subject: Not enough Higher Education Marketing? [print this page] Not enough Higher Education Marketing? Not enough Higher Education Marketing?
Good evening, and I hope you enjoyed this stormy summer day (it was here in Cincinnati!)
I read an interesting blog post this afternoon about colleges experiencing more than usual summer melt. For those not familiar, summer melt are students who fail to show up on campus after making their deposits.
The Chronicle does not address this but I would like to take a stab at it. My contention is that the schools that market the most wins. Now, what I don't mean is he who places the most ads wins, that is not it at all. Those who place ads, engage students in social media, keep web profiles updated, and regularly track results. That is called marketing, across the board participation.
The more positive ingrained messages you can get to prospective students , the better chance you have of landing those students. The more you participate in social media, the better chance you have.
Are you attending fairs? If so, are they in your best places geographically? One important thing here would be to use a multi-faceted approach to fairs. This should include print, web, and most importantly a call to action.
The next thing to take a look at is vendors. Are you vendors delivering on what they say they would? Are they delivering a steady stream of "quality" leads? I would say Zinch.com is an excellent choice for this.
The best way to prevent summer melt is engage the students through a variety of marketing messages.
