Marketing new programs: A 5-W checklist to get started

If you've worked in higher education for more than six months, it's likely you've also been approached to help market a new program. Whether it's a new event, course, student service or even a degree program, you'll first want to answer these fundamental questions to help define your product before you start building your marketing campaign.

What is it? This is usually the easiest question to answer initially, but go deeper:

• Has everything been approved by the necessary individuals or departments? 
• Can changes be made for the program or project to be more marketable? 
• Should any information remain private?

Who is involved, and who will benefit?

• Who are the target audiences for the program?
• Are there strategic partners who can help promote or sponsor the effort?
• Who are your competitors?
• Who can help reach these audiences (media outlets, professional organizations)?
• Who are the key individuals who can provide insight in reaching your target audience?
• Will your program create opportunities for participants to build their networks? 

When? To build your campaign timeline, it often helps to work backward from when the program will launch or the date of the event. Here are a few other things to consider:

• How much time will your target audience need to decide to participate? ...to apply?  ...to RSVP?
• How much time is available to get the word out to your audience? Is this realistic?
• Do you need an early incentive (for example, early registration discounts) to gauge interest?
• How late can people respond and still participate?
• What scheduling obstacles might your audience experience? These could range from general family or work obligations to incidental conflicts such as competing events, weather or traffic.

Where? 

• Is your location obvious or easy to find?
• Does your location have a built-in target audience?
• Are there nearby competitors for your program or event?
• For new events, is the space conducive to achieving your communication goals (such as audience engagement or interaction)?

And most importantly, why? The success of your new program will often depend on your answers to these questions. 

• Why should your audience participate in this program?
• What distinguishes your program from others of its kind?
• Can your new initiative help solve a developing or unique problem?

Working through these questions with your campus clients will help define your market, the messages and approaches to resonate with your target audience, and anticipate potential problems.

Favorite tactic: The annual 1L student focus group

It's no secret that good marketing requires knowing your audience, and you can't really know your audience without researching it.

For many higher ed communicators, research can feel like a complicated, time-consuming task. However I've found that scheduling at least one focus group with our first-year students every spring can yield rich feedback that inspires my planning for the rest of the year. Here is how I make the most of it:

• Strategically select your sample. Our primary marketing audience is prospective law students, but gathering these students—let alone getting candid answers from them—isn't always practical. The next best thing is to gather 8-10 highly qualified first-year students who can still remember the process and are already on your campus. We want the opinions of those who "shopped around" and were accepted to multiple schools, so I invite students from a geographically diverse sample with high admissions statistics.
  
• Ensure good attendance. Plan the focus group at a time when many are available, along with a small incentive for attending (we find that providing a decent lunch works well). Draft an attention-grabbing email message that lets the sample know that your institution values their opinions and will use their feedback when making future decisions.
• Find a fair moderator. The moderator should have some distance from the topics being discussed while still understanding the goals of the research. The person should be friendly and warm, able to spark conversation and get the participants comfortable with sharing their opinions.
  
• Ask about media consumption. What resources did they refer to when selecting what schools to apply to? What media outlets do they find most credible? What helped them make their final decision? How did they first become interested in your institution?
  
• Let them review your current tactics. Show the group ads and publications that are being targeted to prospective students. What messages resonate? What doesn't work? How do your tactics compare with those of the other schools they applied to? Don't forget to include your website in the discussion.
• Test out new ideas. Bring samples of new concepts to get their first impressions. Probe into why certain ideas have more impact than others.

While this research approach won't yield scientific or generalizable results, it can go a long way to giving you deeper insights into what those close to your target audience wants for the cost of lunch catering and a few hours of staff time.

Higher ed marketing lessons from my Disney vacation

Note: Sorry for the temporary hiatus in blogging. I'll be catching up on some posts over the next few weeks and returning to my weekly schedule in the new year.

After surviving an intense blitz of fall publication production, I spent a week in November with my family at Walt Disney World in Orlando. While I did manage to set aside all things internet, it was hard to turn off the marketer inside—especially when you're immersed in an experience designed by some of the most creative minds in a generation. Here are a few tidbits:

• Have you hugged your physical plant today? If you're charging a premium for your services (private universities, I'm talking to you), your visitors expect your campus to be attractive and well-maintained. A dedicated grounds/maintenance staff, with the funds to do their job well, can make an important difference in recruitment during the all-important campus visit.
• Every employee represents the brand. From the first security officer to the switchboard operator to your campus CEO, each employee plays an important role in representing your brand. How each staffer treats others is immediately noticed by those who visit. It doesn't matter what your marketing materials say about being a friendly, accessible campus if your front-line staff don't live it out through their daily interactions.
• Measure for continuous improvement. Even if you're at the top of your game, how do you stay there? Research. Disney systematically places researchers at their entrance/exit to survey visitors. While it's tough to afford high-end professional research on a regular basis, there are low-cost options for measuring opinions if we make it a priority.

Developing a brand strategy: In-house or outsource?

A colleague at another law school asked a good question in a LinkedIn group last week: "What is the best way to (re)discover or redefine your core values? Did you use a consultant or handle it in-house, and would you do it that way again?"

Great question, and since I've been short on extra time for blogging, I thought I'd share part of my answer here:

The starting point for assessing your brand identity is research with your key audiences (students, faculty, staff and alumni) to get a broader understanding than your own to help define the values. The research component is often why many places outsource this process, as independence (and sometimes investment, unfortunately) can add credibility to the results. If you anticipate that tough decisions will need to be made, an external group might be advisable as well (so that if the messenger gets shot, at least it won't be you). Research is now much easier to do in-house with online surveys and focus groups if you have someone who understands research methods well.

By analyzing your research along with your school's mission and values statements and the market environment, you can then move onto the more tangible pieces (logo, tagline, colors, ads/publications/website). Those pieces should also be tested with your key audiences along the way.

If you've got the talent in-house to accomplish the above, the top-down buy-in for your ultimate strategy, and (perhaps most importantly) ample time to devote to the project, then internal brand development may be an option for you.

Social media and the hype cycle

I've long been an advocate for thinking practically about social media. While it's always interesting to follow the latest trends and how leading consultants apply them to higher education, the bottom line is that we all have limited resources, and we have to use them judiciously.

Enter the Gartner life cycle, a (pretty accurate) model developed by an IT research firm of the same name:

Social media is still seen by many as a trend, and some skeptics go so far to argue that it's a fad. The hype cycle helps provide some context for how new technologies are often perceived, as well as hints on when organizations should adopt them. Here are my takeaways from this model:

• Don't get caught up in the hype. It's tempting to ride the hype wave, only to suffer some damage to your credibility when disillusionment sets in. Manage your client's expectations (as well as your own) when working in new media environments.
• Be prepared to address the uncertainties. Do your homework before recommending new tools, and think of how you might deal with potential pitfalls. If you don't know what those pitfalls might be, hold back.
• Watch the adoption rates. As technologies become more mainstream, time will tell if they are worth adopting. Not every technology will coast through the enlightenment/productivity curve, but as more people in your audiences adopt them you'll have a better idea of which ones will fit into your media mix.

What Web development languages are colleges using?

Earlier this year, I surveyed the University Web Developers listserv about Web development languages. Here are the long-overdue results:

What Web development languages do you use at your college or university?

1. PHP (77.1%)
2. JScript (38.6%)
   
3. Perl (31.3%)
   
4. Cold Fusion (25.3%)
5. ASP Classic/VBScript (22.9%)
6. Java (21.7%)
7. ASP.net/VB.net (18.1%)
8. Python (16.9%)
9. Ruby on Rails (14.5%)
   
10. C#.net (9.6%)
11. JSP (9.6%)
    
12. Other (6.0%)

What Web development languages do you think will be mainstream five years from now?

1. PHP (81.9%)
2. Java (43.4%)
   
3. Ruby on Rails (38.6%)
   
4. ASP.net/VB.net (36.1%)
   
5. JScript (34.9%)
   
6. C#.net (25.3%)
   
7. Python (24.1%)
   
8. Perl (18.1%)
   
9. JSP (14.5%)
   
10. Cold Fusion (13.3%)
    
11. Other (8.4%)
12. ASP Classic/VBScript (3.6%)

The survey was completed in July 2009 by 83 university Web developers. Yes, we recognize that we can't really foresee what might be around in five years, but for the purposes of planning now, this survey was extremely helpful. Thanks to my trusty Web developer Russ Wright and to all who participated!

P.S. To the Web developers reading this...do you agree with these five-year projections, and if so, what factors keep the language around?

Got no respect? Get research!

One of the pleasures of working in a university is the intellectual atmosphere, knowledgeable professors and talented administrators. Education is valued (obviously), and experts abound. Communication professionals without terminal degrees can face a challenge in getting their voices heard, even when it comes to our own areas of expertise.

While it's widely accepted that research is a marketing best practice, research takes a special place in higher education. Just as research informs teaching, it also informs good marketing—and academics respect it. Relevant research will instantly add credibility to any recommendation. Many people, academics or not, think that marketing is just good common sense, so research is particularly important if you're going against the prevailing opinion of someone with more academic credentials (even if those credentials aren't related to marketing).

Here are some low-cost ways to do your own marketing research:

• Online surveys: Gone are the days of expensive paper mailings with time-intensive data entry. There are a number of free and low-cost online survey programs (SurveyMonkey is my tool of choice) that make survey research a cinch. For quick questions, Twtpoll is another helpful resource that you can post on Twitter or forward to e-mail lists.
  
• In-house focus groups: For more in-depth information on a topic, focus groups are the way to go. There are many resources online about how to conduct them, and aside from staff time and refreshments, they're pretty inexpensive to conduct if you're not outsourcing it. (Not knocking professional research firms, who provide a great independent service if your institution can afford it.) The key is to have someone who is not invested in the project leading the group, so that your results aren't biased.
• Peer research/consultation: Discussion forums or professional e-mail lists can provide a great place to poll your peers about their experiences and best practices in a given situation. CASE coordinates lists for a number of higher ed specialties (my favorites are the College/University Editors group University Web Developer groups).
• Award competition Web sites: Check these out to get a quick overview of best practices in a variety of communications categories. While it's helpful to see examples of the best tactics out there, the real gold can be found in judges reports. These reports can provide an overview of the best—and sometimes worst—strategies.