First Place CASE: LFGSM’s Key Market Initiative Campaign

Lake Forest Graduate School of Management (LFGSM) and CBD recently received top honors from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), District V, in its most prestigious “best practice” category for higher education communications and marketing.

For LFGSM, highly-targeted translates to highly effective. In late spring, we launched Key Market Initiative (KMI), a campaign focused on a tightly defined geographic area producing a higher-than-average number of enrollment inquiries. Integrated media drove our campaign’s performance; strategic innovative placement “made it seem like LFGSM was everywhere,” according to a prospective student.

“In the end, we saw a doubling of the number of inquiries we typically receive from those target zip codes during the spring,” said Kate Colbert, Director of Marketing at LFGSM. “The KMI project helped us demonstrate that once you know where your best customers live and work, ‘reach’ is no longer the issue. We focused on frequency of messaging and the results speak for themselves.” Understanding the media consumption to behavioral characteristics of the Lake Forest MBA prospect was key in defining the appropriate media channels and localized messaging clearly resonated within the targeted community. Once residents realized that there was a premier MBA program “in their own back yard,” they quickly moved from awareness to active engagement.

Be a retention hero

When you objectively look at your institution through the filters of a new student’s perspective, you will see enormous opportunities to better engage students and enhance their experience by anticipating their communication, information, and resource needs. That’s the subject of our recently published whitepaper Retention and Beyond: Building Stronger Relationships with High-Touch Communications.

This new resource gives you an insider’s look into a planning approach that any institution can apply, and a series of best practices to guide efficient execution of a retention communication program that can:

• Ensure consistent experiences
• Anticipate specific needs
• Optimize staff time, resources, and perceived value
• Prove effectiveness and return on investment

Plus, you’ll get a thought provoking forecast of how higher education must continue to evolve to meet generational needs. Download our new whitepaper here.

Tags: communication, engagement, Higher Education, retention, student

Midwest states innovating to boost degree completion

The AP reported yesterday that twelve Midwest states are trying to decide if they will offer multistate college-credit exchange to make college completion easier for residents who have some higher education credits. The Midwestern Higher Education Compact has an innovative idea that may allow colleges across these states to compete for the students. Apparently, the group isn’t yet sure about the demand for this exchange, or how it may be structured, but their goal is to try to head off a huge deficit in degreed workers in the near future.

Their effort does dovetail nicely with the fact that we’re on the waning edge of Gen Y entering college. Higher educators will have to turn more attention to degree completers in order to fill classes.

I’m intrigued. If colleges customize offers to individual students based on their completed credits and work experience, and offer them a low cost, fast completion program, what do they do to their value perception…for both students and employers?

Where Are All the Presidents?

There was an interesting buzz circulating at this year’s AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. A question really. “Why aren’t there more college and university presidents here?”

It’s a legitimate question. Every year, the Symposium does a great job of attracting at least one president of an institution who understands that brand management is a core leadership function. That individual often recounts his or her involvement in defining the institution’s position in the marketplace, identifying differentiating attributes and articulating the value propositions that support it. Continue reading

A Higher Calling for Higher Education

U.S. institutions of higher learning have always been credited with incubating and launching initiatives and movements that support America’s highest ideals. At the 2009 AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education currently convening in Boston, Bill Taliver of Matale Line promoted a pathway to success that encouraged institutions to raise their level of engagement in promoting America’s values.

Putting an end to what he calls a “a crisis of wisdom,” Taliver tasked colleges and universities with taking a more active role in “affirming the human potential.” To accomplish this, he urged institutions to market their unique view of the world: first by aligning a school’s brand with a singular moral initiative and then relentlessly focusing only on those prospective students who embrace similar values.

While this go-to-market approach may require a school to sacrifice segments of its large prospect database, it often results in brand clarity that leads to increased relevance. The goal is to transform a student’s thoughts from “this is an important school for me to look at” to “this is the only place for me.”

The convergence of social and traditional media is perfectly timed to help institutions leverage these new marketing opportunities. Articulating values and finding like-minded individuals to engage in a conversation has never been more accessible. Plus, it enhances your ability to build more intimate relationships with prospective students, one that’s based on a dialog of mutual values. It’s not only a powerful recruitment tool, but may also be an exciting first step toward building a better America.

Older, Wiser and way more Demanding

As part of the baby-boom generation that grew up rather simply – that is, not thinking too hard about food or even knowing the right questions to ask – I’m thrilled to finally have the 24/7 access to information that defines today’s world.Whole Foods, Meijer, Trader Joe’s and HyVee as sources of information.

Colman Brohan Davis’s recent Food Shopping Survey 2009 turned up some interesting insights about my peers. Relative to the other segments measured (Women 20 – 25 and Men), we are heavier readers and tv watchers, looking to books, magazines and the tube to gather information and form opinions. And we’ve avidly embraced life online, particularly search and mobile. We love exploring blogs, postings and sites that provide insight and data about food. We have fun sharing our opinions.

Here are some highlights of our research:

Continue reading

Tags: calories and fat, Colman Brohan Davis, consumer, country of origin, diet/health connection, fiber, Food Shopping Survey 2009, food/health connection, gluten-free, grocery retailers, Hyvee, ingredients, Meijer, middle-aged, midle-aged women, natural foods, preservatives, private food label, private label, sonsciousness, Sustainability, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Women