Branding & Marketing Best Practices: 5 More Rules to Live By

Everything from increased competition for a dwindling pool of prospects to anxiety around student debt to AI technology– the evolving landscape has changed the ways higher ed institutions and organizations communicate with their target audiences. But one thing remains true— maintaining best practices still is a sure ticket to success.

• If the proof is in the pudding…use your airtime to show the pudding 
  • Higher ed institutions are often given thirty seconds of free airtime for commercial advertising as part of their athletics contracts. This often means schools will work to communicate their vast offerings by cramming together a montage of scenes that feature science labs, smiling students on campus, library study sessions, professors in action, and well-curated campus drone shots. This, accompanied by a boilerplate voiceover that speaks of aspirational, future-forward opportunities and an inviting community, does nothing but get you lost in the crowd. Instead, prioritize the organization’s goals and audiences, and work to understand your primary audience’s top interests. Rather than producing one and the same content, prioritize your organization’s specific goals, audiences, and offerings and showcase them in a way that proves that you understand your community and its primary interests. Prove your distinctiveness through your willingness to think outside of the box so that you aren’t simply aware of your competitors but can actively show how your institution is different. 
• Don’t look to peers in your industry; look to other industries that successfully speak to your audience
  • Like many other industries, higher education often adopts a copycat strategy, constantly looking at its competition and following a similar pattern. But if everyone makes the same content, how will anyone ever stand out? Instead of looking to your peers, seek inspiration outside of your industry and look to companies that are successfully connecting with similar audiences. Once you identify what’s working, you can adapt and apply these strategies in a different setting. Influencer marketing is a great example of how consumer brands have learned to use surrogates to demonstrate their products’ efficacy. Rather than hear it from the company firsthand, you can leverage student perspectives and opinions to share anecdotal experiences on sites like TikTok or Youtube, which are often more influential than hearing it directly from your institution.
• Your money is worthless without a well-considered strategy  
  • Marketing tactics with no strategy are about as effective as throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. You can have all the money in the world, but that doesn’t automatically equal success. To use your resources wisely, you have to begin every campaign with a strategy that outlines your overall goals and priorities, segment audiences and their preferred communication mediums, and how your team plans to evaluate and track success. With a strong strategic plan in place, you can then move to execute your campaign while reinforcing consistent messaging and prioritizing audience engagement.
• Don’t let fear of change get in your way
  • How often have you heard, “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it?” We all know that habits are hard to break, but they also don’t consider an ever-changing marketing landscape. To effectively communicate with your intended audience, you and your team must be willing to adapt, change, and pivot consistently. Marketing in higher education always comes with its own set of challenges, as our primary audience is always getting younger and younger, meaning that their preferred means of communication are always changing. Ultimately it is your responsibility to make sure you are speaking to them in a way that resonates…which means being willing to try something new. Investigate popular platforms and what kinds of messaging perform best. Does your target audience prefer to hear from the institution directly, or do they react better to peer consumers like brand ambassadors or micro-influencers? Instead of speaking to your key audiences, develop ways to engage in a dialogue or create ongoing conversations. And for the times when you aren’t sure who or what your customers care about…head out to the quad and ask them for yourself.
• You’ve got to get everyone on your team on board before engaging external audiences 
  • Building a brand is a team effort that requires buy-in from across your campus. Before you can begin advertising to external audiences, you have to ensure that your internal stakeholders have had an opportunity to provide input and support your marketing goals. By bringing internal consultants along for the ride, you can ensure that the messaging you create truly reflects your campus environment and will be well supported by the community. This, in addition to ensuring your internal ambassadors have the tools they need to communicate the brand in a clear and effective manner, will guarantee consistency—leading to an even stronger execution. Branding and marketing in today’s climate is no easy feat. By sticking to these guidelines, you and your organization can better craft messaging that showcases your unique qualities and targets just the right audience. That way, you and your campus can rise to the top.