As a university marketing director, one of my tasks was to receive the embargoed email giving us advance notice about our national rankings each fall.
Everyone wanted to know: Are we still in the top quartile? Did our peer ranking go up? Down? Did anything surprising happen with our peers?
Whether colleges and universities love or hate rankings, such as the U.S. News “Best Colleges” list, parents and potential students still take a look at them – so most schools pay attention.
The question is: are you intentional in your efforts to impact your rankings? If your answer is “no,” are you OK with your aggressive competitors passing you in the coming year?
Here are eight components of a marketing strategy to ensure you are communicating effectively with your peers.
1. Designate a clear owner of the communication process related to a specific ranking.
2. Research the ranking program in which an increased presence or improved results are desired, including criteria and process, competitors, multi-year trends, surprising changes in the order, etc.
3. If reputation is a portion of the rankings, determine who votes on you, through what process, based on what criteria, and when.
4. Create or update a contact list of those who vote on you, including name, title, phone number, email and physical address.
5. Outline an annual plan of marketing communications targeting this group. Leverage publications you are already producing – and consider special pieces just for this purpose.
6. Track everything sent out and any possible results.
7. Track year-to-year changes in the marketing program and year-to-year changes in reputation score and overall ranking. Also note any significant media coverage, athletics championships, scandals, etc., that might account for one-year spikes or declines.
8. Be CONSISTENT and PERSISTENT in your communications program. Recognize it can take years to significantly improve your peers’ perceptions of your college or university. Make this communication flow a goal owned by a champion year after year – and budget accordingly.
If this process is overwhelming for your time-crunched staff, consider outsourcing segments of it – perhaps the list updating or the competitor analysis, for example. The most important point: if you are not doing anything to proactively manage your reputation with your peers, you are losing ground every day.
