In preparation for the launch of Remington College’s online campus, we were delighted to help with the strategic brand and message development for the Website.
We helped establish the core benefit messages, and developed the brand story for Remington’s new online campus. Additionally, I wrote content for the new Website, which launched in late summer (http://www.remingtoncollegeonline.edu). The key messages focus on the convenience and flexibility of the new online degree and diploma programs, as well as the high level of personalized service and support provided to online students. We also developed a digital brochure for the online programs.
The majority of Remington College’s students are working adults who may be supporting a family. The new online programs cater to this audience by offering a flexible learning format and course structure for a more manageable learning experience. Students have the opportunity to achieve a more balanced life with a flexible online learning system designed to fit their busy schedule with work and family.
In support of the College’s online marketing initiatives, we have also provided the strategic messaging for audience-specific online campaigns. With the goal of increasing leads for specific degree and diploma programs, individual campaigns were created to capture online leads from targeted audience groups.
This was one of our favorite projects! We created a brand and Website for Acorn Teaching Solutions, an education company dedicated to helping reluctant readers and children with learning disabilities grow into successful adults with bright futures. Snapters is a reading software program unlike any other. Designed by educators for reluctant readers, Snapters combines visual and audio prompts to guide students through each chapter of a book.
Teague Marketing developed the overall brand including the logos and taglines for Acorn Teaching Solutions and Snapters, the identity package, the Website and the strategic brand theme/messaging. The company just launched its newest edition of Snapters: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Congratulations!
We have created our own student lifecycle—representing the categories of students, where they fall in the “learning phase” of their life, and how to craft a message that resonates at that critical point.
Lesson #1—Know where your target audience is in the student lifecycle.
As you know, the key messages for the career changer and the working adult learner are far different than the high school senior, or even the transfer student. We can examine barriers to enrollment and highlight the relevant key motivators, which may include career advancement, self-fulfillment, increased pay and better overall quality of life as a result of higher learning.
Lesson #2—Message is critical.
We rely on many years of education marketing and campaign development experience to craft and communicate the relevant key messages to your specific target audience. Messaging and copywriting is one of our greatest strengths, based on a strong strategy and supported with compelling design. Equally important, we can help identify the differential advantage of your college or university and/or specific degree program.
Lesson #3 — Placement is paramount.
A great message is wasted if it doesn’t reach your prospective students where they live, work and play. Again, depending on where they are in the student lifecycle, we can help you select the most effective marketing channels.
If you work in marketing or communications in higher education, this latest survey won’t come as a surprise. However, it will help to further justify using social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook in college student recruiting strategies. In fact, we see that student target audiences are becoming more tech-savvy each year, and using social media such as Twitter and Facebook has become a way of life.
As stated in USA Today, a survey of hundreds of colleges by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth reported:
•Only 15% last year said they did not use social media, down from 39% the previous year.
•The number of colleges using social networking sites and or putting video on their blogs more than doubled from 2007 to 2008.
•41% of colleges said they used blogs in admissions, well above the 16% of marketing departments of large companies that use blogs.
This survey is further proof that these social media tools are not just a “fad.” The challenge now is to determine how to balance the use of social networking with your overall integrated marketing strategy.
Just getting started tweeting? There’s a Twitter group for higher education that you can join. It’s great for beginners who want to connect with people already tweeting! Good luck!
As we celebrate another Earth Day this April, I have noticed that more and more colleges are starting to offer degrees with a focus on sustainability. Considering this fast-growing industry, it makes sense from a marketing perspective. It also provides an opportunity to sustain a “greener” messaging strategy.
Arizona State University launched the first School of Sustainability, which was featured on NBC Nightly News last year. According to its Website, “The School of Sustainability, together with the Global Institute of Sustainability, provides innovative, interdisciplinary education and research opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, to better prepare them to identify and solve sustainability challenges.”
Green Mountain College offers an MBA in sustainability that can be taken 100% online. Hummm . . . no need to drive to class? That certainly helps reduce that carbon footprint!
Degrees in sustainability really aren’t “new”; however, they are more marketable to a wider audience now thanks to a bright spotlight on “green” living and business practices moving into the mainstream.
Here are some of the unique ways you can get the word out about degrees in sustainability:
- Sponsoring green events in your community/on your campus
- Consider placing signage on local recycling bins in parks and community areas
- Co-sponsor dealer cars that are hybrids (this hybrid vehicle is sponsored by – your degree)
- Plant trees in public parks and ask park officials if you can provide signage and educational info next to each area
- Consider running inexpensive cable TV spots on Discovery Channel’s Planet Green
More Ideas from a prior post:
- Add a section to your Website that keeps tabs on the progress your organization makes. Consider a green blog to follow the progress.
- A great reason to Twitter!
- Find those green ambassadors—people who are excited about the cause and will enthusiastically tell your story to everyone they know.
- Do something unique and get the local press to cover it.
If you haven’t produced that YouTube video you’ve been talking about, now’s the perfect time! YouTube just launched a new section specifically for colleges and universities, called YouTube Edu. From complete courses to campus events to information about schools, this distinct channel will make it easier for potential students to find you.
From a branding perspective, you can use this channel to create a video viewbook or video news releases. For those in online learning, it provides a great venue for demonstrating how online learning works. And, of course, student success stories are more impactful in video than print. Going green on campus? Why not share some of the activity with a video diary of progress. Plus, this is another channel that can integrate well with your overall social media initiatives on Facebook and Twitter. As video continues to grow in the online space, it will become a mainstream component of our education marketing strategies moving forward.
Today, the competition in higher education is growing faster than ever before. Think about it. You are competing with rising tuition costs, a recession, the growth of online education, and the “mobile” student (with multiple target segments beyond the traditional student of yesterday). At the same time, many students are choosing quick certification training in steady growth areas like medical, rather than pursuing 4-year degrees.
No matter which student audiences you target, everyone has the same problem: How can we differentiate our institution from the others? A great place to start is with a brand story. According to the (book) “A brand’s story puts a face on a brand, adds a personal touch and can bring a brand to life.”
Beyond the unique story of your college or university, here are a few questions to get you thinking about how your brand is distinctive:
What does your school (brand) stand for?
What are the key/core benefit messages for your brand?
What are your brand principles (top 5 ideals to live by)?
How is your school different?
What is your unique value proposition?
What is your brand promise?
How is your institution perceived by students, parents, alumni & contributors?
By consistently communicating the brand message, you can reinforce the distinctive and unique brand assets that make your school different. And, as part of an overall integrated marketing plan, it can lead to increased awareness and drive enrollment.
If you work in marketing and communications for a college or university, you know the value of social media. However, sometimes it can be challenging to convince others at your organization the importance of integrating social media into the overall strategic marketing plan. Perhaps you have been looking for some quantifiable research to back up your ongoing argument to increase the social networking and blogging for your institution. Well, look no further! Our friends at The Nielson Company have released a comprehensive report that “reveals the new global footprint of social networking.”
Click here to read the Nielsen article and download a PDF report.
The report states that over two-thirds of the global online population visits member communities, which includes both social networks and blogs. In fact, “member communities” has now surpassed personal email, and claimed its spot as the fourth most popular online category. And, according to the report, it is growing twice as fast as the other four sectors (search, portals, PC software and email).
Other key findings pulled directly from the report include:
- One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.
- The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age: the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “Member Community” Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).
- Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. Nielsen found UK mobile Web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19 percent in the US (10.6 million people). These numbers are a big increase over last year – up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the US.
So, now you are armed with the marketing research you need to justify your social media mission. See you on Facebook!
This won’t come as a surprise to the “for-profit” schools out there that have based their enrollment management procedures around rapid, personalized response from highly trained enrollment counselors. The model works well for several reasons, many of which have been validated in a recent survey of nearly 2,000 prospective students.
From an enrollment perspective, the research shows that a speedy response to student inquiries is important, but it doesn’t replace an engaging discussion with an enrollment counselor who can explain how their particular offering addresses the student’s specific needs and concerns. Sound familiar? This is a basic marketing principle in which we demonstrate to potential customers how they can benefit from a specific product or service. It’s further proof that selling education is becoming more “productized” than ever before.
The lesson is simple: be sure to have your core brand messages clearly defined and that everyone in your institution understands why and how to utilize them. From answering the phone to greeting students (in person, on campus), to writing personalized emails to prospective students, don’t forget the attributes that make your college or school unique. Speed and personalized attention is expected, however, telling your differentiated brand story in a compelling way is what can make you distinctive in the mind of a future student
So, answer inquires quickly with a high level of personalization, and focus on what makes your offering unique and relevant to each student.
Many schools fear the cost of “branding,” especially right now. But over the long term, effective branding initiatives can actually save money. How? I’m so glad you asked.
By establishing core messages and communicating them consistently, you can make an impact on your audience faster than sending fragmented, inconsistent messages (which can be more costly to create and disseminate). If you are consistently sending out the core brand message over and over, you will spend less money reinforcing the message in the long run.
Another way consistent branding saves money? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every year with another branding initiative. Stick to the core brand messages that differentiate your school—those shouldn’t change (unless you make significant changes to your school that warrants a rebranding program). I should clarify that your ad campaign can change year-after-year to keep the message fresh, but the essence of the brand generally remains the same. We can freshen it up, update it, but the personality of your institution is timeless.
