Marketers should oversee the student experience to graduation and beyond

At what point in the student lifecycle are institutional marketers dismissed from the table at your university? When a prospect inquires? Or applies? Or gets admitted? Certainly, I’m sure, after they enrol.

But, of course, enrolment is just the beginning of students’ engagement with the institution whose brand perception marketers work so hard to cultivate. So does it not seem rather odd that marketers should have no subsequent role in curating the student experience?

Some academics may dismiss out of hand the idea that marketers should involve themselves in departmental affairs. However, allowing us to see how brand promises align with the actual student experience is important. When university leaders and departmental chairs commit to small class sizes, and marketers promulgate that commitment, should there not be some means by which we can ensure that the sales pitch reflects the reality?

And what about promotional messages about the online experience being interactive and robust? A collaborative approach that includes marketing would allow us to understand what claims to make when advertising courses in the future.

New courses developed by faculty and instructional designers can also benefit from consultation with marketers. Too often, the marketing department is handed a product – a new degree – as a fait accompli and asked to sell it with the help of little more than a paragraph or two laden with academic language and not at all ready for public consumption. While marketers may not have a say in what programmes are launched or what curriculum gets developed, inviting them to the early conversations can make a significant impact on their success.

Effective use of market research can provide institutional leaders with realistic enrolment expectations based on the current landscape, while competitive analysis and keyword suggestions when naming courses can maximise actual enrolment within those parameters. Such faculty-marketer interaction establishes expectations on both sides and creates a more viable, authentic and market-ready programme to pitch to prospective students.

Marketers can also play a useful role in enrolled students’ onward journey, especially for online students. That might mean, for instance, developing or reviewing the internal communications that students see – whether that’s a reminder to register, a course description, or a message from the dean.

Marketers should also be involved in graduation ceremonies. These may seem like an afterthought for many academics, but graduation is usually the last interaction that students have with your brand before going out into the world and – hopefully – becoming ambassadors for it. An unforgettable occasion can reinforce the brand you’ve worked hard to establish; by contrast, if a student can’t get enough graduation day tickets or the celebration cake is stale, that may quite literally leave a bad taste in their mouth.

Hence, you should brand the graduation experience from beginning to end, reiterating the key talking points you want graduates to promote post-graduation. Leverage the expertise of marketers to create branded invitations, registration, websites, materials, displays, social media, and videos that are reflective of the experiences of students.

Even when students become alumni, you guessed it: marketers still need that seat at the table. To maintain ongoing loyalty, connection and involvement, university leaders should task their marketing team with creating alumni engagement opportunities and outreach campaigns that coordinate between academic units and other relevant institutional departments, such as alumni relations, advancement or career services. It is surprising how disconnected academic units often are from these departments; are the events, emails and solicitations for donations that they organise aligned with the brand?

Today, marketers within higher education need to be data-driven, creative, strategic and aware of issues around return on investment. They are also required to be adept at website management, event planning, project management, email marketing, social media, public relations, graphic design, videography and writing. Yet, too often, marketing teams are held at arm’s length from the individual academic units they serve.

Your internal marketers know the brand, portfolio and value of earning an education at your institution better than anyone. They have a deep understanding of the customer and the core values of the institution, and they can help provide continuity for students at each stage of their journey. Keep marketers involved throughout the student life cycle and you’ll be amazed by the ripple effect on programme promotion, enrolment and retention, and student satisfaction. You may even improve staff retention and financial turnover.

Instead of investing in the agency around the corner, invest in your own marketing team – because they are invested in you.

Victoria O’Malley is adjunct faculty and the senior director of marketing and communications for University College, the college of continuing and professional studies at the University of Denver. She recently completed a doctoral dissertation on institutional branding and adult learners at Northeastern University.