Hot Topics 2012
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10. Infographics jump the shark
So many wasted moments looking at so many ill-conceived infographics. While we love Good magazine and Edward Tufte as much as the next gal or guy, this and this are not infographics, they are tragedies.
Choose the use of infographics carefully. Use them sparingly. Or infographics will be to this decade what cocaine was to the ’80s.
That’s right: infographics kill. Sometimes on their first viewing.
9. Are publications relevant? Are viewbooks really dead?
Are you sitting? Because we’ve got some exciting news: You have the opportunity to chart a new path in admissions marketing communications.
Major publications like viewbooks are not dead. Our intel shows more colleges withholding more-expensive print pubs like viewbooks until application and yield, showering their “best-fit” students with tokens of experiential affection in the mail to show they’re serious about the relationship.
That doesn’t mean that pre-app suspects and prospects are ignored, they’re just receiving a different stream of messages via email (also not dead, though perhaps ailing), search, social media, third-party websites, etc. and so on. So throw away that old funnel flow and start anew.
8. What do you mean, exactly, by “best fit”?
What does this euphemism mean, dagnabbit? If “best fit” is just students who can actually pay your tuition, let’s stop beating around the bush and say so. Good marketing communications depends on who your audience is.
When colleges and universities have a hard time narrowing down their core admissions target audience in honest ways, the job of delivering the right message is nearly impossible.
7. College grows up
Adult students are one of the fastest growing markets for higher education. These non-trads have become the new traditionals, and they are juggling families, jobs and school. These students are less likely to attend full time or take advantage of residential colleges’ facilities and perceived “extras.”
The research says they care most about convenience and flexibility. But where do brand and differentiation fit into the mix? How do you position yourself as a quality provider in a veritable race to the bottom to be the most convenient? Who exactly are your competitors anyway? How do you integrate adult students — who take longer to graduate (and finish in lower numbers overall) — into your alumni strategy?
Do you raze Greek row and replace it with daycare?
6. Magazines reinvigorated
What purpose does your college magazine serve? Who is it aimed at? How will you know you’re successful in its execution? Reinvigorating your flagship publication requires tackling some weighty questions head on.
With answers (and a resulting strategy) in hand, creative services professionals are uniting to refresh moribund alumni and institutional mags by presenting information in stylish and modern ways, maximizing integration with online and digital formats, publishing in increased frequencies to actually make an impact, and sharing their content with other campus stakeholders to amplify the resonance of stories and messaging.
Know your magazine could be something more? Get started.
5. Return on investment
Education is no longer transformational for many students and families; it’s transactional. How will you prove that you deliver on a students’ substantial investment beyond vague references to your alumni network?
Last year, we emphasized that institutions needed to start doing serious collection and aggregation of life-after-graduation data (see No. 2 on last year’s Hot Topics). The next step is to turn back to your strategic plan for your career services offering. Institutions that are able to package critical experiences such as internships, international study/work and portfolio building will be offering something different. Ditto for those colleges that can build an integrated alumni-student network.
How will you define outcomes for your prospective students?
4. Don’t bother with branding
That is, unless you’re going to do it right. If your branding project is really just about a new logo, tagline and color palette, you’re not doing branding.
Branding starts with a compelling vision of what your institution represents and where it’s headed. It considers how your key audiences view the institution. It includes in-depth conversations with students, alumni, faculty and others about your core values. It examines how your particular institution adds value beyond the generic college (or your competitors’) experience. It continues with education and brand-building across campus. It’s woven into your institutional culture.
The visuals and that snappy copy line? They express that culture and identity. But they don’t lead it.
p.s. Your logo is probably not so important.
3. Creative: The new commodity?
Per No. 4 above, the clichés in higher-ed communication are hard to escape. It takes a lot of guts to move beyond safe. And an investment in a high-quality communications campaign takes budget.
So some institutions seem to have given up on quality creative. They’re turning to direct-mail houses and database nerds to churn out formulaic brochures with the same 10 paragraphs and “insert new client’s logo here” creative or that are “personalized” in obvious and cheesy ways.
While perhaps an effective way to execute extra contacts, we believe this approach to be short-sighted for image- and relationship-building. Those invested for the long run are choosing a smarter mix — brand and messaging programs that lead direct mail, and not the other way around.
This particular hot topic might be self-serving to what Zehno offers, but we don’t want to live in a world where schlocky creative and trite messaging are all that are available.
Do you?
2. CRM: For reals this time
If the funnel is dead, secret shoppers are on the rise and we’re all doing regression analysis to identify likely suspects and communicate more to them regardless of their response, then we need a tool to help us do that.
Companies have been pretending for years to offer turnkey customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to higher ed for years, but our clients reported that the manual labor and customization required made them too cumbersome and too expensive to be practical.
But more recently, companies like Salesforce, Datatel, Fire Engine Red and others are debuting new product versions (in the cloud, of course) that might actually work. With admissions marketing dashboards included!
Higher ed is poised to monitor, measure and revise for results. For reals.
1. It’s the people, stupid!
Leading branding and communications on campus is about influence, not proofreading.
We’ve all got our champions and cranks, but not all of us have figured out how to influence them to our (and our institutions’) advantage.
What’s required? First, you’ll need to get out from behind your desk. Share your vision in formal and informal ways. Let your thinking be shaped by response. Resist the urge to be defensive. Consider the interests of your audiences, and provide them with the right opportunities to provide input.
Think project briefs and process. Build consensus without caving to the lowest common denominator. Take a stand. Claim your value.
Things will never be perfect, so let’s just agree to make this year the best it can be.
Don’t give up!