It’s once again November, and I am joined by nearly 1800 attendees from across the globe for the American Marketing Association’s annual symposium of higher education. Over the next several days, I’ll share many highlights and key takeaways.
Six Key Takeaways
Here are six takeaways from day one!
Focus Locally
As institutions of higher education are facing stiff competition, tight resources, and other challenges, part of the answer is focus locally. We can have more impact in changing the perception of our brand if we focus on building relationships in our local community. We have to get comfortable with letting some of the national things go and shift attention to our own backyards. Local businesses, local school districts, and leaders in our community should see how we’re woking to meet the needs of our communities. Doing that work locally, will pay dividends in supporting our state and will do more to change perception than much else that we can do.
Find Ways to Do Work that Brings You Energy
As CMOs, there is so much that is asked and expected of us. Sometimes it can be incredibly hard to balance it all. Often, as more is put on our plates, we find ourselves doing less actual work. That’s okay, because we can’t do everything. However, it’s also incredibly important to still do parts of the work. Find the parts that give us energy and stay involved in that work. It allows us to keep learning and stay connected with our teams. That also means we have to prioritize that time on our calendars, but it’s important to ensure we have bandwidth to do this work. We should never get so focused on all the things that we lose the chance to stay involved in some spots on a tactical level.
Handling Challenges to Perception
With many of our universities facing tough perceptions issues, we have to frame those challenges in terms of issues that we can speak to. Often times, higher education has become a punching bag, and we need to do better at figuring out how and when to speak up. When done correctly, it gives space to others to share their own views. Additionally, it helps us to model that we can have discourse, in the work. However, there is risk associated, especially for institutions that may not align politically with their state as a whole (on either side of the isle). We have to weigh that risk, but it’s important to find spaces and places where we can interject ourselves into the perception conversation. However, it’s also important to know that how that looks for every institution will be different because of their unique situation. That means we need to give grace to one another, as we’re all doing the best we can.
Big Ideas Mean Big Revenue
As MarComm leaders, we must be tying everything to revenue. Revenue is critical for our institutions, which means we need to be more entrepreneurial in our thinking. We have to explore new marketing approaches, new technologies, or new partnerships. It also requires us to be thinking about the big ideas that help us move from a cost center to a revenue center. Revenue helps us achieve our institutional goals, so we need to understand our organizational goals to generate big ideas that support them. This requires collaboration across the university. An added benefit of focusing on the revenue is that can help to showcase the value that MarComm brings and allows us to have a seat at the table for other important conversations.
Organizational Charts Are a Struggle for Everyone
One thing that I’ve struggled with as a leader is building or raising organizational charts for teams I’ve led. It’s incredibly hard to separate the people from the ideal organization structure. Sometimes, the ideal organization doesn’t work because of the people. Additionally, sometimes different formats that may not make sense on paper work beautifully because of the people. I think we have to get comfortable that every institution’s chart will look different, and that is okay. What’s important is does it work? I also think that if we have some of those funky organization structures that work, we need to be willing to adjust if (down the road) they don’t work. Sometimes we get too stuck in that’s how it’s always been.
Your People Matter
Last year at AMA, we formed a tribe of smart, confident women leaders. As the role of CMO can be isolating, I’ve been blessed to turn to these folks for advice, insight, and the occasional venting moment. Getting to see each other in real life again reminded me how lucky I am to have these ladies in my corner. Regardless of who you find, I think it’s important to have people to support you, cheer you on, and sometimes commiserate with you in the journey.
Jenny Petty, Angela Polec, Kin Sejpal, & Rebekah Tilley
Day Two Is Up Next
I’m looking forward to a great day two, and I’ll see you here tomorrow for another recap!