You’ve made it through all 10 Higher Ed Marketing Truths, and you’re ready for multi-dimensional action. Let’s review what we’ve learned together through this blog series and make sure you’re wrapping up with some great takeaways.

Marketing approaches are continually evolving. And even if our best-strategized plans are in step with best practices, we all know that perfect plans don’t always result in perfect action steps or perfect outcomes. People move and projects drift. And on top of all that, the world around you can change in a flash.

From Fortune 500 companies to small private colleges, data is the new currency. Information not only allows organizations to make smart decisions, it enhances their opportunities to tell meaningful stories that connect with their audience. In other words, if data is the new currency, having your own is a must.

I can’t say I have a favorite higher education marketing truth, but I do think this one might just be the happiest of them all. Through collaboration between marketing departments and other areas of the institution, marketing leaders have the opportunity to be the Chief Silo Busters of higher education.

Do you consider marketing to be an expense or an investment? For administrators whose roles require them to keep budgets balanced, it’s easy to see marketing as an outpouring of cash that may or may not see a return—in other words, an expense. But the marketers who succeed in higher education and the marketplace know the truth: marketing is an investment, and when managed with strategy and expertise, it’s an investment that generates meaningful returns.

Easy-to-use analytics tools can provide higher education marketers with information that helps them to identify their institution’s unique strengths, leading to campaigns that stand out from the crowd and strong decisions that are data-informed.

Timeliness plays a critical role in just about every sphere of human interaction. Most people innately feel that there’s a “right moment” for a certain behavior or message and a “wrong moment” for the exact same expression. Words that meet the need of the moment can be a powerful asset to those who hear them. In the higher education space, timeliness can be the difference between students applying to an institution or not

A colleague shared with me that her daughter, a high school junior, is eagerly anticipating college life. When she started receiving college mail, she planned to save it all. But somewhere around mailing #47, most of it started going in a stack for mom. In an extremely busy world, we have to cut through the clutter to reach our intended audience. What’s the best way to do this? Create a clear message.

When prospective students visit your institution’s website or set foot on campus, they’re looking for proof. Every school vying for their attention likely makes relatively similar, general claims such as a positive experience, excellent degree programs, and expert faculty. To stand out in an increasingly competitive higher education landscape, the key to creating an emotional connection with prospective students is telling them an authentic story.

There’s something about your school. Something that’s not like any other school. When you define that one-of-a-kindness that sets you apart, you’ve discovered the key that unlocks the power of your brand. When you differentiate your school in the marketplace, you unleash that power.

Welcome to the first blog in our Truths about Higher Ed Marketing Series with 5° Senior Vice President Ryan Morabito, a veteran brand strategist who has worked with over 100 schools.

The concept of marketing too often feels like a mystery that can’t be solved or a mathematical formula that must be applied perfectly in order to produce the right outcome. But the fact of the matter is: it’s neither. Instead, marketing is a comprehensive approach to telling a brand’s story with creativity and clarity.