Integrated Marketing Means All Four Ps

Ever feel like you’re being asked to operationalize a bad decision?  Ever wonder why that happens?  You probably already know why, but here is a way of putting your frustrations into words that might help explain your feelings to campus leaders.

I’ve talked a little on this blog about integrated marketing communications, which deals with the fourth P, “promotion,” particularly, brand marketing, direct marketing and customer relationship management.  In higher ed, there’s a tendency for campus leaders to refer to IMC by the shorthand “integrated marketing.” Administrators who use this shorthand version like to say that their university’s marketing efforts are “fully integrated,” which usually isn’t case since IMC and integrated marketing are two different things. And this distinction is critical.

Integrated marketing takes all four Ps (product, price, place and promotion) into consideration when it comes to planning. Universities that use an integrated marketing approach allow marketing officers to exploit all four Ps, meaning that decisions about new programs, facilities, and delivery systems are made in light of marketplace considerations (e.g. competition, audience, geography, costs, etc.) rather than internal stakeholder interests. Put another way, IM is strategic and deals with the first three Ps, while IMC is primarily tactical and deals exclusively with the fourth P. If your school’s marketing department is not providing input on the first three Ps, you are not following an integrated marketing approach and that’s why you end up frustrated by the decisions that are being handed down to you. You’re in tactical mode and will be forced to operationalize poor decisions.

Those who follow an integrated marketing approach know that the most important P is product (curriculum and facilities). Those who follow an IMC approach only, know that they never get to give their input or inform leadership on the marketplace consideration involving this P. When marketers don’t have their say, customers usually get overlooked and universities pursue programs that are in the interests of internal stakeholders, like faculty. The result is a product with little or no demand that is underfunded because leaders didn’t include additional program costs like scholarships, staffing and promotional dollars.

Accept, Adapt, Accelerate — Or Atrophy

Another parting thought…

I haven’t read Robert Dilenschneider’s book, “Power and Influence,” and I don’t plan to, but his phrase “accept, adapt, accelerate — or atrophy” — mentioned recently in PRSA’s Strategist — provides a helpful three-pronged approach to avoiding atrophy in higher ed marketing.

Marketing efforts atrophy because one or more of Dilenschneider’s criteria is not met. Take an atrophying Web site, for example. Accepting the idea that the Web site needs to change and be more dynamic isn’t enough. Acceptance also involves understanding that 1) it will require money, 2) it will require staff, and 3) it will require change. The first two deal with resources, the third deals with attitudes and behavior. And this is where most colleges get hung up. Their acceptance is in the believing, but not in the doing.

There is almost a religious aspect to this failure on the part of university administrators to act according to their beliefs. But I believe it is due, in part, to the abstract theoretical nature of most academic administrators’ thinking. They live in the world of ideas. But marketing elements, like Web sites, exist in the world of the here and now, and they are all too often atrophying because administrators have merely given assent to the idea of the need for change and have passed it off as acceptance. But real acceptance, the kind that leads to adaptation and acceleration, comes only from a true belief that is followed by budget, manpower and will to change. Anything less leads to atrophy.

The Risk Of Insult Is The Price of Clarity

This is part one of my parting thoughts as I leave one university to join another.

In advertising, if you say anything meaningful you will undoubtedly offend someone. For example, a women’s college that advertises “Women First” will attract students who value such a proposition and detract or offend students who don’t.  But as David Olgilvie said, “The goal of advertising is not to be liked–it is to sell products.” That’s not to say that advertising should ever intentionally offend people. But it is to say that if you stand for something that matters to people, there will be those who don’t like it.

The idea of not being liked by some people is what scares university leaders away from making ads that resonate with their customers. And it’s what keeps them producing mediocre ads. These ads then become benign and ineffective, and soon they give up and say the ads “aren’t worth the money because they don’t produce results.”

I’m happy to say that my university has done a good job of allowing its marketing deparment to regularly offend some people. And they have been rewarded handsomely for it. Enrollment is up 50 percent over the past 10 years and applications are up 12.2 percent this fall even though high school grad rates in our state are down from last year (and, no, we don’t use the universal application or waive online application fees). A large part of our success over the years can be attributed to a clear and compelling message that isn’t softened because it might offend someone.

The title of this entry comes from Roy H. Williams, the self-described “Wizard of Ads” who said, “The risk of insult is the price of clarity. And it’s a price few are willing to pay.” I’ve found this quote to be good advice and worth passing on.

Must-Read Article: Why Social Ads Don’t Work

Although the title of his article is a bit misleading, Joshua Porter’s Bokardo blog entry today on social Web ads offers some good insights into ways of thinking about online advertising. His title is misleading because he’s not really saying social ads don’t work, he’s saying they don’t work as well as other online ads, like Google search ads.

There’s been lots of talk recently about the ineffectiveness of advertisements in social media properties like MySpace and Facebook. During their recent quarterly earnings results, Google explained that they are not making as much money from ads on social network sites as they had predicted. Even though this was a blip on an otherwise stellar quarter, Google’s stock took a serious beating.

Why is this so? Why is it that Google monetizes so well on Search while having a hard time on social properties? Given an equal amount of views on Google vs. MySpace, shouldn’t they be able to get about the same number of click-throughs and thus ad revenue?

The difference, of course, is that when people go to Google, they’re actively looking for something. That something isn’t on Google. They are performing a search activity. Thus their task will be to click on a link that seems to promise what it is they’re looking for. It may be the organic results, or it may be an ad that seems close to what they want.

When people are on MySpace, the activity they’re doing isn’t search. It’s something akin to “hanging out” or “networking”. Their task is almost the opposite of search. They are already on the site they want to be on. They don’t need to click on links to take them where they want to go.

In other words, the context is entirely different. When you’re in search mode, you are playing by different rules.

Social ads don’t work as well because people are being social, not searching for something. Read the rest…

Born on Facebook

In the 80s, kids were born with a mouse in their hand. In the 90s, they were born surfing the Web. In the 00s, they’re born with Facebook accounts. Sometimes they have them before they are born. There are baby profiles out there that are updated daily with more friend connections than I have. If you’re still not convinced that social media is an important part of the university media mix, it’s time to think different.

The Application Bubble

First, it was the “secret shoppers,” students who stealthily visited our college Web sites, learned what they needed to know and applied to the school without traditionally inquiring. Admissions reports showed a drastic decline in inquiries with steady increases in applications. Admissions marketers were quick to take credit thinking their efforts had led to a more targeted inquiry pool thus increasing inquiry-to-application yields. They were wrong.

Now there’s a new gremlin wreaking havoc on the admissions funnel. If you haven’t heard the news, college applications are up  all over the country, many by double, even triple, digits. And just like the secret shopper story, people are lining up to take credit for it. I hate to be the one to burst the bubble, but the recent surge in applications has nothing to do with early action deadlines or efforts to build relationships with prospective students. The answer is much simpler than that.

Two phenomena have come together to produce the perfect storm of application proliferation — the largest high school graduating class in U.S. history and a record number of high school seniors applying to multiple schools using online applications. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 3.3 million high school diplomas will be granted this year. And the National Association of College Admissions Counseling reported that freshmen applying to seven or more schools increased 18 percent in fall 2006 and this trend is continuing as schools adopt universal Web applications, waive online application fees and eliminate paper applications.

Think about it. There aren’t enough new students out there to account for so many schools having double and triple-digit increases in their application numbers. Census data shows that an estimated 3.2 million high school diplomas were granted in the 2006-2007 school year versus an estimated 3.3 million for 2007-2008. Admittedly, I was excited to hear that our applications were up 32 percent this year. But when I heard that our competitors were experiencing even larger increases — some as high as 100 percent — my excitement turned to suspicion. The reality is, students are cross-applying.

This represents a huge challenge for admissions officers. With so many students cross applying, the likelihood of accepting the same top students will increase dramatically. Students can also apply to more safety schools than ever before, throwing a wrench into the whole admissions process that could trickle down into the state school systems.  At the end of the day, there may be more losers than winners this admissions season.

New Job

The reason I’ve been a bad blogger and haven’t posted anything since November is because I’ve been interviewing for a new job. And I’m excited to announce that beginning in May I will be the new vice president of marketing and communications at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. I just completed my tenth year at Biola University where we are celebrating our Centennial and the arrival of our new president. George Fox presents some exciting new marketing challenges, and transitioning from LA to the Portland area will be a fun adventure. As you can imagine, this will be a big transition so I’d appreciate any advice you have to offer (e-mail me here). I’m looking forward to reconnecting with readers and catching up on all the higher ed blogs. More to come…

The Top 10 College Web Sites?

USA Today’s Mary Beth Marklein’s blog today revealed the top 10 college Web sites for prospective students, according to an NRCCUA survey.

I don’t mean any disrespect to these schools, but these sites don’t strike me as top sites. And I don’t recall any of them showing up on campus design sites like eduStyle. But maybe NRCCUA knows something we don’t. What do you think?

Here is the top 10:

1. Lawrence University
2. Pennsylvania College of Technology
3. LeTourneau University
4. University of New England
5. Bellarmine University
6. Wayne State University
7. Gonzaga University
8. Saint Vincent College and Seminary
9. Lakeland College
10. Newberry College

How Do Deans Get Their Marketing Experience?

Rowan University has an opening for the dean of its College of Professional and Continuing Education. The position description says:

The Dean of CPCE is responsible for developing, marketing, and delivering nontraditional educational programs to regional, national, and international populations currently not served or under-served by Rowan University. In addition, this person will be responsible for oversight of professional graduate education at Rowan with particular focus on marketing and supporting the development of innovative, interdisciplinary programs.

Now, to be a dean, you usually need a doctoral degree in some field of study relevant to your discipline, like mechanical engineering. (Rowan’s current dean has his Ph.D. in this field.) You also need to have some teaching experience and be well published in your field. This is all par for the course. But, at many colleges, you also need marketing experience. Again, Rowan’s job posting:

* Understanding of and successful experience marketing graduate and undergraduate programs. A working knowledge of the Mid-Atlantic market would be particularly attractive.

How do deans get their marketing experience? It’s safe to say that most of deans don’t study marketing as undergraduates, but even if they did, how much do they retain by the time they finish their Ph.D.s? And being that their Ph.D.s are in highly narrowed fields of study, when do they have time to study marketing? Further, deans are also required to have teaching experience, usually in their field of study. So when and how do they get their marketing experience? In most cases, the answer is that at some point in their academic careers someone handed them a marketing budget and told them to spend it.

I’ve noticed that when this happens, three things occur: 1) a proliferation of unused brochures, 2) more “marketing people”—who also have no marketing experience—are hired to do the work, and 3) marketing consultants are employed to create publications and ad campaigns, with little direction from their clients.

There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, deans have no marketing experience and no education in marketing. Still, this doesn’t prevent them from being hired to oversee the marketing of their programs, in addition to handling their academic responsibilities.

I’m not a fan of the decentralized model of marketing for this very reason. No one can be competent to the degree they should be to do both well and it’s inefficient to have people handle tasks they’re not prepared to handle. Adam Smith figured this out a long time ago in his book, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (1776). He described the solution as the “division of labor.” For higher education, the solution is to let the deans hire faculty and develop curriculum and let the marketing and admissions people recruit the students. But, for whatever reason, this concept has not been accepted at many universities, which is one reason why they continue to be inefficient and ineffective in their marketing efforts.

Brand Promise: It’s What You Can Deliver

I was presenting a brand marketing report yesterday to a group of faculty at my university. When we came to the brand promise, a faculty member raised a question about a phrase in the sentence that related to the learning environment that we provide. He wanted to say more about the deep relationships students form professionally and personally in the program. Although it was true that many students did form these types of relationships, it was not something we could promise. Here’s why.

A school can deliver a certain kind of learning environment. For example, you can promise that your classes will be filled with people of a certain age, experience, GPA, etc. These are factors you can control through the admissions process. And it’s a promise you can deliver. But when it comes to relationships, these are things that are mostly out of your control. You can’t promise a student that he or she will develop deep relationships because that is dependent on the student and other students in the program. Since the assumption of a brand promise is that it can (and will) be delivered, you can’t make a promise regarding relationships.

This is not to say that things like relationships can’t be leveraged in brand marketing materials (like ads), and certainly they can used in direct marketing efforts. But when it comes to the brand promise we can only promise what we can deliver, not what we can sometimes or mostly deliver.