| Why
Market?
In this issue
UPCOMING ONLINE SEMINAR—DOUBLE
FEATURE: TOP 10 MARKETING MISTAKES COLLEGES MAKE & MESSAGES THAT
MATTER
Please make plans to join us for our final online seminar for 2005.
It is a double feature: Top 10 Marketing Mistakes Colleges Make
& Messages That Matter. It will be held December 8, 2005
from 1:30-3:30 PM CDT.
Please go here for more details.
ON
STRATEGY: WHY MARKET?
One question that we are often asked, especially by faculty, is this:
Why should we spend money and other resources on marketing?
This is an important and appropriate question. To answer it, we decided
to pose the question to a number of clients as well as readers of QuickTakes.
The answers we received were blended with ours. The result can be found
below.
As you read the responses keep a couple of things in mind. First, not
all rationales listed are appropriate for every institution. Second,
there was some concern on the part of respondents on how we are defining
marketing. We settled on integrated marketing communications, or IMC,
which encompasses all of the communications tactics that bring marketing
to life. Third, there is some overlap between responses. Finally, some
people who answered our question wished to remain anonymous.
To help make the case for marketing on your campus, we invite you to
use and modify any of the following arguments.
Why spend institutional dollars on marketing? Well…
- It is less an issue of spending and more an issue of investing.
And like any good investment, a solid marketing strategy should have
a positive return-on-investment (ROI). In most cases, this ROI will
involve our increased ability to recruit more/different students,
an increased ability to raise dollars, and greater success hiring
our first-choice faculty and administrators.
- We are already engaged in marketing. We are already spending time
and dollars. The question is, how effective is our current strategy?
And are we realizing maximum efficiency for the dollars we are spending?
- If we consider "integrated marketing," the emphasis
should be on integrated, or integration. Marketing is not necessarily
about spending more dollars. It is about receiving greater value or
return-on-investment on the dollars we are already spending.
- Our reputation is our most important asset. How we are perceived
and regarded is essential. If prospective students and donors are
not aware of us, or if they do not perceive us as relevant, they will
not be in our classrooms or on our donor roles.
- Many faculty intuitively recognize the importance of reputation.
In fact, establishing their professional reputations is one of the
primary reasons they spend considerable time and energy publishing
and presenting papers. In the same manner, faculty are reluctant to
hire new faculty from "unbranded" or relatively unknown
institutions. Reputation matters and effective marketing builds institutional
reputation.
- If we do not make time to establish and manage our reputation in
the marketplace then the marketplace will establish one for us. In
other words, we can choose to be relevant, or we let the marketplace
decide that we are irrelevant.
- Any institution that relegates the development of its reputation
to the marketplace is toying with obscurity.
- Many of the colleges and universities with which we once competed,
but who have lately eclipsed us, spend serious time, talent, and treasure
on marketing. In other words, they made a strategic decision to not
only be good in ways that target audiences value and support, but
to establish their reputation. This commitment, like the commitment
they made to their facilities plans, may well be a generation in length.
- One reason we spend so much money and sometimes have difficulty
with student recruiting is that we do not have a consistent, valued
image in the marketplace. In other words, we are not benefiting from
a value proposition that is recognized by enough people to sustain
us. This is one reason our discount rate is high.
- Prospective students and their families are willing to pay more
to attend schools with stronger reputations.
- Our board is increasingly comprised of people from the private
sector who have leveraged marketing for great professional and personal
success. They expect us to use the same tools they did. Anything less
will draw their critical attention.
- Today's teens are extremely savvy consumers. And like their
parents, they will not spend significant dollars on a product or service
that they, and their peers, do not recognize or value.
- We need an ongoing presence, in a variety of media, because when
our customer is ready to make a purchase decision, we want to be sure
our institutional message is in front of him or her. This is even
more important in a crowded marketplace where our competitors'
messages could be present when ours is not. (Charles Cheesebrough,
Director of Marketing and Recruitment, Inver Hills Community College).
- If a faculty member asks why we spend money on marketing, I would
remind him or her that "marketing" isn't only viewbooks
and CDs and paid advertising, but that nicely maintained grounds and
modern residence halls and state-of-the-art classrooms and labs are
all part of the marketing plan. Marketing is whatever lets the student
know that we're here, entices the student to visit, convinces the
student to enroll, keeps the student here for four or five years,
and then keeps the student connected with the institution as an alumnus.
I would hope that the faculty member would then realize that staying
up to date with best practices in teaching as well as content, making
oneself available both during and outside of office hours, making
sure that it's easy for students to register for classes and get their
grades, etc. are all part of the same process. Everyone employed by
the college has equal opportunities and responsibilities for "marketing."
(Kim Lambert, Executive Assistant to the President, Utica College).
- Marketing has one purpose: to increase the flow of resources to
an institution. Better students are attracted to schools with which
they are familiar. Strong faculty and effective administrators want
to be associated with schools whose reputations will further their
own professional goals and objectives. Donors give and give more often
to schools that have name recognition. Foundations value institutions
that are valued by the marketplace. Rewards come when institutions
make the time and commit the resources to build a reputation.
- The most important thing we can do for your alumni is to increase
the value of their credential. They will reward that effort with increased
support.
- A better reputation allows us to attract not just any student,
but students who are more able to pay. This increased revenue allows
two important things to happen. First, it reduces our discount rate.
And second, it gives us more financial resources for truly needy students.
- Students who attend highly regarded institutions are much more
likely to persist. They are more willing to overlook minor issues
like location or aging housing because the credential is so valued
by them and the marketplace.
- If it is a true definition of marketing—much like the recently
revised AMA definition—a university has a responsibility
to market. We are educators. And an educated citizenry is essential
to a just society. But the world changes, and what it means to be
educated changes too. Who would have believed 250 years ago that Latin
would no longer be required of an educated person? So it is our responsibility
to market if we mean to deliver value to society (Andy Perrine, Communications
and Marketing, James Madison University).
- As resources dwindle and in almost all cases become subject to
greater competition, institutions will be increasingly dependent on
partnerships and collaborations. Colleges and universities that choose
to focus now on strengthening their reputations will benefit in the
long term when they are better positioned to align themselves (also
called co-branding) with powerful governmental, private sector, and
nonprofit partners.
- The best faculty and staff want to work at a place that colleagues
and peers from other institutions recognize and value.
- The faculty or administrator who says, "Harvard or the University
of Chicago don't market" is sadly misinformed. Harvard
has more than 650 people working in its advancement and marketing
communications offices. The University of Chicago has 250. These numbers
represent a truly significant investment that would not be made nor
sustained if it did not clearly return value to the institution.
- Individuals on campus who believe that simply being good is all
that matters are either naive or smug. Today's marketplace—and
the students and donors in it—simply will not notice nor highly
regard any institution that neglects to demonstrate the pride or take
the time to systematically tell its story in compelling fashion. Prospective
students and donors will not seek you out because they are too busy
engaging with institutions that have sought them.
- Marketing can help you build the precise student body you want.
- Isn't it important that we do a better job telling our stories?
ON THE NUMBERS: FOREIGN STUDENT
ENROLLMENT DOWN…AGAIN
Data reported in the November 14, 2005 issue of USA Today
indicates that while the number of U.S. students studying abroad continues
to increase, the number of foreign students studying in the U.S. declined
slightly for the second year in a row. The total number of foreign students
in the U.S. dropped by 1.3 percent last year to 565,039, after a 2.4
percent drop the year before. International student enrollments peaked
at 586,323 in 2002-2003.
STAMATS ONLINE SEMINARS
Thursday, December 8, 2005 from 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. CDT
Double Feature:
Top
10 Marketing Mistakes Colleges Make &
Messages That Matter
Presented by Dr. Robert A. Sevier
This online seminar is a double feature, two presentations for the
price of one. The first session, The Top 10 Marketing Mistakes Colleges
Make, will run from 1:30-2:30 PM Central and the second
session, Messages That Matter, will run from 2:30-3:30 PM Central.
You get both sessions for the single price of $249 per site!
Top 10 Marketing Mistakes Colleges Make
What are the 10 biggest mistakes made in marketing and recruiting? How
do you know if your institution is guilty? How can you avoid making
the same mistakes in the future? What are the most overlooked keys to
success in recruiting and marketing efforts? This session will address
these important questions and more. The top 10 will draw on some actual
experiences and examples shared by colleagues at conferences over the
last several years. The names, of course, will be changed to protect
the innocent.
Messages That Matter: Strategies to Help Get the Word Out
Getting the message across to a busy audience in an overcommunicated
society is one of the biggest challenges that colleges and universities
face. This highly visual and fast-moving session reviews a handful of
critical messaging tools that will help you communicate messages that
are relevant, remembered, and repeated.
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.
Register today at www.krm.com/stamats.
Cost: $249
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