Marketing changes right? Absolutely. This is one I’ve seen change in the last couple of years. It’s the difference of being a partner with our campus or serving our clients.
A Little History
When I first began my career, everyone was talking about the agency model. Higher education marketing offices were on the cutting edge if they’d moved from a traditional communications shop to an agency model.
It sounded fancy. Intake forms. Creative briefs. Project presentations. Creative campaigns. It worked, and there was something really powerful about it at the time because it projected professionalism as an industry. We functioned like the agencies that charged for their services.
Most marketing and communications shops began solely as communications shops. The marketing has in the majority of shops has come about in the last 20 years.
Carrie Phillips
It worked well at the time, and it helped to move the needle to marketing being more accepted at universities. In some universities, the marketing and communications unit began charging for their work and using those funds to support their operation.
The Problem
As marketing and communications teams grew in their skillset, something became apparent, sometimes there were issues with this model.
Marketing consists of the 4P’s – product, price, promotion, place. In this model, marketing and communications work focused on the promotion aspect only. Marketing didn’t have a place at the table to focus on some of the other areas they might help including product development, pricing insights, or details on where the product was sold. They, instead, were only focused on promotion.
A New Model
More recently, I and many others have used the term strategic partner. I really like the inclusion of “strategic” in this phrase because it implies that marketing teams have a responsibility to do what is right by the university as a whole, as opposed to just partnering and being in a support role.
As a strategic partner, our marketing team has been able to use our data and insights to help with all four P’s of marketing instead of just focusing on promoting the university or a specific program.
I was at a prior institution and a department reached out needing to promote a program that was on the viable watch list. In looking at the website data, the program was the most visited program page on our website. Something wasn’t right. By bringing this data and some trend research data, we were able to show the department the name of the program was problematic, and it suggested the program focused on one thing when it actually focuesed on something else. The high search results suggested there was a market for the initial search term, too. Something the marketing team suggested.
An example
Strategic Leaders
When marketing has a role in strategic conversations, they are able to help the university with much more than just promoting the university and its programs.
Data from Simpson Scarborough’s 2021 CMO study looked at areas of responsibility in a more strategic approach. Areas where marketing and communications leaders were making an impact included the following:
- Student Experience
- DEIB Work
- Employee Morale
- Board Management
- Retention
- Pricing and Tuition Strategy
My Thoughts
I think it’s important to remember that being a strategic partner doesn’t mean that we don’t support campus. We still provide many of the things that campus needs. However, I do think that using the phrase strategic partner over client highlights the value that marketing and communications leaders bring to the work.
And Carrie On 