Question

Topic: Strategy

Need Inexpensive Marketing Ideas For A University

Posted by Anonymous on 4/27/2010 at 2:32 PM ET 1500 Points
The US News & World Report recently came out with the university rankings. The university I'm affiliated (it is in the Ivy-League) with would like to increase their score.

Of course, we need to learn the criteria used to determine the rankings so we understand which, if any, variables we could change.

This brought up an interesting discussion over lunch as to what the university could do to market themselves to prospective students, college advisers, and parents. It's not that we don't get more than enough applications. The Department Chair merely thinks marketing might be a way to improve the caliber of the applicants.

Since the value of our endowment is down, money for marketing is severely limited. Any suggestions as to what actions the university could take to get itself to be the university of choice?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/27/2010 at 3:11 PM Accepted
    Now's the time to focus on the alumni. Create a series of (short) (video) stories on some of the better-known names (ideally, with a testimonial from the alum). If any of these people are available for a meet-and-greet for prospective students, so much the better (an essay contest to win a chance to meet 'em?).

    What about the student-to-student review sites, such as https://www.studentsreview.com and even Yelp (which has an Education category).

    Why not have someone post a comment on the review at https://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/about-th... (maybe get a backlink out of it?)

    Announce that you'll be accepting fewer students next year (scarcity = more selective/valuable).

    Also, it's vital that you define "higher caliber". Higher test scores? More varied applicant skills? Other majors? From a wealthier background?
  • Posted by PattiFousek on 4/27/2010 at 4:19 PM Member
    Hi Carrie,

    Does the school have a Facebook fan page or group? Facebook is an inexpensive way to market especially for Universities. Students are all over Facebook - even Ivy-leaguers. You can incorporate Jay's ideas and post videos on the Facebook page as well.

    Just a thought. Whenever I think of students and inexpensive marketing, I think of Facebook.

    Good luck.

    Patti

  • Posted by mgoodman on 4/27/2010 at 5:07 PM Accepted
    A few quick reactions:

    First, it's critical that you identify the objective clearly. Otherwise, how will you know if whatever you do is successful? It seems there are really two different issues: (1) how to improve your ranking on the U.S. News list, and (2) how to get better applicants. In both cases, we (and you) need more information before we can come up with a strategy.

    Second, is there a way to figure out why the students who are there already chose your school, and not one of the others listed above you? How did they learn about the school? What induced them to apply there? If you knew that, you'd have a better idea of how to appeal to their successors.

    Third, is it possible that there are some positioning opportunities that would let you re-position the school so as to attract a more qualified applicant pool? How is the school perceived today? How is that different from the way other schools (ranked higher on the list) are perceived? Is the problem with the school's image?

    Fourth, do you think you want more applications so that you can be more selective, or do you want fewer applications, but better overall? (And how would they be "better?")

    I'll continue to think about this and follow the suggestions of others on this forum. Jay had some good ideas, but it's not clear yet if they really address the issues that matter. We should start by knowing how success will be determined.
  • Posted on 4/28/2010 at 1:29 AM Member
    You might want to possibly look at creating a group on linkedin.com
  • Posted by mgoodman on 4/28/2010 at 10:26 AM Moderator
    SharkWriter! writes:

    The buzz has to be focused on students. You have to be where they are. What your students/alumni say about you is much more compelling than anything you could develop as an institutional message.

    That's only true if the target audience is students. What if the real target audience is high school counselors who guide the students in their college application process? Then I would think you might want to find out what drives THEM and how they decide what to recommend to their students.

    I'm all in favor of doing clever things and guerrilla marketing, but only if the objective and strategy are clear up-front. In this case I worry that we're off recommending tactics when we don't have a clue what the objective is or what the strategy ought to be.

    What if a great social media campaign created a lot of buzz, and the upshot was an increase in applications from unqualified (or lesser qualified) candidates? Would that be seen as "success?"

    What if it had absolutely no impact on any of the factors that affect the U.S. News ranking? Would that be "success?" What if it resulted in a LOWER ranking, because the stats for incoming applicants were worse?

    Let's get the objective right first. Then let's discuss the strategy. THEN we can get to tactics.

    I worry that we might be solving the wrong problem.
  • Posted by NovaHammer on 4/28/2010 at 9:15 PM Member
    Some schools here (Canada) are going for the jugular...

    Stay with us and work with our faculty/student advisers in the same program you started with and finish in the appropriate years and we'll refund x dollars or x percent of your cost on graduation...

    Students and their parents still follow the money..get a degree faster and save 20%. Sounds good to me!

    In my mind this means less years in school drifting between programs, less overall debt and a cash thank you.

    How would that fly ....appearing to be a school focused on the student graduating not their own bottom line?
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 4/29/2010 at 8:16 AM Accepted
    Hi Carrie

    I don't know how they generate these rankings - not too many clues on their web page at https://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-c....

    Seems to me the University is all jumpy now just because someone released a set of rankings and it didn't like where it was placed.

    Who is to say the rankings are even a true and valid benchmark of anything in particular?

    Why these rankings and not some other set of competitive comparisons?

    Are these particular rankings considered to be some kind of Holy Grail?

    The University needs to have its own metrics on how it feels it is achieving against its objectives. You can't manage what you can't measure. From your earlier comments to Michael it sounds like the University doesn't know what it should be measuring.

    If you had some metrics, you could run the ruler over your competitors to assess where they are succeeding based on what you consider to be success. If they are beating you, despatch someone to find out how they are doing it. Emulate the winners, if improving your ranking is so important.

    Why do you reject 500% of applicants? Insufficient learning space or not enough lecturers?

    Perish the thought the day would come when I would turn down 500% of my potential clients!

    Having worked with him often online, I've always wanted to do an in-person project with Michael. Get the University to hire both of us for six weeks over the summer, and let's see what we could do for you on a collaborative basis!

    Chris
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 4/29/2010 at 8:21 AM Accepted
    I find your question interesting, as it is kind of like the chicken and the egg issue. You start with wanting to improve your ranking in US News and World Reports. Then talk about improving the students as a way to improve the rankings (which likely wouldn't impact the score for 4 years, assuming undergrad program).

    But, the opposite would happen easier - if you improve the ranking, that will attract more/better qualified students.

    If the primary goal of what you are after is the improved ranking, I would go back to what you said at first - looking into how they rank and seeing what you can do to improve that. Information on this is athttps://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/about-the-rankings-and-methodology.html

    If you dig through it (not as easy to do as it should be), you'll find that student selectivity is only 15% of the ranking for the school. So increasing the caliber of the students coming in only has a slight direct impact on your ranking (though should also have indirect impacts, though better students).

    Retention of freshman and faculty resource are 2 areas that are weighted more than this, so looking at these, and improving f possible, may be a more effective means of improving the ranking.

    If you are looking at rankings, you may also want to look at other agencies than rank. For example, when I was interested in business schools (way back when), it was Business Week that caused me to go to the school I went to. Without their ranking, I wouldn't even have applied where I did.

    Peter

  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 4/30/2010 at 8:52 AM Member
    Carrie

    Fair enough. Why accept people whose hearts clearly are not in it?

    Peter (henna gaijin) gave a useful link in the post above, from which I found the weightings criteria which you could use to reverse engineer the path to a higher score. It's at https://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/methodol...

    I'm not actually in favour of abandoning your chosen strategy to adopt a "work to get the highest score from some third party rating system" strategy, as the third party has an entirely different business imperative.

    But if that's what your fearless leaders are demanding, then there's the key to give to let them drive in that direction.

    Still think you should engage Michael and me...

    It's winter down here, but that's not the only reason.

    Cheers

    Chris



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