Every marketing team at every organization is slightly different. That’s why I was so curious in my dissertation to understand all aspects of the marketing work at institutions. I wanted to better understand some of the items that were priorities for the marketing office outside of traditional marketing and why these were important to marketing leaders.
The marketing leaders I spoke with shared that the demands on their office were quite high, and they usually had to make choices about what tasks would be accomplished. However, they offered several suggestions about what items were the best investment of their time and why those items complimented the marketing work.
About the Participants
I visited with those in the CMO role at regional public universities across the Southeast United States for this particular study. In all, I visited with 15 individuals who served as CMO at their institution. I also reviewed supporting documents they were willing to provide, which included media plans, budgets, etc.
What the Research Showed
The participants identified multiple aspects that were outside of the traditional scope of marketing. However the following four items rose to the top of most participant discussions.
Professionalize the Marketing Field – Many participants talked about helping to raise awareness that marketing is a legitimate field with specialized skillsets. Because many marketing teams began as internal communications shops, participants noted the need to articulate their marketing expertise as a key role of the office. The participants emphasized their efforts to move from client models where they took orders for projects to a strategic partner where they worked together as equals with other campus areas to collaborate and solve key university challenges.
There are some units who are willing to let you be strategic in what you’re doing, and there are some units who are not willing to let you be strategic in what you’re doing. They just want you to take the order and make the video or make the brochure or send out the press release. It’s really about working with folks to help them see marketing’s work as integrated and as a partnership instead of as an order taker for lack of a better word.
Study Participant
Be a Campus Change Agent – Several participants noted there are campus processes that are disjointed, broken or confusing. The participants also shared that because of marketing’s regular interaction with many campus partners, marketing teams are more likely to have the relationships to help bring people together to address these. The participants noted this is outside the traditional work of marketing and communications teams, but it does contribute significantly to the experience of current and prospective students when interacting with campus. The participants talked about these being items that can impact the perception of the university product as a whole, which is why they felt they were important for marketing teams to undertake.
Over the past few years, our marketing office has become much more involved in the day-to-day, person-to-person marketing and outreach from university. We are really engaged in all aspects of a student’s experience, and that means sometimes we also have to work at bringing awareness to campus problems and concerns.
Study Participant
Retention Support – Several participants shared that with the upcoming enrollment cliff, retaining current students was becoming part of the scope of the marketing work. The participants shared that retaining a student was more cost effective, so participants were working with advising and student success units to ensure students had a positive experience. Some of the ways participants shared this involved promoting key deadlines, highlighting campus involvement opportunities on social media, and even doing advertising around student support and registration initiatives.
What we have to do is shift institutional efforts further down into that enrollment funnel and work on building affinity in maintaining students after they’re enrolled. In looking at some of the enrollment challenges that we face, we have to understand that we can’t recruit our way out of declining enrollment — that we really have to move the institutional conversation toward increasing retention efforts…
Study Participant
Continued Learning – Multiple participants noted the marketing field continues to change. As such, the participants noted they spent a good deal of time learning new tools and exploring new content platforms. Several of the tools discussed include CRMs, changes to Google Analytics, and enhancements in advertising tools. Additionally, several participants shared that they spent a significant amount of time evaluating marketing strategies because of changes to how people want to engage with the university and where students and other groups spend their time online.
When I started, if you had a tv campaign, a radio campaign, a billboard campaign, and a newspaper campaign, you were good to go– if you had the money and a good campaign. Design and things like that were really critical in those days, but that whole world has changed, and of course, it started to change with web and Internet. I would say diving in and learning those new emerging spaces is a real challenge. And it doesn’t reduce any amount of what you’re already doing. Having to continually learn what’s new is hard.
Study Participant
Now What?
The role of the marketing team continues to change and evolve. Recently, SimpsonScarborough released data about the role of marketing and communication leaders and their teams.
Their lead opening quote:
But now, ten years later, it’s time to acknowledge that the higher education Chief Marketing Officer has arrived—and that there isn’t a universal definition of what that actually means.
If marketing and communications looks different at your university, you’re probably not alone. Keep working on what priorities make the most sense for your institution.
As a profession, it’s important for us to keep talking about the opportunities MarComm units have to make a positive impact on our campus. That work doesn’t happen overnight, so we must keep working to achieve it.
While there is much to do, it is an exciting time. I believe that our marketing teams are hard at work continuing to show we bring much more value than just promoting the university.
And Carrie On 