SimpsonScarborough is the data-driven partner for higher education marketers. 

The demographic cliff. COVID-19. Social and racial unrest and a renewed focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Challenges to mental health and the rise of the student voice. The elevation of the CMO. There were likely some before. And some that I'm forgetting.    These are the issues that may finally bring about change in higher ed. Waking up our stakeholders to the strategic value of marketing. Mak ing them realize that an institution's brand is more than a logo. And leading them to finally u nderstand why marketing, communications, and brand management must be centralized — or at least-center led.    Earlier this year, we launched our series asking, "What's the future of higher ed marcom?" We looked at everything from the higher ed marketing jobs of the future to the role of gamification in advertising to the future of campus events . But the longer we sat with the question "what's the future of higher ed marcom?" the more we developed our own answer to the question:  The future of higher ed marcom is performance-driven brands.  Duh, right? The rest of the marketing world has been focused on ROI and performance for some time. Advertising has been changing rapidly with social and digital marketing to be hyper-focused on optimization and personalization far more than it's been about creative campaigns and taglines.  And for good reason. Consumer habits are changing almost as rapidly as the makeup of our labor force. Entire industries are being disrupted through the increase in digitization. Rising income inequality and increased polarization have led to declining confidence in the public institutions that underpin our society — higher education notwithstanding. Now add back in the demographic cliff, social & racial unrest, a deadly pandemic, and fractured student mental health, and you can understand why higher education marketing must embrace transformational change — now.  But transforming your higher ed brand to focus on performance rather than mere promotion is no easy task. It begins with a clear focus on three key components: Developing a Cultural Orientation to Strategic Goals The Organizational Capacity & Capabilities of the Marcom Function The Holy Grail of Data + Digital + Measurement For now, I'll focus on the cultural orientation to strategic goals. Next month, I'll do a deep-dive into org capacity & capabilities, followed by unpacking the holy grail of data + digital + measurement, where I'll build on the results from our latest research study on the state of higher ed website & marketing technology. (That study drops in just two weeks — sign up for the webinar & reserve your copy of the report.) Developing a Cultural Orientation to Strategic Goals Most companies and corporate brands have a singular focus on products or services with a clear benefit to a target audience. It's not as simple in higher education. With a multitude of stakeholders, funding priorities, business lines, and customers, it's more akin to enterprise marketing, healthcare, non-profit and cause marketing, or even politics and public advocacy than traditional B2C marketing. Adding to the challenge, higher ed's lack of differentiation, decentralization, deficiencies in budgets and marketing technology, and siloed org charts make focusing on performance seem like a pipe dream.   Institutions must build more of a cultural orientation to becoming performance-based organizations than managing to shifting culture, crisis, and flashing objects. To do so, institutional leaders, boards, and strategic plans have to articulate specific goals and objectives they want marketing and branding to support. And marketers must root their work in metrics beyond reach, frequency, social engagement, or top-of-funnel marketing awareness. We need to develop a shared understanding that brand strategy is institutional strategy. Full stop.   In a recent whitepaper, "What Makes a Strategic Plan Strategic," RHB's Rob Zinkan and Aimee Hosemann studied more than 100 strategic plans across higher ed. Marketing was mentioned in nearly 50 percent of the plans, but "mentions of marketing were predominantly in the realm of 'promotion,'" presenting a limited, less-strategic view of the marketing function in higher education. Even more troubling, only 27% of the plans provide clear success metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) at all. And of the 73% of plans that do not include specific measures of success, vague language like "enhance" (most commonly), "broaden," or "strengthen" replace finite goal setting and measurement (i.e., performance metrics).  Overall, approximately half of the strategic plans (48%) explicitly mention marketing (or marketing and communications). For comparison to other constituent-focused functions, 68% of the plans reference advancement or fundraising, while 73% include mentions of alumni, alumni relations or alumni engagement. - RHB As RHB wisely notes, "A goal to which no action or assessment is assigned is not actually achievable." CMO's have an important voice in shaping these goals, not just for marketing but insisting that other institutional priorities can be measured and that the work their teams are focused on supports those goals. Doing so enables a performance-based branding focus. Beyond shared focus and understanding of the goals and metrics marketing is to support, institutions must also become more agile and collaborative while ensuring that stewardship of the brand is not just a "marketing problem." Too often, the silos in higher ed have prevented bringing the right people to the table, sharing data that would make marketing more effective or better enabling marketing to truly measure the impact of the effort. As SimpsonScarborough founder Elizabeth Johnson is quoted in Terry Flannery's book, How to Market a University, "Organizational structure is the greatest barrier to integrated marketing and branding on college campuses." Organizational structure is the greatest barrier to integrated marketing & branding on college campuses. (Read Elizabeth's full perspective on why the time for marketing integration is now.) The response to the pandemic has forced the issue and areas of the institution are collaborating more than ever before. We can't afford to let this momentum slip. Gartner recently reported that 25% of the Fortune 500 will integrate sales, marketing, and customer experience into a single department by 2023. That level of penetration on such an accelerated timeline should give some clues as to how seriously the corporate world is taking this transformational change. Of course, this begs the question: Is there a similar higher ed equivalent? Recently, several CMO's have also taken over responsibilities of leading advancement and fundraising units where it used to be the other way around . Others have taken over enrollment responsibilities — again, inversing the traditional structure . Could we see a future where admissions and enrollment or student success and support are a part of a lifecycle approach to marketing? And we might not be that far away from a President or Chancellor with marketing communications administrative experience. We know substantive technological barriers must be addressed before that change could realistically happen in higher education, but that's precisely why we started with cultural orientation: It will never happen if specific, measurable goals aren't set and workloads adjusted to enable the institution to achieve those outcomes.       This may be the moment higher ed's marketing efforts shift from focusing on "telling our story" to aligning institutional values, goals, and the real-life experience happening on campus in measurable ways that actually transform institutions amidst a complex and volatile world. We shouldn't accept anything less. — Jason is CEO & Partner at SimpsonScarborough. Before coming to SimpsonScarborough in 2014, Jason led the marketing communications teams for the University of California System and North Carolina State University. In 2013, he was named Higher Education Marketer of the Year by the American Marketing Association. Known for being our chief Peloton evangelist, he and his wife, Meredith, live in Oakland CA with their daughter, Amelia. Learn more about Jason here.

Imagine you are a writer, by trade and by passion. You’ve spent years in the word processor trenches, honing your skill and maybe occasionally crying (just a little) over editing feedback.

Another month of adding dynamic new team members and recognizing the incredible people around our agency with well-deserved promotions. Read on for the updates and be sure to reach out to congratulate everyone on their new positions. 

Hira Siddiqui is SimpsonScarborough's recently promoted Senior Research Analyst, overseeing everything from survey instrument design to data analysis and insights building. In her new role, she'll expand her leadership responsibilities and help mentor our growing Research & Analytics team.    We sat down with her to learn about how research and analytics have evolved as SimpsonScarborough has grown, hear about some of the favorite projects she's worked on, her involvement with our people & culture committee, and what she wishes more people understood about the role and purpose of rese a rch in higher education marketing.    Malachi: First off, congratulations on the promotion! I think I speak for everyone at SimpScar when I say that it is well-deserved. Why don't you start by telling us a little more about your new role and what you're looking forward to?    Hira : Thank you! The most significant change is about stepping into a role that allows me to spend more time training and mentoring our new analysts. We recently hired a new junior analyst and have another one starting soon, and I'm excited to be part of the process of welcoming them into our team and really digging in and understanding where their interests lie. I feel like I'm paying it forward because I was lucky to have people do that for me as I've grown and evolved in the company.   Malachi: Let's dig into that a bit more. Can you give us a little background and how you first came to SimpsonScarborough?    Hira: I went to the University of Richmond (UR) and double-majored in Leadership Studies and Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing. Some of my favorite classes were studying Group Dynamics, Consumer Behavior, and Marketing Research, so looking back, it's no surprise that I am where I am now, but at the time, I was strongly torn between getting my master's in higher education and working on a college campus or pursuing a role in a marketing function.   I was deeply involved in working for Admissions and Advancement, but my job at the Student Center for Equity and Inclusion in particular really helped me find a passion for higher education. We served first-generation, low-income, LGBTQIA+, and multicultural students in providing community-building events and resources. As a South Asian and first-gen student on a predominantly white affluent campus, it helped me find my own sense of belonging at UR and opened my eyes to the waterfall effect of positive change that can happen from interactions on college campuses. So anyways, graduation comes, and I'm still conflicted on what to do. Then, one day, shortly after graduation, I got an email to take a survey for the University of Richmond — from SimpsonScarborough.   Malachi: Ok. Lots to unpack there but I like where this is headed.    Hira : Right, so I see this survey, and I'm intrigued because it's this intersection of higher education and marketing — the two things I was trying to decide between. And so I looked up the company and sent an email to Chelsea (now our AVP of Operations, but Director of Project Strategy at the time), and ... I don't hear back.   Malachi: Ok, Chelsea's in trouble.    Hira : Yeah, my initial outreach was asking if I could chat and learn more about what SimpsonScarborough does. I later followed up with my resume and heard back from Chelsea, agreeing to a phone call. We hit it off immediately, and I became even more interested in SimpScar, but she told me that they didn't have any openings as much as she would love to work with me. A few weeks go by, and she calls me to say... "You'll never guess what we have for you."   Malachi: This story has so many parallels —   Hira : To Elizabeth's! I know! And what's funny is that I didn't actually know that until she was on the Enrollify Pod and told the story of getting her first market research job out of college, and it's like the same thing I did. So I don't know if that weighed into the decision at all, but it's so funny. Either way, I started a few weeks later — February of 2017, almost five years ago!   Malachi: What was your role back then? Because you didn't start in the Research division, right?    Hira: Right, so I actually joined as an Assistant Project Strategist, which was a mix of everything we did from research to strategy to account and project management. I worked on client kickoffs and discovery audits, wrote survey instruments and qualitative research reports, and performed brand and competitor assessments. At that time, we were only 15 employees, so you could really get your hands dirty in developing all these different deliverables, and because you worked so closely with leadership and the partners on every project, you could just learn so much. It was honestly kind of a dream scenario for a new graduate.   Malachi: And how did you make the transition over to the Research team?    Hira: As the agency grew, we were shifting from defining ourselves as a market research firm to a full-service marketing agency and expanding our deliverables from research through strategy and creative. As a result, my role started shifting and I realized there were certain aspects of my job that I really enjoyed more than others and was able to open a dialogue about where I wanted to focus in some honest conversations with Mere (our VP of Research) and Chelsea, who was my manager at the time.   Malachi: What were those things you enjoyed the most?    Hira : I found the most joy in digging into survey instrument design, presenting research findings to clients, and generally managing other parts of our research projects. As the SimpScar team and deliverables expanded, I thought it might be an opportunity to specialize more, so I asked Chelsea if I could shadow our analysts to see if it was a good fit. Our qualitative research was a strategy deliverable at the time, so I had lots of experience with that side of research, but I also had some quantitative experience from college. I took the same Marketing Analysis and SPSS course at UR that Mere did 10 years earlier — the same professor and everything. And that was the specific class Mere took that made the light bulb go off in her own head that this was the work she wanted to do, so it was cool to share that connection.   Malachi: That's a great story. Not just you & Mere taking the same class at the same school from the same professor, but also that you were empowered to explore other areas and eventually make that transition to the Research team.   Hira : It really was. I'm really grateful that SimpScar supported this exploration and that I got support not just from my direct supervisor but also from the research team and the partners themselves. They allowed me to go slowly and make sure this was actually the right decision for me. And once I knew it was, and the timing made sense for the agency and our workload, I moved over, and it's been so great. I think that's one of the things that's always been great about SimpsonScarborough — once you're here, everyone wants you to succeed. They want you to grow and pursue your passions and empower you, wherever that takes you.    Malachi: Ok, so Chelsea gets some redemption from earlier. Can you tell me about some of your favorite projects you've worked on?    Hira : One of my favorites has been working on the replication study for the University of Richmond — the exact survey that helped me find SimpScar in the first place. Obviously, that one just means a lot. But it's also been incredible to see the impact of our work with my alma mater. For example, our research study was pivotal in getting their central marketing function appropriately funded. Eliz presented the data from our first study at their board meeting, and they immediately saw the need for a proper investment in their marketing function. It's paid dividends for them, and it's something I'm really proud to have been able to work on.    After 5 years of working closely with Butler, it's hard not to call them one of my favorite clients. One of my first projects at the agency was helping to refresh Butler's brand and building brand architectures for each of their colleges. Even now, I'm currently working on a project designing a brand equity tracker, but there've been quite a few projects in between.   One is the project we cover in our Butler Case Study. I remember a round of applause on campus after Kristen and I presented the slide that showed a jump from 30% to 58% of alumni associating job preparation with Butler between 2014 and 2018. Following the presentation, there was a Marcom pizza party to celebrate the upward movement of many of their brand equity measures. Stephanie (Butler's AVP of Marcom) says we changed the trajectory for Butler, but I think Butler has been key to our company's trajectory as well. They're not afraid to try new things and are incredible collaborative partners; we both push each other to be better.   Malachi: That's so true, but that's honestly the first time I've heard it articulated that way. We always talk about the clients who let us push them outside their comfort zone, but having clients who do that back to you is special.    Hira : Exactly. And honestly, there are so many great projects I've been fortunate to be a part of over the years. I could go on for a while.    Malachi: What do you wish more people understood about the role of marketing in higher education?    Hira : Research is a force-multiplier. It's a leverage point. Clients usually come to us with a specific issue, decision to make, misperception to tackle, or knowledge gap they want to address, but they don't always know the underlying cause of the issue. An everyday example is when a student doesn't hand in homework or participate in class; some may think the student lacks motivation, but we know that there are many other contributing factors. Does the student have a part-time job that prevents them from studying? Do they struggle with the material but are too embarrassed to admit it or get help? It's critical to accurately identify the underlying causes that might be at play because, without a well-defined problem or objective, you're likely to end up with unfocused or less valuable data.   More often than not, our discovery and research processes shift our client's perspective on how they may have initially perceived the situation; it helps clarify the problem or uncover an underlying cause they may not have thought of. That's not an indictment of their talent or sophistication; it's indicative of the complex nature of higher education marketing. But that's what's at stake when you skip research — you don't have a chance to let data inform your strategy and can end up wasting so much time and money trying to solve a problem using incorrect assumptions.   Malachi: How do you get at the root cause of the problem?   Hira : This is where great instrument development comes in. It's also why we're investing so much into our Analytics function now. We're now the Research & Analytics division at SimpsonScarborough, and that's transforming the way we're able to answer our clients' most pressing questions. Leveraging analytics helps us to develop tighter, more focused survey instruments. Talk to any researcher, and they will tell you that the key to uncovering the most actionable data is to design an instrument that is highly focused.   Malachi: Can you talk more about the integration of Research & Analytics?   Hira: The key is in how we marry the insights gained from each to make for deeper, more meaningful insights and stronger recommendations. For example, surveys can help us get a read on awareness, perceptions, and appeal while analytics can dig into actual behavior patterns. So it's bigger than just research and analytics, it sort of flows seamlessly between our digital work and media planning and back to research and analytics again. I think that's actually the most exciting thing about our growth — as we grow, our work gets smarter.    Malachi: What does that look like in practice?  Hira: A great example is how we're using analytics to help inform discovery. We joke that our discovery process goes deeper than most agencies' entire research process. Historically, the discovery process involves having a bunch of conversations with key stakeholders across an institution. Through analytics, we're able to bring some powerful data & insights into those meetings which enables those conversations to go much deeper, be much more focused, and really start to uncover the core issues. That has a waterfall effect on strengthening all of the work that follows.    This happened recently with a client of ours where they believe they had problem X and thought it was caused by issue Y. They called us in to help them test their hypothesis and strategize a solution. A deep dive into their Google Analytics and a UX audit cross-referenced against their peers uncovered that the issue might be different than they initially thought and likely have other underlying causes. That process allowed those initial conversations to be much richer and allowed us to design research tools that directly addressed the underlying causes.   Combining analytics, primary research, and secondary research sources together allowed our team to provide strong tactical and directional recommendations that we wouldn't have been able to do if we'd only used only one form of analysis. And that's when the magic happens because now we have a better grasp on what's contributing to the problem and can leverage that research to design data-driven strategies to actually address it. That may sound like an extra step, but in reality, it saved them a bunch of time & money they would've wasted designing strategies to tackle a problem they didn't have. And I think that's the most important thing of all: that data inspires confidence. They now have a clearer idea of what their problem is and how to address it.   Malachi: I think that's what Eliz used to say — we don't sell research, we sell confidence. We enable the CMO to go to their board of trustees and, with 100% confidence, say: "Here's our problem, here's how we fix it, and these are the resources we need to do it."   Hira : Exactly. You've heard the Abe Lincoln quote about chopping down a tree?    Malachi: About sharpening the axe?    Hira : Exactly. Research is sharpening the axe. 

Editor's Note: Our ongoing series about the Future of Higher Ed MarComm is focused on all of the topics that we believed were important pre-pandemic, but in a world permanently transformed by covid, have evolved to imperatives.  Few topics are more important to us as an agency than empowering the leaders of our industry with the most insightful, relevant, and actionable data. That's why we're in the field again for our 2021-22 Higher Education CMO Study — and it's why we've made some substantive changes to how that data will be made available to those who participate in our study. SimpsonScarborough launched the first Higher Education CMO Study in 2014 to provide higher education marketers with essential benchmarking data on staff size and marketing budgets. Prior to the release of that study, higher education marketers had no way of knowing if their team or budget was larger, smaller, or on a par with peer institutions. Of course, it's evolved since then. We replicated our study first in 2016 before expanding the scope in the most recent version, published in December of 2019.

Sometimes our greatest learnings aren't found in our successes or even apparent in the moments we experience them. It's a life lesson that comes with age, wisdom, kindness, heartache, humility, success, and failure.

We've had an embarrassment of riches at our agency between some well-deserved promotions and some incredibly talented new people joining our team. Read on for the updates and be sure to reach out to congratulate everyone on their new positions. 

We're excited to announce a new research study on the State of Higher Education Website and Marketing Technology in partnership with Pantheon and Siteimprove. This study — the first of its kind — is a complement to our Higher Ed CMO Study and will be instrumental in helping to benchmark,  inform, and advance your institution’s Website & Marketing Technology strategies, initiatives, and priorities.

Editor's Note: Our ongoing series about the Future of Higher Ed MarComms is focused on all of the topics that we believed were important pre-pandemic, but in a world permanently transformed by covid, have evolved to imperatives. Web accessibility may not immediately come to mind when thinking of the future of our industry. But as many institutions are redesigning their digital strategies to meet rapidly shifting consumer behavior, it's all the more important to consider how those assets ensure your institution remains equitable, inclusive, and accessible to all. More than ever before, a significant portion of our lives are experienced, managed, organized, or accessed online. From work emails to Netflix binges, paying bills to staying connected to old friends — we're online, almost constantly. But for users with physical and mental impairments, some barriers prevent the web from being totally accessible. While there are some helpful methods, tools, and devices that help eliminate some of these barriers, in order to maximize their effectiveness, websites need to first be built with web accessibility in mind. Building an inclusive and accessible website from the outset is not just a strategic and ethical choice — it's also pragmatic, as it's far easier than trying to remedy a site built without accessibility standards.