As a marketer in the higher ed arena, you have multiple challenges and an array of clients who need (and sometimes demand) your intelligent solutions to keep your institution afloat. It’s your president, however, who likely needs you most. From our research and experience with more than 130 colleges and universities, we offer the following suggestions of what she expects of you…Read more
Tag: Executive Counsel
How to Make Your Upcoming Board Meeting a Success
Besides the fact that my wife and business partner Tammy is a trustee of our alma mater, I can always tell when it’s board meeting season. Our clients hunker down a bit and you can often hear the tension in their voices. With good reason. Board meetings can be tense. You’re preparing to put your…Read more
Using Slate Reports to Prepare for Board Meetings
Spring has sprung. High schoolers are tweeting offers of acceptance. Current college students are on break. If you don’t live in the Northeast, flowers are blooming. And…board meetings are on the horizon! As you prepare for those meetings, you’re likely thinking about the various data points you’ll want to discuss and how you will incorporate…Read more
Aligning Position, Product, Delivery, and Message: Are You Student-Ready?
It has become commonplace to discuss whether prospective students are “college-ready,” especially in terms of academic preparation. But, are American colleges today “student-ready,” that is, prepared to meet the academic and social needs of rapidly changing demographics ? Prospective students and parents expect to see institutions promoting their “academic excellence.” But what, exactly, does this mean? Terms like these, while they look good on paper, are empty of content. That is, they fail to fully articulate a differentiated market position (and they do little to address the specifics of student-learning)…Read more
The Best Recipe for Success in Higher Ed: Equal Parts Resilience and Innovation
Can your institution hang on for seven more years? Most-if any-growth will occur because you are offering something more than what you are doing now. The alternatives: you might consider what it could mean NOT to grow or what it might mean to get smaller in ways that allow you to improve quality in some way or shape your incoming class differently. If you are not planning in ways that match the reality of population shifts, you are not planning well…Read More
Taking the Long View on the Liberal Arts
There has been a persistent stigma amongst liberal arts colleges associated with discussing “vocationalism,” the idea that liberal arts colleges should offer career development training for students. Many liberal arts colleges worry that such training, which generally focuses on resume-building, networking, and other forms of professionalization, could usurp the preparation that students receive more generally for their lives as critical thinkers and citizens…Read more
Transformation Sounds Great…Until Your Institution Has to Do It
Higher ed institutions are, in theory, well acquainted with the notion of “transformation.” After all, they are in the business of transforming lives—the lives of their students. This charge is not insignificant; certainly the transformative process experienced at a college or university can be the most influential impetus for positive change and growth in a…Read more
Winning Through Customer Experience: How to Create Successful Campus Visits (With or Without the Campus)
A prospective student’s visit to campus (particularly when accompanied by family and friends) has long been the indicator of ultimate engagement. Campus visitors yield at substantially higher rates than those who do not visit. Most of our clients report yield rates of admitted students who have visited at more than twice the rate of the…Read more
Five Things to Think About as You Hit the Road This Fall
With fall more or less upon us, it’s time to consider your strategy for recruitment this year. You’ve likely spent some time assessing what you did last year, namely: what worked? What didn’t? You’ve also likely gone through the obvious considerations, the things you must always be mindful of, like: make sure you’re in touch…Read more
Here’s What the Marketing Department on Your Campus Should Look Like
One of our takeaways from the 2016 Survey of Independent College Presidents we conducted in collaboration with The Lawlor Group was the limited perspective or understanding of marketing’s value to institutions. Carole Arwidson of The Lawlor Group summarized the findings in a post concluding “institutions must embrace how marketing can advance the institution beyond simply…Read more