A Global Education Marketplace

In this issue

• ON STRATEGY: A GLOBAL EDUCATION MARKETPLACE
• ENDOWMENT GROWTH
• ON THE NUMBERS: NOT GIVING
• SO, HOW MUCH IS A BILLION?

STILL TIME TO REGISTER!

Please make plans to participate in our online seminar, Let's Get Personal: Using Personalization to Court Key Audiences, presented by Karen Hildebrand, on Thursday, April 28, from 1:30-3:00 PM CDT.

The first session of a special three-part interactive media series, Practical Applications in an Interactive World.

Go here for more information.

ON STRATEGY: A GLOBAL EDUCATION MARKETPLACE

A recent trip to Poland and London brought me face-to-face, in a very vivid way, with what has been, up to now, a largely theoretical understanding of the globalization of higher education. What I had failed to realize was just how much potential this globalization had to impact American colleges and universities.

Of course, internationalization is not new. We have being seeing more rankings with an international flavor. Last November, the Times of London published the World University Rankings. The Institute of Higher Education of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University recently published its rankings as part of China's commitment to enhance the academic quality of its institutions (that's a whole additional story). Webometrics has its list of the best online colleges. And finally, we have the Financial Times 100 best MBA programs.

But these rankings are merely the public face of a series of commitments by countries and regions to dramatically enhance the quality of their colleges and universities and to seek the best students possible.

While in Poland I had lunch with Jan Sadlak, the director of UNESCO-CEPES (Centre Européen pour l'Enseignement Supérieur). While we conversed I learned that Europe and the European Union, are committed to a dramatic reform of higher education with an ultimate aim of establishing a European Higher Education Area by 2010 in which staff and students can move with ease and have fair recognition of their qualifications. In other words, imagine the marketplace presence that Europe, as one big, largely unified block of colleges and universities, will have.

And that's just Europe. China wants to play on the world education stage as well. In fact, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings are designed, in large part, to establish a defendable criterion against which China can measure progress as it seeks to enhance its system of higher education.

And then there is the rest of Asia: Japan. Singapore. Hong Kong. And let's not forget Austrialia. In fact these countries and regions have many colleges and universities that by almost any measure are as good as anything in the U.S. This is borne out by the Times list which indicated that of the top 25 schools in the world, only 14 are located in the U.S. When this list comes out again in 2005 it will be interesting to see what's changed.

So what does this all mean? Well, let me offer some observations.

First, the world's best and brightest students will not automatically look to the U.S. An article in the February 11th issue of the Chronicle, "Hard Sell Overseas," opens, "Facing stagnant international enrollments and rising competition abroad, U.S. colleges aggressively seek foreign students."

Second, better schools in foreign countries will do a better job recruiting and retaining their own students.

Third, we can expect exceptional foreign colleges and universities to begin recruiting American students more aggressively.

While we have long preached the importance of an international education. I'm not sure we fully understood its ramifications.

ENDOWMENT GROWTH

According to the January 28, 2005 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the vast majority of the country's colleges got richer in 2004, ending a three-year losing streak.

Endowments earned an average of 15.1% in 2004, the highest since 1998. The uptick follows investment losses in 2001 and 2002 and a modest three percent increase in 2003. In fact, of the 741 institutions surveyed, only 11 lost money in 2004.

ON THE NUMBERS: NOT GIVING

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University recently surveyed 1,000 lapsed donors from nine charities to determine why they had stopped giving. Here are their top 10 reasons:

1. 28.5%. Felt that another cause was more deserving
2. 22.3%. No longer able to afford support
3. 11.4%. No memory of ever giving to that charity
4. 6.8%. Still supports charity by another means
5. 6.7%. Relocated or moved
6. 5.2%. Died
7. 3.6%. Charity communications were inappropriate
8. 3.3%. Charity did not remind donor to give again
9. 3.1%. Charity asked for inappropriate gift amount
10. 1.7%. Charity did not inform donor of how the gift was used

SO, HOW MUCH IS A BILLION?

Dick Damrow, Vice President for Marketing Services, passed this on to me. I realize it is a little bit off mission but bear with me.

The next time you hear a politician use the word ‘billion' casually, think about whether you want that politician spending your tax money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:

• A billion seconds ago it was 1959
• A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive
• A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age
• A billion days ago no human walked on earth
• A billion dollars ago was only eight hours and 20 minutes ago at the rate the government spends it

CAMPUS VISIT AUDIT

If you want to increase the effectiveness of your campus visit strategy, Stamats can help.

Our Campus Visit Audit is specifically designed to enhance the performance of your large and small campus visit programs.

After an evaluation of your general support structures, we examine your overall visit program, we also examine your pre-visit, visit, and post-visit strategies. Each audit concludes with a series of specific recommendations to improve overall effectiveness.

For more information on the visit assessment, contact Steve Kappler, Senior Director of Consulting, at Stamats (800) 553-8878 or steve.kappler@stamats.com.

STAMATS ONLINE SEMINARS

Thursday, April 28th, from 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. CDT

Let's Get Personal: Using Personalization to Court Key Audiences
Presented by Karen Hildebrand

When communicating with key audiences, it used to be impressive to say "Dear Joe Smith" rather than "Dear Sir" or "Dear valued customer" even though the message content was exactly the same to each recipient. It was impressive because the message was addressed to an individual, not an attribute. But now, that level of personalization is expected and recipients are starting to tune out those messages just like the others. So how do we take it up a notch and go from personalized to personal and relevant? We build relationships. We ask questions. We court individuals through ongoing communications based on their personal interests—just a few pieces of information can go a long way.

This is the first session of a special three-part online seminar series on interactive media practices designed for admissions and marketing professionals at colleges and universities, Practical Applications in an Interactive World.

The second session, Search Engine Optimization & Advertising, will be Thursday, May 5 from 1:30-3:00 PM CDT. Scott Hall will discuss how to optimize your site successfully, pay-per-click advertising, and the pros and cons of using aggregator sites to boost your rankings.

Eric Hodgson will present the third session, Maintaining Your Web Site, on Thursday, May 12 from 1:30-3:00 PM CDT. During his presentation, Eric will cover the latest models and best practices in higher education to support and maintain the content on and quality of your Web site.

For more information about the online conference, please contact Brandy Huseman at (800) 553-8878 or brandy.huseman@stamats.com. You can also check out the Stamats Web site at www.stamats.com.

Cost: $249 for each individual session or $600 when you register for all three.

Click here to register for one, two, or all three sessions.

STAMATS' ANNUAL STRATEGIC INTEGRATED MARKETING CONFERENCE JULY 25-28 IN CHICAGO

This summer Stamats will host an outstanding conference that focuses entirely on integrated marketing for colleges and universities. Some of the more than 20 sessions include:

• Developing an Integrated Marketing Plan
• Integrated Aspects of Fundraising
• How to Build a "Sticky" Web Site: Integrate, Innovate, and Interact
• TeensTALK™
• Building a Brand That Matters

In addition, we will have two special keynote presentations:

• Jack Trout, president of Trout & Partners, has authored more than 10 books on brand marketing
• Arthur Levine, president and Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University

It promises to be an exceptional event. Please make your reservations early.

Jack Trout

Instrumental in developing the vital approach to marketing known as "positioning," he is responsible for some of the freshest ideas to be introduced into marketing thinking in the last several decades.

Jack Trout is president of Trout & Partners, one of the most prestigious marketing firms with headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA and offices in 13 countries. Jack Trout manages and supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world. The firm has done work for AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Merck, Lotus, Ericsson, Tetra Pak, Repsol, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines and other Fortune 500 companies.

Jack Trout started his business career in the advertising department of General Electric. From there he went on to become a divisional advertising manager at Uniroyal. Then he joined Al Ries in the advertising agency and marketing strategy firm where they worked together for over twenty-six years.

His latest book Trout on Strategy is Trout's best advice on the subject of good and bad strategy. If you don't have the right strategy, you're toast.

Arthur Levine

Arthur Levine is President and Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He received his bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to Teachers College, he served as Chair of the Higher Education program and Chair of the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Mr. Levine is the author of dozens of articles and reviews. His most recent book is When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today's College Student (with Jeanette S. Cureton.) An advocate of improving teacher quality and enhancing the use of technology in higher education, Mr. Levine's numerous opinion editorials appear in such publications as The New York Times; The Los Angeles Times; The Wall Street Journal; The Chronicle of Higher Education.

He has served as consultant to more than 250 colleges and universities, and currently sits on the Boards of Blackboard, Inc., and the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (cIcu). Mr. Levine was also President of Bradford College (1982-1989) and named 1999-2001 Carnegie Fellow, formerly Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation and Carnegie Council for Policy Studies in Higher Education (1975-1982).

Other presenters include: Dr. Robert A. Sevier, Senior Vice President; Eric Sickler, Principal Consultant; Chuck Reed, VP of Client Services; Kari Kovar, Senior Client Consultant; Scott Lomas, Principal Consultant; Eric Hodgson, Client Consultant; Karen Hildebrand, Direct Marketing Manager; Sabra Fiala, Direct Marketing Executive; Ann Oleson, Senior Client Consultant

Cost:
$449 - Tuesday, July 26 through Thursday, July 28 - General conference
(an additional $149 - Monday, July 25 - Optional preconference session)

Plus, every attendee will receive a copy of Jack Trout's latest book, Trout on Strategy!

Register today at www.stamats.com/events/seminars!