A Friday bit of information for
you! Don't miss Ad Age's list of
the "25 media
people you should follow on Twitter."
The first person on the list is Pete Cashmore, founder-CEO of Mashable.
My media training buddy, Loretta Cooper, and I
were literally talking about Mashable when this email arrived in my inbox. In other words, you HAVE to check it
out!!
May 2009 Archives
A recent article in University Business called, Work: The Forgotten Resource, discussed the benefits for students and the institution in maximizing student work opportunities. One institution is even building its brand around the opportunities for student work. Berry College, in Rome, GA, has an extensive student work program. Even though working on campus is not required, over 90% of students do so each and every semester. And, we aren't talking just your regular run-of-the-mill student work program. Working on campus at Berry is JUST like having a "real job" with a formal review process and all. By the time students are juniors and seniors, most students actually have management experience. The value proposition being that Berry students graduate with a high quality undergraduate degree but also 4 years of work experience that makes them appealing to potential employers. Strong evidence of their committment to the brand is found in the fact that Berry has appointed a dean to run the work program. Marketing a compelling brand and living it well...the magical ingredients for a strong brand strategy.
My friend Sarah Schupp, publisher of University Parent, alerted me to a Chicago
Sun-Times piece about a recent
survey of college students at 40 U.S. colleges. The findings of the survey included:
- Nearly 20 percent of student respondents at 40 U.S. colleges said at least one parent lost a job in the last year.
- 22 percent of students said they worry a lot about having enough money to get through a typical week at school, and one-third said they worry a lot about the finances of their parents.
- Nearly one in five changed plans this year and decided to attend graduate school after college because an undergraduate degree might not be enough to get a job.
- Job loss in the family made 27 percent of students consider dropping out.
- 32 percent said financial worries have a lot of impact on the stress they're under.
Sobering thoughts as we work to
finalize our freshman class and plan for retention of current students...
Just last week I was having a
conversation with Augustana College's
president, Steve Bahls, about this and that and he shared an interesting
thought. President Bahls is a
lawyer and CPA, not your normal path to a presidency, so his approaches to
topics always keep me on my toes. He
mentioned that all business and law curriculums have ethics courses and most
institutions require students to take those courses. With this in mind, he was intrigued by the AIG bonuses and
other questionable decisions that have occurred during the current economic
downturn--and why b-school and law school alumni didn't ask the tough questions
when these decisions were made. He
asked if institutions need to review and update what they teach in those
courses to ensure they meet our students' and the business world's needs today.
Interestingly enough, Business Week ran an article this week that
posed a similar idea. The article states: "[b]usiness
schools not only turned a blind eye to their students' ethical shortcomings,
this argument goes, they enabled them. By focusing on shareholder value, they
created the intellectual preconditions and theoretical frameworks that allowed
a kind of moral relativism to flourish on campus and, ultimately, in the
business world itself."
So,
why talk about this on the SS blog? Besides that I thought the topic was
interesting (J), this is also a perfect time to discuss how we are marketing our
b-schools. Are we presenting our
value as tied to dollars, ethics, or the convergence of the two? And, if we are talking about our ethics
offerings, are we seen as having credibility in this area? Are our alumni seen as examples of
ethical business leaders? If we
are thinking of shifting how we describe our programs and outcomes, then we
need to make sure our words are accurate descriptions of what we teach. If not, aren't we making ethically
questionable claims ourselves?
When you are in love, you just have to shout it from the mountaintops. Well, I am sincerely in love with a cheese I recently discovered so I HAD to share. Rembrandt extra aged gouda is my new passion. It's crumbly almost like a parmesan and is super nutty and just wonderful. If you haven't tried it, you must....you just must. I'm so afraid I'm going to eat too much and get to the point where I can never eat it again!
At AGB's national
conference on trusteeship last month I was introduced to The Education Trust's "College Results Online" tool. On the site you are able to compare
basic statistics and in-depth graduation and persistence rates for you and your
peer institutions. This is a GREAT
tool and I have started using the data in a number of different ways, all of which
can help you build a data-driven marketing and messaging platform for your
institution. Check it out!
In a previous blog I mentioned that most public institutions have received a greater number of admission applications and, as this recruitment year winds down, they are also projecting an increase in their overall enrollment. Although that's true, the story doesn't quite end there. Because of our challenging economic situation, public colleges are also noticing that more out-of state students are electing to attend college in their home state. From Colorado State to University of Delaware--and several colleges in between--state schools have seen a significant drop in their out-of-state applicant pool and, as a result, a loss of desirable, out-of-state tuition revenue. Check out today's New York Times article, Public Colleges Face Loss of Revenue as Out-of-State Students Stay Home, for more info.
There is a great (and short) article on the NYTimes.com about how some colleges are engaging alumni in service activities. Boston College invited their alums to come out and clean up a local park....555 of them showed up. Clemson grads recently sorted food at a food bank. And, Oregon State alums helped the forest service root out an invasive species of knapweed. I have no idea what that is but it sounds nasty and I'm happy those OSU grads got rid of it.
This kind of engagement is great. I'm dying for some alternative ways to have a relationship with my alma maters. I'm so tired of getting invitations to go on a "booze cruise" around Manhattan with other alums. I would LOVE IT if they would invite me to help clean up the eye sore on 43rd St. between Ninth and Tenth Aves. We'd probably have to wear full body hazmat suits but hey, I'm game. Here's hoping these kinds of opportunities keep coming...
The results of this unpredictable recruitment year are just beginning to surface. Check out this hot-of-the-presses article, Show Me the Money. Here are just some of the highlights:
Many publics reported significant application increases and are now expecting full dormitories in the fall, in part, they believe, from students whose more budget-conscious families wanted to look at institutions with lower sticker prices than those at the privates.
On the other hand, projections about private colleges have been all over the map, with some fearing that many institutions would lack for students this fall. It took much more money and more creativity to fill classes this year than in the past. Merit and need-based aid were up at many institutions; discount rates are also up. In many cases, college officials say that they let spending and discount rates rise this year, and that the real challenge will be next year, because they won't be able to afford similar increases.
I constantly hear people saying things like "higher ed marketing is at least 10 years behind the corporate world." And, yes, I think I should probably admit that I have uttered these words myself. But, there is a recent study that shows we are actually ahead of the game in the use of social media. The Society for New Communications Research is reporting that "colleges and universities are outpacing U.S. corporate adoption of social media tools and technologies--13% of the Fortune 500 and 39% of the Inc. 500 currently have a public blog, while 41% of college admission departments have blogs." And, "nearly 90% of admissions departments feel that social media is somewhat to very important to their future strategy." You can see the full set of highlights here.
Go ahead with your bad self higher education marketers!
Well, it's official.......we had a record number of paper proposals this year for the AMA Symposium! We received 71 last year and were up to 99 this year! Do you think that had anything to do with the fact that we offered a complimentary registration to the lead presenter for each session? I think it's just a testament to the wonderful program we put together each and every year. Ha!
Whatever the reason, this year's Symposium is shaping up to be really fantastic. The Steering Committee sat down together on April 17th to go through all the proposals and we ALL agreed that the quality of them was significantly higher than last year. It's a "be careful what you wish for" because that meant turning down a lot of great topics and great speakers.
We actually had SO many strong proposals that we decided to increase the number of regular sessions from 32 to 36; the first time that's been done in the 20 year history of the Symposium.
Many other changes are in store for this year. We are making the Symposium friendlier to social media mavens. We are including longer breaks so you won't find yourself dashing from one session to the next. We asked all vendor presenters to present WITH a representative from a college or university. And more.....
Plan to join us. It's going to be a great Symposium. The dates are Nov 15-18th and we are in Boston this year.
Now that many of us are "blogging," "twittering," or "on Facebook," one major question remains: is social media an effective tool for promoting our institutions and engaging our audiences? It's simply too soon to know--at least for now. So what do we do in the meantime--if anything? If you're willing to take the plunge, you may want to jump into the social media pool (perhaps just with your toes at first) and test the waters and see what works--and then re-evaluate your strategies once the currents have calmed down. (Is it me or does anyone else need a Dramamine? J)
To learn how other schools are using social media, check out the article "Colleges Using Technology to Recruit Students Try to Hang On to the Conversation," which appeared in the May 1st edition of the Chronicle. Here's just a sample of what others are up to:
· Assumption College features a stream of students' Twitter-style one-liners that are refreshed on its Web site
· SUNY New Paltz uses Facebook as an active forum for prospective students to pose questions
· Texas A&M University uses Facebook as a way for sports fans to post messages and promote school spirit
· University of New Mexico maintains a Flickr pool of campus images, fed by photos from users' linked accounts
Last one in the social media pool is a rotten egg. (Sorry I couldn't help myself.J)
SimpsonScarborough discussed with Gwen Freed, Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Gustavus Adolphus College the brand identity study we recently conducted with them.
Q. Why did Gustavus Adolphus decide to conduct a brand identity study?
A. We decided to conduct the brand identity study with SimpsonScarborough primarily to drive business results. We wanted to be more effective and efficient in reaching our target audience with messages that resonate with them.
Q. What are the unique challenges of your competitive marketplace?
A. Gustavus Adolphus College is located in Saint Peter, Minnesota. There are a lot of private college in Minnesota, maybe more than the average state. That definitely provides us with a unique challenge because it's harder to differentiate ourselves in the regions. Also, we are reaching a peak in the number of high school graduates, so competition among the local schools will intensify in the future.
Q. One of the audiences you included in your study was "peers in higher education," why did you decide to study this audience?
A. We made the decision to include our higher education peers in order to get a sense of Gustavus' reputation. Finding this out was important to us for many reasons, one being that it influences the US News and World Report rankings, but more importantly to understand how we're viewed from people "in the know" who understand the industry. Our higher education peers know our institution well enough to give educated observations, and they have a level of sophistication that we're not going to get from our other audiences.
Q. How do you plan to use and apply the findings?
A. We're going to apply the findings through pervasive use through all of our marketing and communications. We're going to focus primarily on prospective students and donors, but the findings will be key in internal communications as well.
Q. You are new to higher education. How do you feel working for a college is different than working in the corporate world?
A. I was actually thinking about that this morning. Working for a college is a much warmer environment. There's a sense of community here and big-time intellectual stimulation. Another difference is that working at a college gives me a sense of mission and a sense of public vocation beyond making a profit. We have a different bottom line here than in the corporate world. Here our bottom line is measured in outcomes and impact in society for the common good.
On April 1-2, 2009, SimpsonScarborough conducted an online bulletin board discussion with ten marketing and admissions professionals to talk about the impact of "Marketing in a Down Economy."
Participants represented four public and six private institutions, ranging in enrollment from 1,200 to over 25,000 students. Participants currently hold a wide range of positions including vice president for marketing and public relations, vice president for enrollment and college relations, vice president of continuing & distance education, director of marketing and communications, associate director of university communications and marketing and events assistant.
The bulletin board participants discussed the impact of the economic downturn, marketing-related challenges, marketing as an institutional priority and shifts in market strategies.
On the topic of the impact of the economic downturn, participants agreed that although the current economic downturn may not directly have impacted their marketing program, they are preparing for a challenging future.
As one participant said, "At this point, we haven't seen a significant impact, but the college as a whole is reassessing all programs so nothing is exempt. It certainly is a tentative time for all..." Another participant underscored that sentiment by stating, "I have to say that in our office, and frankly across our campus, we're holding our collective breath...we'd be thrilled with a flat budget, but we expect the worst."
Participants also shared that although their institution may not have felt the immediate impact of the economic crisis, they have shifted their focus and marketing messages to address potential concerns among their internal audience members: "In terms of our internal audience, we are spending much more time on educating students, faculty, and staff on what the economic impact means for the college."
On the topic of marketing-related challenges, when asked to share the greatest challenges currently facing their marketing department, participants responses included:
- "Budget cuts across the board"
- The inability to fill vacant positions because of limited budgets
- "Refocus[ing] messaging and redirect staff members' time and energy to handle new responsibilities "
- The need "to be able to talk about what we do and why it is worth the investment"
- The "move from print to Web" and how to communicate to members of the college community that marketing in today's environment is more than "mailing lists and radio ads"
- Effectively working with "older members of the administration who are either unfamiliar with the new technologies or have a negative view of them"
On a positive note, when discussing marketing as a priority, participants generally agreed that although they are in the midst of an economic crisis, marketing has become a greater priority among their institutions' leadership.
As one participant stated, "[Marketing] has become MORE of a priority. In the past year, we are fortunate that leadership has seen the value in investing in market research. That commitment is continuing, and we are currently engaged in a research project to help improve our admissions print and Web presence."
Another participant said that, "Marketing is continuing to receive strong support, but I feel this is based, in large part, on the fact that a few years ago we embarked on a very thorough, comprehensive research project that provided us with quantifiable data to help refine our integrated marketing program, versus just relying on qualitative, anecdotal feedback from various constituents."
When asked to share changes made in their marketing strategies due, in large part, to the economic downturn, most participants shared the need "to do more with less" and to alter their marketing messages so they strongly communicate the value and affordability of their institution. As one participant stated, "We are certainly looking to get 'more bang for our buck' when it comes to marketing. We constantly are reevaluating our marketing strategies and making changes where necessary." Another participant indicated that her college is embarking on "a campaign centered around educating the public about the value of a liberal arts education...and affordability. Despite many previous efforts, generally, parents just aren't aware of the financial assistance available at private colleges."
In light of the economic downturn, participants have altered their specific marketing tactics to include an increased focus on Internet and Email strategies and a reduction in their print and direct mail initiatives.
