Mastering the art of university marketing

Read the full original piece here: https://afterdigital.co.uk/blog/the-evolving-marketing-landscape-for-universities/

With growing internationalisation, the changes to fee legislation, e-learning and increased competition from institutes of all kinds from across the world, universities have been forced to adapt. Consequently, universities are becoming more and more commercially aware, with marketing designed to suit, especially within the realms of international student acquisition.

Digital channels, such as websites and social networks, have not only become essential tools within the higher education (HE) marketing mix, but they've encouraged universities to modernise and consider how they can fine-tune their brand identities to continue to compete within this space.

With such large groups of stakeholders and decision makers across various business entities, one of the major challenges we've seen is for universities to establish ‘who owns digital’ - institutes who are able to identify where this responsibility lies have been able to start their digital transformation and step ahead of the curve. Those who haven't have struggled to achieve buy-in, momentum and success.

On the plus side, one of the biggest changes has been HE institutes starting to ask the right questions internally, meaning they invest in refining their messaging, timing, frequency and channels. In doing so, they've been able to identify areas of intense competition and better resource their internal marketing departments to cope, inviting in expertise from beyond the education sector (such as digital and retail commercial professionals, which aids them in creating more effective strategies).

The past 12 months have seen a considerable uplift in the utilisation of digital tools and technology, with all major UK universities adopting popular social media and many regularly investing in exploring further emerging platforms. Digital is increasingly being used to enhance direct interaction, such as events, with prospective students, as well as to engage existing stakeholders. The more universities can integrate across their physical and digital activity, the greater the opportunity.

An example of a university adopting an effective strategy is the University College of Football Business (UCFB). UCFB has shown huge growth in a short period of time. They’ve achieved this through a connected vision, which understands that the decision of where to go to university is an emotional one, as well as a logical and practical one. Basing themselves at Wembley and The Etihad shows their prospective students that they are immersed in the sport - they ‘walk the walk’ so to speak. A key advantage to their strategy is the ability to set up their marketing team ready for the modern HE marketing needs. For example, they are not carrying a legacy set-up, which has allowed them to build a team focused heavily on digital channels and agility.

As with any sector, the key is to truly understand your market and audiences, and then present user-centric messages in appropriate ways (considering the context of consumption).

Here's just a few of our top tips:

• Don’t accept old assumptions on who your audiences are and how they research your offering. Test, test and test again - revise and upgrade in line with test results. And, remember that your 'consumers' have lifecycles just like any others.
• Be user-first, not organisation-first. We commonly see universities structuring their messaging and websites according to organisational structure and using internal terminology (i.e. structuring websites by Faculty and business area and using terms like 'undergraduate' as core CTAs). This causes barriers to entry for your users - remember that your marketing and website are key acquisition tools.
• You operate in a global market, be global in your approach. The BRICS market is maturing fast - the next big market growth is in the rest of Africa.
• Never underestimate the value of investing in student satisfaction - yes, it’s more of a long-term strategy, but students look for metrics like these when applying to universities. It can also pay dividends when it comes to meeting funding criteria.
• Unless you are a research-led university then focus on other key strengths & core product offers in order to engage with the current and prospective students.
• Pay real attention to the various user journeys students may take to reach your applications ensuring they are consistent, meaningful, and engaging from the start to the end.
• Don’t be risk-averse. Untangling from legacy systems and processes can seem daunting, but failure to change will guarantee failure.
• Ensure all faculties, departments and schools cooperate to drive user engagement. Too often we see inter-university rivalries eating budget, driving PPC costs up and resulting in faculties spending more money than they need to by competing against each other. You need to be smarter than this - make your budgets go further by working harmoniously together. Join the dots internally to ensure your students and prospective students get a seamless experience.
• Value your alumni - the work we did with University of Southampton, for example, has driven increased engagement with their alumni, creating valuable brand ambassadors, whilst also resulting in significant (hundreds of thousands) business operation savings.

The above is just a small insight into some of our learnings over the fascinating education projects we’ve worked on. Learn more about our experience in the education sector here.

See some of our comments featured in University Business Magazine here.