This article presents a video transcript of education consultant Dr. Michael Clifford, who talks about marketing and advertising for higher education institutions.
So many Presidents have called me and said: "You know, I don't understand what to do with my marketing budget or my advertising. We've got all this money allocated and I can't figure out if it's working." Higher education marketing research is kind of like nailing Jello to a tree. You're trying to figure out if your advertising is working. And you know what? I tell them that's what the CEO of Proctor and Gamble said:the company that spends more money advertising than anybody on the planet. He said the same thing.
So where do you begin?
Begin with a High-Level Marketing Audit
When my higher education marketing firm is asked to come in and see if we can enable or enhance an institution's marketing efforts, we like to start with a high-level marketing audit. Just like a regionally accredited institution has to have a third-party audit for the Department of Education every year (a financial audit),we like to do a marketing audit. And it starts with a list of discovery questions.
At Significant Systems (our education management systems firm), we put a big team together: probably 15 or 20 people for a marketing audit. Anad agency would probably charge $50,000 for an audit of this sort, but we don’t regard ourselves as traditional consultants -that's not the way we work. We don't charge for this process at all. Instead, we like to put together a co-investment, co-laboring partnership, which is a whole other topic of how our higher education marketing research team works together. But on the marketing audit, we look for what's working first and foremost.
Things We Look At During a Marketing Audit
We do a deep data analysis of your existing students by demographic. We want to see the traditional 17 to 23-year-old who went from high school to a Christian college or university. We want to see the returning students that come back at 25 to 30 years old and want to live on the campus and finish their degree. We want to analyze adult degree completion, if you have it online on a campus, etc.
We get big data sets and we build very large data sets. From that, we start finding out what's working. We need to understand who the perfect student is for your higher education institution. It no longer makes sense to cast this wide net and run TV ads, print ads, banner ads, and buying inquiries from vendors who run banner ads. It doesn't work because if you don't get the right kind of student, the student's going to be unhappy, they're going to drop out, and you're going to lose all your marketing money.
Higher Education Marketing Research: Focus Groups
So we start first with a marketing audit, we have to understand the data. We then move to focus groups where we meet with alumni, we meet with students, we meet with faculty, we meet with people that have gone to work at a company that graduated from your institution, and we want to talk to the employers. From that focus group and from the data analysis, we start figuring out what's working.
Many times, our higher education marketing research reveals little nuggets here and there in the Affinity channels (Affinity channels meaning groups that have some reason that they love and support the institution) that are really working despite not being funded. And we find other buckets of money just being horribly wasted because somebody on the leadership team decided, "Wow! This is a great slogan, this is a great way to recruit students," but there's no data-driven analysis to support it. Usually you find out after you've spent the money that it didn't work.
So we research who the students are and why they came there in the first place: we look for those branding, unique differentiations in the marketing of why they came. We look for areas that are working well, then we start drilling down and drilling down on those areas. And that has to translate into the brand...we've got to get the brand right...we've got to get the website right (most of the websites are broken and in horrible shape, they're thrown up there like billboards or bulletin boards).
Your Institution’s Website and Social Media: Critical for Effective Marketing
People don't realize that the institution's website is the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week store. It's the retail presence of your institution, so it's got to be dressed up and beautiful and ready for business 24/7. And then we go social. We find those Affinity groups, and we use social media and we use boots on the ground to find them. But it begins with a marketing audit to figure out what's working and what isn't working.
And another thing we find - and I'll close with this – is that many times the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. At the leadership level, the marketing budget may be approved, but then it often turns out that one Dean gets to go do this and another Dean gets to go do that. This is a major a problem too when it comes to effective education management systems.
The marketing audit allows our higher education market research firm to create an integrated marketing plan, where we pull together everything we’ve learned (based on data, focus groups, analysis of students, number crunching and financial analysis of what's been spent). Using this, we'll be able to build an integrated marketing suggested plan for the institution.
We usually look at a 50-70% reallocation of what has traditionally been spent in marketing that will enhance the overall institution. It's no longer about marketing just one online program or two online programs. There has to be a brand, there has to be an integrated marketing plan to get the efficiencies of scale to recruit the right kind of students.
Contact Significant Systems
To benefit from this amazing service and totally free market audit, please don’t hesitate to contact Dr. Michael Clifford at Significant Systems! You can learn more about our education management consulting firm by checking out our website. If you have any interest in pursuing our new model of education for your institution, Contact Us.
Remember, our goal is simple:
• Provide Broader Access
• Lower Tuition and Fees
• Leave your Institution with Less Debt and More Graduates
• Facilitate Education with a Purpose
Looking forward to our possible conversation!
Dr. Michael K. Clifford
Chairman
760.801.5021(My personal cell)
mkc@mclifford.com
No comments:
Post a Comment