New marketing models
by Guest Contributor | September 27th, 2006Contributed by: Sam Jackson
High School Senior, Phillips Exeter Academy
No matter how well-endowed a school may be, another finite resource will always be in short supply: time. The energies and attention of an admissions office must be focused for best success. Dynamic web marketing can be very effective. If you are considering using new web technologies to connect with prospective students, there are some things you should know; if you already do, there is still more to learn, for I have never seen an implementation that couldn’t benefit from audience feedback. Read carefully, because I speak for your audience.
The web is not a magical vehicle for marketing. With proper savvy, the internet can be coaxed into performing as a successful higher education marketing tool, but even the most polished of marketing attempts can fall flat if it loses touch with its target market — and what age group is more fickle than teenagers? The modern web offers untold opportunity for creative and effective marketing techniques to be utilized, but with these new tactics can come new abuse. I will cover some of the difficulties that arise when an institution seeks to exploit blogs, podcasts, YouTube, and the rest of Web 2.0 — and what can be done to avoid them. (This piece focuses specifically on blogs.)
There is one key principle which, if followed, almost guarantees a successful message: “Respect the consumer.” I have observed a few deadly sins of higher education marketing, but a lack of respect for us, the consumers of so much endless marketing tripe, is the worst and most frequently perpetrated! It’s important to remember that we millennials are not stupid, however ridiculous that name might be; we can see through the trimmings of traditional marketing copy and we resent pandering.
Disrespect manifests itself first and foremost through a lack of authenticity. Authenticity is more important for good, effective PR than anything else. The perception that a finely polished brand image is a reasonable trade-off for authenticity is a false one, so far as people my age are concerned. In the post office at school, it takes only one quick glance into the recycling bin to see what people think of the campy mail storms attempting to drown out one another in the battle for our mindshare. If you think you’re safe from the knee-jerk garbage reaction on the basis of your brand’s intrinsic value, think again: I have seen expensive materials from the most prestigious universities in the US meet their end without ever leaving their shrink-wrap. Though I read everything I get, most people are not as generous with their attentions. What applies to direct mail applies just the same to new media — it’s even easier to click the back button than it is to try to throw a paper airplane brochure across the room.
Back to the web: blogs are the most prevalent new form of exotic web marketing. There are three kinds of blogs that can work to promote an institution: Sponsored student blogs, admission office blogs, and unofficial student blogs. The last a school has no particular control over, but they exist as nearly unconquerable competition for any homegrown sponsored effort, as they can nimbly tread waters a school-sanctioned blog could not — especially the salacious details incoming students really want to hear about. Schools can promote their blog programs by pushing visitors there; let the content do the rest.
A request for authentic information is not a request for students to tarnish their school’s name. I have exchanged heated emails with sponsored student bloggers who angrily accuse me of demanding they slur their university in the name of authenticity. Not so: it is a demand for respect, not slander. Anything less can and does create a negative backlash. To illustrate: drinking certainly occurs on college campuses, but I don’t ask for photos of drunken escapades any more than I beg for candid shots of late-night cram sessions. Neither one of those scenes presents a credible, balanced image of a school. What is true for photographs applies to all blog content in context: there is a middle ground between descriptions of room decorating adventures and Frat Party weekly. Even the appearance of impropriety (i.e., marketing) can sour public opinion. Better to promote honesty and authenticity — two concepts which, when treated carefully, can actually coexist with donors, parents, presidents, and most importantly prospectives.
When a school deploys a sponsored student blogging program, its primary goal should be to connect with prospective students. Painfully often, this goal is never met, and the blog dies nothing but a flat perspective of student life mired in tour guide style censorship. Blogs convey two kinds of information: first, readers value the insight that casual details about daily life afford. One blogger I spoke with told me that no one would care if she complained about the terrible rush to get season tickets for hockey. However, a close reader would see that enthusiasm and passion for the team shows that the school is a close community. Then there is the easier-to-access big picture campus topic: a vignette about recent student political protests on campus tells me a lot more about campus activism than any vague, sanitized answer from a tour guide.
Student bloggers should be encouraged to write about issues that are important to them; people write best about what they know best, and students know their school. They’re less familiar with the thing that only exists on glossies sent to new students and alumni. Let the students sell the school.
My preferred sort of official blog are those maintained by one or more admissions counselors for a particular school. I think these are great from an institutional perspective because the counselors can do the same thing they always do (answer questions online) while developing a knowledge base of old questions, answers, and content which can be accessed anytime, anywhere, by anyone. Most of all, these blogs go a long way towards pulling back the curtain on what is a very mysterious world to most; not everyone has time to read The Gatekeepers. The power of friendliness is not to be underestimated.
The desires of prospective students will, for a long time yet, fail to intersect with those of schools and admissions officers, but I hope that some insight into the mind of your applicants has been gleaned from my words. It’s a long way down from the window of the ivory tower, but that doesn’t justify the disconnect from the masses clambering below. Throw down your hair and reach out a hand: the web can help.
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Sam Jackson is a high school senior boarding at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spends his free time trying to appropriate funding to make liquid nitrogen ice cream for his Science Club. When it’s too cold for ice cream, Sam passes the time debating (on and off the team), fighting the dress code, and missing his golden retriever, Cozmo. He also publishes a blog, the Sam Jackson College Experience, chronicling his journey in the college recruitment process: www.samjackson.org/college/
