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Process Insights Highlight Higher Education Symposium

Whether you are looking to revitalize your brand, establish robust metrics and measurement or better target adult learners, there was plenty of roadmaps to success presented at the American Marketing Association’s 2011 Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.

Themed ConnectEd, the conference built more than a solid case for focusing on integrated marketing efforts, but delivered practical how-to advice for accomplishing goals. Starting with the keynote address on Monday morning, Richard Lyons, Dean, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, outlined how to create an authentic brand. His clear steps included leveraging the processes of change management laid out by John P. Kotter renowned Harvard Business School professor. Chief among his advice is to create a sense of urgency. Lyons encouraged institutions to use capital campaigns as the impetus to drive brand urgency. Critical to Berkeley’s success was also its ability to elevate faculty involvement to the level of ownership. Otherwise, they interpret “brand initiatives” to mean things they don’t have to do.

Another process highlighted at the symposium was Purdue University’s program for building a culture a measurement. There was clear envy and furious note taking in the room as Teri Lucie Thompson, Vice President of Marketing and Media listed their metrics which included everything from awareness and web analytics to QR code scans to app feature usage. Most importantly, the quantitative data she and her team analyze often leads the Board of Trustees to provide incremental funding for marketing.

These are just two examples of specific content that provided action plans that could be applied immediately to any institution’s marketing activity. But they boil down to important process take-aways: build momentum and measure everything.