More Wobbly Stools? The Case for Product Transformation
By Tracy Playle, Chief Content Strategist, Pickle Jar Communications
Higher education is facing an identity crisis. Faced with shifting student demographics, financial constraints, and growing competition, institutions are often turning to marketing as a fix-all solution. But marketing alone can’t compensate for a product that no longer fits the needs, expectations, or financial realities of its audience.
So, when we identify a decline in a programme or subject, where else should we be looking instead of fully focusing on “promotion”?
Going back to basics
Let’s start with marketing itself. To understand this, we might revisit a fundamental principle of marketing: the 7Ps of marketing. The model shows that for success in any market (and, yes, higher education exists within a market), we need to plan strategically for:
Product (the course or programme)
Pricing models (fees, scholarships, payment plans, living costs)
Place (our campus and our target markets)
Promotional activity (advertising, our website, social media, email)
People (prospective students and their influencers)
Process (the decision making and application journey)
Physical evidence (programme quality, experience and outcomes)
We can think of each of these as being legs on a stool or table. If one is missing or defunct, the whole thing will collapse.
Right now, too many institutions are leaning solely on promotion, ignoring or under-investing in the need to transform the other areas, especially product, people, process and pricing. If a programme isn’t recruiting, we tend to blame marketing or throw more money at promotion. Sometimes - and I’d go so far as to say this is often ego-driven - we’re not willing to see that the product (the programme) just isn’t desirable.
The changing landscape of postgraduate study
Recent data highlights a key shift: the majority of UK Master’s students today are not fresh graduates continuing their studies. Instead, they are older, returning learners in their 30s and beyond. The postgraduate loan system has failed to keep pace with rising tuition and living costs, making it increasingly difficult for younger graduates to afford further study. Meanwhile, the pandemic created new awareness of flexible study options, and many professionals are now seeking part-time, online, or blended learning opportunities to upskill and future-proof their careers.
Despite this, many institutions still operate under an outdated model, designing their programmes, policies, and support structures around the assumption that their primary postgraduate audience consists of recent undergraduates. They promote campus-based, full-time degrees while overlooking the structural and informational barriers that prevent their largest and most financially capable audience from engaging.
The opportunity is clear: optimise for the audience that exists, not the one we wish existed. This means rethinking not just how we promote postgraduate education, but how we shape the product itself.
Product before promotion
Product strategy should come before promotion. Yet, in many institutions, marketing departments are tasked with promoting degrees that have not been fundamentally reviewed in years. And the function of market research is often to identify potential people to market to instead of truly interrogating the viability of the product itself. There’s an expectation that we can increase applications without the flexibility to address structural issues that may be acting as roadblocks.
A robust product transformation strategy must consider:
Programme design
Are courses structured with flexibility in mind? Can students access modular or part-time options that fit around their work and life commitments? Is the topic desirable in the current market?Delivery methods
Are institutions embracing hybrid, online, and blended learning to expand accessibility?Support and communication
Are the right support systems in place for students balancing study with work and family? Are institutions providing clear and useful information to help them navigate their options?Pricing and financial viability
Are tuition fees aligned with realistic funding options? Do institutions offer instalment plans or employer sponsorship opportunities? Even when tuition fees are regulated, how much are we pushing the bounds of innovation in our pricing and payment strategies?
Without addressing these foundational elements, any investment in promotion is akin to building a house on sand.
Understanding people
If we’re serious about driving recruitment, we must start with understanding our audience, not just marketing to them. This means deep, ongoing audience research - not just one-off surveys or anecdotal assumptions. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: our marketing and website analytics are not audience research.
Today’s postgraduate students have different priorities than they did a decade ago. They are often working professionals, career changers, or those balancing study with caregiving responsibilities. Their time is limited, their decision-making is influenced by practical considerations, and they expect clear, accessible information to help them assess their options.
And yet, many universities fail to provide even the most basic information on part-time or flexible study options. The problem is not just in the design of postgraduate programmes, but in the way institutions communicate about them.
Too often, we assume that students will sift through dense webpages and conflicting departmental messaging to piece together what they need to know. The additional cognitive load that we’re burdening prospective students with in the way in which we provide information is, frankly, unforgivable and lacks empathy for their already busy lives.
In reality, they will simply move on to institutions that make it easier.
If we’re not prioritising human-centred content design principles across our entire website, but instead just focusing only on key marketing messaging within our course pages (which should still be a high priority by the way), the decision-making journey quickly breaks down and they shift their attention elsewhere.
The risk of cutting promotion
While product transformation is critical, we also need to resist the temptation to cut marketing budgets in an attempt to balance the books.
Yep, an outdated product can’t be saved by marketing. But it is equally true that even a great product will fail if no one knows about it. Marketing and product strategy must evolve in tandem. If we continue to underinvest in our marketing teams, our audience research and our digital infrastructure, we will struggle to remain competitive, no matter how strong our academic offering might be.
We must move beyond the simplistic view of marketing as “promotion” and instead embrace marketing as a strategic function that informs product development, audience engagement, and institutional positioning. Marketers might have been calling for this for years in higher ed - and some have made good ground here. But even those appointed with a seat on the top table - let’s say a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) - are still all too often undermined by senior colleagues.
In my two decades of working in higher education I’ve had more private conversations than I can possibly count with CMO equivalents that have shared with me that they’ve left an institution because they feel they aren’t being heard and that their expertise isn’t respected. That said, this isn’t all a game of blame to those senior colleagues. I’m also left often wondering how well equipped those CMOs were in their own leadership skills to be able to navigate and influence those conversations effectively.
From wobbly stools to stability
So, what should we be doing now in higher ed to future-proof our postgraduate offering?
Audit and align
Conduct a holistic review of current postgraduate offerings. Are they designed for today’s students, or for an outdated model?Invest in audience research
Stop making assumptions. Engage directly with prospective students to understand their needs, barriers, and motivations. Importantly, seek to understand them as whole and complex human beings, not as prospects or targets alone.Integrate marketing and product strategy
Marketing should not be a bolt-on at the end of the process, handed the programme description to “whack on the website” after the programme planning committee has approved everything. It should be embedded in programme design from the start.Provide better information
Ensure prospective students can easily find clear, structured, and relevant information about flexible study options, financing, and career outcomes. This is about creating and implementing a full content strategy for student decision-making, not just investing alone in better course pages on your website.Commit to continuous evolution
The higher education landscape is shifting rapidly. Institutions that embrace agility and ongoing product transformation will be best positioned for long-term success.
In higher ed, we can’t afford to keep churning out wobbly stools - structures that collapse under the weight of flawed product strategies and misplaced blame. If we’re truly going to survive and - better still - thrive, we must move beyond a narrow focus on promotion and instead embrace holistic, audience-informed product transformation.
The market is shifting. The audience is evolving. The question is: Will our institutions adapt, or will we continue to fall over?
Tracy Playle is Chief Content Strategist at Pickle Jar Communications and the founder of the ContentEd community. She is also the author of The Connected Campus: Creating a content strategy to drive engagement with your university. She has worked in the higher education sector both in-house and as a consultant for 23 years. She has worked with over 300 education institutions in more than 30 countries to improve their bottom line and advance recruitment by creating human-centred content strategies, marketing tactics and website designs.
