Date received: 09/11/2022 / Date reviewed: 12/11/2022 / Date accepted: 04/12/2022

Introduction

The research conducted is based on marketing, understood as "a social and managerial process through which different groups and individuals obtain what they need and want by creating, offering and exchanging products with value for others" (Kotler, 1984, p.40)  (Kotler, 1984, p.40). The objective is clearly to increase sales, but also to build customer loyalty, increase the visibility of brands, products or services and manage a brand, creating good relationships with consumers in the long term. For this research, educational marketing was analyzed, which can be defined as the set of actions or strategies that allow satisfying the educational needs of the environment, which can be local or international, as well as the educational needs of their families and environment. (Núñez, 2014)

Marketing is focused on a population that has changed during the last decades in its own nature, having to resort to more and more ingenious systems of advertising to sell basically the same products, with this has been the look towards neuroscience, which implies a knowledge of the brain structure and its functioning; the knowledge of neuroeducation allows the teacher to understand the characteristics of the nervous system and the brain, thus relating this knowledge with the behavior of students, in order to subsequently be able to make and design a coherent learning proposal (Campos, 2010) and, likewise, to know the thinking structures of potential university students, applying neuromarketing, defining it as the application of neuroscientific methods to analyze and understand human behavior in relation to markets and commercial exchanges. 

Peter Drucker stated in 1954 that "marketing is not a department; it is the company as a whole seen from the customer's point of view", with this definition it can be considered that the creation of value for the customer should be the competence of all the people working within the organization or institution and not exclusively of the marketing staff. 

Kotler defines marketing as: "a social and managerial process through which different groups and individuals obtain what they need and want by creating, offering and exchanging products with value for others". In this definition, factors such as need, desire, demand, customers, products, satisfaction and cost can be found.

Marketing helps the company to focus on the customer and try to satisfy them in what they really value. (Sainz de Vicuña Ancín, 2016)

When organizations use marketing appropriately and achieve a differentiation over the competition, it is because they effectively carried out an action that generated value for the customer and, if innovation is added to marketing actions, it could be said that business competitiveness is guaranteed.

Marketing has been entering different activities, not only those related to commerce, giving rise to different aspects such as service marketing, studies oriented to consumer behavior and satisfaction, and with it the emergence of relationship marketing, among others.

Based on the aforementioned concept, marketing could be considered as the channel between the industry or company and the consumer, where both obtain benefits, offering tangible or intangible goods, also called services.

The concept of marketing is not only framed in what refers to sales, it goes deeper into areas such as logistics, production, commercialization and after-sales of the good or service.

The objectives of marketing are clearly to increase sales; but so are building customer loyalty, increasing the visibility of brands, products and services, managing a brand, creating good relationships and long-term ties with consumers, partners and suppliers, and educating or orienting the market.

Since the origin of mankind, human beings have had to obtain goods to satisfy their needs. With the passing of time, as human beings ceased to be nomadic and began to settle in semi-fixed places, it allowed a new period to begin, the factor of the division of labor and with it, the possibility of exchanging goods and services, thus creating value to satisfy needs.

With the creation of value and the exchange of goods to satisfy needs, marketing begins, which is nothing more than a social process of exchange that each of the actors in this system carries out to satisfy desires or needs. (Maltifano et al., 2016)

Marketing creates and delivers value, to satisfy the needs and desires of consumers, and also defines, measures and values the potential market, quantifies it and measures its potential profit. Likewise, marketing involves certain strategies, techniques and practices whose main objective is to generate value for the brand, the product or both, thus attributing greater importance to a specific public or target public.

José María Sainz, defines marketing as "the responsible process aimed at identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs in order to build customer loyalty, so that the company can achieve its strategic objectives". (Sainz de Vicuña Ancín, 2016)

From the definition of Sainz and other authors, human needs are mentioned as a determining factor for decision making or for the implementation of strategies. Each human being possesses a level of needs or values in order to satisfy each of his or her needs.

Educational marketing has contributed to the process of change in the education sector, regardless of the level of education in both the public and private sectors, especially in the field of higher education. The objective of any marketing department can be considered first and foremost to increase turnover or in this case enrollment, but it also works on positioning, visibility, retention and loyalty.

Universities must ensure that people seeking professional training come to their institution. In recent decades, word of mouth or word of mouth and the recommendations or experiences of people close to them have been the main channel for attracting students, but the process of making a purchase decision or linking with a university for those interested in pursuing a university degree has evolved.

The trends towards digital marketing are giving an interesting turn to the decision making process of buyers, interested people do their own research by visiting the websites of universities, their social networks, google information of the institutions that interest them and, with the accumulation of that information is that they end up making a decision for affiliation to an institution.

In educational marketing, it is not only aimed at increasing turnover or visibility, it has a much deeper purpose, which is the continuous improvement of the product offered, obtaining a strategic vision and aiming at differentiation from the competition. Another important objective is to generate loyalty and a sense of belonging, creating experiences, moments and experiences that are unforgettable for our consumers. If the university is able to generate this feeling, students and alumni will be the best marketing element the institution can count on.

Another very important element is visibility, creating notoriety outside the academic institution, which is why the creation of communication campaigns with impact must be taken into account, taking care of the image that the educational institution wishes to transmit.

Education, considered as a service within marketing, adopts communication or marketing activities to meet the needs of customers, in this case, students and, not forgetting teachers, for whom internal marketing or endomarketing strategies must be applied. Educational marketing actions are carried out with these two audiences in mind.

The area of neuroscience is a field of study that is gaining more value today; this field applied to the educational and business environment acquires a relevant nuance giving rise to what is known as neuroeducation and neuromarketing for the specific case of marketing in the educational field. 

Neurosciences were incorporated as a tool in the area of knowledge within psychology and economics. The main reason for this incorporation is to understand the relationship that may exist between the mind and the body of the human being; to analyze the cells that are connected, forming systems that in turn generate the sensory perceptions of human beings in their daily activities, thus providing an answer for marketing actions that seek to know the consumer behavior and the factors that indicate in their purchase. (Maltifano et al., 2016, p. 53)

From the neuroscientific perspective, the brain is a holistic element in which learning is generated when different brain functions and areas are activated, in

contrast with research that understands that the cerebral hemispheres are independent, i.e., that each activity has a specific area of the brain to develop it (Bueno and Forés 2018). In this sense it is necessary to clarify that although it is true that there are specialized brain areas for each of the actions such as vision, speech, mobility, among others, it is important to mention that when performing any of the tasks mentioned above, apart from activating the main area involved in that task, the involvement of various brain areas is also observed, understanding the brain from this perspective in a holistic way (Figueroa and Avella, 2019).

According to Campos (2010), it can be said that emotions play an important and fundamental role in decision making; therefore, a good understanding of human emotions and working with them could help people's decision making. 

Following Campos, this mention can be applied not only to educational actions within the classroom; this can be extrapolated to people's day-to-day actions, human beings could be considered as emotional and not only rational people.

Therefore, the emotional brain has a close relationship with the main perceptual areas, based on this premise, it can be conceived that these areas can positively influence the emotional state of the speakers (Padilla, 2005).

According to Meléndez (2012), executive functions allow us to achieve specific objectives through a logical and structured design. Therefore, the importance of these in the achievement of learning is understood, since they facilitate the structuring of information and modulation of our brain activity (Véglia and Ruiz, 2018). In this same line, Punset (2007) had already clarified that executive functions are those higher order cognitive functions that depend on the attention and memory systems.

The relevance of executive functions is evident, given that they are capable of modulating our brain activity for the sake of achieving the goals we set for ourselves, due to the fact that they depend directly on attention and memory (Santa- Cruz and Rosas, 2017).

Considering the relevance of the functions of the executive functions in the decision making process, it can be determined that, from neurosciences oriented to marketing, these functions could be enhanced. 

For the education of the future, neuroscience will be a very important support, as it will collaborate with studies to learn how the brain learns. It is known that neurons receive information from the outside, this information is processed and actions are executed according to the analysis previously performed. (Llorente Alonso, 2017)

Neuromarketing is known as the science that studies how people act when making a decision in the purchasing process. This study has been growing in recent times, with the objective of improving the effectiveness of marketing strategies and campaigns that seek to know consumer behavior in greater depth and to accompany them in making decisions for the purchase or selection of a product or brand.

Neuromarketing is a discipline that uses techniques based on scientific principles, which investigates the way in which people think and make decisions; a process that happens most of the time unconsciously.

In fact, it is a word composed of two terms: neuro (which refers to neuroscience and the study of the brain) and marketing (the discipline that deals with advertising, propaganda and market research).

In the 1990s, brain function began to be studied, and marketing decided to take this knowledge and apply it. He utilized the scientific techniques and technology used by neuroscience and discovered their practical commercial utility.

The beginning of neuromarketing arose from the concern for customer service, quality, loyalty and brand loyalty, which would later be lost with the economic crisis in the 1990s in the United States (Jones & Monieson, 1990). Prior to this concept, marketing based its activities on the four P's or Marketing Mix, Jerome McCarthy's Theory (McCarthy, 1964): Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

A year later, the concept of the four Cs, a customer-oriented concept, was introduced. Robert Lauterborn (1990), suggests a consumer-oriented version, in which he integrates mass marketing, focusing on market niches, taking into account the cost, expectations, communication and convenience of the user or customer.

Many marketing experts make use of neuromarketing, in some cases even without knowing it. Many are not new inventions, but were already in use because they worked and Neuromarketing research has found the scientific background for their effectiveness.

The impulses of neuromarketing came to complement the daily life of human beings, for example, the use of colors or colorimetry to generate different sensations on a product, environment or commercial premises. Other examples could be: background or ambient music, scents, characters or influencers, gondola location or differentiated product space within the store.

Although neuromarketing is still considered an experimental science, this science studies the effects that marketing actions, impulses, advertisements and other communication actions generate in the human brain; the purpose of this science is to be able to predict consumer behavior. It could be considered as a specialized model of market research, which focuses directly on the reactions or feelings that a marketing or communication action generates in the consumer and its influence.

Néstor Braidot (2009) defines neuromarketing as an advanced discipline that researches and studies the brain processes that explain people's behavior and decision-making in the fields of action of traditional marketing: market intelligence, product and service design, communications, pricing, branding, positioning, targeting, channels and sales.

Neuromarketing answers with a greater degree of certainty to many of the questions that have been asked in relation to: the stimuli that an advertisement should contain to achieve a greater degree of impact, the level of repetition in each medium for a campaign to be effective, the sensory stimuli that a product should contain to achieve customer satisfaction, the best strategy regarding price, the way to seduce customers so that they stay longer at a point of sale, increase their volume of purchases and return, or the type of training that a sales force should have to be competitive. (Al & Del, 2014)

Neuroscience linked to different areas of economics and psychology have been incorporated as tools to understand the consumer buying process. The purpose of these studies is to understand the interrelationship between the body and the mind of the consumer, in order to understand the sensory perceptions that human beings have in their daily lives, generating responses in marketing, thus improving their impulses and strategies for customer acquisition, retention and loyalty (Malfitano, Arteaga, Ramano, & Scinica, 2007)

From the above, the question arose: "Could marketing actions with a "neuro" approach strengthen student recruitment actions?" and the objective of "analyzing neuromarketing as a strengthener of university student recruitment". 

In order to meet the objective, the starting point was a conceptualization of marketing, educational marketing, some theoretical aspects of neuroscience and neuromarketing. 

In the methodology, a descriptive, non-parametric design was established.

Method

The research aims to "Analyze neuromarketing as an enhancer of university student recruitment". It is also guided by a series of specific objectives such as: To describe the decision-making process of first semester students in their university decision; To identify the elements that higher education institutions take into account in the process of attracting students; To show the bases that constitute neuromarketing in a university context; To determine the relationship that exists between neuromarketing and the "quality" factor when selecting a university.

The research has applied an interpretative paradigm, since it has not attempted to make generalizations from the object studied. It is non-experimental, cross-sectional, explanatory, descriptive, correlational and regression.

In the proposed research, the quantitative approach has been chosen, since it seeks basic knowledge, and at the same time, knowledge applied to decision making and actions for change.

The quantitative approach is appropriate for this research, since quantification is a fact that will be taken into account to understand the reality studied. For this case, a Likert scale was used and SPSS V.27 was used as the software for data analysis.

As for the research subjects, the choice to establish them as a population follows certain selection criteria, so as to ensure on their part the understanding of the object of study (Flick, 2018). The population must have the necessary knowledge and experience to provide understanding of the study results (Bautista, 2009).

For the research, a total sample of 1,733 informants was obtained. This population was determined based on the following criteria (to be part of the sample, it had to meet at least one of the criteria below):

1. Be a first year student. 
2. Be a student of Universidad Columbia del Paraguay, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad de Jaén (Spain).

Therefore, the choice of the 1,733 participants in the selected sample was based on convenience. Of the total population selected, 35% corresponds to the Universidad Columbia del Paraguay, 35% corresponds to the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the remaining 30% corresponds to the Universidad de Jaén. It is also mentioned that, of the total, 1082 are women and 651 are men. 

The data collection instrument, the Likert scale, has been designed in a manner consistent with both the objectives and the target population. This type of scale is used to evaluate the level of agreement or disagreement on a topic. This type of scales are excellent for measuring attitudes, reactions and level of knowledge of a person in relation to a subject, among other aspects. This scale is usually divided into sections that respond to the different study variables.

The Likert scale developed for this research consists of 38 items, divided into five variables of analysis: marketing, educational marketing, neuromarketing, education and quality, strategic planning. The degree of response, affecting the level of acceptance, of the 38 items was established in a linear fashion from one to five, in the following order: (1, Strongly disagree: 2, Disagree; 3, Indifferent; 4, Agree; 5, Strongly agree).

Another of the central axes that guided the research methodology was the operationalization table. This table has followed a process through which the elements of the study are specified in order to be able to make them visible during the course of the research. 

The construction of the data collection instrument required the creation of an operationalization table to measure the methodological knowledge of the research, thus delimiting the variables, the specific objectives and the items of the methodology applied.

For content validity and construct validity, the calculation of the Competence Coefficient (K) was carried out, the mean of the K was 0.91, so it is deduced that it is of a high level of competence in the subject. Some questions were readjusted without affecting the meaning of the questions. A pilot test was also carried out with a subgroup of the sample before performing the test on the total sample, thus detecting comprehension difficulties for some questions or those that generated doubts. Once the pilot test had been carried out and the results were satisfactory, the content of the instrument was considered valid. 

Data recording, digital coding and statistical processing were carried out with SPSS V.27. To test the null hypothesis, Barlett's test was performed, and the result was .00, so the null hypothesis was rejected at the 5% significance level.

The KMO was performed, obtaining a result of .833, which led to the factor analysis. 

For reliability, Cronbach's Alpha and the test of two halves were calculated. Cronbach's Alpha on the 38-item scale yielded a score of .907, so the scale is considered to be excellent. 

In the Guttman two halves test, it has yielded a length score of .800, which shows reliability in the data, due to its proximity to 1.

Results

As mentioned above, five dimensions were carried out, from the country perspective, and the results were as follows:

 

Table 1. Results by dimensions between Spanish and Paraguayan universities

 

Dimensions	Spanish universities	Paraguayan university
Dimension A (Marketing)	(2.9) "Indifferent."	(3,6) "Indifferent"
Dimension B (Educational Marketing)	(3,2) "Indifferent"	(3,9) "Agreed"
Dimension C (Neuromarketing)	(3,9) "Agreed"	(4.0) "Agree"
Dimension D (Higher education and quality)	(3,4) "Indifferent"	(3,8) "Agreed"
Dimension E (Strategic planning)	(3,8) "Agreed"	(4.0) "Agree"

 

In the correlations performed, the highest correlations can be considered: C11-C12 (.825**), people who consider that the social environment influences the consumer, also consider that the social factor affects these decisions; E33-E32 (.675**), people who think that they remember advertisements in traditional media, also mention that they remember advertisements that appear in their social networks and D18-B8 (.659**), people who consider that the institutional image influences the decision to enroll in college, consider that the institutional image influences the choice. 

Among the lowest correlations, the following can be considered: A1-B7 (.001), i.e., university selection by location, does not influence with the years of trajectory of the institution; A2-D5 (.001), where university selection by recommendation of friends does not influence with that the university infrastructure is synonymous with quality and the correlation C11-D20 (-.032), where the social environment influences university selection, is not related to the efficiency of the university marketing campaigns. 

As a result of the correlations between dimensions, the following stands out:

Dimension A (Marketing) correlates with dimension B (Educational Marketing) at .546.

Dimension B (Educational marketing) correlates with dimension D (Higher education and quality) at .630.

Dimension C (Neuromarketing) correlates with dimension E (Strategic Planning) at .539.

Dimension D (Higher education and quality) correlates with dimension B (Educational marketing) at .630.

Dimension E (Strategic planning) correlates with dimension D (Higher education and quality) at .601.

As can be seen, the dimensions are interrelated and, in turn, it can be observed that:

B D, D B (.630) and the one with the lowest correlation is C E (.539)

In the descriptive analysis, it was observed that in dimension A (Marketing), the participants are indifferent when choosing a university because of its location, the recommendation of friends or relatives, or its fees. However, they disagree that marketing actions are the decisive factor in consumers' decision making, and agree in choosing a university based on the careers it offers. 

In dimension B (Educational marketing), the subjects agree that the education and culture of young people influence the way they understand the communication campaigns of the different universities, that the years of trajectory of the university are very important when deciding; finally, that the institutional image influences the selection of the university, whether private or public. However, they are indifferent to the fact that a good educator is a good marketing professional and that a marketing professional is an education professional. 

In dimension C (Neuromarketing), the participants agree that the social environment and culture influence the consumer, that sensory and perceptual factors are decisive in the decision making process, as well as that the effects of purchase or use experiences are decisive in the decision making process, that emotional intelligence influences the acceptance and purchase decision of a product, as well as that neural networks generated with previous experiences of use or purchase affect the purchase decision, and finally, that neuromarketing actions focused on the brain system of consumers manage to affect their decision-making power. 

Dimension D (Higher education and quality). In this dimension, there is agreement that the institutional image influences the decision to enroll in a university, as well as the quality of the service provided. Likewise, they agree that the communications made by the universities transmit quality in the education they offer, that the teaching component and the infrastructure of the universities are synonymous with quality, as well as the student exchange activities, control and monitoring tools and that the careers are accredited. On the other hand, the participants are indifferent about whether the universities' marketing campaigns are efficient, whether the years of permanence in the market are synonymous with quality in education, or about the loyalty of students and promotions carried out. 

In dimension E (Strategic Planning). The participants agree on the importance of remembering the advertisements that appear on social networks, the advice of people they know when making a decision, the importance of the university building student loyalty and providing efficient support to its students, as well as seeing and hearing testimonials from students and graduates of the university and the possibility of finding good classmates and understanding professors to help them in their professional training. In spite of what has been said, indifference is shown to the recall of advertisements appearing in traditional media such as TV, radio, magazines or newspapers. 

Once the descriptive analysis by items has been carried out, the general conclusion is that the subjects of Spanish universities are indifferent to marketing, educational marketing and higher education and quality. On the other hand, they agree with the neuromarketing aspect and strategic planning. Regarding the Paraguayan university subjects, they agree with educational marketing, neuromarketing, higher education and quality and strategic planning, but are indifferent to marketing. All this clearly shows us the differences between the different countries, coinciding in the importance of neuromarketing and strategic planning.

Discussion and conclusions

Among the most outstanding conclusions, the description of the decision making process in first semester students is considered first, it has been observed that they show indifference in their choice processes in terms of location, friends' recommendations or price, and the marketing actions carried out are of little importance, the key point being the careers offered by the universities. It is clear that, in spite of the publicity campaigns that are carried out, in the end what determines the choice is the academic offer of the house of studies. 

In terms of identifying the elements that higher education institutions take into account in their student recruitment process, an unimportant aspect is whether the educator "sells" the university well, with elements such as the education and culture of the prospective students, the university's years of experience and the institutional image shown being more important. 

Regarding the neuromarketing dimension and the "quality" factor when selecting a university, the institutional image influences the decision to enroll in a university, as well as the quality of service provision and teachers. 

Finally, the relationship between neuromarketing and strategic planning can be concluded that the recall of advertisements that appear in social networks and not in traditional media is decisive, as well as the advice of acquaintances and testimonials from other students or graduates.

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