Back to Basics The traditional approach to

increasing enrolments

John Miles

Brand and Marketing Specialist

Business Development Professional

miles11760@gmail.com

Marketing Departments have a problem in most

Higher Education Institutions

They have lost 3 of the P’s

And replaced them with 1 P

Policies The number 1 enemy of good business sense!

Marketing Departments have little or no impact on

Product Price

Placement

in most Higher Education Institutions

A typical University definition of the Marketing Role

The Marketing Manager provides strategic and tactical marketing advice and support to senior academic staff (bring in the students!)

What this means in practice

Make us an advertisement Run an event

Produce a brochure Design us a webpage

And when we didn’t get enough students – its marketing’s fault

Research of 10 Australian Universities showed marketing departments’ key responsibilities were for

advertising, communications, events and student liaison

Typical examples

"The Office of Marketing & Communications provides strategic leadership for all aspects of marketing communication at Uni A”.

“Marketing Services provides strategic advice and assistance to faculties and divisions on marketing communication across a range of audience

groups. It is responsible for managing the Uni B brand and, as part of an integrated approach, advises on and approves all communication

materials in line with new visual identity guidelines”

Yet we all know if we have the wrong product or price or deliver it in the wrong place the

result is inevitable!

Marketing Departments need to be marketing departments not

Promotions Departments

BUT University policies and academics want to keep marketing

departments in their box!

How does marketing break out of this box?

By driving Program Development

Being the expert on all data relating to subject areas.

Developing compelling business cases

“You can never go to far wrong by thinking like a customer who is new to the business”

Richard Branson

1. Source of current business, size of market

2. All industry trends

3. Innovations in content locally and internationally

An expert will be the oracle on all to do with the programs

You can drive development if you are the person who is

asked the question what’s happening out there!

1. Where do students come from?

Geographic

Top schools

Demographic

How delivered?

2. Size of market – what’s happening with competitors? What’s our share?

Source of Current Business

1. What’s happening in the industry

2. Job prospects

Industry Trends

1. New courses within degrees

2. New degrees related to subject

3. Delivery methods – online, blended

4. Customer experience

Innovations in content locally and internationally

1. Students for life – attend any course every 2 years

2. Specialised MBA learning spaces 3. Teachers who are 50% consultants 4. Made to feel very special

But I hear you say – we must be getting more students as we are focused on communicating!

Instead of brand advertising we are getting

Bland Advertising

Paid Advertising Jan.-June 2013 (excluding search-word advertising) Non-profit institutions - $302.0 million For-profit institutions - $268.5 million Total - $570.5 million

And a lot of money is spent promoting mundane messages

“Universities waste too much of their advertising budgets on rather pointless attempts to differentiate themselves”.

“Thousands of marketing

committee hours are spent coming up with positioning

statements like "learn, think, do", "live, learn, thrive", and

"making life happen".

Professor Byron Sharpe, Director Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science

“Few staff, let alone the students or other customers of

the university, learn these slogans before they are

changed (again)”.

“Unsurprisingly, a survey of staff of 180 US universities

showed that their most common response to their own Uni slogan was embarrassment

(McKnight & Paugh 1999)”.

Professor Byron Sharpe, Director Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science

University brand Build through PR, web, staff, awards, rankings

Credibility that we are a good institution,

as good as the myriad of others

Programs that we are brilliant at – study here

Boosting enrolments will happen by focusing efforts at program level

Students want to know that the program they want to study is great

It’s a worthwhile investment in their time and money

It will help them get to where they want to go

As long as we have the right product at

the right price, delivered how

students want it!

Example of Successful Program led Marketing – Bay of Plenty Polytechnic

The Marketing Department

Experts at research

Academics were our clients

Drove program development

All new programs had to be approved by Marketing Manager

Drove institution innovation

Started with generic advertisements highlighting key

institution advantage – our location

Integrated approach

Integrated approach

Getting prospective students on campus

Consistent communication

Mature market – worked with local newspaper

High School students

Integrated approach

And teacher professional development days on campus –

they became our advocates!

We did this for all major programs

The Results

Program advertising can be interesting, provocative!

Focusing on programs lets students know what they are going to get and be!

So how do I get buy in?

By developing compelling business cases

Full business case

Strategic plan

Opportunity cost

Marketing plan – not a promotions plan

Great example of a marketing plan an academic might read

One Page Summary

Objectives Strategic Initiatives Tactics

Primary Objective

Secondary Objective

Any more than 4 initiatives and they won’t get done

Major items that will impact your business, achieve your

objectives

Strategic Initiatives are always actions such as launching

online, opening new market

Key tactics to support strategic initiatives

Body of plan has detail and rationale

Focuses effort and spend on the things that will

make a difference

Body of Marketing Plan

Executive Summary

State of Business

Objectives/Strategic Initiatives/Tactics

Financial Implications

Milestones

If you really want to boost enrolments

You need to innovate

To innovate, you have to consider all the 4 P’s

And having the right product is at the

core of boosting enrolments

A last example

2009 – Dept A generated $155,000 in revenue from one online postgraduate program through Open Universities of Australia

Developed a marketing plan focused on face to face interaction (EXPO’s etc.)

Made strategic decision to raise prices 10% year on year

A last example

End of Year 1, decided to develop new variant as result of the personal contact

Opportunity came up to extend into undergraduate space. Had to help head of department convince staff to participate (compelling business case)

• Postgraduate income up to $950,000 • Undergraduate income $1,900,000

• Total for 2013 $2,850,000

Summary

Universities can be a bit slow

Policies are important but can be the number one killer of good business sense and market development

And many are just plain

silly!

Marketing Departments in Higher

Education have to evolve into being

a true Marketing Department not a Promotions/Communications Department

the 4 P’s, not just 1 P

Higher Education Marketers

have to be involved all aspects of the marketing mix

Be the one that is asked

What’s Happening?

Think Different And, of course

Thanks for your time

John Miles

Brand and Marketing Specialist

Business Development Professional

miles11760@gmail.com