Question

Topic: Strategy

Marketing For A College Engineering Dept

Posted by Anonymous on 7/23/2008 at 4:16 PM ET 250 Points
I'm marketing the industrial engineering department of a major US university. My overall goal is to raise awareness of the engineering program to the general public and current university students not enrolled in the program. What recommendations would you make to raise awareness for these groups? I thought about using social media efforts, such as facebook and myspace to reach current students, but aside from that I'm a little stuck. I don't have much of a budget to work with so my marketing efforts have to be pretty inexpensive. Any suggestions?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 7/23/2008 at 4:23 PM Accepted
    I would guess that the power of marketing your College falls into identifying graduates and matching them up with new students. Creating a networking environment between the two groups will be important.

    Further, use your bully pulpet to announce the success of your grads. One college I work with got major marketing publicity when they dialed in on the number of Fortune 500 CEO's who happened to come thru the halls of their small fine arts college. The story got picked up by major news outlets. Ultimately, they were the crux of a feature story in a MAJOR MAGAZINE.

    Good Luck...
  • Posted by Levon on 7/23/2008 at 5:31 PM Accepted
    I would contact the Marketing School within the business school at your University and ask the Professors of Marketing what they would do given your situation. This is a free resource so it should cost you nothing and the expertise will be cutting edge (this may depend on the School).
  • Posted by Mikee on 7/23/2008 at 6:07 PM Accepted
    The University in our town has an open house weekend where students show off there projects and instructors can present their research to the general public. Invitations are put out to the local schools, newspaper, etc. It draws quite a few people from the community. Here is an article about these events: https://itll.colorado.edu/ITLL/index.cfm?fuseaction=DesignExpo.

    There is also a week of engineering events that have competitions that are well attended by all kinds of students. Here's a press release of some of the activities: https://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2007/153.html. These are all low key fun activities that draw quite the crowds, especially the egg drop. These events bring notice to the engineering school with relatively low cost.

    Hope this helps.

    Mike
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/24/2008 at 9:23 AM Accepted
    Why not have an engineering students video competition (with posts on YouTube, university website, etc.)? Let them show off the department to their peers and community.
  • Posted on 7/24/2008 at 10:17 AM Accepted
    Talk to fomer and existing students to find out how they became aware of the program and capitalize on their knowledge. What seemed to work best? What are the main attributes of the program that were most compelling? Try to find out not only the vehicles that have been most successful, but the content within these vehicles that were highly motivating.
  • Posted on 7/26/2008 at 6:07 PM Accepted
    MySpace is a great place to build awareness and market your products and services to college students. However, make sure you hire a professional graphic designer who has experience with designing MySpace pages. You should also consider hiring a professional copywriter. Moreover, make sure you add flash, audio, and video to your MySpace page.

    You may also want to try targeted (online) display/banner advertising. Visit www.AdBrite.com to learn more about how you can easily reach your target audience with a limited budget.

    Distributing flyers and posters throughout your university is another low-cost way to build awareness.
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