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While we heed one alarm after another signaling the decline of higher education as we know it (brick and mortar campuses made irrelevant by more, better and cheaper online courses and degree programs) a counter revolution can be seen and heard, in the form of heaving equipment digging foundations, paving roads and pouring fresh concrete. A new book from the Brookings Institution Press, The Metropolitan Revolution, explores in detail how cities and metros are “fixing our broken politics and fragile economy.” Not surprisingly, colleges play an increasingly active and vital role in the revolution. All cities thrive today thanks in large part to concentrations of land, people, investment capital, talent, amenities, ideas and innovation. Colleges and universities provide many of these key ingredients. Authors Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley describe a variety of “anchor plus” innovation districts with major higher education and academic medical center tenants. The paradigm traces to the 1980s when research powerhouse MIT first joined with developer … Continue reading
Posted in: Brand Voice, Branding, Higher Ed Marketing, Higher Education Branding, Storytelling
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As a firm steadily building a reputation for higher education marketing and branding, we often receive phone calls and RFPs from colleges who quickly disclose a sense of urgency — “we need help” — without necessarily understanding what they want to buy or how a firm like Elliance can make a difference. Given the sandstorm of confusion that accompanies any mention of higher education branding, it’s understandable. Much of the blame falls on those who claim to be branding experts. Too often they use doublespeak and proprietary methods to dazzle and distract buyers from their own better judgment. In my experience, the tools and habits of brand work are simple, albeit not that common. Here are 8 simple rules or things you should expect from a quality brand firm or professional: They should ask good, hard questions — dozens and dozens. They should avoid their own confirmation bias or any other form of group think. They should measure some, but … Continue reading
Our beloved Pittsburgh Penguins may be the most brand-savvy and well-run organization in sports, with exemplary practices from free pizza for the huddled masses waiting in the student rush line, to season tickets hand-delivered by team stars each summer. The Penguins have continually surpassed expectation for everything from how they welcome new-arriving players (photos on arena walls before they’ve cleared customs), to how they salute former Penguins who return as enemy combatants (sincere video tributes). So, what might one of the most sophisticated and talented franchises in the National Hockey League have to teach us about higher education branding? After a series of late-season trades designed to fill any missing pieces on an already talent-rich roster, the Penguins find themselves trailing two games to none in the Eastern Conference Final. What possibly could have gone wrong? Viewed as a branding challenge, the issue seems clear. For years, the Penguins have deployed two of the league’s most gifted — albeit distinctly … Continue reading
The closer my son gets to college age (t-minus three years) the more I ask myself: “Does the work I do listening for and giving voice to higher education brands actually help prospects and parents make sound choices?” In an essay published last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, James M. Lang, associate professor of English and director of the college honors program at Assumption College, an Elliance client, brings the question home. Lang recounts how seven or eight campus tours left both he and his daughter wanting more. In particular, Lang craved “dialogue — from tour guides, admissions representatives, or promotional literature — about what most people see as the main functions of college: teaching and learning.” Lang offers a “modest proposal” — work with student guides to translate moments of classroom engagement and transformation (value) into succinct stories worth telling on a campus tour. As someone charged with soliciting such “aha” teaching and learning moments from faculty … Continue reading
One of the tensions we hold at Elliance has to do with the pros and cons of specialization. While most of our work focuses on higher education marketing — where we have deep experience — we also meet a wider set of client challenges in manufacturing, banking, non profits and other worlds far from campus. Google’s search engine bot and people generally, favor simplicity. Elliance gets it — we know why many higher education marketing firms keep a singular focus. We also know first-hand the many ways that our higher education clients benefit from our broader exposure and reach. In the end, we find that higher education branding and marketing clients have plenty in common with clients in other verticals when it comes to solving the essential marketing challenge: turning awareness into inquiry, inquiry into conversation and conversion, and conversion into engagement, community and lasting brand loyalty. That premise led us recently to ask a bigger question: “What does it … Continue reading
Posted in: Branding, Higher Ed Marketing, Higher Education Branding, RISD, Umpqua
We’ve received many calls this year from colleges and universities looking for help in enrollment marketing efforts for traditional undergraduate students. The things that worked in the past just aren’t working. When I ask them about their current enrollment marketing efforts, I often hear the same things. Many institutions continue to use search services like College Board, ACT, NRCCUA and CBSS to market to potential students for their outbound efforts through mail and email. Others pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies like RuffaloCody and Royall & Company who apply sophisticated predictive modeling to efforts for which they will charge ten of thousands of dollars. So I ask… Why continue to funds these efforts at the same level with decreasing results? The answer is always the same: “We’ve done it this way for years and it has been our highest yielding effort.” My response is always the same… “It was your highest yielding effort!” So what has changed in … Continue reading
Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology—where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail! Anyone who remembers watching the Super Bowl 29 years ago this week may recognize that speech from the now iconic “1984” TV spot that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. Apple officially aired the original commercial just once, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, about the time that Los Angeles Raiders running back Marcus Allen broke the hearts of every Washington Redskins fan with a 74-yard-long touchdown run. Apple and its agency, Chiat/Day, created … Continue reading
Despite all the cultural and technology changes in the past ten years, today’s enrollment marketing professionals are still largely relegated to email blasts, while the one-to-one interactions are the domain of their colleagues in recruitment. It is now time for marketing and recruitment teams that previously worked in silo — with separate revenue goals and success metrics assigned to each — to be much more closely aligned. And delivering on that promise means coordinating the technologies used by each department. Marketing teams used to be responsible for creating leads, which would then be passed along to the recruitment team for follow up. But advances in online analytics and other tools now allow marketing professionals to gain far greater insights into what prospects are doing online. Combining web analytics with landing pages, email and link tracking tools and other tools that aggregate social media activity has clarified the pattern of individual online activity. In other words, marketing professionals can clearly define … Continue reading
While higher education marketing professionals traditionally equate the “new year” with the turning of an academic calendar, starting in September, the approach of 2013 gives us good reason to offer 5 New Year’s Higher Education Marketing Resolutions. 1. Reach Across the Aisle. Colleges increasingly recognize the value and wisdom of working in collaboration with peer schools that share a geographic base or demographic/psychographic profile. Confident schools recognize the concept of “right-fit” and realize that by raising the overall pool of inquiry and interest, all schools benefit. While formal organizations link colleges in every manner possible — by denomination, geography, prestige — it’s often ad-hoc collaborations that produce real innovation and spark. In a smaller state like West Virginia, for example, a handful of liberal arts colleges might benefit from raising the overall profile of private education in an area not well known nationally for its residential, four-year college options. 2. Cultivate Keyword Literacy While higher education marketing professionals have largely … Continue reading
When St. Thomas University and the University of Mt. Union meet in this coming Saturday’s Division III NCAA football championship — the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl — we don’t expect higher education marketing and enrollment teams from either school to be expecting too much of a so-called “Flutie Effect.” The “Flutie Effect” refers to the phenomenon of one dramatic televised sports moment, team personality or championship victory spiking prospective student interest in a given college or university. While Saturday’s game will attract a sell-out crowd (7,992 capacity) and reach a national audience on ESPNU, Division III schools carry few illusions. Even the most successful Division III sports programs (Mt. Union seeking an 11th National Championship in football) admit that a wider set of variables and motivations drive enrollment. Last year, we worked closely with St. Norbert College, which has made eight Frozen Four appearances since 2003, winning the national championship in 2008, 2011 and 2012. While such success remains a … Continue reading