University CMO Blog

How University Vice President of Communications And Content Strategy Leadership Roles Are Likely To Change

The following is a guest blog post by David Dalka who is presently a search engine marketing and content strategy management consultant available to assist the President’s Office in creating effective university content strategies.

Over the past decade the traditional role of VP of Communications has remained relatively unchanged while the world of content and media has changed dramatically, including:

User Generated Content – Organizations and individuals can now create content online with written content in blogs (like this one), videos on sites like Youtube, photo sharing sites like Flickr and social networking sites like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.

Search Engines Have Changed Content Distribution – Opportunities for high rankings in organic listings in search engines like Google have created opportunities to transform regional universities into internationally known brands. To achieve this, VP of Communications leaders must possess both search engine optimization, content strategy and technology and data strategy skills and have a clear understanding of the significant transformational elements that these changes can enable.

Ever Increasing Content Volume is Lowering the Relevance of Legacy Channels – Television and radio are competing with the explosion in content on the web and mobile phones. As such, They are becoming less effective advertising mediums over time. Owning your own search engine optimized content on your .edu domain can now compete directly with these legacy media organizations.

Journalists Quantity and Quality at Major News Outlets is Shrinking Rapdily – The implications of this are starting to become clear — most existing news outlets are understaffed and unable to digest traditional press pitches. Many journalists are simply unable read most of their email due to the volume of irrelevant messages. As layoffs mount, decades of relationships with media relations professionals are adversely impacted. The relevancy of traditional media is rapidly dwindling and getting placement in that media is becoming harder due to the shortage of dedicated journalists. Yesterday, Jeff Jarvis of the blog Buzzmachine put together a thoughtful piece that I think is important to understand about how most news starts in the blogosphere and then migrates to the mainstream media.

Newspapers Are Slowly Fading In Both Importance and Quantity – According to some estimates, up to 25% of the nations newspapers may go out of business by 2010. This will crimp what has historically been a primary advertising medium for universities. Demographic shifts indicate that the younger generation does not read magazines and newspapers the way their parents did so this shift is healthy in the long run.

Press Releases Are Directly For The Target Reader As Well As Journalists – Well written press releases now rank in search engines and Internet news aggregators as well as mainstream media content. Acquaintance David Meerman Scott pointed out the following primary themes in his recent book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, he states the following clearly starting on page 25:

* Marketing is more than just advertising.
* PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience.
* You are what you publish.
* People want authenticity, not spin.
* People want participation, not propaganda.
* Instead of causing one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.
* Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the web.
* Pr is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It’s about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.
* Marketing is not about your agency winning awards. It’s about your organization winning business.
* The Internet has made public relation public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media.
* Companies must drive people into the purchasing process with great online content
* Blogs, podcasts, e-books, news releases, and other forms of online content let organizations communicate directly with buyers in a form they appreciate.
* On the web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.

Recent economic trends also play a role in the potential for disruption of the competitive landscape:

Iconic Universities Endowments Have Shrunk Dramatically – Universities like Harvard depend on their endowments for up to 40% of their budget traditionally, many of these types of schools will be in a retrenchment mode rather than aggressively changing media mix to content strategy. Sources have told me that the University of Chicago get 14% of it’s budget from endowments. Upstart universities that get almost none of it’s budget from endowments will be able to be more aggressive in this environment.
Family Budgets Are Stretched Thin, This Change Might Be Permanent – An ING Direct Study released in June of 2008 indicates that families are stretched thin, with one in every five families now dipping into childrens savings that were intended for college to pay bills. This ultimately will increase financial aid demand or reduce demand for college education overall which will put a priority on being the top notch experience and generating student leads at a lower cost than competitors while at teh same time raising the profile of the institution.

“It’s clear that parents are struggling with their expenses during these difficult times, but tapping money put aside for their kids will only exacerbate a family’s problems when it comes time to pay for college,” said Arkadi Kuhlmann, President of ING DIRECT USA, the nation’s largest direct bank.

Changes In Content Distribution Are Enabling Online Universities Success – For profit universities like Strayer and University of Phoenix are demonstrating net income around 20% of revenues. The University of Phoenix can afford luxuries such as financing a 20+ city book tour for Keith Ferrazzi’s new book which debuted at #1 on the New York Times best sellers list that will bring the school massive attention and web currency in the form of discussion and links. MIT is posting lectures and basic class materials on the web as well which may prove to be disruptive. Traditional universities will eventually have to reduce fixed costs to remain competitive.
Poor 2009 Student Job Placement Reports May Affect Future Enrollment – I discussed in a post several years ago my disappointment with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for not having the level of career services and alumni network it advertises in it’s student acquisition brochures. In a transparent world, potential students will likely be more savvy by conducting their own research about overall alumni success than the previous superstar or two that traditionally were profiled will be ignored. Communication of alumni success stories via transparent content strategies will eventually become the most important form of university advertising. Strategic management of those content strategies will replace traditional media spending over the coming years.

The proper leadership individual to be the VP of Communications, Public Relations and Content Strategy will certainly have all of the following attributes:

Individual Will Have World Class Search Engine Optimization Skills
Person Will Understand How to Create Unified Content Strategy
Individual Should Be Passionate About Enabling Student and Alumni Personal Branding
Person Will Be A Well Connected Networker With A Strong Online Presence
Individual Has Been Previously Quoted And Is Comfortable With Both Old and New Media
Person Should Be Focused on Individual and Group Stakeholder Success
Individual Understands Change Management
Person Must Be An Professional Keynote Internet Marketing Speaker
Individual Must Be Comfortable Delegating, Training and Transferring Skills
Person Has To Be Naturally Curious About How Complex Ecosystems Work
Individual Must “Get The Job Done Today”, Yet Be Visionary About Future State
Person Should Be a Leader by Example And Have a Bottom Up Management Style
Individual Has Experience Driving Change in Data Models, Technology and Process Standardization
Person Should Be Able To Execute Well At The 3 Foot Level and 30,000 Foot Level
Individual Must Be A Team Player As Well As Able To Execute Individually
Must Have a Passion for Enabling Entrepreneurship And Positive Community Impact
Individual Has Vision On How Different Divisions Of The School Can Enable Each Others Success
Person Should Have Passion For Effective Spending and Budget Reform
Individual Should Desire to Make Education More Accessible To All
Person Should Embrace New Technology Like Mobile and Digital Signage

This was a guest blog post by David Dalka who is presently a search engine marketing and content strategy management consultant available to assist the President’s Office in creating effective university content strategies.

The College of Santa Fe and How it Communicates These Days

Published December 11, 2008 Global Brand Management , President's Office 2 Comments
Tags: College of Santa Fe, CSF, New Mexico, NMHU

It’s been interesting watching stuff shake down at one of the USA’s most intriguingly independent 4-year schools.

The College of Santa Fe has always been cut from a different cloth. It’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA; so that, to some people, might be all you need to know. It’s an arts school but more than just that.

CSF on Facebook

And, lately, it’s the subject of quite a bit of speculation. The latest, Tuesday night, comes from this post within the Facebook page:

The College of Santa Fe and New Mexico Highlands University are negotiating an agreement that would lead to acquisition of the college by Highlands in time for the fall 2009 semester.

The agreement would assist the College of Santa Fe with its planning for the spring semester, which starts in January, and would require refinancing of the college’s debt by Highlands and approval from the Higher Learning Commission, which accredits both institutions.

“As a result of more comprehensive discussions with Highlands University, I am greatly encouraged about the future of the College of Santa Fe,” said Dr. Stuart C. Kirk, president of CSF. “Highlands’ interest in preserving our creative arts focus while building upon programs that serve the region’s educational needs will provide opportunities for current CSF students as well as Highlands students, and enrich the education landscape of Northern New Mexico.”

This is all rooted in a few things — debt, who will assume the debt, what will the school look like, can it maintain its independence. But it also follows what was a long dance macabre between CSF and Laureate Education, a for-profit educational management group in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Talks broke down between those two groups around Thanksgiving, as was reported in the New Mexican, the paper in Santa Fe. Excerpt:

College of Santa Fe considers becoming a public institution

By John Sena | The New Mexican

11/26/2008

Talks between the College of Santa Fe and a for-profit group have fallen through, and now college officials have called upon Gov. Bill Richardson and the state’s Higher Education Department to consider making it a public institution, the college announced Wednesday.

The college was in talks with Laureate Education Inc., formerly Sylvan Learning Systems, about a deal that would have resulted in the company assuming the college’s debt and funding the college’s operation.

On Wednesday, though, the college announced in an e-mail that wouldn’t happen.

What’s interesting: how CSF has been sharing these messages. Other than having its own Twitter account, the school has pretty much aced the “new media” communications test, sharing often and even sharing the not-so-good news.

For discussion: Are there schools facing crises or difficulties that are doing things exceptionally well via new media? AND would a CSF/NMHU merger create unwieldy challenges for faculty, staff and especially marketers?

Think You’ve Got Your Brand Figured Out? Here’s a High School Counselor’s Take on University Marketing

Published November 13, 2008 Enrollment Management , Global Brand Management Leave a Comment
Tags: Brand Perceptions, China, International School, Shanghai, Student Recruitment

Editor’s Note: One of the most dynamic high school counselors we’ve met to date is Shaun McElroy, who works with students in Shanghai. This thought-provoking interview with Shaun took place via email and Facebook over the past week, and we think you’ll enjoy.

First, a brief primer on Shaun — tell us a little bit about you, your current job, how long you’ve lived in China…

This is my fourth year in Shanghai; previously I lived and worked in Caracas and Bangkok. In all three places I was a high school counselor providing personal counseling as well as college counseling. Shanghai American School is the largest international school in China. We have over 3000 students from 40 different countries studying with us. I love living abroad as it gives me a chance to immerse myself in a culture and really try and understand it from the inside.

Shanghai Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Your role as international counselor puts you right in the middle of the marketing dialogue between universities and the students they are courting. What are the big changes you’ve seen over the past few years in how universities market themselves to students?

Much more direct marketing. To the point of absurdity: One of my kids feels he is being stalked by Columbia. He knows he is never, ever getting into Columbia. Does he need a restraining order?

Parents as partners in the process. Very few colleges do not have a section of their website specifically dedicated to their concerns and ideas. In the old days, we used to view college counseling as something that happened between student and college with the counselor acting as a conduit and advisor, but the reality is many young people DO WANT their parents involved—and even if they do not, they parents are involved.

Embracing rankings. [It used to be] most colleges simply smiled at whatever place they were on the list and left it at that. Now many sites have “fast facts” which celebrate their rankings. In presentation after presentation I hear admission reps talk about their top-ranked business, engineering, economics, creative writing program, etc. When I ask for the source (because I love lists) they look at me blankly. It drives me personally nuts. It just feeds the monster.

Embracing personal technologies. Most colleges allow you to create “my webpage” which allows you to customize what you want to know. This is a good thing. Moreover: Colleges have such as MIT and Illinois have created space for authentic voices to show up on in their marketing in the forms of student blogs. I love this. It is the real deal.

I’d like to talk about the University “brand” — and, from where you are, whose brand has made tremendous strides in the past few years?

Firstly the Canadians and Australians. For a long time the UK and US owned international education. Not anymore. The Dutch and Irish are coming next. You heard it here first.

Some specific US campuses that really have done well for various reasons:
1) NYU: They are the city and everyone loves that city.

2) The Big Ten. Schools like Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois are well respected and even loved by international families. They have over come their bigness and Americanism to really have broad appeal.

3) Small liberal arts colleges: Colleges that Change Lives really helped this. This is not just one school but rather a style of experience.

4) University of Miami: [School President Donna] Shalala can be given much credit from continuing to promote this university as an academic powerhouse that loves to play. Back in the day, they used to be known as the rich kid party school…this is still a battle with some families, but they have really gotten some great people into key positions and are reshaping their college. Plus their admissions folks love it.

5) Lynn University: Really this is all about high touch: The admission team has really connected with students are all over the globe. They are fun, warm, energetic. They do not oversell their university. Actually there are several university that have done this right: Got the right people on the bus so to speak and really embraced what they are.

6) Vanderbilt: It was like they had their own coming out ball this past year. A combination of really hitting the road, challenging old beliefs about the south, frats, and more. They are reinventing themselves and people are paying attention. They have started bring counselors to campus to help them understand first hand. This is key. Actually Miami and Lynn do this as well.

I’m curious about how often schools come to visit your students in Shanghai, and what sort of brand ambassador activities you see there — be it with alumni groups or current students.

We will have over 250 visits this year, including several large college fairs. This is not just US colleges, mind you. We have colleges of every conceivable combination: From world leaders like Oxford, McGill, Penn, MIT, Melbourne, HKUST, LSE, Brown, to specialty art schools and hotel management schools, to small liberal art colleges to Delft (aeronautical Engineering in English in Holland). Very fun.

Many times they show up with alum, which brings a real world connection. With over a half million expats in Shanghai, you can probably find an alum from virtually any state…maybe not ever university, but so many you would loose count.

This means that many of our students have the opportunity to interview with Alumni here. There are active chapters of many of the major unis, I See events advertised all the time. A while back a former dean of students from Harvard was here for a book launch. Very fun to see all the Crimson come out. Sports bars do great business on college bowl days.

China is also very perplexing to the universities. Everyone wants to be here, but noone has it figure out just yet. How to figure out where the top students are, how to attract them, these are big questions. Alum could help a lot more on that.

How has the “American” brand been impacted over the past few years? Do kids still say “Harvard” and “Princeton” just because they are American universities, or is some of the lustre gone from getting an education in the USA?

No luster is gone. In fact the opposite. More Bling. America is still perceived as a great opportunity and these sort of schools are the key. It is brutal in one sense because many of my families will not let their kids apply to places they have never heard of.

New technologies — for someone sitting in the University Marketing “C-suite,” what are the big things they need to know about being a “digital immigrant” vs. a “digital native?”

Kids are online. They live at Youtube and Facebook. Do you? They love realness, so do not try and control these venue too much, just be aware. High tech demands high touch. The more you can speak their language (and I mean this literally as in Chinese or Spanish) the better you will do. This will surprise you: They do not really read blogs and they DO NOT listen to podcasts. Go figure. They still like paper sources like College Prowler and your own brochures (Just do not stalk them). They love real people. Most of mine think that IM or text messaging from colleges would be kind of weird.

They love getting real phone calls and emails – just check the time on the phone calls. I have had a few student woken up.

Final thought: we’ll give you one sentence to leave with the audience….
Distinguish yourselves. For many of us you all look kinda the same: You value diversity, offer internships, have small class sizes, Do study abroad, have new dorms, have great food, offer hundreds of courses….You need to tell stories that help the kids connect. Stories only you could tell.

It’s Not TOO Early to Ask: Which University Will House the Obama Presidential Library?

Published November 10, 2008 Global Brand Management 2 Comments
Tags: Chicago State, Columbia, Obama Presidential Library, Occidental, University of Chicago, University of Hawaii, University of Indonesia

Flash forward to 2013: U.S. President Barack Obama starts his second term, and the focus shifts a little to “legacy.” The jockeying for position has been underway for some time from universities here and there (and everywhere) that want to be home of the Obama Presidential Library.

Well, it’s not too early to start this dialogue: schools that house these libraries can find them to be a boon for a zillion different reasons. More buzz, more traffic, more excitement, etc.

So let’s start the discussion with a few universities that will no doubt merit consideration.

University of Chicago. This is a no-brainer. It’s in Hyde Park, the Chicago neighborhood that’s home to the Obama family. (Sortof – Kenwood is technically the neighborhood where they live, but we digress.) Probably the most “literary” of schools in the USA, more Nobel Prize winners than anywhere else, the list could go on and on.

Columbia University. (New York, NY.) Where Obama received his undergraduate degree. Sounds plausible – Ivy League school that would love to have this sort of thing on campus. Not far from Harlem, a predominantly black neighborhood in NYC.

Occidental College. Okay, this sounds interesting enough: where Obama started his undergraduate education, only to finish at Columbia. Might be a unique enough alliance, take care of unfinished business (if there is any).

University of Hawaii. A-HA! Gotcha on this one, but follow along. President George W. Bush chose Southern Methodist University for his library. The hook is that he’s from Texas, is a Methodist, and that was enough for both. Obama was born in Hawaii and spent a ton of time there in his youth. Great connection, and might be really interesting to see.

Chicago State University. Another one that might seem out of left field. It’s on the South Side, and not that far from where Obama spent his earlier career as a community organizer. It’s a predominantly black school, serves an underserved population, and has stayed true to its mission for many years. Interesting…

University of Indonesia. Another Gotcha! But this would be cool, huh? Since Obama spent time in this country, too.

Okay, it is early – we’ve got to wait til at least January 20 to say “President Obama,” then we get to see him go to work. But the above schools – and maybe a few others? – should be audacious enough to say “Why Not?”

UniversityCMO Interview – Gillian Palmer – ElementE

Published November 5, 2008 Global Brand Management , New Learning Technologies 4 Comments

From the editors: We’ll be featuring a Q&A on this blog from people in the higher education marketing universe. Here’s the first of many planned for the coming months. We’d love to get your thoughts.

First, the basic stuff: who are you, what’s your background, what do you do now, where are you located?

Well: I’m Gillian Palmer and my early thoughts of being an EU interpreter somehow got changed so my first job was in magazine editing in the Arabian Gulf. After a few adventures that took in Tortola, Saudi and Bolivia, my distance learning design career started back in the UK. Since then I have designed over 150 accredited programmes for universities all over the world, have taught on an M.Ed programme, assessed Business portfolios, participated in multi-lingual EU ICT-degree projects and had a lot of fun. I am still on the Faculty of Excelsior College, NY and work with two leading organisations in the UK (the BILD and the CRA) for adult learning and portfolio development. I also have my own UK-based company: ElementE.

Give us the ElementE “elevator speech…”
ElementE exists to make learning work anywhere in the world. To work for universities as businesses, educators and researchers. To work for learners as members of a global, often mobile, ever-changing workforce. This means negotiating and creating high quality, (dis)continuous, flexible learning pathways; introducing universities to each other to set up program articulations; adapting existing programs so they can be delivered and are relevant in new markets while still retaining required learning outcomes and faculty and staff support.

Gillian Palmer, ElementE

From your perch in the UK, what are the biggest challenges that you see higher education marketers facing?
First and foremost, increasing flexibility of learning pathways while simultaneously ensuring the Quality Assurance bodies are reassured of the equivalent rigor of the various routes.

Secondly, adapting to the needs of socio-economic climate. People live longer, the world is changing faster and university-level education that stops at about age 22 is no longer sufficient for a lifetime of work inclusion. Discontinuous linear education and parallel or top-up/refresher qualifications will become less the preserve of the perennial student and more mainstream.

Thirdly, staying sufficiently balanced and current in the use of communication technologies. Many universities are struggling to keep pace with what some learners and employing organizations take for granted. Many other universities expect more than their learners can use when at home or elsewhere. Several universities find themselves in both situations!

Whose “brand” among those in higher education really stands out? Who would you point to as doing something differently that’s made some noise?
On a global basis, this is a very hard question to answer and people will not have all day! Edinburgh Business School has to be one of those mentioned as their original MBA with rigorous exams, but no tutor contact, took high quality ‘book in a box’ learning to all corners of the earth. It has now evolved in to a much more flexible – and still highly successful – programme.

Another ground breaker is the Open University of Catalunya (UOC, Barcelona) that teaches in several languages and has been at the forefront of the creative use of Open Source computer programs, outreach to Latin America and educational research.

In markets less well-reported, I would look, for different reasons, at the University of Delhi; Danubius University in Galaţi , Romania and UNISA in South Africa.

In the US, there is so much choice and for so many different reasons! I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge Excelsior College, NY that was founded as a real innovator in credit accumulation and transfer to help mobile, employed adults achieve the qualifications they would otherwise have been unable to complete.

What role do you see new technologies and social media playing in the next couple years?
My most vivid memory of the effects of new technologies was sitting on the floor in a truly awful (expensive!) lecture room in the Eastern US and watching a world class expert communicate superbly with the (wide-ish) range of brains in front of him, then go to pieces when asked to do the same on the internet for which he had been given no preparation. That was grossly unfair on him and a lot of situation-retrieval was needed. Bluntly, however, institutions and individual learners who do not participate in technology and social media will not survive, so the next two years are going to be pivotal for those mass-market institutions that have an (often understandable) aversion to changing the business model. Learners and prospective learners will use whatever communication channel best helps them find an answer when and where they need it. Increasingly, that will not be within a classroom. Marketers, faculty, support services, administrators, assessment processes and quality assurance bodies will all need to adapt to multi-point, any-order delivery and multi-way participation in all aspects of university life.

What advice would you give to someone who is new to the University Marketing community and wants to really make an impact?
Listen. Listen to the library staff. Listen to the advisors/counsellors. Listen to the QA people. Listen to employers and learners and local communities. Listen to faculty. Listen to counterparts in other countries. Then, and only then, choose where to make that impact!

Parting shots — if you’d leave readers with one sentence, what would it be?

The best never stand still.

Gillian can be reached at gillian at elemente dot co dot uk

The Death of the Viewbook in University Recruitment Marketing

Published October 31, 2008 Enrollment Management , Global Brand Management Leave a Comment
Tags: Art Schools, Integrated Brand Management, MICA, Viewbook

(Or, if you HAVE to do a Viewbook, don’t make it a viewbook…)

Tuesday afternoon, I decided that a quick experiment was in order, so I rang up the admissions department telephone number at MICA – the Maryland Institute College of Art – in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

The experiment was asking two questions:

Do they still have a cute, witty little book called “an artist’s guide to choosing a college” and
Can I get one?

MICA answered affirmatively, passed the test quickly, and can teach us all a few really good lessons about the integrated university brand.

First of all, this is not a viewbook.

The MICA Book

Open it up and on page one they tell you as much in paragraph two:

MICA has prepared this book to help you ask the right questions of yourself and the colleges you are considering.

Nice. It’s not til page 106 that they start talking about themselves. Instead, it’s all about the search, what artists should ask themselves, like these yes or no questions:

I want to create things never seen before.

I am constantly experimenting with new ways to express myself.

Secondly, this is not a guidebook or viewbook or any sort of thing that is forced into a rigid brand compliance manual. (When I worked at a Financial Services company in the late 90s, we had one of these, it was hell, and it was gold in color. We called it the goldbook, yet its value was probably more akin to copper, or tin.) Doesn’t match the look of the MICA web page. (Which is dynamite, BTW.) Can’t find the logo anywhere.

It’s a groundswell marketer’s dream – the brand is out of your hands, so might as well let people (KIDS) have a discussion about it on their terms, without being sold to.

Oh, and about the part of brand management that MICA can control?

The person who answered the phone – maybe a work-study student, maybe not – was great. I explained that I got one of these books three years ago at NACAC and would love a new one, if it’s been updated. ”But of course…” She took my information, including email address, and said she’d get one in the mail to me.

It arrived two days later, which is impressive. Probably means that the phone person was empowered to get this anti-viewbook in the hands of anyone who should have one.

Art Schools and Others with anti-viewbook approaches: We’d love to get your comments.

The Coming College Bubble – Forbes Article – and What it Means for the CMO

Published October 24, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: College Bubble, Forbes, Revenue Generation

Thanks to Maurna Desmond at Forbes for a very insightful article on “The Coming College Bubble.”

Articles like this get us asking questions like “Who’s Next?”

We know of one school out east that’s struggling with how exactly they’d sell themselves — they’re a long-standing institution that’s been a not-for-profit and could auction off their accreditation to the highest bidder. They’re also figuring out whether or not the money they raise could pay off their debts.

What does all this mean for the University CMO?

Well, first of all, figure out ways to become a revenue generator and not a cost center. Easier said than done, right? This isn’t about whacking this and that out of the budget, this is about forging alliances with for-profit entities that are willing to help support your mission financially.

Take a look at things like payment processing, licensing fees, beverage pouring rights. These are all non-threatening ways to help marketers market themselves, while you at the University keep the budgets moving.

Love to get your thoughts…What do you think can be done in the University Marketing office to bring in money – beyond the traditional fund-raising efforts?

Web 2.0 Tools That Can Help the University CMO Add Value

Published October 23, 2008 Global Brand Management Leave a Comment
Tags: University CMO, university marketing, web 2.0, web marketing

Where, and how, and why do people find your school online? Good question – watching the news and seeing the markets and hearing all the hubub about loans and capital markets and budgets being cut – well, it’s VITAL that your “inbound marketing” is as good as, no BETTER THAN, your outbound marketing.

Outbound: Traditional PR and marketing that centers on finding someone and selling them on the benefits of your product.

Inbound: Setting up a killer online presence and letting people find the benefits of your product with minimal involvement from you.

Leaders in the Inbound Marketing movement is a little company called HubSpot.

If you try out their Website Grader on your school’s site, and enter a couple competitors — you can learn a ton about not only what it takes to be “found” by Google and the others, but how you score relative to others.

We tried it out with a couple school websites and found the results to be rather interesting. One school had no blog anywhere on its site — none — and that’s a sure-fire way to not rank very highly.

We invite you to try out their FREE website grader tool. It can help you frame your discussions with the web team, the bloggers, the PR team, and the University Relations folks on campus.

The UniversityCMO Survey – Only 5 Questions AND…

Published October 20, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: Best Practices, Fall Survey, Who Calls the Shots?

We want to get answers to a few things, such as “Who Calls The Shots” and “How Good IS Your Marketing?”

What’s great about this particular survey is its simplicity. It’s a quick one that should take you less than five minutes to do.

UniversityCMO Survey.

Thanks for your help, and feel free to forward along!

How do you Add Value as a University Marketer?

Published October 14, 2008 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: universityCMO, university marketing, university PR, college marketing, higher education marketing

This question is the reason for creating this blog and our community here at UniversityCMO.

Your goal — as the Chief Marketing Officer for your university, or the Chief Communications Officer, or Director of Marketing or, well, almost an endless list of titles — is to add value.

Maybe you’re in charge of the brand and its standards. Maybe you’re the woman who makes sure the school’s news office runs smoothly. Or the guy in charge of Enrollment Management.

You could be the agency that handles advertising for the school. Or the hired PR gun who makes sure the crises stay out of the news.

As the days and weeks go on, we’ll keep sharing bits and bytes, tips and tricks, and we’ll hopefully introduce you to the people and tools that make this world of Higher Education, Post-Secondary Education, University Marketing — whatever you call it — that make this world really cool.

Let us know how we can help you do your job better.

Let us help you add value.