As MarComm leaders, there are so many demands on our time, and it can be challenging to decide what to prioritize.
In my dissertation on the enrollment cliff, I looked at how marketing might help mitigate the declining enrollment that many universities will see over the next few years.
As part of that conversation, several opportunities came to the surface that may have not been traditional aspects of the MarComm work or are of renewed importance as the enrollment cliff arrives.
Retention
As a MarComm leader, we haven’t always been as focused on the work of retaining students. Our jobs have centered around recruiting students, and another team prioritized retraining students. However, the data shows that as there are fewer students, a focus on retaining current students is becoming more important for MarComm teams.
Study Participant
Just kind of thinking about the fact that admissions marketing is such a big part of our job, but it seems to be that unifying the tactics to retain students is kind of falling a lot on the shoulders of communications and marketing professionals.
Experience
Another area of opportunity for MarComm is managing the campus experience to ensure it aligns with the brand image represented in marketing efforts. This work involves examining all aspects of campus from the website, to onsite processes, to the campus signage align in order to help students understand the university and what it offers.
Study Participant
We can spend $100,000 dollars on a really slick ad campaign, but if when they get here, they don’t experience that value proposition then we’ve lost it. You know, we’ve wasted our time. We’re spinning our wheels. It has to carry through.
Differentiation
As competition increases, differentiation matters more. As MarComm leaders, a large part of our role is making sure the university is focusing its message on what we do well and worrying less about the places we don’t naturally stand out. That work is hard, and it can be uncomfortable. However, helping campus align on playing to strengths pays dividends in the long run.
Study Participant
I think that differentiation is going to become even more important. As we move toward this cliff, it’s going to be on the shoulders of marketing & communication folks to define what those points of differentiation are for each university and help the entire campus community to be able to articulate those points of differentiation.
What Else?
These are a few key themes that came out in my dissertation, but it certainly isn’t everything that’s important. What am I forgetting that you would ad to this list? Feel free to add a comment and let me know what needs to be included!
And Carrie On 