Branding Higher Education. 4 Key Questions
Every week on college campuses across the country the big questions relating to “Brand” are asked (along with questions about food and catering). The following are a few quick thoughts to consider when framing your discussions about Branding. Whether you are clarifying, creating, refreshing or assessing brand equity of your institution, these are all worth reviewing.
I will cover my thoughts on food in a later post.
1. What is the value your institution will receive from engaging in a brand/web project?
Clarifying your institution’s Brand promise will positively impact student recruitment and retention, faculty recruitment, alumni engagement and donations. These are the key drivers to your success as an institution. Brand clarification helps key target audiences easily understand who you are, what you do, and how you are different from the other schools they are considering. It also gives you consistent messaging points and a structured way for everyone inside the institution to tell your unique story.
2. When is the right time to engage in a brand discussion?
The World of Higher Education has changed significantly over the past 10 years. From recruitment of adult and graduate students to MOOCS, to the need for increased fundraising and mounting student debt, the amount of competition is intense. The dollars spent on recruitment and fundraising also is continually increasing. In order to achieve your goals there has never been a more important time to align your strategic plan and marketing strategy so you can clearly provide your students with a crisp understanding of your institutions benefits.
3. Who will need to be involved to make your brand project successful?
As you think about who needs to be involved in your brand project use this rule of thumb; involve them early and often. Clearly the leader of your college or university (the Dean, President, Chancellor) needs to serve as the executive sponsor for any Brand effort. Your Vice President of Marketing or other high level leader needs to serve as the champion for the project as well. After that, a circle of friends or champions (five to eight) should be included to help ensure success. This of course will vary from campus to campus as will your implementation team. There are various ways to involve other individuals in the process from research to town hall meetings to newsletters and web updates.
4. How can we measure the effectiveness of our brand work?
Benchmark research is always a great starting point. Repeating that research one, three and five years out to see how you have shifted the needle in relation to your goals is essential.
Google Analytics will measure traffic to your website, and your key audiences engagement with you online. Goal completions should also be measured pre-Brand project month over month and year over year. This will provide insight into new geographic areas that show interest, what sites are referring traffic to you, and what audiences care most about on your website.
Social media monitoring will help you assess what messages are showing up in the social space including Tweets, Posts, Shares, Mentions, etc. Social activity and sentiment is a key measuring tool that will help you to monitor how effectively your brand marketing is resonating.
Finally, develop a scorecard that includes all of the key things you care about from your strategic plan. From shape and size of your incoming class, to alumni giving and engagement rate, to your ability to recruit the faculty that you desire. All of these key goals should be measured. And of course don’t forget about those always on the radar screen but never popular rankings.
For another riveting blog on brand in Higher Education visit:http://convergeconsulting.org/blogsearch/categories/Brand/
Questions, comments, thoughts, lets connect: ann@convergeconsulting.org
Ann Oleson
