The Rise and Fall...And Rise Again of Strategic Planning

In this issue

• ON STRATEGY: THE RISE AND FALL...AND RISE AGAIN OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
• STRATEGIC PLANNING MISCUES
• INTEGRATING BRAND AND SEARCH TO IMPROVE ROI

8TH ANNUAL STAMATS STRATEGIC INTEGRATED MARKETING CONFERENCE ON JULY 25-28 FEATURES JACK TROUT AND ARTHUR LEVINE

Join us for our annual Strategic Integrated Marketing Conference where you will increase your knowledge and learn how some of your peers have been successful. Plus you will have the added bonus of two great keynote presenters, Jack Trout and Arthur Levine!

Please go here for more details.

UPCOMING ONLINE SEMINAR—CONVERTING APPLICANTS TO MATRICULANTS: ESSENTIAL STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING YIELD

Please make plans to join us for our next online seminar: Converting Applicants to Matriculants: Essential Strategies for Increasing Yield. It will be held June 23, 2005 from 1:30-3:00 PM CDT.

Please go here for more details.

ON STRATEGY: THE RISE AND FALL … AND RISE AGAIN OF STRATEGIC PLANNING

Over the last 12 months we have seen a resurgence of interest in strategic planning on the part of colleges and universities.

We are not totally sure why this rise has occurred, but we have some hints. First, colleges and universities are trying to more successfully align their institution with their core values, and increasingly, the needs and opportunities in the marketplace.

Second, boards have an increasing number of members who bring significant strategic planning experience, and expectations, from the business side.

Third, colleges and universities are trying to more completely tie their budgets to strategy and strategy to performance; characteristics that have been largely lacking in previous plans.

Finally, there is the sense that the stakes are just too high. The marketplace has blurred. There are no clear choices. Every vital resource that is sought by a college is also sought by myriad others. And all the easy decisions have been made.

For these reasons, and others, we are seeing a resurgence in strategic planning.

STRATEGIC PLANNING MISCUES

As we work with colleges and universities on strategy, we hope that they will avoid some of the strategic planning pitfalls that have ensnared so many. These pitfalls include:

• The planning process was too complicated and took too long
• The planning process was too far removed from grassroots (not inclusive)
• The need for planning was not widely felt on campus
• The president did not aggressively, actively, and vocally support the planning process
• The plan was not based on a realistic, defendable situation analysis
• There is a dislike for making tough choices
• No focus
• The plan was not linked to mission and vision
• The strategic plan competed with other plans for resources (not recognized as the alpha)
• There was no link between plan and budget
• Faculty and staff could not answer, "What's in it for me?"
• There were too many goals and/or they were unrealistic or not measurable
• The demands of day-to-day activities got in the way of implementing the plan
• The plan did not capture the imagination of the campus and its stakeholders
• The plan was too "pie in the sky"
• The plan did not include reward mechanisms for those individuals and departments that truly performed and contributed

There seems to be one issue at the convergence of these miscues. Colleges and universities, and the people that lead them, sometimes fail to appreciate the power that a well-conceived, supported, and executed strategic plan has to move an institution ahead. Strategic planning seems to be something you need to periodically undertake but it is somehow divorced from the day-to-day activities of the institution.

INTEGRATING BRAND AND SEARCH TO IMPROVE ROI
By Scott Lomas, Principal Consultant

Measuring marketing return on investment (ROI) is a hot topic. However, when trying to establish ROI, it is necessary to consider the interdependence of brand and direct marketing.

In this article, we will address five ways to get more ROI out of your direct marketing, in particular search programs, by integrating with brand marketing. As you read this article, keep in mind a basic principle: the lower the brand investment, the higher your search investment is likely to be.

1. Invest long term in your institutional brand
We know that students are more likely to respond to search from a college or university with which they are familiar. So, before pumping a lot more money into your search, consider investing in your brand marketing to build awareness among specific audiences and geographies first. This will not only conserve resources for admissions, but it will demonstrate ROI for marketing/relations and clarify expectations for a lot of people.

2. If you don't have, or can't afford more, awareness, strive for relevance
Search, a direct marketing function, tries to affect behavior or action. It is really not an awareness-builder. If you're trying to change perceptions in search, you're likely too late—that's the role of brand marketing. Rather, focus on showing relevance by demonstrating something very specific to them (major or career interest) or about your institution (what or how you teach). This may lower the number of inquiries, but it will raise your yield.

3. Refine (and restrict) your geodemographic targets
Most inquiry pools are represented by an ever-shrinking radius around campus as prospects move through the funnel. The same principle applies to characteristics such as test scores and GPAs, which tend to gravitate toward existing, not aspirational standards. That's natural and to be expected. Using search to expand the geodemographic diversity of your next class is an uphill battle, unless you've invested in brand marketing to first build awareness. Brand marketing targets should precede (expectations of) search ROI for any new market or audience.

4. Refine your goals
The point of search is not simply to generate thousands of inquiries to fill your funnel in order to keep everyone in the admissions office busy and send out all those viewbooks. In fact, a smaller, better qualified inquiry pool is far more efficient. Unless your institution already enjoys broad awareness, you should strive not for volume in search, but for the most qualified leads you can generate (think relevance, not awareness).

5. Prominently feature the word "Florida" or "Pacific" in your promotion
OK, if you're going to disregard everything above and just go for volume of inquiries, here is a winner. Include either "Florida" or "Pacific" in your institution's name. Call it an urban (campus?) legend, but the institutions with Florida or Pacific in their name, often receive a higher rate of return on their search efforts. However, be prepared for students to assume you have beach front dorms and an active surf club.

If you would like to discuss how your institution can better integrate its brand marketing and search strategies, send me a note at scott.lomas@stamats.com or call me at 503-235-5362.

STAMATS ONLINE SEMINARS

Thursday, June 23rd, from 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. CDT

Converting Applicants to Matriculants: Essential Strategies for Increasing Yield
Presented by Eric Sickler and Jim Reilly

Generating applications is only half the battle, you need to convert. And with an increase in consumerism, more students and families seem to focus on "best deal" rather than "best fit." As a result, the need to develop an effective yield, or keep-sold, strategy has never been more important.

Two of Stamats' best, Principal Consultant Eric Sickler and Senior Marketing Consultant Jim Reilly, both former VPs of admissions, have combined resources, and more than 40 years of admissions and marketing experience, for a no-nonsense primer on proven "closing" strategies and techniques that your recruitment and marketing teams can use to help you land the class.

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

Go here to register.

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, and offices in 13 countries. 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.

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 26 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!