Is Higher Ed Marketing dismissive of change?

When it comes to marketing practices, universities are singled out as late adaptors, lethargic, or dismissive of evolving marketing practices. What often gets taught in a marketing class to students can be dismissed by marketing departments. Higher ed marketing is not entirely dismissive of change; it takes more time to fully embrace and enact changes due to the structures and processes. Nevertheless, there are ways to speed up and enable change faster.

Taking a Look Within

Being self-critical and challenging oneself to step out of the comfort zone is a necessary step toward improvement. Before we go out and start an awareness, enrollment, or any other campaign, colleges need to take a deep look within and ask if what is being put out in a campaign is truly the very best it can be. Is the website accessible? Is the information up to date? Is it written in a way that the target audience can clearly understand? Is it mobile-friendly? Have the display ads been split tested? Are the audiences well defined and relevant? I get it. It is difficult to be self-critical, but you have to step out of your comfort zone to truly make a difference and provide better value. Show a marketing piece to someone outside of HigherEd. You will be surprised by their feedback!

Relationship Marketing vs. Marketing by Tactic

I noticed a common thread working at agencies, media, and in-house marketing settings. These campaigns focus on one or two digital marketing tactics versus building relationships. Higher Ed is often guilty of this as we promote events, conferences, and enrollment and do not connect those to an overarching theme or goal. Maybe due to a lack of marketing resources, the one-size-fits-all approach is often employed. In turn, this brings irrelevant messaging and alienates our constituents. Universities should instead focus on building long-term relationships with messaging relevant to the multiple audiences we work with (prospective students, enrolled students, faculty, staff, alumni, etc.).

Do we need to send an email for every event? What about a weekly digest in which students choose the delivery medium and pick topics or themes? How can we provide relevant messaging through the different stages from prospect to alumni?

Embracing Change

As student populations evolve, higher education marketing departments must adapt swiftly and equip themselves with digital knowledge and tools. We can no longer afford to have different areas only focus on what they do best and call it a night. For marketing departments, in general, to work cohesively, we need to consider what the other areas do. For example, writers need to be aware that their product results from a chain of events. They need to keep in mind how will social media promote it? What graphic or image will provide an idea of what is being written? How will it display on a website? Can it live in other forms?  How can it be summarized for vertical social channels? Embracing these changes will take us in that direction and better serve our audiences. The end goal is synchrony leading to strategies that tell a well-thought story, no matter the medium. 

I encourage you to look within, embrace constructive criticism and seek to be uncomfortable. Learn a skill unrelated to your marketing or communications role. Be an agent of change; your community will very likely surprise you!