Marketing to Your Whole Portfolio – Part 3: Broadening Your Influence
This is the third and final installment in this series on Marketing to Your Whole Portfolio. In Part 1, we focused on seeing and speaking to the diverse sectors of your student enrollment funnel. In Part 2, we tackled ways to cultivate students’ primary advisors – parents and college counselors.
In Part 3, let’s broaden the net even wider and talk about a secondary ring of advisors with two additional audiences who can make a big difference in your institution’s marketing efforts. While advising students on a college decision is not their primary job, their positions of influence make it likely that they will play a part in the decision-making process.
Audience 4: Educators
How many of us have been impacted by a favorite teacher? Students can be shaped in powerful ways by teachers who take a personal interest in them or open their eyes to a new field of study. High school teachers, unlike counselors or parents, also have access to students in large groups, so maintaining those relationships can really pay off.
For student athletes, a coach’s opinion can also make a significant difference. Coaches often get to know their athletes very well, and some become highly trusted sources of information for families. The same goes for arts teachers who interact with students year after year for theater or music performances. In these cases, they are likely to nudge students to places they have relationships or experience sending other students.
Here are a few suggestions on how your office can help make these valuable connections:
Be a resource: Keep lists your college’s faculty or staff experts who can serve as guest speakers for high school events, just like you keep a list of expert sources for media outlets. A positive guest speaking experience can go a long way in making your university the recommendation of choice for teachers, while also gaining your university direct facetime with students. Coaches may be able to serve as a motivational speaker or to complete a guest training session.
Optimize the experience: As those faculty/staff/coach experts go into high schools, equip them with your latest marketing materials and talking points – and make sure they know how to direct a student to connect with your admissions team or fill out an interest form.
Speak to their interests: Don’t forget this audience as you craft your marketing materials and ad campaigns. Celebrate your school’s academic and athletic achievements, whether it’s an individual student or a whole program that has a history of success. Just as it’s important to connect with the various segments of your prospective student population, adults connect with their particular passions as well. Show them that your school has a culture they would be proud to send students to experience.
Give them the campus experience: Bring teachers to you by offering seminars and workshops (ideally for continuing education credit) or make your campus available as a location for a retreat. Or host a meet-and-greet for high school teachers and your professors in a particular discipline or for coaches to meet your athletics staffs. The more you can help educators feel comfortable on your campus, the more likely they are to send students your way. Marketing offices can help make this process easy and polished by providing design templates for promotional materials or signage for events and making sure branded giveaways are offered to every guest.
Provide a field trip: Invite teachers to bring entire classes with them to attend an arts or cultural event, sit in on a lecture series, or participate in a college-planning session and campus tour. Admissions and marketing teams should be involved to ensure these academic visits are also treated as recruiting events so visitors have the best possible interaction with your institution’s brand. (On the flip side of this, utilize recruiting events to invite guests to these arts or athletics events by providing free tickets.)
Don’t overlook the summer: Your campus likely hosts several summer camp-like experiences for junior high or high school students. Market those opportunities to high school coaches and teachers or invite them to join in as a guest instructor.
Show support: Take advantage of highly visible sponsorships and advertising opportunities at select tournaments and regional events. Is there a big rivalry football game everyone at one of your key feeder schools attends? Do you have a thriving music program that would benefit from sponsoring an All-State choir or band event?
Send swag: Everyone loves free stuff, and alumni who are teachers are no exception. Those coffee mugs, note pads, posters, and even pens with your name on them can catch student attention and serve as an endorsement. Pennants, bags, or padfolios may be a good option for coaches; ask your coaches what types of items might be most practical and likely to be used.
Audience 5: Relatives, Family Friends, and Other Adults
In Part 2, we covered the pivotal role that parents can play in the college process. But parents aren’t the only relatives who have a say. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and even close family friends can all impact a student’s decision. Let’s face it, any adult who has regular interaction with high school students is likely to ask them what their plans after high school are and have the chance to put their two cents into the process. While these advisors are less likely to be a force in making the final choice, their influence often holds the most sway early on in the process, when students are deciding which institutions to consider in their first list of possible colleges. Here are a few ideas:
Utilize your alumni: Your alums have a natural connection to you – and you have their contact information. Marketing to, and through, your alumni can be incredibly powerful. Your alumni are able to plant seeds early on with relatives and friends to get you on the radar with students you might otherwise miss, especially those outside your normal recruitment geography. Keep your alumni informed by sending them a list of talking points of the selling features of the university and ask them to share them with someone they know who is college age.
Make the most of campus events: When your institution hosts cultural events, business forums, camps, or meetings for local associations, make sure organizers receive clear messaging about the benefits the university can offer and the types of students you are seeking. Offer discounts for the bookstore, dining facilities, or event cost for prospective students who also take a campus tour while they are on campus.
Reward legacies: Create a sibling scholarship or book credit for families with more than one student enrolled at a time at the university. Offer older alumni an application fee waiver or bookstore coupon that they can pass along to grandchildren or friends.
Collaborate with the community: Co-market with local hotels or visitors bureaus to engage with visitors to your area. Ask if you can decorate a portion of their public space, provide information kiosks, or sponsor themed snacks.
A Robust Strategy Yields Robust Results
Marketing to your whole portfolio requires building a robust strategy that targets specific tactics for each of the concentric circles around your enrollment goals. For students, your focus should be on segmenting and speaking specifically to the sub-markets within your audience. As you market to first-level advisors, the idea is to invite them into partnership and leverage their influence. To engage second-level advisors, you need to cast the net wide, provide positive experiences, and focus on outcomes that create early awareness. This robust strategy for brand awareness keeps many levers in action to support results that impact enrollment and beyond.
Do you need help refining your university’s differentiators or developing a consistent brand message? Let’s talk about how 5° Branding can help.
