Re-engineering Faculty Marketing

Joanne JacobsChief Operating Officer, 1000headsApril 2013

Session objectives

• Demonstrate the pros and cons of an Agency approach for marketing and communications strategy• Discuss how the agency approach could be applied for Faculty marketing activities• Examine consumer behaviour and media platform changes affect marketing strategy• Provide a model for adopting the Agency approach

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Faculty marketing

Environment for marketing Faculty courses changing dramatically• Changing education marketplace• Changing consumer behaviour/demands

Need to think differently about how to manage marketing tasks and campaigns.

Changing education marketplace

• Fragmented media channels• Audience driven environment• Increasingly complex education and research products• Increasing focus on customer service as education moves to more fee-paying model• Need for marketers to engage audiences for relationships

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Changing consumer behaviour

• Audiences now expect to have control over messaging• Audiences expect responses to queries

within shortest possible period (no more than 24 hours)• Consumers are informed, require

facilitation of access to more detailed information• Increasingly comfortable with buying

online• Good experiences of products more easily

shared• Poor experiences of products and services

are shared AS SOON AS it happens

Agency approach to marketing

• Account services: maps the client objectives and sets the communication needs• Creative services: ideas and products used in campaigns•Media planning and buying: advertising space management • Research and account planning: market research and campaign tracking, insights and strategy

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Faculty implementation

University Marketing Directors Faculty Marketing ManagerSchool/divisional Marketing ManagerMarketing assistants

… all strategists, planners, researchers

PLUS different suppliers providing creative, strategic and research services.

Problem with this…

• Trying to do too many things• Speed of execution is slow• Fosters hidden achievements• Less integrated approach given fragmented channels for communication

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Advantages of the agency model

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• Faculty marketers work with Account Services to prepare strategy• Account services set project for creative, buying, research• Faculty managers act as ‘client’, also conduct research, execute strategies and report.

Disadvantages of the agency model

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• Requires whole-of-Faculty (or university) approach• Need to recruit specialist creative and data insights people• Need to ensure that studio management approach is deployed to ensure all projects covered.

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Other issues impacting adoption

• Changing strategic priorities • It’s not about controlling the message•Marketing structure in the Faculty will influence flexibility

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Adaptations of the Agency model

Focus on the tasks. The model can vary but division of responsibility helps speed up cycle time from idea to execution

• Management: planning, UX, strategy, client services, coordination of other tasks• Creative: art and design, copy and content development,

interactive content design and build• Production: print, broadcast, interactive media deployment,

community management/facilitation, media buying• Measurement: analytics, campaign evaluation, surveys and

strategic opportunities assessment

Focus on audiences

• Tendency to think the Agency model cannot be adopted as this will not fit within budget/education structure.

• Need to think about changing priorities for Faculty marketers…– Changing consumer expectations

require faster marketing cycles–Marketing is no longer just about

outgoing messages – need to facilitate two-way communication and this process needs to feed back in to measurement, strategy and planning.

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For education marketers

• Education consumers control learning experiences• Responses to learning queries demanded near-

immediately• Detailed information should be presented digitally,

preferably with comparison tools and review data• Students will be willing to buy discrete components

of education products on a trial basis online (at a low price point)• Where possible marketers should be embedding the

opportunity to share positive experiences of education products• Marketers need to be tracking negative

commentary in all social contexts so as to respond in a timely manner.

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New models for marketing

• There will always be a need for large scale brand awareness activities• New models focused on facilitating impartial

decision making among students/researchers• Increasing need for marketers to prove

product value• Corporate messages generally not trusted• Influencers thus CRUCIAL to audience

decision making

Audiences for HEI marketing

ProspectiveCurrentFormerPublicResearching

online

Using internal comms systems

Alumni, social

networks

Accessing news

channels

All audiences for HEI marketing are

using digital channels to engage

with each other and uni

news/content.

Newest marketing: social businessEngage with influencers who will test, provide feedback on

products, and advocate

LISTENING strategyMultiple conversation opportunities

Responsive engagementCommunity-led

Best response record ‘wins’

Consumers are producers

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Strategy comparison

Listening strategy: audience-led.

Web (pull) strategy: part broadcast, part

engagement

Traditional marketing (push) strategy:

broadcast

Insight?

• Global adoption of internet enabled devices and social media requiring marketers to adapt • Local adoption of social strategies

to access audiences is at critical mass, even among education businesses• Any model for establishing and

maintaining marketing strategy needs to be mindful of different kinds of interaction - this job not clear in classic agency model. • May need to consider an

additional interactive marketing specialist

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How these affect the agency model

Risk focus only on traditional ‘broadcast style’ messages if staff not adequately across

changing behavioursBUT

Can adapt to changing education market more

effectively

Image source:

How to deploy the agency model

1. Divide load by task, and allocate staff to these tasks:

– Management– Content – Creative– Deployment – Measurement

2. Prioritise Creative, Interactive application build and measurement and either use an in-house team or bring on Agencies for specialist services, working within the same Agency format.

– NB: All Agencies will still require some degree of client services to pay for internal communication and ideation.

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What to do if you can’t deploy

• Consider allocating time to specific roles within your marketing role. Focus only on these tasks in the scheduled time period. Divide time up using the same formula:– Management– Content – Creative– Deployment – Measurement

• This will improve understanding of time use and will allow for better budgeting/planning for marketing activities

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Planning ahead

Vital that Faculty marketers improve efficiency and effectiveness in a digitally

dominated education marketplace

Management and communication structure needs to be flexible enough to adapt to the future of the education market and to the

future of consumer behaviour

Future of the market

• Likely to be driven by rise of technology mediated communication–Gartner estimate that by 2014,

80% of users in the western world and affluent consumers (20%) in emerging markets will have smart phones (Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner Research )

• With technology adoption, speed of international trade and economic pressures rise; political and environmental influences remain unpredictable.

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Future of consumer behaviour

1SOURCE:

Universal McCann Wave 6, 2012

Future of consumer behaviour 2

SOURCE: Universal McCann Wave 6, 2012

Future of consumer behaviour 3

Original of this image at: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a

Future of consumer behaviour 4

• IDC (September 2011) expects mobile Web access – via laptops and smart mobile devices – to overtake desktop Web by 2015.•Gartner says (June 2012) that 1/3 of all personal data will be stored in the cloud by 2016.• Total time spent in online networks per month is likely to plateau, but is will be significantly more than with traditional media

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/innovationlab/6105458139

Future of consumer behaviour 5

• Increased use of social• Increased use of mobile devices• Increased reliance on immediate

translations and transactions• Rise in information (digital) product

consumption• Rise in remote service products and

cloud based content access • Rise of NFC payments• Increased focus on sustainability,

environmental impact and perceived freedoms.

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Futures for education

• Increasing interest in online and hybrid education models• Education less about

‘teaching’ more about ‘learning facilitation’• Immersive education models

are attractive, generate stronger evidence of learning• Demand from business sector

focused on data science, programming and applied thinking.

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Changing role of education marketers

• Facilitators of access to the right information/ personnel at the right time (particularly at coal face)• Increasing need to

communicate ROI of enrolment• Increasing role in

attending to current student needs• Decreasing focus on

traditional media

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Last thoughts…

Changing markets need new marketing models.

The Agency model can assist in ensuring flexibility to a changing education market and changing

consumer behaviour,

Thank you

Joanne JacobsChief Operating OfficerPh: (02) 9251 0491 | Mob: 0419 131 077Email: joanne.jacobs@1000heads.com

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