jewish community studies

If You Ask, We Answer: Part 1 – Higher Education

January 12, 2017
, , , , , Higher Education, The Art of Research

When people ask us what we do, one of the things we often say is, “we answer questions for our clients.”  And inevitably, we’re then asked, “What kinds of questions?  Why are the asking this of you?”

Frankly, this is why we’re in business.  Our daily challenge is to assist our clients in taking the management issues they regularly wrestle with, and shaping them into questions that we can then use in our research.  We gather information, with these questions as a backdrop.  The answers are enlightening and provide clear paths to follow with strategic next steps.

Let’s look at the higher education sector as an example.  We’re asked to solve issues involving admissions, enrollment, programming, curriculum, and community relationships.  Here are just some of the questions our clients have asked us to help answer through our work.

If we build it, will they enroll?
It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and launch a new program, and administrators want to know what they’ll need to do to make it successful before they invest the time and money into its creation.

How will workforce trends impact our programming/curriculum?
More colleges and universities seek to offer programs that teach students skills for jobs that are available in the local and regional market.  This may lead to offering more non-credit and certificate courses.

How can we better serve our surrounding community?
Most universities have moved past the traditional “town and gown relations” model and have started to really take a look at what programs and services could be provided to make their institutions an asset to the local community.

Why didn’t students enroll?
Knowing why an institution didn’t make the final cut is as important as understanding what put the institution in the initial consideration set.

What’s the best way to deliver our courses?
Full time, part time, online, in person, and hybrids are all successful ways to deliver courses.  Clients often ask what the right mix is for their students.

Will changes to our curriculum be viewed positively by prospective employers of our students?
We’re proponents of understanding how employers perceive recent graduates… and we often provide insights about what’s lacking in today’s graduates.  We now know that soft skills, such as work ethic, emotional intelligence, and communications skills are highly important.  Educators want to know how to build curricula to prepare students for today’s workforce.

How do we manage our brand reputation (especially) after a crisis?
After an institution receives unflattering headlines in the (social) media, savvy institutions look to measure the impact on an institution’s brand to prepare to take the steps that will help fix the situation. 

What is the value of a college degree to prospective students and their parents?
In the past, quality learning, being prepared for the future, and “getting a job” have all been touted as the value of a college education.  But times are changing, as are the many reasons why a college degree is important.

Should we be offering interdisciplinary programs and courses?
As consultants, we just want to emphatically say “yes”!  But, the value of research is to understand what’s important to the market (prospective students, employers) and leverage what we learn to help build a valuable interdisciplinary focus.

What’s the best way to partner with community colleges as a funnel for admissions to four year institutions?
One community college in our area took a controversial approach to funneling students to a four year college – and we even wrote a blog post about it.

Our research can help higher education clients explore all of these questions and more.  Give us a call or shoot us an email and let us know what management issues your institution faces.

In future posts, we’ll explore the questions that clients in our other sectors (healthcare, mission-based/non-profit) have asked us to answer – stay tuned!

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, please contact Elizabeth Foley [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.

 

A mortarboard and book demonstrate the success of higher ed recruitment.

This Higher Ed Recruitment TV Ad Is Spot On

July 26, 2016
, , , , , , Higher Education, The Melior Group Results

As a part of its We Rise campaign, a for-profit school seems to succeed where many non-profit universities struggle in higher ed recruitment. In a single thirty-second spot, the University of Phoenix addresses the major pain points impacting key demographics of a diverse group of audiences, many of whom institutions of higher learning find hard to reach.

Higher ed marketers are well aware that the “typical” college student has shifted from middle class teenagers with parents can afford to pay full tuition to include more atypical and diverse sets of student types. Many students are working full-time, have children and are cash strapped or sleep deprived. Others are returning veterans, first generation Americans or are struggling to care for family members in need.

In the ad, “If I Only Had A Brain” from The Wizard of Oz has been adapted for use in the new world of higher education where imagery and lyrics blend to portray the challenges experienced by students of all ages while simultaneously celebrating the characteristics that define success.

For students – the school implies that it values hard-working, resilient and dedicated applicants – and for potential employers – graduates are confident, tough and the type of people you can rely on. It’s a really smart concept.

This single TV ad successfully addresses what many fail to:

  • Multiple types of students: traditional aged, employed, older, veterans, caregivers, parents with kids and more
  • Negative sentiments: from critics who think a degree obtained from a for-profit institution isn’t a “real degree”
  • Employers: by implying that University of Phoenix graduates posses the qualities of success

It is easy to ignore advertising from for-profit institutions. They tend to take a beating in the higher ed world as critics claim the degrees do not hold the same value as those from more traditional not-for-profits.

But tell that to the employers we’ve talked to over the years. Many – admittedly not all – aren’t concerned about for-profit vs. non-profit, but they are concerned about new employees having the skills, experiences and characteristics needed to excel.

Admittedly, we haven’t yet seen the statistics to learn if inquiries have increased or if employers’ perceptions have become more favorable toward the University of Phoenix since this campaign started.  Based on our own research outcomes, employers seek graduates with real life experience who can juggle complexity, get the job done and confidentially handle challenges. We have found that they do indeed seek more than brains.

More Than Brains – https://youtu.be/v2IkZZmd6RA

 

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, please visit our Education page or contact Elizabeth Foley [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.

Trends and observations in higher ed

Trends and Challenges Impacting Higher Education

March 31, 2016
, , , , , , , , , Higher Education

We recently spoke to the board of trustees of a university client about some of the trends and challenges impacting the education industry.  We talked about some of the marketing insights we’ve developed recently through our work with university clients and partners, and gave our observations of what’s been happening in the market.

Your competition has stepped up its marketing communications efforts…and those efforts can be seen in a variety of places. 

  • In the Philadelphia region, we’ve certainly seen the trend move from a simmer to a low boil in terms of marketing and advertising, not just from local institutions, but from up and down the East Coast. In fact, our recent edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal arrived with a gift — a glossy 100+ page “magazine” from High Point University in North Carolina touting its graduates and the academic features of the university.
  • Universities are looking for multiple ways to get the word out to prospective students, and we’re seeing not just overall branding efforts changing, but targeted marketing of specific programs (it’s not just the MBA anymore) and towards specific markets – both geographic and demographic.

Higher education audiences are savvier than ever.

  • We’ve learned that prospective students want to see outcomes (not data because they don’t understand how to interpret it) — stories they can see themselves in, specific examples of their possible future.
  • Prospective students and their parents want to know that their college education will lead to a “good job” after graduation. It’s incumbent on colleges to show this in stories and in data.
  • Information about colleges is coming to prospects from many sources, both traditional and non-traditional… and social media is changing the face of information delivery.

Social media continues to grow (and dominate)… and it’s not just Facebook.

  • Smart college marketers are meeting students “where they live” – online via a range of social media sites. A social media marketing strategy that includes your web presence is just as critical as a strategy for producing your print materials.  It’s time to find out what messages students want to hear about you on social media.
  • Mobile devices use to access college information continues to grow and includes video. Think about it:  the trends of screen sizes of our mobile devices over the past few years are actually getting bigger – and that’s to accommodate video.  One of our agency partners is convinced that within 5 years, everything on college websites will include video.

Branding is the buzzword dujour when higher ed professionals talk about marketing their institutions these days.

  • Remember that your “brand” is not your logo, the font or the color. And it’s not what you say about yourself.  IT’S WHAT PEOPLE THINK AND SAY ABOUT YOU.  Knowing what each of your target audiences (prospective students, faculty, key stakeholders) think and say about you now, will help you to craft future messages that are honest and truthful and attractive.
  • Brand differentiation is becoming more important – what makes the experience at your college distinctive and worth considering? If you sound like everyone else, why enroll at your institution over another?

 

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, visit our Education page or please contact Elizabeth Foley [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.

College marketing logo

Eight Characteristics of Future-Focused Community Colleges

October 30, 2015
, , , , , Higher Education, The Art of Research

Having an “educated workforce” now requires people to have post-secondary education and targeted skills training in order to be prepared to compete in the ever-growing global economy. And knowing that community colleges educate approximately four in ten of today’s college students, it’s impossible to overlook the potential that community colleges have in changing the face of higher education and also its contribution to the future workforce in the U.S.

Community Colleges Meet Distinctive Regional Needs

Community colleges provide an affordable opportunity for a wide range of prospective students–from those requiring remedial education, to those seeking specific skills to advance their careers, to older adults looking to satisfy long (or short) held interests, to prospective employees wanting tailored training to meet economic needs within their communities, to veterans requiring a range of supports.

With the state of higher education changing every day, it’s time for community colleges to carefully consider their many strengths and weaknesses, to be opportunistic and proactive in addressing challenges.

Challenges for Today and Tomorrow

While there are many opportunities, today’s community colleges also face a series of challenges, among them are some within and some that are outside of their control:

  • Decreasing enrollment;
  • Prospective students’ (often) lack of preparation for the rigors of higher education – and the attendant reputation of community colleges becoming “High School – Part 2”;
  • Diminished funding by state and local governments;
  • Increasing tuition rates;
  • Fewer students completing their college education (for a range of reasons that aren’t merely cost-driven);
  • Increased competition from for-profit educational institutions (including technical and trade institutions) making promises that are difficult to keep;
  • A concern that some community college presidents are approaching retirement age, with a smallish pool of replacements in the wings.

The Eight Characteristics

In our experience with community colleges, those that have the greatest likelihood to succeed are the ones that have:

  • a tangible and thoughtful mission, geared to meet the needs of today’s students, employers, and communities;
  • been flexible in responding to economic and employer needs with training programs that are both skills-based and workplace-sensitive (e.g., teaching teamwork, communications, technological solutions);
  • responded to the demographic composition of its community in all ways possible;
  • a realistic and flexible tuition structure (if/where possible) to appeal to a range of prospective students;
  • worked with its region’s employers to address the employment needs unique to them;
  • collaborations with secondary schools and with other colleges/universities in the area to make the experience as positive and as seamless as possible;
  • community connections, which lead to mutual support of the needs and interests of residents – particularly in areas where a community college is the primary source of higher education;
  • a proactive approach to in gathering market-based information in order to support strategic planning and drive decisions about brand, marketing direction and target markets, programs and courses that hold the greatest potential and those that no longer fit future directions and needs, new and important target market segments, and general guidance for optimizing the college experience for current (and prospective) students.

For years, The Melior Group has been supplying in-depth and quantitative information and working with institutions in the higher education sector to develop marketing and business strategies for enrollment management, responsive programs and courses, and targeted marketing direction. 

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, visit our Education page or please contact Elizabeth Foley at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.

Sometimes THE Standard measures are not the Only Standard

Take Heed, Dear College Marketer

September 3, 2015
, , , , , Higher Education, The Art of Research

This is an update to our previous blog post published two years ago.

In the last few years, one of the biggest trends among communications and marketing professionals has been to predict the pace of rapid growth in college and university marketing.  University Business published an article many years ago highlighting the importance for college marketers to measure the success of their future marketing campaigns. Certainly, college marketers have taken heed of that advice. In recent years, The Melior Group has seen higher education market research become one of the fastest growing segments of our business.

What’s the Challenge?

While many of the core tenants of higher education marketing remain intact, universities are tasked with meeting today’s challenges; demographic trends, budget shortfalls, and student financial aid cutbacks have resulted in enrollment declines. It is predicted that these trends will continue.

So What’s A College to Do?

Successful higher education marketers are learning how to step up their marketing initiatives, recognizing that competition for students is on the rise. We’re encountering many more universities looking to refresh their brand identity and get a better handle on the strengths that will attract students to their institutions.

With universities looking for information to support their strategic marketing initiatives, perhaps it’s time to take another look at common practices to measure success of marketing initiatives.

Sometimes THE Standard Isn’t the Only Standard

Traditionally, top-of-mind awareness has been considered THE standard measure of understanding where various colleges rank in the minds of prospective students and parents.

We have learned that traditional measures don’t sufficiently tell the whole story… and it barely amounts to a chapter. There’s so much more to evaluating perceptions of prospective students… such as also including key stakeholders and influencers on college selection. To successfully influence prospects, key community and business leaders, prospective employers of its graduates, we suggest that other measures be included in any evaluation, such as

  • Likelihood to visit
  • Interest in applying
  • Likelihood to recommend
  • Quality of graduates (ready for the workforce)
  • Web/social media activities (both the positive and negative)
  • Alumni giving/engagement
  • Engagement with the community

Successful universities actively look for creative, outside of the box solutions for designing academic programs to appeal to students, demographic outreach and financial options that will bolster their value to more prospective student families and increase enrollment.

Smart marketers are stepping up their marketing strategies by looking at the information that truly matters and are beginning to understand the mix of factors that are important to the specific prospect populations who value what they offer.

For over 30 years, The Melior Group has been supplying in-depth information and working with university clients to help them to think strategically about their marketing efforts. To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, visit our Education page or please contact Elizabeth Foley at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.

Alumni Pitfalls And Cleanup: Steps To Avoid Costly Mistakes.

May 14, 2015
, , , , Higher Education, The Art of Research

The Pitfalls Of Alumni Engagement 

Wait. What? There are pitfalls when alumni are engaged with their alma mater?

The utopian view is that university development/engagement offices are brimming with requests from alumni who want to be actively involved with their alma maters. Reality is a completely different story.

We Shudder To Think That Sometimes Alumni Can Hurt Rather Than Help

At a higher education conference I recently attended, and after talking to a few professionals, I noticed some interesting and similar stories were starting to emerge. It was pretty clear that some alumni who – at first – seemed eager to impart their wisdom and work with current students – had acted of their own accord with unintended consequences and damaging effects as a result.

  • A colleague talked about alumni who agree to advise groups, but who don’t make the time to meet with the students or take their roles as advisors seriously; leaving students ignored at exactly the time they expected assistance.
  • Volunteer alumni advisors were “helping” students by teaching them how to circumvent university risk management policies so they could still hold a previously unapproved event.
  • Despite efforts that a university was making to rebuild its brand and reputation and improve the quality of students admitted, well-intentioned alumni, remembering the “good old days” were inadvertently sabotaging the school’s efforts at recruiting events by perpetuating the old stereotypes (of a non-academic party atmosphere)… leaving students puzzled and administrators wondering how to bridge this gap.

Be Proactive To Mitigate Or Eliminate Their Mistakes In Advance

Of course, alumni are valuable to every university – they enhance small and large-scale development efforts and under the right circumstances can be great marketers for a university. BUT, as the examples above illustrate, alumni can be detrimental or counterproductive to efforts without proper oversight.

The good news is that there were a number of lessons that came from these situations that will allow a university to train, manage and monitor valuable alumni volunteers.

  • Attain buy-in on branding/re-branding efforts so alumni can be effective marketers
  • Train alumni volunteers and student advisors to encourage healthy student-alumni relationships and prevent risk management issues, have back-up plans in place.
  • Know your alumni and suggest the best engagement strategy for individuals
  • Use alumni engagement surveys and student surveys about their experience with Alumni as an excellent tool for learning – and monitoring – their shared experience
  • Redirect alumni efforts when things go sour, to help resolve a situation, but not lose the goodwill of the alum

Proactive university staff are looking to engage alumni in constructive ways and they’re learning how to effectively straddle the line between help and hurt. The Melior Group works with large research institutions, regional public universities and small private colleges to improve alumni relations.

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, visit our Education page or please contact Elizabeth Foley at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 ext 111 or Linda McAleer at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 ext 104.

College marketing logo

Who Manages The Relationship With Area Employers? Hint: It’s Not Always Career Services

April 24, 2015
, , , , , , , , , Higher Education, The Art of Research

In our previous post in the series – “Closing The Perception Gap: Are Students Trained to Put Theory Into Practice?”- we briefly touched on the importance of advancing communications and partnerships with employers to improve the general perception about a college or universities ability to deliver on career preparation. The focus was primarily on strategies that enable students to put theory into practice. When you consider developing partnerships at the executive level, doors can open that lead to true innovation.

While internships, hands-on training and job placement opportunities are vitally important to hiring rates and alumnae career trajectories, this aspect of the employer to institution relationship is largely handled in career services departments and is almost entirely student-focused. If this is the only way the institution is engaging employers, it’s likely that significant longer-term growth strategies have been missed.

Especially important to regional public universities and small private colleges are the following questions. What local or regional challenges exist that your graduates may be highly qualified to resolve? Will they be able to develop specific skills or knowledge that give them the competitive advantage in the hiring process?

Put Market Research To Work

The Melior Group worked with a quasi-urban school district in helping them to develop and enhance partnerships with universities who, with some tweaking, could develop programs that would deliver top-notch teachers who were ready to step-in and work in the type of environment where the district is located. A true partnership, the school district worked directly with faculty to make a direct and significant positive impact on area schools.

Along the way, The Melior Group made an informed pivot in their research design and adjusted geographic parameters to discover that there were nearby rural area school districts that could also benefit greatly from the same innovative techniques. The graduates, armed with the know-how to handle challenges perceived to be urban would also be well suited to assist specific rural populations.

Original Innovation Serves A Second Purpose

Universities that are new to this type of partnership development will want to re-examine the relationships they currently have with area employers by proactively asking insightful questions. What are these employers looking for from a partnership with a university? What unique quality can the university offer an employer to make the relationship valuable?

Buy-in from the top of the administration – with accountability and responsibility at the Vice Presidential level – to develop healthy relationships with employers can significantly increase hiring rates, elevate the school’s image as an innovative partner and substantially improve the longer-term vitality of the community.

The Melior Group works with large research institutions, regional public universities and small private colleges to improve the perception of their schools’ effectiveness by discovering where gaps in perception exist and drilling into what strategic mix of programmatic, communication and partnership initiatives can allow institutions to more easily deliver on expectations.

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, visit our Education page or please contact Elizabeth Foley at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer at [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.