What Strategic Plans Reveal About Higher Ed Marketing

This article previously appeared in Inside Higher Ed and it is posted here with permission of the author.

What makes a strategic plan “strategic”? This question was at the heart of a 2020-21 study that my RHB colleague Dr. Aimee Hosemann and I led—with the research assistance of Connor LaGrange, graduate student from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy—analyzing 108 active strategic plans covering a broad swath of four-year public and private institutions in all 50 states.

We wanted to better understand whom strategic plans are ultimately for, why the process can be so complex and how relevant plans can be amid rapid change, including the disruption from COVID-19. While our purpose was to investigate these dynamics, identify the most strategic tendencies among plans and help inform and improve future planning efforts, our analysis provided a fascinating—if not sobering—window into the state of higher education marketing.

According to current strategic plans, the marketing function remains predominantly in the domain of promotion.

Of the 108 plans we examined, 52 (less than 50 percent) explicitly mentioned marketing or marketing and communications. Most striking was that references to marketing almost exclusively concerned promotion. “Boldly promote,” “vigorously promote” and “promote our image” are among the marketing-related phrases in these strategic plans, along with several versions of “tell our story better.”

Not reflected across current plans are marketing’s more strategic capabilities in areas such as market intelligence-based program development, the shaping of the constituent experience to build lifetime value and the alignment of institutional behaviors with a selected market position.

A more encompassing vision of marketing would serve institutions well and aid strategic planning. If you are starting a strategic planning process or will be soon, here are three recommendations for your institution, informed by these research findings.

  1. Ensure that your marketing leader has a seat at the table from day one.

Of the 108 strategic plans, 45 (just over 40 percent) identified the constituencies from which committee members came, and far fewer listed actual committee member names. (We would recommend more transparency with readers about which campus community members are leading the planning process.) Among these 45 plans, only 17 had a marketing and communications leader as part of the core steering committee.

This figure is not surprising for institutions that view the job of marketing as promotion to “get the word out” about all the activities within a strategic plan. If, however, we recognize marketing’s strategic capabilities to help an institution deliver relevance, then not having your marketing leaders as planning partners represents a missed opportunity. Strategic plans touch all facets of a college or university, and marketing can bring an institution-wide perspective that layers in a constituent-centric understanding of market perceptions and opportunities.

  1. The expression of your mission looks outward; create a planning process that does, too.

There is a disconnect between the outward expression of institutional missions to transform lives and society and the inward-facing process of strategic planning. For example, community outreach broadly defined was among the top five most common strategic priorities or themes across plans. Yet only 11 percent of strategic planning steering committees included any community representation. (Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging was the most common strategic priority. We identified 16 plans containing the most strategic tendencies, and these plans envisioned a detailed and holistic perspective toward DEIB goals and metrics.)

As further evidence of this missing coherence, our analysis showed a general lack of student-centeredness across plans. In contrast, the 16 most strategic strategic plans gave more attention to student well-being and student success and more frequently engaged undergraduate and graduate students as members of working groups and task forces.

  1. Focus more on positioning and less on branding.

While “brand” or “branding” appeared in more than 40 percent of the strategic plans that referred to marketing, plans mentioned market “position” or “positioning” only a few times overall. Despite our observation that most colleges and universities are pursuing similar dreams and taking similar actions, institutions take a posture of distinctiveness in their plans. Branding (or more branding, or better branding) then will generate, so they hope, the desired awareness and recognition. Nearly all colleges and universities want to be better known. But less certain is what they want to be known for.

While many strategic plans resembled an institutional wish list (one university had 22 strategic priorities) or contained items that an institution should already be doing (“provide an excellent education”), strategy results from making choices—choices that marketing leaders can help inform. Furthermore, marketing leaders are fundamental agents in creating engagement with the people who matter most to an institution and its future.

You might also like:
  • Why You Don’t Need to be Afraid of Performativity

    In our study of 108 active higher education strategic plans, we discovered that by far, the most common theme in strategic plan goals or priorities was diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Further, because DEIB-related initiatives were often distributed across all the goals in some...

  • What Makes a Strategic Plan “Strategic”?

    In an effort to better understand the dynamics and components of strategic plans across higher ed, we undertook a detailed study of more than 100 active strategic plans. The study endeavored to capture a current plan from one private and one public four-year institution in...

  • Sales vs. Marketing: Why colleges and universities need both, and how they’re different.

    Two hot-potato terms that higher ed leaders would just as soon not handle are “sales” and “marketing.” Many colleges and universities avoid them all together, doing their best to disassociate with anything from the world of business. In days still available to recent memory, it...

  • Has Your Institution Fallen into a Brand Trap?

    As higher education deepens its embrace of marketing, a wide variety of innovative and successful practices have begun to emerge. On one end of the spectrum you can cite the truly wonderful brand awareness campaigns such as What Will You Fight For? for the University of Notre...

  • Spread the word
Rob Zinkan

Rob is the Vice President for Marketing Leadership at RHB.