Stamats' QuickTakes
Insights into Research, Strategic Planning, and Integrated Marketing for Colleges and Universities by Dr. Robert A. Sevier, Senior Vice President at Stamats (quicktakes@stamats.com)
Vol. 5, no. 15: Importance of a Brand Promise
In this issue.
PRESIDENTS' INSTITUTE ON INTEGRATED MARKETING AND BRANDING
Please make plans to attend the Stamats Presidents' Institute on Integrated Marketing and Branding. This seminar is designed for presidents, deans, and board members.
Details can be found at the close of this newsletter.
AND THE WINNER IS.
Robert Sprung Duquesne University
He is the lucky winner of our NACAC booth's dorm room! Have fun practicing your free throws! Congratulations!
With a hale and hearty "I told you so", we have the story of Volvo rediscovering its brand promise. The August 26 issue of USA Today began a story, slugged "To boost sales, Volvo returns to its roots: safety," with the following: "Volvo, the only premier auto brand with falling sales this year, has a new chief executive who wants to return the company's marketing emphasis to safety." Says the new CEO, "We have to be single-minded about our safety heritage and just talk about styling and performance as a value-added feature."
Purchased by Ford in 1999, Volvo immediately drove into brand funk as FoMoCo began emphasizing style and performance. The company's tag evolved from a focused "drive safely" to a bland "for life." When Ford/Volvo came out with a convertible, they confused things even more by using "tan safely" as the tag.
Volvo owns the word safety and it is taking positive steps by affirming, rather than distancing itself, from that appellation.
One final word: It is interesting to note that Volvo led all European makes, including Mercedes, in this year's J.D. Power and Associates' survey for quality and customer satisfaction even as they declined in overall sales. Quality is essential, but you need to wrap it in a brand.
I don't know how I could have missed this, but I did.
I learned some time ago that BYU (of Brigham Young University fame) did a nifty brand extension when Ricks College, a two-year private institution in Rexburg, Idaho, changed its name to BYU Idaho.
A news release dated June 21, 2000 (I told you I missed this) has all the details and offers this interesting insight, "The name change was designed to give the school immediate national and international recognition."
What an amazing and gutsy move. I hope the transition proceeds with the same boldness and verve.
MUCH
ADO.
By Lorna Miles Whalen, Principal
Consultant
Not everyone attended the annual NACAC event. For everyone who did, thanks for stopping by the Stamats dorm room.
For those who did not attend, the coverage afforded the conference in the Chronicle of Higher Education leads us to believe that the hottest issues in Salt Lake City last weekend were the lack of decision on early decision and a new resolution to review the practices of awarding admission to students "with demonstrated interest."
The big pre-conference buzz, according to the Chronicle, was whether Princeton's and Brown's decisions to run with their early decision programs would prompt a wrist slap from the conference attendees. Good grief.
Unfortunately, these issues do not describe the issues or concerns of the vast majority of colleges and universities, guidance counselors or, most importantly, college-bound students and their families.
To most of these folks, the focus of the all-important college visit is on the "comfort" of the student and his or her family.
Let's get real
The overwhelming majority of colleges and universities work hard to demonstrate
THEIR interest in prospective students—up to and including the college
visit. Most of Stamats clients' primary interests lie in helping students and
families learn more about their programs and institutional character. The idea
here is simple: the more you know, the better your choice. Let's face it; the
overwhelming majority of colleges and universities do not spend a great deal
of time manipulating the numbers to appear more selective than they really are.
Best practices?
We worry when the special interests of a few highly selective institutions color
the landscape of higher education to such a huge extent. It is costly and unproductive
for the average college or university to spend time worrying about creating
systems to exclude students for "perceived lack of interest."
It is a lot simpler for most of us to get to know and communicate regularly with our inquiry and applicant pools. Stamats suggests spending more time on "intelligent practices" and perhaps leaving some of the "best practices" to those institutions that can best afford them.
Some highly intelligent practices
Here are a few highly intelligent practices for the fall.
1. Review your plan in light of results. If you haven't already done this, take a day and retreat. The fall is your busiest time; you and your staff need to know and agree upon what worked well and not so well last cycle. Make sure you are all on the same page. For some schools, publics and those enrolling through registration, this may be your first indicator of who's who on campus.
Note surprises and variances. Review your fall travel plans and on-campus events accordingly.
2. Staff your campus. Be ready for fall visits. This is the time to put your best foot forward—even if you are short staffed due to fall travel. Hire a "greeter," make coffee and tea available for visitors, and be sure to have the weekends staffed. Make event tickets available by reserving a small inventory for scheduled visitors as well as drop/walk-ins.
3. Put the fall board meeting on YOUR agenda. Make sure you have great anecdotal data on this year's class to bulwark the numbers and share with the board. Focus on the types of students your institution serves well. Talk up the programs that have worked well in attracting and sustaining these students on campus. Board member support is easier to enlist when the stories behind the numbers are well known.
4. Research, research, research. First, find out if there are real people or phantoms in your funnel. Now is the time to conduct an inquiry survey. Determine how long those inquiries have been in your pool, what they know about your institution, and whether you are a good "fit." An inquiry study today will tell you if you are "fishing in the right pool." Do students in your pool want what you have?
5. Fall brand-building. We spend a lot of time talking about building your brand on campus. But what about on the road? Remember the four elements of the successful brand:
a. Make a promise: Is everyone (counselors, alumni interviewers, coaches) singing from the same hymnal?
b. Communicate your promise: Are your publications telling the same story? Are the materials everyone leaves behind and the road talks all in alignment with your brand promise?
c. Live your promise: Do all of your counselors understand how different areas of the institution support the brand promise (departments, etc.)?
d. Strengthen your promise: What systems do you have in place for debriefing with counselors on the public's reaction to the brand promise?
Practiced often and diligently, these intelligent practices will yield less controversy and great results! Happy fall travels, everyone.
STUDENTS' MENTAL HEALTH CONTINUES TO DECLINE
The February 18, 2002 issue of U.S. News & World Report has some staggering statistics about the mental health of today's college students, including:
Of course, suicide is not the only issue facing students. We are seeing alarming increases in depression, eating disorders, and traumatic experiences.
Sadly, according to the experts, one source for these possible mental health problems is the sheer competition that students face as they seek to get into college. Says one expert, students are beginning to burn out even before they get there.
The article offered no clear solutions beyond sounding the alarm. We know that as colleges and universities struggle to balance revenue and costs, there will be a temptation to reduce either the quantity or quality of mental health counseling that is available on their campuses. Based on the findings in U.S. News & World Report article, that would be a significant error.
For another look at mental health issues, take a look at the cover story of the October 7, 2002 Newsweek. The cover photo is of a James Madison University student.
BRAND
MARKETING AND THE WEB-WHAT'S THE CONNECTION
By Adam Doerr, Senior Writer
In the fall of 2000, I wrote "Making the Most of Your Web Presence," an Applications article that argued that brand and online user experiences are closely related. After all, a Web site that frustrates and confuses visitors can't possibly provide a good brand experience. Two years later, the connection between branding and user experience has gotten even closer with information architects and Web designers looking to advertising account planners for guidance on building strong brand relationships. These connections make sense—account planners are brand stewards, and Web content creators and information architects are responsible for the online expression of a brand.
Which brings us to the key question: What does this new understanding of brands and online experiences mean to higher education institutions? Just what dynamic and focused institutions have known all along—that everyone who represents your institution, from Web designers to admissions secretaries, needs to understand your brand and their role in communicating it.
In a recent QuickTakes, Bob Sevier noted that steady execution is more important than daring ideas. Nowhere is this truer than on the Web. Online brands aren't defined by splashy home pages or gee-whiz features, they come from a constant—even obsessive—devotion to getting the details of content, navigation, and user experience right, day-in and day-out.
For an interesting take on the developing connections between branding and Web experience, see User Interface Engineering's interview with Mitch McCasland and visit www.brandinquiry.com.
Got some thoughts on online brands and the user experience? I'd like to hear them—just send a note to adam.doerr@stamats.com.
In case anyone hasn't figured it out, yet, it pays to go to school. Recent job and market downturns aside, the average household with a couple of bachelor's degree holders makes approximately $84,000. Graduate degrees swell the household income to $104,000 (up 22.3 percent over the past 10 years). Some college is worth $60,000 while a high school diploma is worth $45,000. Those without a high school diploma are at the bottom of the scale with $29,400. These numbers, reported in the March 2002 American Demographics, are from the U.S. Census Bureau.
DIRECT
MARKETING MATTERS
By Karen Hildebrand, Direct Marketing Associate
PVBIT: The Language of E-mail Marketing
Okay, so it's not on the new list of words being added to Webster's Dictionary this year—probably because it's not really a word. It is, however, a useful acronym I found from David Patterson (The Five Most Important Words in E-mail Marketing), which represents Permission, Value, Brevity, Interactivity, and Trackability. So if you use or plan to use e-mail marketing in your recruiting funnel, you may find it helpful to incorporate these words into your institution's marketing vocabulary.
We all know about the importance of permission. To gain permission from prospective students, we often recommend using e-mail as a follow up communication to some type of print, phone, or Web inquiry in which students state their interest in receiving future communications from people at your institution. Yet even with this permission, don't deny them the opportunity to opt out. This will help you maintain the quality of your admissions database as well as develop your reputation as a respectable marketer.
Value is probably the most important, yet most overlooked, component to e-mail marketing. As Inboxes continue to fill up with loads of messages, our e-mail communications must be relevant and valuable to the student—and not based on what we think is important, but what they think is important.
Again, e-mail volume is a growing beast. It's our responsibility to communicate the value in the message as efficiently as possible. Be brief, be to the point, and be done. If you need to communicate a significant amount of information, incorporate a link or a phone number, but don't try to data dump in an e-mail; otherwise, the message will probably get dumped into the Recycle Bin.
By adding links, phone numbers, etc., you're incorporating interactivity. The goal is to engage the student into some type of activity that is of value to his or her personal interests and goals. Use the e-mail to spark their interest and then give them something to do. The more involved they become, the better.
While trackability is another word you won't find in the dictionary, it is a critical component of e-mail marketing. When tracking your e-mail communication you can measure open and click-through rates, collect user data, and, again, improve the quality and accuracy of your database. This information can also be used as benchmark data for developing future e-mail communication.
If you have thoughts on or examples of e-mail marketing, please feel free to share them with me at karen.hildebrand@stamats.com.
FOREIGN STUDENTS IN THE U.S.
From the July/August Trusteeship we learn that foreign students make up about four percent of the 15 million students attending American colleges and universities. Can you guess which U.S. college has the most foreign students? If you guessed a school in California you are exactly one continent off. Actually, it is New York University followed closely by the University of Southern California. Third is Columbia and then Purdue (main campus). The countries contributing the most foreign students are: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, and Mexico.
CONFERENCE DETAILS
STAMATS
PRESIDENTS' INSTITUTE ON INTEGRATED MARKETING AND BRANDING
November 7-8, 2002
Washington, DC
Stamats will hold a two-day conference on integrated marketing and branding for college and university presidents (or deans). Cabinet and board members are welcome to attend along with their presidents.
Sessions to be included:
Presenters will include:
The cost for the Institute is $395. It will be held at the Hyatt on Capitol Hill, 400 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
For information about either of these conferences, please contact Suzanne Schloss (info@stamats.com) or visit Seminars to register.
JOB OPENINGS
Stamats Consulting, the higher education research, planning, and consulting side of Stamats, is expanding our staff and is looking for a principal consultant. If you are interested, please e-mail joann.binzen@stamats.com for a copy of the job description.
Web Architect
San Jacinto College
Oversee the Web design, communication of the purpose and goals of the Web, tracking,
architecture, Web specific content (text), use of the Web and updates. Ensure
the Web architecture and future updates, additions and changes take into consideration
the uses of the Web and the content management software. Bachelor's degree required.
Experience using the Web as a marketing and information tool and using content
management software is required. At least five (5) years of experience in Web
site management overseeing a large Web site with multiple audiences and needs.
Must have an understanding of a college's mission and uses for a Web site. This
is a managerial, yet hands on position. Forward your resume and letter of application
to Human Resources, JoAnne.Bailey@sjcd.edu.
Director of Admissions
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke is accepting nominations and applications
for goal orientated, enthusiastic, and energetic individuals for the position
of Director of Undergraduate Admissions.The Office of Undergraduate Admissions
is charged with identifying, cultivating, and recruiting applications for admission
from first-time freshmen, transfer and non-traditional populations; collecting
and evaluating credentials; admitting individuals; and influencing accepted
students to matriculate at UNCP. Responsibilities include: Provide leadership
for an aggressive admissions team; inspire, motive, coach and mentor professional
and support staff in setting and reaching enrollment goals; refine and implement
the comprehensive recruitment plan; collect, analyze and utilize data to maximize
effective and efficient use of physical and financial resources; evaluate international
applicants; develop recruitment publications; promote the use of technology
in recruitment and office procedures Serve as liaison to other campus offices
and departments regarding enrollment issues; Qualifications: Bachelor's degree
required, Master's degree is highly preferred with at least five years of progressive
admissions experience. Deadline: For full consideration submit complete application
portfolio including letter of interest/qualifications, résumé, three current
letters of recommendation. Review of applications will begin November 1, 2002
and the position will remain open until filled. Forward applications to: Dr.
William Gash, Chair, Director of Undergraduate Admissions Search Committee,
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Post Office Box 1510, Pembroke,
North Carolina 28372.
Dean of Admissions and Financial
Aid
Kenyon College
Kenyon College, a highly selective, independent, national liberal arts college
in Ohio, seeks an experienced Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, who reports
directly to the President. The preferred candidate will have an appreciation
for the liberal arts; represent Kenyon College to various constituencies; think
strategically and creatively; possess excellent analytical, marketing and communication
skills; demonstrate a history of enrollment success; be committed to diversity;
and have the ability to lead and motivate 20 staff members. TO APPLY: Send a
cover letter and resume by email or mail to: Mary Lahti, Lahti Search Consultants,
286 Jefferson Street, Meadville, PA 16335. mary@lahtisearch.com.
Phone: (814) 332-2993. www.lahtisearch.com.
If you have a short position description (100 words or less) you would like posted, please forward it on to info@stamats.com. There is no charge for this service. Job listings available online at Higher Educations Careers.
COPYRIGHT, DISTRIBUTION, AND PERMISSION
Stamats QuickTakes is published by Stamats and is distributed to our clients and colleagues in higher education at no charge. Contents (c) 2002 by Stamats. Please feel free to forward copies of Stamats QuickTakes in its entirety to colleagues. Visit QuickTakes for past issues. To subscribe, reply to this e-mail, send your request to quicktakes@stamats.com, or visit QuickTakes.
ABOUT STAMATS
Every year, more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide rely upon Stamats research, planning, consulting, and communications services to help them keep their promises.
Stamats. Promises kept.