Insights — Designing the Organization for Digital: Five Skillsets Every Higher Ed Marcom Team Needs In-House

Designing the Organization for Digital: Five Skillsets Every Higher Ed Marcom Team Needs In-House

Resources , Thought leadership / February 01, 2017
SimpsonScarborough
SimpsonScarborough

In the fast-moving world of digital, finding the necessary talent and tools required to support the needs of today’s customer is a challenge many organizations face. Unfortunately, there is a growing trend of companies approaching it in a siloed manner, often treating it as “doing digital” and hiring digital-only roles such as the Chief Digital Officer to lead all digital efforts across the organization. I truly believe this is not a long-term strategy and hinders the capability of the company and its brand. We all know that digital is here to stay and is impacting all aspects of an organization, but what does that mean for higher ed?

Many higher ed marcom departments now are responsible for managing the institutional brand and are spending time considering how all digital and physical experiences – from the student journey to campus facilities to the onboarding of new employees – should reflect the university brand experience. As marketers, they are implementing digital within their unit by running the institutional website, shifting investments from traditional media to digital, managing the institution’s voice in various content formats and mediums, and implementing meaningful KPIs and benchmarking metrics to inform strategy and track progress. However, they often still suffer from a siloed approach to staffing, with one or two people (or if you are lucky, a team such as “web services”) responsible for “digital.”

Digital has grown to encompass so much more than a website. Today’s complex, fragmented customer journey requires rethinking each and every interaction with the university. So how does the higher ed marketing and communications division begin to integrate digital into every team and role? There are five key players (people or skillsets) needed to become a digital-first organization.

  1. Digital Marketing Manager – If you were only able to hire one person, it should be a digital marketing manager or a brand manager. A generalist, the digital marketing manager is responsible for developing and managing integrated marketing efforts. Ideally, they work hand-in-hand with the marcom lead and serve as a key connector between campus constituents and also help lead cross-disciplinary teams (think design, writing, and user experience) from within the marcom organization.
  2. Multimedia Producer – The multimedia producer leads creative concept development for university-wide visual content across all properties including web, mobile and social media. They are a key member of the creative team and ideate and develop brand content (photo, video, experiential).
  3. User Experience Designer – In the digital era, brand has become synonymous with experience. That is because digital experience—whether on mobile, desktop or new technology mediums such as virtual reality (VR)—is often the first and most typical way that people interact with a brand. As such, having a user experience (UX) designer is no longer optional. The UX designer needs to lead efforts to determine best solutions based on customer feedback and brand and institutional goals.
  4. Social Media Manager – Many of our clients may have a similar role or have social media support from student interns. However, strategic marcom efforts require a social media manager who is responsible for not only overseeing the university’s day-to-day social media presence, but also developing and leading the longer-term strategy to shape how the university’s story is told across social channels. Think customer service and social listening efforts.
  5. Director of Content – Technology continues to transform the way we consume media, and consumer media is more fragmented than ever. The director of content is responsible for developing an integrated cross-channel content strategy that includes a full range of print and digital tools I see this role as an evolution of what in the past was called the editorial director; today’s content director leads the university’s overarching media efforts.

Digital needs to be integrated into every team and role. Each of these individuals need to work hand-in-hand to develop content and manage the brand in a digital world. In the end, it is really about building a culture that thinks and behaves differently – moving quickly, adapting, integrating, working together – to put digital first.

Related Insights