Managing budgets and expectations in these tough times

Recently a client contacted us asking for input about how best “to manage budgets and expectations in these tough times.” On her campus, they’ve been having discussions around this topic, something that has been happening on all of our client campuses for some time.  

As we step back and examine this topic, several planning considerations come to mind. These considerations reflect the things we have been sharing with our clients on a regular basis when developing communication plans. In this two-part series, we’ll offer our planning considerations for your reflection.

#1)  Institutions are increasingly—and repeatedly—evaluating the mix of marketing communications in their admission marketing communication arsenal.  We have found that both offline and online tactics must work in collaboration with one another to achieve optimal results. The use of online technologies has had only an additive effect on how colleges and universities communicate with key audiences. Although some publications have gone exclusively online (e.g., academic catalogs, donor reports), more and more institutions are finding that they must employ complimentary offline and online tactics. Although many institutions are increasing the amount of online tactics that are employed, they are also recognizing that offline tactics are often necessary to drive users to the institution’s online presence or to sustain institutional brand awareness.

#2) Institutions are evaluating the frequency of contact they have with key audiences. Due to the nature of the stealth admission market, the traditional flow of communication with prospects has changed dramatically. Prospects can now parachute into the communication flow from several points, necessitating the importance of thinking differently about how to communicate with them. For this reason, we are seeing more frequency of contact over a longer duration of time, which in turn has resulted in the use of more e-communications or more smaller publications, such as postcards.

#3) Many of our clients have been reducing the size (i.e., page count and finished size) of their offline publications in an effort to reduce costs—design, production, and mailing. This is also being done to acknowledge that most prospects are looking for brief, but compelling and authentic, content that tells them what they need to know. While there is a place for longer content, such as in profiles, by and large less is more.

#4) The stealth marketplace is driving the increased importance of having an engaging, interactive, and user-centric Web site. This point cannot be emphasized enough. We need to not only drive traffic to the Web site, but we also need to ensure that there is a compelling reason to go there in the first place. More and more, institutions are evaluating their outward-facing Web sites to ensure they are delivering on the brand promise and providing a quality user experience. Institutions are also utilizing search engine optimization, including pay-per-click ads, to ensure their sites can be found. And, institutions are increasing online interactions by sending e-holiday cards and e-vites for special events and are reaching more niche audiences through the use of downloadable PDFs (rather than printing and mailing a publication to small numbers of people).

Next week we’ll post the second half of this two-part series.

What are you doing to manage budgets and expectations in these tough times? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.