Unleashing the Potential of Marketing for Higher Education: Diversifying for a Sustainable and Successful Future
Mark Ritson is my go-to for provocative marketing thought-leadership. His approach isn’t for everyone, but, building off marketing experts who came before him, he talks about two principles that are the essence of excellent marketing:
The 4Ps (product, pricing, placement and promotion)
The long and the short of it (awareness vs activation)
The reason I like these two models so much is that they highlight what should be the breadth of a marketer's responsibility, from campaign decision-making to enduring business success.
My experience in HE is that marketing gets put in the ‘promotion’ and ‘short’ of it boxes and is usually confined to just one audience - students.
I’d also wager that many of us are screaming to be let out because as professional experts, we have so much more to offer our organisations than that. Especially now, when our sector is more competitive than we’ve ever known it and government funding is at an all-time low.
Because, if we are to market ourselves well, build reach and reputation, improve our market share and diversify our income streams, marketing teams need to do more than deliver shiny promotional campaigns.
Financial Sustainability and HE Marketing
Marketing is a key function of commercial business and strategy development. Like it or not universities are increasingly becoming more like commercial businesses with multiple products and revenue streams, all of which need maximizing if they are to remain competitive and afloat.
And universities must stay afloat. Their purpose and impact on societies cannot be underestimated, not simply in terms of further education for millions of students worldwide, allowing them greater access to jobs1 and start-up opportunities, but for knowledge-share, growth of the economy and research and innovation that will systematically improve the world we live in. It is at universities where solutions to combat the devastating impact of the climate emergency are developed, where medicine and health treatments are constantly enhanced to improve access and hasten recovery, it’s where theories are scaled into real, applied technologies.
Yet the financial sustainability of universities is precarious and will involve a different way of thinking if they are to thrive.
In response, marketers also need a different way of thinking, a sense of this bigger picture and the role they should play. They must stay curious, question assumptions and be externally focused. A successful HE marketer doesn’t just see themselves as responsible for marketing that generates income from students. Our job starts far earlier – in decision-making and strategy setting – where product, price and place are determined.
We need to have a focus on all audiences, from students to alumni, academics to industry and policy makers. It’s our job to help grow public perception of universities, a space where the media and often policy makers continue to make our jobs incredibly difficult. Moreover, successful marketers play the long game - they should resist reactive tactics as a solution to structural financial challenges, complex funding models and internal panic. They understand that the perfect balance of long-term brand building and short-term activation is the secret to growth, stability and advocacy.
So, how can marketing teams help their universities thrive in this competitive landscape?
Products for the people
Now this is a big one. Maybe the biggest. If you get it right here, the rest is easy.
HE may be the only industry that has historically built products based on internal needs – such as funding, resources and academic interest. We’re also the only sector that is reluctant to pull underperforming products off the shelf.
Effective marketers – specifically those with campaign, market insight and UX specialisms - have the potential to better understand audiences and markets than any other department. They are focused on the external environment, and forward-looking as much as they are assessing historical data. Therefore, they should be contributing to the development of the products – educational or otherwise - building an offer that the market actually needs.
A key challenge is how to grow student income when physical space simply cannot accommodate it. There’s a growing demand for online, flexible and tailored modes of study. How do you make these a reality in your own organisation, what data do you need to present to gain buy-in, which committee do you need to influence to get your seat at the table? Investing in digital transformation, portfolio reviews and anticipating the market should be the strategic approach to student growth.
But, not wanting to fall foul of my own mantra (it’s not just about student income), there are so many products and revenue streams emerging from university campuses that marketing could help hone and promote to add to the bottom line.
As universities we have access to a large number of physical assets and spaces that are not always fully maximised. Rooms, space, equipment, experiential and large-scale public engagement events, consultancy, research, data and knowledge-share – all of this can be commercialised. Marketing teams can be looking for opportunities and packaging our products to make them appeal to wider markets.
We have a role too in supporting the complex and lengthy process of building partnerships which can often have a range of diverse audiences and related benefits. These include positioning universities as anchors for social mobility, civic engagement, inward investment, regional prosperity, industry collaborations, upskilling the future workforce in emerging areas (e.g., the green economy) and even shaping central government policy. Our expertise in meaningfully generating awareness amongst key stakeholders can lay the foundations for successful negotiations.
There may be a large number of diffuse marketing teams delivering this activity, with varying skillsets and levels, not aligned through a central marketing team. Devolved operating models are challenging so it’s important to find ways to collaborate – as we ultimately have the same goals:
ensure activity is delivered by skilled, professional marketing teams, not as an add-on to someone’s job.
if this isn’t possible, support with a very basic marketing plan/template so teams can adopt best practice
create cross-team strategic and operational groups aligned to overarching goals. This will achieve collaboration, long-term planning opportunities and consistency of brand and message.
Getting the price right
There is a clear opportunity for marketing teams to input on fee setting and the development of scholarship incentives.
We are increasingly a sales-driven industry with a premium product and lengthy ‘customer’ decision making process, yet we do not compete as if we are operating in a sales-driven market.
Our capability to effectively position a product that is perceived as pricier than our competitors is often challenging. If we have the agility to flex our fees and offer incentives to study then we can make our marketing lives easier.
Understanding where pricing governance decisions are made in your organisations and how to influence them is crucial. Find a way to shadow or sit on these committees and boards to understand how your case for support should be made.
Take a similar approach when you’re requesting budget. Know the routes to influence and be armed with performance and ROI data.
Finding your place in the market
Have you ever counted how many university strategies use the word ‘together’? No, I haven’t either, but I know of at least 5 in the UK and one overseas. We all have very similar strategies, ambitions and narratives, which makes sense, really. We exist for a common purpose and that’s part of our superpower.
But, when it comes to being competitive in the market, we have to find points of distinction.
Crucially we need to develop a compelling brand position by identifying the space in the market that only we can fill and understanding what differentiates us. Moreover, every decision a university makes should have its strategy, brand and positioning in mind. Every action should reinforce this so it’s clearly visible to audiences who you are and what you stand for. This is where you will find the customers who align with your values and the lifetime value of those customers will be priceless.
Long-term brand building done well should inspire and motivate multiple audiences; authentically communicating to them who you are and what you stand for, using stories that bring your proposition and narrative to life, before activating short-term campaigns to generate specific action.
We’ve just done a brand exercise at Loughborough which, refreshingly, has not touched our visual brand at all. We’ve tightened our messaging and defined the things we want to be recognised for. Part of this has been the development of a framework to guide strategic decision-making, and choices about what we amplify in marketing, comms and content campaigns.
Promotion is our bread and butter – but we can always be smarter
Find the true opportunities – these can be new opportunities or those where your market share could be bigger. If you don’t have extensive in-house market insight teams, EdTech providers can help you to establish where you can grow and where you really are floundering.
Look too at nurturing current student and alumni cohorts for longer lifetime value and advocacy and be deliberate about your widening participation and equity agendas. The work you do on product and pricing can really help in this space.
Invest more heavily in the top of the funnel activity which casts your net wide, creating recognition in new markets. Then you can be more successful in lead generation, applications and conversion.
Be clear about your metrics at each stage. You're not measuring applications during brand awareness activity so communicate this well to manage the expectations of internal stakeholders. An agreed plan outlining objectives and metrics is valuable.
This approach applies to all activities and audiences. In the framework we’ve recently developed at Loughborough, we have outlined 10 core audiences. We are now looking at how we tailor campaigns, lead generation and conversion funnels to each of them.
Approaches for these audiences will take longer to develop and embed, but a truly strategic approach to marketing for a HEI is far vaster than we have ever given it credit for.
Fit for the future
In doing all this, we need to have the bravery to experiment and be prepared to fail.
Marketing leaders should periodically reassess the skills required in their team. Increasingly, this should include B2B marketing. A single industry partnership can lead to new students, internship and graduate opportunities, new revenue streams through R&D and advocacy and further reach through collaborations and affiliate marketing.
Building credibility and trust is key to raising the scope and visibility of marketing. Listen and show you understand the complexities of your organisation. Show up with data, research and insight that supports your position and be prepared to repeat it time and time again in multiple forums until you begin to see the tanker of influence turn.
Don’t be afraid to be humble and vulnerable, to have the humility to admit it when mistakes get made, or you don't know the answer, when there are gaps in knowledge, questions that data can't easily answer for us and we need to take a leap of faith. Great marketers give respect and earn it which makes them credible leaders that help to drive change and more market-led thinking.
