Instagram
[fts_instagram instagram_id=256737344 super_gallery=yes image_size=100px icon_size=50px space_between_photos=1px hide_date_likes_comments=yes center_container=yes image_stack_animation=yes type=user]
Twitter
[fts_twitter twitter_name=elliance]
Over the past four years, my personal life as a parent of two college-bound children and my professional life where I spend time in the higher education space have been on one long, yet fascinating, head-on collision. It’s been an eye-opening look at enrollment marketing from two divergent vantage points. In the battle for the affections of my offspring and my all-too-meager tuition savings (if you don’t mind, we can explore that confession another day), colleges have wasted a lot of resources on my kids. It’s not that the colorful, photography rich brochures, invitations, emails and phone calls (kudos to those friendly, yet determined recruiters) weren’t appreciated. I analyzed them like an archaeologist on a dig. It’s simply that they missed their mark. Look, I think Thing One and Thing Two are great catches, too, but the simple truth is that these colleges weren’t “right fit” opportunities for them at the right time. And some never will be. Midway through … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Ed Marketing, inbound marketing for higher education
Leave a comment
At Elliance, we receive countless higher education request for proposals (RFPs). Knowing that colleges and universities put together RFPs semi-annually at best, it’s no surprise that some lack clarity. However, the best way to get exactly what you want is to make your RFP crystal clear. Here, are the four most common issues as well as the advice on avoiding them: 1. End Goals: When stating the goals, focus on the ends rather than the means. For example, a goal to “refine program webpages” could be a means to many ends, from improved page conversion to establishing brand consistency. Eliminate the guesswork by stating direct and deliberate end goals in your RFP. To get to the heart of the matter, consider questions such as what problem are you trying to solve, what do you want more of, and why now? 2. Strategy vs. Implementation: A common ambiguity in the higher education RFPs is whether an institution is looking for only … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Ed Marketing
As a writer who spent the first 10 years of her professional life as an agency copywriter, I approach writing with two specific questions: Who’s the target audience? What’s unique about this client? I had a creative director once who often quoted David Ogilvy and I still remember this classic: “Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.” As a mother whose daughter is a junior in high school – prime time to be inundated with higher education marketing materials – it saddens me to see that many universities don’t take the time to write something truly unique about their school. Surprisingly, my sixteen-year-old daughter noticed the same thing. Her assessment of the brochures that keep filling the mailbox is this: “They all tell me I’d be perfect for their school but they don’t do a good job at explaining what they can … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Ed Marketing
As the world of higher education settles in after a frenzied first few weeks of new faculty introductions, last minute dormitory re-assignments and opening football weekend, there is that lingering question: what should we do about our brand? Whether you’re stuck in avoidance or racing headlong toward action, it’s worth considering a pause. Maybe past attempts at brand cohesion have failed. Maybe the current administration has lost its will to move forward. Maybe the ink just dried on a statement of work. Whatever your situation, relax. Your brand issues did not arise overnight. They won’t magically resolve any time soon. It may well be the single most important thing you orchestrate in your career as a vice president of marketing or college president. And it can wait. Great brands, in the end, depend on good soil to take root. And when I say soil, I mean smart, authentic, surprising, delightful story telling. Show me a college bold enough to tell … Continue reading
While your faculty and students may have taken the summer off from their college assignments, you know that the work of higher education brand building never ends. Today, and every day, your college brand continues to do its daily work — on your website, social sites and across the continuum of digital and human conversation. As new and returning students unpack in residence halls and faculty reclaim their offices, it’s a good time of the year to ask: What can we do to renew our college brand for the 2014-2015 academic year? We offer five steps forward: 1. Begin investing in first impressions. That could mean redesigning an initial search mailing aimed at rising high school juniors, or rethinking training for new and returning student tour guides. First brand impressions hold great potential — but can also be overlooked. Given the number of campus visits that students (and parents) make, it’s worth preparing your student guides. Can they really translate … Continue reading
Buzzwords, such as “native advertising,” “brand publishing,” “custom content,” “sponsored content” and “corporate journalism” are fresh industry lingo for what advertisers have been trying to do since the dawn of advertising – appeal to potential customers with content. Though the ultimate goal of content marketing has stayed the same, the agencies and mediums of delivery are vastly different. Companies are turning to web content experts to produce ads that reinforce their brands while matching the editorial voice that the site’s dedicated readers have come to expect. Upworthy — a website for viral content started in March 2012 — creates content marketing for clients. They recently created “Watch the Spread of Walmart Across the Country in One Horrifying GIF” and ran it on their site for the AFL-CIO. “Our goal in this process was not to advertise for the AFL-CIO or to promote companies,” said AFL-CIO digital strategies director Nicole Aro. “It was to instigate conversations that are happening around what … Continue reading
We spend a lot of time thinking about higher education marketing – from brand refresh to increasing enrollment. Like most agencies, we’ve drawn our own conclusions, studied others and learned from our own successes and mistakes in order to define a clear set of higher education marketing strategies. Be accessible and authentic “Your reputation lasts for a long time, and needs to be treated with respect. You won’t get very far if you try to be something you’re not. Rather, your personal brand is about figuring out who you really are and what you do best, and then living that brand out. It’s the essence of authenticity.” – Dorie Clark OK. We all know the keg-swilling derelicts aren’t the best students. In fact, they were barely students at all. But Dean Wormer (“Animal House,” 1978) was the absolute worst at making Faber accessible to anybody but polo-wearing rich kids. Incorporate brand ambassadors Getting brand ambassadors to talk is more important … Continue reading
In 1990, economist David Breneman published an article, “Are we losing our liberal arts colleges?” and spoke to the decline in the number of liberal arts colleges. Yet in 2012, the U.S. Department of Education data showed that enrollment in private nonprofit colleges and universities increased 1.9%, while total post-secondary enrollment in the U.S. declined for the first time in 15 years. Since then, trade and consumer publications from The New York Times to The Chronicle of Higher Education to The Huffington Post have all conjectured on the topic of “why liberal arts?” from a variety of perspectives. In a contracting pool of graduating high school seniors, fierce competition for the best of that crop, and an increasing number of cross-apps by prospects, what’s an enrollment marketer to do? Embrace the Liberal Arts. Contrary to the public outcry that’s created a dangerous “show me the money” attitude, liberal arts education occupies a lustrous place in history dating back to Socrates. … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Ed Marketing, liberal arts
In my experience, if you want to put your higher education brand to a quick and dirty reality check — what engineers call “stress and failure” analysis — there are two places to look. First, review any and all content that’s scored high enough to be placed in the feature area of your home page over the past six to 12 months. Does it consistently provide visitors compelling, living proof of what makes your particular approach to higher education distinct and worthy? Does it invite prospects to easily project themselves into the experience — a.k.a. does it advance the hero’s story, instead of simply spouting an institutional claim? Finally, does it overachieve as content — by delighting, stirring or otherwise inspiring our prospective hero? A second “stress and failure point” involves the campus tour — where well-intended student guides and admissions counselors often receive little or no training in how to translate a brand line or position into tangible examples … Continue reading
Colleges, and those charged with articulating why institutions matter, seldom lack for words… yet rarely learn to speak their school’s one true voice. Why so? In my experience, it has to do with how comfortable any of us can be in that stage before sudden insight arrives — in sitting with “not knowing.” I like what Richard Saul Wurman wrote in his introduction to Information Architects. You’re supposed to look smart in our society. You are supposed to gain expertise and sell it as the means of moving ahead in your career. That is where the rewards are supposed to come from. Of course, when you sell your expertise, by definition, you’re selling from a limited repertoire. However, when you sell your ignorance, when you sell your desire to learn about something, when you sell your desire to create paths to knowledge, when you sell your curiosity — you sell from a bucket with an infinitely deep bottom. My bucket … Continue reading