August 2009 Lawlor Focus

Back to School, Back to Basics: Focusing on the Fundamentals

Summer is nearly over, and the “back to school” season has begun. But it’s hardly business as usual: Everyone is dealing with a new economic reality. People are beginning to realize they won’t recover their pre-recession net worth for many years to come. Families of the new students arriving on your campus in the coming weeks may have been far enough along in the admission process when the recession hit that it didn’t alter their college plans significantly. But that will likely not be the case for the next recruiting cycle.

The CEO of Wal-Mart, Mike Duke, pointed out the prevailing attitude in a recent AP news story, saying, “There is a new normal now where people are saving more, consuming less, and being more frugal and thoughtful in their purchases.” The marketplace is returning to the basics, and families making decisions about college during the 2009-10 academic year will adjust their expectations accordingly as they assemble their lists of colleges under consideration. This quest for value framed within the psychological confines of pragmatism and frugality means colleges and universities must themselves place a renewed focus on going back to the basics by paying attention to the fundamentals. Yet times of change can also present ideal opportunities for innovative thinking, so consider using new strategies and tactics to implement these “basics”:

Personal attention—As it’s always been, the key to successful recruitment is giving prospective students opportunities for meaningful engagement with your institution. The likelihood of that engagement being meaningful is greatly increased if you focus on connecting with students who are qualified leads. New predictive modeling tools that prequalify students according to their likeliness to enroll can help you more cost-effectively build your inquirer pool and target your resources.

Retention—The “product” part of the marketing mix is perhaps its most fundamental component, so make sure you are delivering on your promises to enrolled students. Current students who persist not only help your bottom line, but also serve as your most effective marketers to prospective students. The “stealth” marketplace places a high premium on transparency and wishes to have any claims you make confirmed by word of mouth (in person or online) from current students at your institution.

Relevant messaging—The content of your marketing communications must not only be authentic, but also timely. Write audience-specific content for your web site and utilize social networks that allow prospective students to “pull” (and share) the information they seek anytime they wish. And when you do have an occasion to “push” content, segment your audiences in a manner that allows you to deliver messages that are targeted to their interests and situations at that particular point in time.

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The recession has provided all of us with an opportunity to revisit fundamentals. Here are a few basic reminders:

• Now is not the time to retrench, but to reassess and refocus.
• Research who, what, why, when, where and how. Review the results, then take appropriate action.
• Refine effective strategies and tactics. Remove and replace ineffective and inefficient activities.
• Reflect on new possibilities; resurrect old solutions when appropriate.
• Reduce the waste of time, talent and treasure. Reallocate resources for the best return on investment.
• Remind the entire campus community about its reason for being. Renew the commitment to educating students.
• Recruit new students; retain current students. And always be responsive.
• Recognize accomplishment. Reward success. Rejoice in meaningful work.
• Relax and live a balanced life.
• Repeat regularly.

In the news

A Michigan community college is offering customizable workforce training by dividing its course content into more than 1,200 individual skills modules, worth fractions of a credit hour, that students can take whenever they wish. Meanwhile, Anya Kamenetz (author of Generation Debt and our interviewee in the forthcoming issue of The Lawlor Review) reports in Fast Company about how entrepreneurs, open content advocates and education technologists are tinkering with the way higher education is delivered in order to lower costs and improve learning.

Did you know?

PayScale has attempted to determine which undergraduate educations represent the “best investment” by ranking colleges and universities according to the salaries of their alumni.

Source: New York Times