

the International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 15

Number 3

September 2021

DOI: 10.12716/1001.15.03.08

560

It can be projected that the increasing of popularity

and attractiveness of MET could be based on the

creative and technological strongly developed

marketing strategy concentrated on the looking for the

most effective way of attracting future customers. This

task is also addressed with existing digital tools in the

market, there are tools such as Facebook, Instagram,

YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and their advertising

plans, also Google tools such as Google AdWords

linked with the internet website, also monitoring and

analysis tools such as Google Search console, Google

Analytics which could be employed the cheapest. The

theoretical and practical problems are the following:

what is more important in the marketing strategy –

content or technologies; how to measure the

effectiveness of implemented digital marketing

strategy and how to assess its impact on MET

attractiveness and popularity. The possible

hypothetical answer could be based on the technique

of evaluation of specific index, based on the

indicators, collected from the social network’s

accounts, website visibility and analysis tools.

Based on these preconditions of problem’s

existence, the research object is the effectiveness of

MET digital marketing strategy. The main goal of

research is to create the model for measurement of the

effectiveness of the digital marketing strategy oriented

to the increasing the popularity of MET. The

objectives of research are the following: to indicate the

changes of MET under the influence of Fourth

Industrial Revolution (4IR), to describe the concept of

digital marketing strategy effectiveness under the

collection of main effectiveness criteria, to model the

digital marketing strategy effectiveness measurement

index and empirically test this index by applying the

model to assess the effectiveness of Lithuanian

Maritime Academy marketing strategy. The

effectiveness index of the digital marketing strategy is

oriented to the increasing the popularity of MET and

it is titled as Knowability Index (KI) in this research.

The KI is constructed as the collection of ranked

elements representing the general awareness about

MET and knowledge on a certain MET subject and

maters related to it. The main research methods are

scientific literature review, content analysis,

comparison and modelling. The modelling is based on

the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methodology

and its combination with the data analysis methods.

The main limitations of the research can be related

with the local context of the digital marketing

strategy, which may affect the structure and scope of

the elements of the KI model. Also, the factor of

subjectivity of maritime nation mentality can take a

place in the qualitative level of the research. Despite

these limitations, the continuity of the research could

be implemented in the area of applying this

methodology by the collecting wider ranged

collections of criteria.

2 DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

FORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE

MET CHALLENGES UNDER THE 4IR

INFLUENCE

Traditional seafarer training has always focused on

the acquisition and use of practical skills. Also MET is

strongly dependent on the environmental changes

and should react immediately to its changes as it

happening in nowadays markets under the influence

of 4IR.

A crucial precondition for MET is digitization

challenges and smart workplace development because

this fact justifies the needs to train not only practical

skills but also to use training facilities for the

development of in-depth analytical and critical

thinking skills in the field of professional interests

which are wide in the MET: from the marine

competencies, i.e. navigators and ships engineers,

upon the port and shipping managers, technologists,

programmers and data analysts. The global trends in

MET is increasingly to link the higher education

essentially with the practical preparation for labour

market by providing specific competences with more

general or deeper academic components leading to an

academic qualification with the analytical dimension

of knowledge [11]. Based on the MET conception

related to the digitization of global supply chain it is

important to mention that the digital and analytical

competences become a significant part of MET

programmes. Rapid development of information and

technologies is the main impetus for the

transformation of education, updating its content and

forms, methods and technologies, improving the

efficiency and accessibility of quality education [6].

Table 1. Competencies of future maritime personnel [12, 13]

_______________________________________________

Shoreside Afloat

_______________________________________________

Supply chain logistics; The basics of IoT, data analysis

Internet of Things (IoT) - and decision making;

including digital Engineering technology;

integration, data Deck operations;

analysis and decision Ship’s handling experience;

making; Integrated electronics training

and bridge skill assessment;

_______________________________________________

Both Shoreside and Afloat Personnel

_______________________________________________

Cyber security (identification, prevention, mitigation);

Digital readiness;

Mechatronics;

Electrical power systems;

Automation systems;

Automation –remote operation (A&RO);

Risk assessment, risk analysis and decision making;

Safety management systems and auditing;

Behavior based safety;

Interpersonal relationships, leadership, team-work, and

coaching in a new-virtual world.

_______________________________________________

The process of MET modernizing has started.

Automated operations of the whole water transport

sector and other transitions will happen under the 4IR

influence and changes in technology moving MET

towards the future. This will change the necessary

scope of skills and competencies (Table 1) by

including data science, digital and analytical

competences in all MET areas. Ships and seaport

terminals will become more and more autonomous

and autonomy will increase as fast as autonomous

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shipping will start. Maritime academies must be

prepared to train ship or terminal operators working

under remote and smart workplace conditions. It will

encourage the implementation of the simulator-based

training and will increase in demand the study

modules related to 4IR technologies’ integration,

automation systems, cyber-security and the whole

data analysis for decision making are needed to be

implemented [12]. Thus, digitalization of the

education processes will enhance the qualification of

scholars and lecturers in the frame of COLREGS

expertise’s integration into MET [12, 13].

Hence the modernization of MET supposes to

change awareness of MET and requires to increase

targeted information about the challenges and

changes of MET and this information should be

shared in common sites because the KI of modernized

MET is the relatively low. Whilst the youth’s interest

in informatics and data engineering is increasing the

MET attractiveness remains at stable low level.

Therefore, MET organizations meet the challenges of

increasing not only institutional attractiveness, but

also the whole maritime industry’s attractiveness by

presenting the new technologies of maritime industry

and the perspectives of wholly autonomous

technological ecosystem, which will require high

qualified maritime industry specialists with critical,

creative and analytical thinking and high level of

digital readiness.

The possible solution to increasing the

attractiveness of MET in the sector of higher

education is MET institutions, industry networks and

clusters where MET organizations can work together

with the active industry’s participants to better

prepare mariners to be able to succeed in a modern

industry that will continue to see advances in

technology and automation in the future. Meanwhile,

maritime knowledge-based clusters as it mentioned in

the research of Zhou et al (2021) are highly oriented to

the creation of the value-added services for global

supply chain’s customers. And it means that

knowledge-based cluster could be involved to the

solving of MET KI problems also. This type of

stakeholders’ networks’ inclusion into MET KI

problem solving implies the ensuring of the central

knowledge base supporting through the knowledge

generation hubs called as learning organizational

networks and it means that these clusters could be

more effective in the area of the increasing of the MET

KI from point of view of effective marketing strategy

[20]. Hence one of the solutions are blended learning

programs in maritime academies strong cooperation

with maritime industry, with other academies. To

avoid of the disturbing of the infancy of the training

the greater involvement of maritime administration is

needed also. This way will provide the thoughts on

increasing of the attractiveness of modern MET and

ensuring skills which are seen as needed for the next

generation of specialists for maritime industry. Main

points that ensure the demand of competent seafarers

and shore specialists are their possibilities to get gain

strong digital readiness and cyber security skills and

train anywhere and at any time. And these points

should be knowable for the MET customers.

Therefore, as it was mentioned in the researches of

Basak (2017), MET is an emerging trend in the

education sector and further innovation experiences

so the increasing of its popularity also could be

mentioned as an innovation because KI is required to

diffuse and implement new ways of knowledge

sharing in the maritime industry. Also KI represents

innovative ways of implementation of marketing

strategy aimed to introduce potential customers with

the changes in order to discover the multiple

modalities, a better understanding of MET factors,

problems, development directions in accordance with

4IR, and to increase KI by using the effectively

working marketing tools [3].

Based on presented arguments, the important part

of increasing MET popularity is the increasing its

attractiveness and this attractiveness could be

measured by the high level of KI. Thus, for the success

of the MET and maritime industry maritime

academies have the obligation to spread the modern

outlook of the maritime industry and emphasize it.

This is the way how to supply the maritime industry

with seafarers and port specialists. G. Kalvaitiene, I.

Bartuseviciene & V. Sencila (2011) found that the

maritime education and training institutions have to

explain young people all merits of maritime

profession and show possibility for them to find

emotional attractiveness and realization of their

interests if they choose maritime professions [9]. In

this case, according to the results of the research the

studies will be effective and quality of MET will

increase. Another point of view of MET challenges is

related with the attractiveness of MET for youth

because the problem is related with the low level of KI

of maritime industry and the modernization of

processes. And the KI increasing could be realized by

the implementation of effective marketing strategy

which could looking for the potential customers of

MET services in the digital environment.

It could be assumed that digitization processes

under the influence of 4IR transformed market by

creating possibilities for young people who are the

potential customers of higher education to shift their

activities to the social media where traditional

advertisement are not visible at all. Technological

progress is fast, but KI have a late component so it has

lower intensity in comparison with the technological

solutions implementation. Maritime transport sector

has lower range of KI which could be because of the

fact that the maritime industry is only a

complementary domain of the global supply chain

with the logistical connectivity component. Therefore,

KI of maritime industry is lower than KI of another

sectors’ and this fact describes the MET KI problems.

But the 4IR influenced qualitative parameters of MET

by requiring to include the main technological, digital

and analytical preparedness of future maritime

industry specialists, so the integration of new digital

solutions in the maritime processes could be a

motivation factor for youth which are interested in the

study programmes in technologies, engineering,

informatics and data analysis fields. But for the

implementations of ideas of increasing the MET’s KI

the effective marketing strategy required. Hence the

questions of modern marketing technologies adoption

and their combining to advertise MET in the most

effective way also is required.

The importance of effective MET’s advertising is

increasing, because the MET institutions compete with

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others educational institutions in the global market of

education. On the one hand, strong competitive

advantage of the MET programmes in the national

and international market is their specific

internationally regulated awarded competencies. On

the other hand, MET programmes are the part of

whole study system, and internally, in the group of

programmes, compete for the client’s attention. How

to reach the wide range of potential customers? The

modern marketing strategy can be constructed by

using the digital marketing tools of social networks.

To measure effectiveness of this marketing strategy

the KI will be calculated.

Parallel to the challenges of 4IR in MET, the new

internet technologies and social media influence the

challenges of MET organizational marketing strategies

because the main part of globally used

communication technologies have become the main

part of everyday life for millions of youth around the

world which are potential customers of services and

products in the global international market. As it

found by some researchers [4, 5, 7, 17] the social

media usage has become an integral element to the

marketing strategies’ implementation in a wide range

of private and public organizations in different fields

of business activities because based on the findings of

the forecasts present that number of social media

users will to almost 3.43 billion users by 2023 [5].

Modern digital social media environment on the

internet allows to all companies and their clusters to

achieve marketing objectives at relatively low cost [2],

but organizations have to respond to these changes in

consumers behavior and have to start making digital

technologies and possibilities as an essential and

integral component of their marketing strategies [19].

And also, important scientific findings say that the

intensive growing of digital and social media

technologies and applications could be widely used

for creating awareness of private, public services and

political promotions [7] and it means that increased

awareness could positively influence and KI,

popularity and the attractiveness of offered products

and services for the markets. As Kotler (2007) found

the marketing in the public sector, which part is MET

sector, hasn’t enough attention from decision makers

and the managers of public institution usually fall in

doubt: from one point of view the advertising of

public services have not direct purpose as it is in

private business sector with the orientation to benefit,

from another point of view anybody doesn’t know

how to prove the advertising impact on the changes of

services demand of public entities [4]. And the factor

of KI becomes actual and usable in the marketing

strategies of public organizations especially in the

segments with the deeply specialization.

Based on Rebeca M. Achem et al (2017) findings

organizational marketing strategies should be

changed and should be oriented by two directions: the

traditional marketing channels and digital marketing

channels should be used in integrative way and the

effectiveness of marketing depends on the both

channels and consisting of main engagement,

behavioral and relationship indicators, creating

quietly high self-awareness of target groups of

advertising influence [1]. As it was mentioned before

the effective marketing strategy could be constructed

in an integrative way by the using of well - developed

KI in the traditional marketing environment and by

extending it to the digital space. Working this way

both types of organizations public and private

organizations can significantly increase the benefit

from making digital marketing as an integral element

of their overall business strategy working effectively.

3 METHODOLOGY OF DIGITAL MARKETING

EFFECTIVENESS ASSESSMENT

KI in internet space is an important indicator for the

assessment of the effectiveness of applied marketing

strategies and tools. It means that the effectiveness of

marketing in organizations could be measured and

compared by different advertising campaigns which

were happened in different periods of time. As it is

found in ontology-based marketing research, the

effective marketing could be measured not only by the

changes in the numbers of new clients of maritime

education services, but also by the impressions and

clicks of website visitors and important information

could be extracted from the website visitor’s analysis.

As the meaning of digital marketing is a part of

marketing strategy based on applying the internet

tools such as social networks, websites, google

AdWords, boosting posts in the social apps and

another activity also could be used, but it is important

to note, that all activities and effectiveness could be

find in the website visiting information and it means

that MET organization website is the landing place of

all applied marketing tools (fig. 1) and in the

background of website and website analysis tools

such as Google Analytics could be applied.

Figure 1. MET organization’s digital marketing strategy’s

effectiveness concept [9, 13]

With the organizational context and the structure

of stakeholders, MET organization interacts by using a

couple of different marketing tools which have

different purposes and advertising schemes, but the

main target of these tools is to attract as much as

possible customers and to increase the attractiveness

of MET as a part of the whole maritime education

sector. As it presented in the figure 1, interactions

with the stakeholders could be realized in different

ways: by using social networks (Facebook, Instagram,

TikTok, Vkontakte and another) dependent on the

usage of stakeholders and including specialized

563

networks (YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Up Work

and etc.), by using different type of publications in the

official governmental portals, specialized MET and/or

educational portals, daily news portals and another

mass information environments and channels. The

selection of communicational channel strongly

depends on the target groups, so it is another

important research field, but this research is more

oriented into the possibilities to measure the

effectiveness of marketing strategy as the way to

increase KI and attractiveness of MET sector.

The presentation of MET’s marketing strategy as it

is showed at figure 1 creates possibilities to explore

the digital identity formation problems: al lot of

different keywords are used in the digital

environment, because each digital portal has his own

keywords, hashtags and the organization create

different systems of keywords and hashtags for the

representing itself in the digital environment, but if

these elements are used chaotically the entropy level

increases and the organization has a big risk to lose its

identity at all. And the losing of identity as it

mentioned in the researches of Ajina (2019), Hossain

et al (2020), Dwivedi et al. (2020) is leading the

negative impact on KI level which could influence the

decreasing of attractiveness [2, 5, 8].

The such type of problems could be solved by the

unification of used keywords and hashtags for the

increasing efficiency of marketing strategy and the

main basic assumption of effectiveness is directly well

constructed system of keywords which is called as

digital identity and is strongly related with the

organizational KI by applying modern market

methodologies as ontology-based marketing or

graphs of knowledge. But the more important

problem exists in the usage of combined different

social networks which have different usability in the

different target groups. Thus, the marketing strategy

in MET organizations could be based on the collecting

data from the website monitoring tools, also collecting

data by surveying the first course students, also by

weighting the significance of marketing strategy

elements by their importance for the MET KI

increasing.

Chaffey and Patron (2012), Saura, Palos-Sanchez

and Cerda Suarez (2017) found out the set of

important key indicators could be used for the

assessment of effectiveness of implemented marketing

strategy under the hierarchical structure model

divided into the categories and subcategories [4, 16]:

− website visiting indicators such as new users,

monthly (or annually) visitors, speed of opening a

web page, different visitors’ activities and organic

search parameters. One of them is CTR, described

as click-through rate (impressions vs clicks), and

means metric measures which is the number of

clicks advertisers receive on their ads per number

of impressions;

− redirection parameters from other websites such as

number of visitors and number of sessions;

− effectiveness of using Google AdWords

advertising such as prices per clicks, per customers

and per sessions, also the balancing the number of

advertising campaigns;

− social networking parameters such as redirection

from used social networks, including of opened

pages and number of sessions (fig.2).

But for the collecting required data it is important

to identify main preconditions which are well

organized structure of website including representing

keywords and the active google analytics or another

monitoring tools with the integrated programming

code to the website code sources. Installed and

activated monitoring toolset such as Google Analytics

enables the possibilities to identify the specificity of

market and directly helps to establish main

characterized parameters of potential customers and

based on the indicators of usability internet website

which are creating the potential customer’s image

which is useful for the improving of marketing

strategy. Going from the starting position of LMA

interactions with the stakeholders through its website,

the monitoring tools were integrated into the website

code and redirection from another social media were

implemented into the target pages. Therefore, the

main criteria could be described based on the KI

theoretical findings which shows that the KI could be

evaluated by applying combined research

methodology based on the quantitative and

qualitative methods:

− the main key indicators of marketing effectiveness

should be identified on the base of theoretical

modelling and their statistical data could be

collected by using the visitors’ monitoring tools on

website;

− the analytical hierarchical process (AHP)

methodology as the multi-criterial decision-

making method could be applied for the

assessment of weights of each criterion by

applying the pairwise comparison of criteria

during the expert survey consisted of academy’s

marketing group and scientist working in MET in

the field of management.

Figure 2. The elements of KI [1]

By applying of this combined research

methodology all key parameters of MET marketing

effectiveness were divided into the main four groups

of criteria and each of them was divided into the

subcriteria (fig 2). All subcriteria could be measured

by quantitative indicators. Based on this hierarchical

structure the questionnaire for pairwise comparison

was prepared as it described in the AHP methodology

[14]. The multi-criteria decision-making methods can

be employed to identify quantitative or qualitative

evaluation criteria and the AHP methods have been

increasingly applied to academic research in recent

564

years. Pophalie et al. (2011) suggested that AHP is

powerful tool which can be used to determine

appropriate alternatives in multiple objective

decisions, Lin and Hsu (2003) used AHP to identify

Internet advertising networks, Sharma and Joshi

(2020) compared the monitoring tools in online

advertisements context by applying the AHP

methods, so it means that the selected methods are

adequate for the research problem investigation [10,

15, 18].

The experts for the survey were selected according

to the criteria “Participant of the LMA marketing

strategy planning group”. In total 10 experts were

selected: 1 director, 1 vice director for academic

affairs, 6 heads of departments (navigation,

engineering, port economics and management,

personnel management, IT laboratory and library), 2

LMA scientists, having doctor degree in social

sciences (management and education). The

questionnaire of the survey was based on the LMA

website structure and content, marketing complex and

were consisted of criteria presented in figure 2,

representing the criteria groups of MET knowledge,

MET attractiveness, MET marketing and other factors.

Based on the AHP methodology and the results of

expert survey the MET KI could be calculated by

applying the formula:

WW RR GG SS

KI=ω I +ω I +ω I +ω I⋅ ⋅ ⋅⋅

where:

24 2

W Wl Wl W3 W3k W3k W4z W4z W4z

l=1 k=1 z=1

R Rl Rl

l=1

G Gl Gl

l=1

S Sl Slk Slk

l=1 k=1

I= ω x +ω ω x +ω ω x

I= ωx

I= ω ωx





⋅ ⋅⋅ ⋅





⋅

⋅⋅

∑∑ ∑

∑

∑∑

and ω – the weight of each parameter in each category

group, which were calculated by algorithm of AHP

method which is operating with the experts pairwise

comparison’s results.

For the assessment KI the quantitative parameters

are taken from the statistics of applied monitoring

tools, which is Google Analytics in the case of LMA.

And the dynamics parameter should be used for the

quantitative measurement of each x which could be

applied for the comparison of situation changes. As

the LMA started with the digital marketing only at

2019, so the comparison of two periods will be done:

firstly, the indicators of annual results will be

compared and secondly the indicators of intensive

marketing period will be compared also by the using

the annual growing indicators, which will be

calculated by formula:

2019

Clk

2020

clk

where C={W, R, G, S}, l and k the indexes of sub

criterial groups.

Also, it is important to mention, that the research

idea and strategy is based on the logical direction “the

greater is better”, so the negative parameters such as

increasing of speed opening the web page and

increasing the price per click, session or customer are

inverted in this way:

converted

Clk

Based on the methodological findings of the

research it could be mentioned that the popularity of

MET study programmes in the context of marketing

theories and principles is based on the combined

conception of attractiveness assessed by KI, but the

effectiveness of marketing strategies is more related

with the conception of the knowability which could be

measured by monitoring statistics and could be

compared dependent to different periods and their

duration. Also, construction of research methodology

shows that the fundamental basis of quantitative

measurement of KI parameters could be located on

the MET organization’s website which is the main

source of KI parameters and also the basis for the

formation of digital identity which also representing

the knowability. For the calculation of indexes, the

significance weights could be used dependent on the

importance of used parameters and these weights

could be assessed by application of AHP

methodology in the research.

4 ASSESSMENT OF THE MET KI

Applied AHP methodology and calculated index of

consistency are presented in the table 2. Based on the

opinion of experts the highest significance was

acquired for the website parameters’ category where

two subcategories have similar high significance level:

they are the number of new visitors and the CTRs of

organic search (Table 2).

Table 2. Results of expert survey: AHP weights for each

criterion (expert survey, AHP calculations)

_______________________________________________

Weights of Weights Weights of Weights of social

Website visits of red. AdWords networking

_______________________________________________

ωW=0.4 ωR=0.15 ωG=0.2 ωS=0.25

W1=0.2 ωR1=0.3 ωG1=0.3 ωs1=0.35

W2=0.3 ωR1=0.2 ωG2=0.2 ωs11=0.5 ωs12=0.5

W3=0.2 ωW31=0.2 ωR1=0.5 ωG3=0.3 ωs2=0.25

W32=0.2 ωG4=0.2 ωS21=0.5 ωs22=0.5

W34=0.3 ωS31=0.5 ωS2=0.5

W4=0.3 ωW41=0.4 ωS4=0.15

W42=0.6 ωS41=0.5 ωS42=0.5

S5=0.1

S51=0.5 ωS52=0.5

_______________________________________________

It means that the website and the organic search have

the highest level of KI in the MET sector: the KI

increasing as the organic search parameters are

increasing. The second group of parameters with the

weight of 0,25 was assigned for the group of criteria

representing the redirections from the social

networks. At the moment of the research the LMA

had 7 account on Instagram, well developed and

active account on Facebook, also account on the

LinkedIn and Twitter, but the YouTube account was

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only in plans and for the forward researches. The

group of parameters related with the directed

marketing activities has the lowest levels of

significance. Usually they also could be expanded into

the annual marketing activities especially the

publications in other digital informational portals

which are redirecting the visitors to the LMA landing

page.

Investigation of quantitative parameters located in

the monitoring data base identifies the situation that

all parameters during intensive advertising period is

increasing significantly, but during the whole 12

months period is low enough and it means (Table 3),

that the advertising campaigns are located in the

period of acceptance of new students and advertising

activities are effctive in the context of new customers,

but it is not enough effective in the context of KI.

It is found that the parameter of new visitors in the

category of website the averagely increasing and seeks

1.12 and it means that annual increasing of this

indicator seeks 12%, but during intensive advertising

activities this indicator increases more intensively and

annual increasing is equal is equal 115% (table 3).

Table 3. The values of all parameters fixed in the Google

Analytics historical data (2019, 2020)

_______________________________________________

Values of Website visiting Values of redirections

_______________________________________________

Annual Intensive Annual Intensive

advertising advertising

_______________________________________________

xW1=0.11 xW1=0.11 xR1=1.05 xR1=1.62

W2=1.12 xW2=2.15 xR2=0.99 xR2=1.71

W31=0.25 xW31=1.32 xR3=0.75 xR3=1.12

W32=0.82 xW32=1.10

W33=0.81 xW33=1.25

W34=0.77 xW34=1.60

W41=1.12 xW41=1.22

W42=1.12 xW42=1.22

_______________________________________________

Values of AdWords Values of social networking

_______________________________________________

Annual Intensive Annual Intensive

advertising advertising

_______________________________________________

xG1=31.92 xG1=31.92 xS11=6.15 xS11=12.40

G2=2.43 xG2=2.43 xS12=5.11 xS12=11.15

G3=1.68 xG3=1.68 xS21=1.00 xS21=42.25

G4=7.00 xG4=7.00 xS22=1.00 xS22=57.00

xS31=1.00 xS31=8.00

S32=0.99 xS32=4.00

S41=0,00 xS41=0,00

S42=0,00 xS42=0,00

S51=1.00 xS51=2.15

S52=0.99 xS52=1.05

_______________________________________________

A similar situation could be identified in the group

of redirection parameters and it could be seen that all

parameters are greater during the advertising periods,

and it is important to note, that the last year growing

had negative dynamics and the number of visitors and

sessions form redirections decreased (table 3). These

results identify the demand to keep the marketing

strategy in the intensity the whole year and to ensure

the periodicity of publications to be enough in other

portals for the ensuring the required level of KI of

LMA and its MET programmes.

Figure 3. KI of LMA MET programmes by its components

Analysis of KI by the assessment of different

components of the whole KI (fig. 3) shows that the

biggest difference was established in the range of

social networking. The whole year’s KI value is 3,5

times less than the value fixed during the period of

intensive advertising. It means, that the increasing of

effectiveness of LMA marketing strategy could be

implemented through the increasing of advertising in

social networks not only on the period of accepting

new students but extended through the whole year,

because the difference of parameters is significant.

Figure 4. Total KI of LMA MET programmes

The effectiveness of marketing strategy measured

by KI (fig. 4) has more effectiveness during intensive

advertising periods also and it is bigger 46% than in

the whole 12 months period. And it means that the

marketing strategy is oriented more to the new

customers attracting, but based on the MET problems

of KI and MET popularity increasing strategy could

be implements by increasing the usage of specialised

promotion tools at social networks whole year and

increasing the popular articles in the other portals

about MET challenges under the influence 4IR and the

changing workplace in the future which will be

fulfilled with the new technologies and will require

digital, cybersecurity and data analysis competences.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of the changes of MET due to the

influence of 4IR shows that MET is influenced by two

types of factors: firstly, the changed demand for the

learning outcomes of MET programmes influenced

the demand for the new competences such as the data

566

analysis, IoT and cyber security; secondly, the changes

of youth’s fields of interests and increased popularity

in informatics and data science are not so attractive in

MET context. Based on these influencing factors the

hypothetical assumption was done: increasing of

MET popularity could be implemented by renewing

of MET programmes on the base of adding new

content related with the digitization and sharing

information about it in wide range of social media

environments on the base of effective digital

marketing strategy.

The description of the concept of digital marketing

strategy’s effectiveness under the collection of main

effectiveness criteria showed that the conception of

effectiveness in the field of MET marketing strategies

is strongly related with the increasing KI of the

organization in the digital environment. Thus, the

main effectiveness assessment methodology was

related with finding the algorithm for calculating KI.

The methodology of the MET KI is based on AHP

methodology, using statistical data from the digital

marketing monitoring tools and expert survey

outcomes. The analysis of KI was divided in two

periods: (1) the annual results of visitor’s dynamics;

(2) the visitors’ dynamics during intensive advertising

periods. The quantitative parameters were measured

by the growing indicators in 2020 in comparison with

the period in 2019.

To generalize the statistical and empirical data

research results by using AHP method it can be

highlighted two main elements having strongest

impact on MET KI: the content of the MET

institution’s website and its visitors’ dynamics. Based

on the results of the LMA KI analysis it can be

recommended for the MET institutions to keep their

website periodically updated with relevant

information about the MET. The results of the

research showed that LMA KI value can be affected by

consistent actions with KI components through digital

marketing strategy’s implementation. For example, KI

value is increasing when MET related information is

sharing outside LMA website in other digital portals

and redirecting them back into LMA website’s

landing page. The assessment of the KI and its

elements in different periods shows that the increase

of the effectiveness of LMA’s marketing strategy

could be implemented by increasing its advertising in

social networks not only on the periods of accepting

new students, but through the whole year.

The KI model is adaptive by changing the relevant

elements according to the needs of institutions. The

research results can be applied to any educational

institution that seeks to increase its marketing strategy

effectiveness and attract students for successful

competition in the education market and for creation

of bigger popularity of the specialized professional

sector, as it was presented on the example of MET.

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