New Year's Marketing Resolutions

In this issue

• ON STRATEGY: NEW YEAR'S MARKETING RESOLUTIONS
• CONTRIBUTE TO THE ULTIMATE MARKETING BOOKSHELF
• JOB DESCRIPTION DATABASE ON THE STAMATS WEB SITE

ON STRATEGY: NEW YEAR'S MARKETING RESOLUTIONS

Dick Damrow, Vice President for Marketing Resources
Eric Sickler, Principal Consultant
Bob Sevier, Senior Vice President

By the time you read this, New Year's Day will be past. However, we three penned this article in the waning days of '04 when, after a long, but fulfilling year, we sat around the office one day and posed two questions: 1) What do we really wish our clients understood about marketing; and 2) What marketing "bad habits" do we wish we could help people break?

With these questions in mind, and in the spirit of the season, we offer our first annual, New Year's Marketing Resolutions.

1. I will learn, apply, and even teach the difference between integrated marketing, integrated marketing communications, and promotion. At the same time, I will differentiate between brand marketing, direct marketing, and customer/constituent relationship management.
2. I will insist on a formal, written integrated marketing plan that includes goals, audiences, actions by individual, budgets, timelines, and evaluation mechanisms.
3. I will not ask my staff to write a plan without offering initial direction on goals and the dollars that are available to invest.
4. I will insist that the senior administrators at my institution share goals and resources. I will eschew turf.
5. I will recognize that gaining total consensus, like winning the lotto, is unlikely to happen. Rather than wait for it, I will seek general direction and press on.
6. I will not let myself off the hook by saying, "we don't have enough money." Rather, I will work with what I have and seek to prioritize, integrate, and coordinate my dollars and those of my colleagues.
7. I will realize the utter fallacy and hopelessness of the following statement: "we will build a national brand" unless I have a check for $1 million in my pocket, the power to spend it, and a clear sense of how I will.
8. I will build a brand that is important, believable, and distinctive. In other words, I will build a brand that is truly valued, in tangible ways, by target audiences who will pay for it and stakeholders who will spend their careers advancing and fulfilling it.
9. Rather than be distracted by opinion, I will develop a viable research cycle.
10. I will scour the Web sites of companies like Stamats looking for free research data, white papers, and other information that will help me and my school better understand the marketplace. I'll share this information widely, especially with my campus leaders.
11. Recognizing that a differentiated curriculum is my most important of all strategic assets, I will evaluate the marketability of my academic programs to determine which are of most value and interest to students, employers, and donors.
12. I will insist on testing a new variable every time I undertake search or the annual fund even if I don't have time and it is not convenient.
13. I will never ask recommendations or make a decision on a specific tactic without looking at the larger message/communication flow. I will seek a whole-systems perspective.
14. I will build valued relationships with prospective students, alumni, and donors before my competitors do.
15. I will understand that it is almost never either/or. It is not e-mail or postal mail, but a blend of e-mail and postal mail. It is not special events or advertising, but special events and advertising. I will seek the synergy and security of multiple channels.
16. I will plot donors, alumni, enrolled students, and feeder high schools on a map to see what my marketplace really looks like.
17. I will measure outcomes and not output. Rather than being concerned about how many publications I produced, I will seek to determine whether or not those publications helped move the needle. I will commit myself to measuring marketing ROI.
18. I will be a secret shopper. I will anonymously call the main switchboard after 5:00 to see how I am treated. I will fill out the BRC and see how it is handled. I will navigate my Web page and try to find a list of majors or giving opportunities. And I will go on a tour of my campus … and on a tour of the campuses of at least five of my competitors.
19. I will read one marketing book and attend one conference outside of higher education.
20. I will learn from others. At the next professional conference I attend, I'll keep two running lists in my pocket that I'll add to whenever revelations come to me. One list will outline proven strategies that I have gleaned from conversations and meetings. The second will be a list of failed attempts; strategies I should avoid.
21. I will say "no" more often so when I say "yes" I can do a better job when I do say "yes."
22. Rather than just twice, I will think three times before tossing out "old" taglines, campaign themes, creative concepts, logos, and other long-standing communications conventions.
23. I will stick to the plan and not sacrifice the truly strategic for the merely urgent or distracting.
24. I will keep my promises. Always.

A downloadable PDF of these resolutions can be found on the Stamats Web site at: QuickTakes

CONTRIBUTE TO THE ULTIMATE MARKETING BOOKSHELF

After almost every conference or online seminar, seasoned vets and newbies alike ask me for a list of "must read" marketing books.

Rather than offer my favorites (of which I have many), I thought I would do the Borgian thing and ask you, the readers of QuickTakes, for your input. If you are interested in contributing a title or two to the ultimate marketing bookshelf, drop me a quick e-mail (bob.sevier@stamats.com). But please, let's not turn this into an exercise on name and title dropping. Rather, let's focus on those books that are truly helpful and insightful. Later this winter I'll publish a summary in QuickTakes. Thanks. Bob

JOB DESCRIPTION DATABASE ON THE STAMATS WEB SITE

Perhaps the question we are asked more than any other is, "Do you have a sample job description for …?"

To help answer this question, we are establishing the Stamats Job Description Database. Much like our popular Stamats Tagline Repository, the database will be available on our Web site and will contain job descriptions for professionals who work in the following areas:

• Admissions
• Marketing
• Advancement
• Web professionals

We will organize descriptions by broad topic and make them downloadable without charge.

If you are interested in adding your job description(s) to the database, please forward them to Brandy at brandy.huseman@stamats.com.

Thanks. Bob