Marketing new programs: Shaping your plan

One of the most exciting projects for any marketing professional would be the opportunity to build a new brand from scratch. While few of us will get to do this for an entire organization, new institutional programs create a unique opportunity to stretch our creative muscles with a fresh challenge.

Once you've done the preliminary research on your new initiative, it's time to build the plan to get the word out and cultivate interest in your product. A textbook marketing plan is typically broken down into Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics (or GOST). It's easy to get caught up in the strategies and tactics, applying the techniques that have been successful for other projects. But for your best chance for a successful launch, you'll want to start first by establishing the ultimate goals and objectives for the program.

Goals. Typically a new program will be designed with one long-term, primary outcome in mind. It's even possible that the program might be a part of a larger organizational goal. For example, if your law school's strategic plan included the goal of becoming "the nation's leading program for intellectual property," the new LL.M. in Intellectual Property program you've been asked to promote might be a part of that bigger plan. When building your marketing plan, one way to help define this goal is to ask the program director what success looks like five years from now. In the case of a new LL.M. program, it might to be to become a "high-demand, elite program that distinguishes University Law School in the field of intellectual property."

Objectives. These are the measurable steps you plan to take to achieve your goal. If you will excuse another textbook reference, many professionals like to use a "SMART" approach to writing their objectives:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable/Action-Oriented
• Results-Oriented
• Time-specific

Unlike goals, you may have more than one objective that will guide your communications plan, however it's still best to narrow your objectives to two or three major priorities. For our hypothetical LL.M. program, one marketing objective could be to "Enroll 25 qualified students by year three."

Strategies. Once you've outlined your goals and objectives, you can begin defining the strategies to accomplish your objectives. For our same LL.M. example, strategies for enrolling 25 qualified students could include reaching out to professional organizations for intellectual property lawyers or engaging J.D. alumni who are in the field of intellectual property or took significant coursework in the area.

In my next post, I'll cover tactics and implementation of your marketing plan, including building timelines for you and your campus clients.

Image by Carmen Alexis, MyMarketor.com

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.

How social media hasn't changed #highered PR

There's no question that the social media revolution has radically altered the way we communicate in our professional and personal lives, particularly for those of us who work in higher ed marketing and public relations. But though technology has introduced amazing new tools for accomplishing our goals and objectives, many of the fundamental rules of how we work haven't changed:

1. Strong communication skills still matter. Core to any professional communicator's craft is the ability to write, edit and verbalize concise, cogent messages in a way that's relevant to their target audience. Whether you're writing a news release or posting a social media update, the classic adage of BLUF ("Bottom Line Up Front") remains true regardless of the medium.
2. Good relationships still matter. While the academic theory regarding organization-public relationships primarily developed in the 1990s, many of the core public relations principles developed by AT&T's Arthur W. Page in the 1930s–40s would make a good foundation for any communications strategy involving social or traditional media today. Social media makes it easier to establish relationships for a longer period, and the comments shared about us will have a more-lasting impact as well.
   
3. High ethical standards still matter. As an extension of point #2, the ability to establish trust is key in maintaining good long-term relationships in our interpersonal interactions (on- and off-line) and in our mass communications. Organizations have always been expected to have good customer service — to be authentic, transparent and responsive in their communications — and social media only highlights the actions of those institutions who don't value the people they serve.

What other core skills and abilities do you consider to be timeless in higher ed communications?

Marketing to those who hate marketing: Bling

A professor showed me a clever piece the other day with a simple diagonal die-cut that was accordion-folded for five panels, creating an attractive and interesting zig-zag effect. He hated it.

"Too showy, not serious enough," he described. He saved it as an example of what not to do when targeting faculty.

Tip #2: Forget the bells and whistles. For every person who gives a "wow—that's cool" reaction to an interesting publication shape or feature, you're likely to get two or more who respond with "wow—what a waste of tuition dollars." Depending on the purpose of the piece and your audience, some things can stand out in the mail for all the wrong reasons. Lenticular printing, die cuts, giveaways and other tactics may help distinguish a direct mail piece, but in a time when IHE budgets are being tightened nationwide, budget-conscious recipients may discount your institution's fiscal responsibility.

Solid message development and creative design doesn't require printed bling to be effective. Even if you've got the budget for such tactics, spending those funds on other applications is likely to give you much more bang for the buck.

Marketing to those who hate marketing: Why?

I think I may have put the cart before the horse on my last post by diving straight into tactics before strategy. So let's answer the bigger question: What's the point of marketing to groups who hate marketing?

First, let me better define marketing in this context. The first reference to marketing is what we do: developing and communicating programs that provide value to our defined markets. The second reference to marketing refers to advertising tactics meant to persuade individuals to buy a product or service.

There are two major audiences in graduate and professional schools who usually have disdain for traditional advertising: Gen Y students who value authenticity and academics who value substance over style. Notice any similarities?

Thankfully, the strategic approach for addressing both of these groups is the same. Be straightforward. Don't let form get in the way of function. And if you work for a great institution with solid academic programs, the best thing we can do is share its story without diluting the impact with tactics that could backfire (which is what the rest of this series will cover).

Related posts:

• Marketing to those who hate marketing: Gloss

Everyday adventures in managing Facebook pages

Much has been written on how to set up university Facebook pages, how to handle crises (both literal and virtual) on Facebook, and why we should have all have a presence on Facebook in the first place. However on most days, the management of an institutional Facebook page is much less dramatic.

Here are a few tips about the more routine issues that have come across my desk(top) in the past week:

• Plan for the grey area. Decide in advance, if possible, where you want to draw the lines for spam, negative posts and other related issues, then post guidelines in your Notes section to inform your fan community. You might want to allow local businesses to offer special discounts to your students, or you might choose to bar all advertising. Some negative comments are inevitable in social media, but when will you stop someone who is hijacking your page? Posting guidelines can set ground rules for the entire community and make future decisions much easier. Take a look at other higher ed Fan pages for examples; we really liked the University of Kansas comments policy when developing ours. If possible, get your legal counsel's buy-in before you post.
• Differentiate your voice from your institution's. While the common wisdom is to use a personal tone on institutional social media channels, never forget that you're still representing the institution. When our parent university asked a question about a legal term, I first feared that my answer would appear as the Voice of The Law School speaking on The Law. Since I'm not a lawyer, this could have been a dangerous role for me to fill. Thankfully, answering this question on the university's Facebook page with my regular profile identity worked out well—I could explain the answer, my source, and my role in an appropriate context.
• Be clever. While I wouldn't advise posting jokes when speaking for your institution, showing a little wit every now and then can be fun. A news item about a best-selling author lecturing on how lawyers could pursue writing careers prompted another recent speaker (Craig, also an author and journalist, but not a lawyer) to respond with the following exchange:
  
  I would have let the first statement go had it been from any random fan. But since this person's identity wasn't clear to the other fans, I chose to help the conversation along. In this instance, speaking as a straight-laced institution (with a dose of marketing language) showed some personality in a way that shouldn't offend even the most nervous college administrator. (Note: I don't advise using a marketing tone in most social media interactions.)
  
• Monitor others' use of Facebook in crisis communications. God-willing, none of us will never have to use our social media channels to communicate the threat of an active shooter on our campuses. But it's always wise to follow the Boy Scouts mantra and be prepared. Following the actions of other institutions in crisis via Facebook or Twitter can be valuable training. Check out Jessica Krywosa's .eduGuru post on "Does Your Campus Security Have a Place in Social Media?" about how the University of Texas at Austin handled their emergency communications on Facebook last week.
  
• Added 10/5: Keep your eyes open for opportunities in unexpected places. Thanks to Andrew Careaga's post on a Facebook fundraising effort to help one of his staff (Mary Helen Stoltz, whose two-year-old daughter is fighting brain cancer), I discovered FundRazr, a low-cost fundraising app on Facebook that processes PayPal donations. At a glance, it looks like it should work well for individuals as well as universities and other nonprofits. (And if you want to support a fellow higher ed communicator and her beautiful kid through a rough time, donate and test out via FundRazr here.)

How NOT to target your marketing messages

A lot has been said about the Drake University's "D+ advantage" marketing campaign. Stamats offers a good explanation of its recommended strategy (the classic three-option conservative/edgy/"courageous" approach) on its blog, and I applaud the creativity and research that went into investigating on how the message would resonate with its target audience: college-bound teens.

Drake administrators learned a hard lesson when its other audiences (faculty, alumni and the news media) picked up on this unusual theme. According to the Associated Press, Drake has scaled back the prominence of the "D+" symbol and in doing so its president noted that "we learn from our experiences."

Drake is far from being the only university to struggle with the balance between appealing to younger audiences while not alienating other important groups. I've witnessed many battles of this kind over my career. Most IHEs are critically dependent on undergraduate tuition, and it's easy to forget the interests of others when targeting this all-important teen audience.

As fun as it is to develop a campaign that's outside the box, good communicators need to always think of how their messages will be received by peripheral audiences. What works for college-bound teens could have a much worse effect on the potential applicant pool for graduate and professional schools. The negative waves among academics might even be reflected in the U.S. News peer reputation surveys (and the graduate school ones are expected to be out shortly).

So how can university marketing departments successfully navigate these murky waters?

• Never forget your overall brand. No advertising trend or campaign should ever contradict your institution's bigger brand strategy. Some universities have a culture that value being on the creative edge of society, while others are steeped in tradition. Most have a complex blend of diverse perspectives.
• Consider the worst case scenario, then decide if it matters. Changing the tone of your copy or the style of your layout on communication vehicles that are specific to your audience are unlikely to affect other audiences greatly. Building an entire marketing campaign around a joke is a bit more risky. Determine how much risk you can assume with negative reactions from others, and mitigate those risks if necessary.
• When in doubt, ask around. If you're not sure about how others might perceive your concept, just ask. Take advantage of the good relationships you've built with your counterparts around campus to get their candid feedback before you launch your new campaign. One of my favorite ad concepts for an NFL program (pictured) was rejected because my university has been investigating bringing back non-scholarship football after a nearly 60-year hiatus. One could argue that the ad would still work and draw attention, but it didn't pass the "is it worth it?" test.
  

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.

DOs and DON'Ts of building a great virtual tour

My office just launched our first multimedia virtual tour, complete with 360-degree photos, audio and video clips from our beautiful campuses. My web editor did a fantastic job of managing the project, and I'm thrilled with the results.

In a tight economy where fewer prospective students can afford to travel to potential graduate schools, a good online tour can improve your recruiting efforts with long-distance prospects. Multimedia features can provide a rich glimpse of life at your institution and transport students into your campus experience. Here are my tips on developing a great virtual tour:

• DO start with great photography. Any online tour, multimedia or not, requires great photography. You can have all the technical bells and whistles in the world, but if the photography is weak, you might be better off not having a tour at all. Our 2008 redesign of our website included a photo tour with large, striking images of campus, and such tours can usually be designed in-house with the same images you use for other marketing materials.
  
• DON'T just consider higher ed vendors. Even though we found our vendor has done some work for a few higher ed institutions, most of their work had been for hospitals and travel destinations. The quality of their work was very competitive with the major higher ed tour firms, but the prices were within our budget.
  
• DO plan your photoshoot carefully. In addition to following the typical rules for photoshoot planning, consider the implications of working in a different format. A traditional photo that showcases an entire building and expansive horizon might not work in a 360-degree format, which may make the building look small in proportion to the sky and other natural features.
• DON'T add technical bling for its own sake. A talking cartoon tour guide or student voiceover might seem cool at first, but such features can get annoying very, very quickly. If multimedia features don't add meaning to the experience, don't add them.
• DO consider off-campus locations. As I already mentioned, virtual tours can be very important for prospective students outside your geographic area. By definition, those students will need to know more about life outside your campus. Highlight attractive areas in your local community, and include hotspots that show more details about professional, cultural or recreational opportunities.
  

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.

I want a new website for my department. Now what?

It's an increasingly rare request: to start a new website from scratch for a department. Redesigns, yes. Website expansions, all the time. New landing pages for marketing, of course. But creating a new site for a department or program that has lived without one for the past 15 years since the World Wide Web went mainstream? Not so much.

Yet as I've recently began the thought process for educating a program director on how to build a good website, it has become a good refresher on the foundational concepts that we all should be considering when working on any Web project:

1. What do you want your website to do, and who do you want it to serve? Go no further until you can answer these questions. Every other decision streams from knowing what goals you want your site to accomplish and for whom.
   
2. What content should the site include? Since most websites serve first as informational resources to outside audiences, it's good to assess what you're already publishing for these groups. Do you have print brochures, news releases, advertisements or information on other websites about your program? For example, an academic program might not already have its own stand-alone site, but the program's faculty may already have their own biographical sites. If there are frequently asked questions that your program receives via phone, that information may also help guide the content of the site. Do remember to include a description of what the department/program does, the main contact information, and the physical location.
   
3. What information or functions are most important? Use the answers to #1 and #2 to develop the information architecture of the page. A good website sets priorities and communicates them to the user. Trying to clutter too many links on a program's home page confuses users and ultimately will make your entire site less effective.
   
4. Once you build it, who will maintain it? Building a website creates the responsibility for keeping its information current and accurate. Who will handle that responsibility? Will they be trained in maintaining the information themselves, or will they need to work with someone who already has that knowledge? How often should the site's information be reviewed and updated? A department that has survived this long without a website may not appreciate the long-term commitment they represent. Websites are not one-time projects that season as they age; their owners must preserve their content lest they rot.
   

Maximizing Your Photo Budget, Part 2: Avoiding the Cover Photo Curse

You have found the perfect cover picture. It has interesting composition, beautiful lighting, and blends nicely with your approved design. The publication is on its way to the printer, and then it happens.

The student quits school, and your dean wants the photo replaced.

You've just been struck by the cover photo curse. It happens to the best of publications (see also Sports Illustrated), and can wreak havoc on the nerves of editors and designers alike. There are often reasonable arguments for keeping the cursed photos, as most external audiences would never know the stories of the photo subjects in our stock images. Depending on the stage of production, changing the photo can be costly as well. However if it's not too late to replace such photos, we'll usually be expected to do so.

So how can higher ed communicators avoid the photo jinx?

• For featured students, get high-level approvals before getting their portrait. I love to get recommendations for "poster students" from faculty and administrators, as many of the professors who are hesitant about responding to other marketing/media inquiries will go out of their way to promote their favorite students. But before I move forward, I always run the names past our dean, student life director, registrar and honor court adviser. The e-mail typically goes like this: "If there is any reason—and I don't need to know why—this student shouldn't be prominently featured in our marketing, let me know."
  
  
• For favorite candid shots, share them early with your dean. If you're using a photojournalistic style of photography, by definition you're not staging the shots in advance. Instead, share your favorite new shots with the leadership before you get too attached.
  
  
• Plan your shots with high-achieving students, if you can. Certain groups of students, such as competitive teams, honors classes or admissions/alumni ambassadors, go through a screening process to become a part of the group. While this approach is far from foolproof, your chances of photographing someone who might get into trouble are decreased.
  
  
• Aim for more seasoned students. Students in their first semester or first year of classes (depending on the duration of the degree program) may still be learning the ropes of graduate school and may choose another path. I once featured a first-year law student who was at the top of his class on a full-tuition scholarship, but left to pursue a career in film production.
  

In the end, there is sometimes nothing you can do to avoid the photo curse. Superstitions aside, life happens to all of us, and the graduate school years are often a time of transition. But with a little planning, we can mitigate our risks.

Recognizing your bias in social media

As university communicators, we're paid to love and promote our institutions. We not only read our own press; we write it. Even though we all know that our colleges and universities aren't perfect, we wouldn't thrive in our positions if we didn't believe in the mission and leadership of our organizations.

This professional bias leads us to tread a difficult line when it comes to social media. If we're doing a good job of monitoring our brand online, we will inevitably see something negative at some point. Jessica Krywosa at the .eduGuru blog authored a post on her recent experience with negative Facebook comments, which also includes helpful comments on handling such issues.

But beyond our official social media channels also lies a wide range of forums, blogs and other social resources in which our institutions have no voice. Yes, we could respond as individuals to negative attacks when we see them on discussion forums or blogs, but we need to resist the urge to do so lightheartedly or in the heat of the moment. Most readers will immediately discredit comments that smell like they've been authored by a company representative. Some social media sources specifically ban biased responses (i.e., Wikipedia). At bare minimum, PR-sounding responses will be unwelcome in most any online community.

Most professional communicators know to pause and think before responding publicly to negative press. But while marketing professionals may know these protocols, we must remember that everyone in our organizations has the same publishing access to social media that we do. Not only do we need to be disciplined and not act prematurely, we must educate our internal audiences about these issues as well.

Have you hugged your university PR office today?

I *heart* my university marketing and advancement colleagues.

This weekend, we celebrated the inauguration of our ninth president at the main university campus. A month ago, we met up at the CASE III regional conference. Both events provided a great opportunity to reunite in person, to catch up on office happenings and each others' lives.

My law school campus resides across the state from our main university campus. It's a 2-3 hour drive to see colleagues who do our same jobs, for our same institution. We may e-mail each other periodically, we may virtually collaborate on projects, and we may even follow each other on Twitter. But it's no replacement for seeing your counterparts in person, especially if you've never met in the physical world.

When working in a decentralized environment, it's easy for some to adopt an "us" and "them" mentality, even if the feeling is not adversarial. An over-dependence on online communications doesn't help, removing the context and personality required to build interpersonal relationships. While I have a long history with my parent university, other colleagues haven't had the benefit of studying and working on our main campus or on university-wide committees.

These relationships are important not only for project collaboration, but also for less tangible reasons: cameraderie, shared perspectives and institutional knowledge, to name a few. We have great things to learn from each other. Find opportunities to meet in person, whether you work across a campus, city or state. It's one of your most important networks, and it's always worth developing.

Have you heard about the census?

In case you missed the billboards, television, radio, print, online or direct mail advertising, there's a census going on! Many are growing tired of the $133-million campaign designed to increase survey return rates. It's a consistently branded message with high saturation, and for heavy media consumers, those messages can be hard to escape.

Those of us who work in higher ed, particularly in marketing communications, can experience similar saturation with our own brand messages. The same color palettes, the same typeface families, the same look on brochures and print collateral, the same Web design. Even if there is latitude in the brand's application among different audiences and demographics, the consistency of a well-managed brand can feel boring for those who live it every day.

For some, the temptation to revamp brand guidelines every 2-3 years can be great. But right around the time we want to abandon the design ship, that's when our outside audiences are just beginning to identify and recognize our look. This impact is magnified in Web site designs, where it takes time for users to grow accustomed to the placement and organization of links and content.

No, we shouldn't let our designs to become dull and dated. The key is to take a balanced approach in adding fresh elements while staying true to the core brand imagery. Sophisticated designers and strong creative directors can maintain this balance; we just need to keep reminding ourselves and our internal counterparts that we are not our own target audience.

Protect Your Brand From Yourself

Google. Apple. Toyota. These strong brands have suffered some powerful blows in the past few months. Business and marketing pundits much smarter than I have offered explanations of what went wrong, but here are a few thoughts I've taken away:

• Don't forget who brought you to the party (aka don't forget the strengths that differentiate you). Google grew into the giant it is by creating powerful tools with simple, user-friendly interfaces. Then came the confusing Wave, and the jury's still out on Buzz. Both applications seemed to have great potential in Google's introductory presentations. However once you start using these tools, filling them with content and conversation, they become cluttered and complicated. Simplicity is what differentiated Google from its competitors in the beginning, and I can't help but be disappointed that this trait hasn't carried over into its newer products.
  Higher ed takeaway: Don't get so caught up in new trends and ideas that you forget your core strengths.
  
• Don't forget the power of a name. The hype over Apple's newest device included speculation over names: iTablet, iSlate, etc. So what were they thinking when they developed the unfortunate name, iPad? No one needed to be reminded of that bad MadTV sketch. (You would think that Apple's research could have at least caught that tidbit, even if their focus groups were too embarrassed to say so.)
  Higher ed takeaway: Try to find fault with advertising taglines and brand messages before someone else does. Take them out of context, and don't be afraid to look them up in the Urban Dictionary.
• Don't get caught up in your own press. Toyota's reputation for reliable cars was a hallmark of its brand, but two major recalls have required them to shut down production to address the problem. Did Toyota get complacent? No one is immune from mistakes, no matter how good they are.
  Higher ed takeaway: Be humble, and like Toyota, don't be afraid to apologize when necessary.
  

Embracing the early majority

This is my phone. It is not smart. It does not come with a data plan. I cannot buy apps, use Foursquare, or listen to music on it. There is nothing cool about it, but it suits my lifestyle (and budget) just fine.

I realize that mobile marketing is predicted to become the next big thing. I know that one day, I will need to have a better phone to keep up with my target audiences. But not just yet.

I am a proud member of the early majority. Diffusion of innovations theory, which examines the acceptance of new ideas and technology in a population, describes five major categories of consumers: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.

In a world where devices are getting smaller and social media channels are getting bigger, it's easy to get caught up in the desire to innovate. To focus more on the tools, and less on how they can help achieve specific goals. At the same time, most everyone in higher ed is being asked to do more with less.

The key is to find the intersection where technology and effectiveness meet.

Take the cell phone example. My school's Web stats indicate that less than 2 percent of our visits come from mobile devices. Should we ignore this growing group of users? No. At bare minimum, we should watch these numbers and examine our sites on mobile devices. But does that mean that we should also develop a parallel mobile Web site, iPhone apps, and mobile fundraising campaigns?

With with limited resources, a smart PR office must set priorities. It's easy to get caught up in the hype of new tools, or to feel like you're behind the curve if you're not using them. Yes, many can improve your communications toolbox at an individual or institutional level, but only if you know what you're doing and why. Too often, people talk about creating social media accounts or building applications because everyone else is.

It's wise to watch trends in higher ed marketing, to know your audiences, and to modestly invest time into experimenting with new tools. Follow the innovators and early adopters, and learn from their successes and mistakes. Do your homework, think strategically, and adopt new technologies when they will best address your institution's needs.