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Education for Sale
New tactics help sell higher education in Connecticut
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Business New Haven
11/25/2002
By: Karen Singer
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In their never-ending quest to attract new students, New Haven-area colleges and universities are using an increasing imaginative and aggressive array of marketing tools to get the word out about their institutions and programs. Delivery methods range from print and broadcast ads to online applications.
"Higher education is no longer in the luxurious position of assuming, 'If we build it they will come,'" says Patricia Vandenberg, executive director of communications at Hadley, Mass., based Mount Holyoke College, and an adviser to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), a national organization.
"Because of increased competition, non-profits - including higher educational institutions - have turned toward the tried-and-true methods used in the for-profit sector."
Messages vary, of course, depending on the school and its prospective audience.
"We take a broad-based approach because of our wide clientele," explains Patrick Dilger, director of pubic affairs at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). Prospective students including undergraduate, graduate and part-time commuters are reached by "mini-campaigns aimed at each of these groups."
Newspaper, radio, television and billboard ads, as well as open houses, are some of the ways SCSU is employing to lure students. The graduate school arsenal also contains pens, mugs and other promotional items emblazoned with an award-winning school logo.
The targeted approach, which has intensified over the last five years, echoes the school's overall image campaign stressing "the quality of our students and programs," Dilger adds.
Albertus Magnus College also uses different media mixes to zero in on several "distinct constituencies," according to school spokesperson Rosanne Zudekoff. High-school students are recruited via such means as college fairs and student guides, while adult learners looking for undergraduate or graduate programs are enticed by other methods.
Direct mail and print ads, including Sunday newspaper inserts, for example, are aimed at attracting adult students for New Dimensions, an Albertus program offering evening business classes for working adults at a dozen learning centers around the state. Students can earn associate, undergraduate and graduate degrees.
"We appeal to a lot of different levels of the corporate organization, from folks working on a line in the factory to folks with advanced degrees in engineering who want to enter management," says Joe Chadwick, director of program development at Albertus.
"It's a very competitive marketplace. Over the last ten years quite a few area schools have introduced adult-oriented programs," adds Chadwick. "We think we're unique in the way we offer the program. We're very strong in a team approach to learning, and have a tremendous array of professionals teaching in our program and adjunct professionals from the business community who offer a practical approach to the classroom."
Adds Chadwick, "We try to highlight this message in our ads."
New Dimensions introduced an MBA program last year, and will be launching an undergraduate program in management of information systems early next year.
"Most people think of marketing as promotion, but it's much more than that," MHC's Vandenberg says.
"Schools must also make sure they're tailoring their programs to meet the needs of society - which means doing a lot more research."
The University of New Haven (UNH) is among area schools stressing the importance of such feedback in designing - and delivering targeted messages about - the features and benefits of their programs.
Several years ago UNH officials decided they wanted to increase the number of undergraduate students at a campus predominantly populated by part-time commuters. Demographic research revealed, among other things, that most of students came from within a 300-mile radius of campus and 79 percent of incoming freshmen came with a major in mind.
"We wanted to get the message out that we offer a special brand of education distinctly different from that of other schools, based on the concept of lifelong learning and personal transformation," says UNH spokesperson Rich Eaton.
"We Make Tomorrow," the tagline used in most of the ads, apparently has produced results.
"In the last six years, we've gone from about 35 percent full-time students and 65 percent part-time to the reverse of that," says Jim Shapiro, UNH's vice president of enrollment services.
A 60-second radio spot, also using the tagline to tout the school's graduate programs, ran for several weeks last year on WCBS radio (880 AM) in New York, and produced "a lot of good feedback," Shapiro explains.
SCSU recently sponsored several flights of traffic and weather reports on the same station, which broadcast ten-second spots about the graduate school's open house in mid-November. The university also bought television time for the first time this year for 30-second image-building spots about the entire school on local broadcast and cable channels.
These days, many schools concentrate as well on community involvement in their promotionals efforts.
Zulma Toro-Ramos, dean of UNH's School of Engineering & Applied Science, plans to launch a direct-mail campaign this year aimed at attracting more middle- and high-school teachers to summer training sessions in engineering and technology. "They learn subjects like electronics, biotechnology and civil engineering," Toro-Ramos explains. "We're the only university in the state of Connecticut involved in this kind of training, which we do through project Lead the Way, a statewide program supported by a non-profit."
UNH has participated in the program for about a year, and intends to add the direct mail campaign to a recruitment arsenal already involving informational session at high schools.
Toro-Ramos also markets the graduate engineering program to companies via open houses and faculty networking, and currently is focusing on how to attract more women.
"We firmly believe involvement with the community has an impact on our enrollment level," she says.
Another recent trend is toward reality-based marketing.
SCSU's billboard ads, which can be seen on secondary roads in the region, feature students and graduates, and its undergraduate student guide, traditionally known as the "view book," also contains photographs of real people and real quotations, according to advertising manager Meg Elliott.
"Our focus groups show high school students don't want to see fake posed photographs and canned quotes," says Tracy Palmer, an editor at Suffolk University who chairs CASE's annual publications contest this year for District I, which includes Connecticut. Prizes are given for view books and other recruitment materials.
"The best pieces use really good photography and are a little more gritty," she says.
Special events are another way for schools to show off their campuses
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Four years ago SCSU started the Mary and Louis Fusco distinguished lecture series, annual corporate-sponsored event featuring such speakers as Colin Powell, Christopher Reeve and Walter Cronkite. "Not only does it bring about 2,000 people here, but we also bring in high school students," Dilger says. Ticket sales fund scholarships.
Quinnipiac University also has "a lot of campus events," including a lecture series, according to spokesperson John Morgan. Henry Kissinger, ice cream magnates Ben and Jerry and former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto are among those who have appeared.
"Once people are on the campus they see its beauty, which provides a strong selling point for the school," Morgan says.
Some schools are trying some unusual tactics.
Albertus recently unveiled a rather novel approach to attract students to its Continuing Education Division.
In mid-November, ten-second print ads about the division began appearing on screens in several area movie houses.
"It's something brand-new we're trying," says program director Annette Bosley.
Aimed at working adults aged 25 to 40, the ads, which are shown just before previews at Showcase Cinemas in North Haven, Orange and Milford, are text-only messages on several slides touting such things as the accelerated pace of courses for 13 majors and the availability of financial aid. The ads are scheduled to run through mid-January.
Bosley said the idea came from Robert J. Buccino, school vice president for advancement and planning, who had been at an Atlanta university that had created a "very successful program," with in-theater ads. "We're all very excited about it," she says.
Not many colleges have pursued such kinds of advertising, according to Vandenberg.
"Where you place your ads reflects upon your image - so it's important to create the right context for your message," she says.
Although Chadwick uses many different types of media for his New Dimensions program, he is among those school recruiters discovering the Internet has become an invaluable outreach tool.
"If schools are not using their Web site not only to attract consumers and convey the strengths of their institution, they're way behind," says Vandengberg.
"Next to visiting campus, the Web site is rated as the most important vehicle in decision-making," adds Palmer. "You can tour campus online, sometimes with a real-time Web cam, and you can apply online.
More and more schools also are devising all sorts of customized response systems, including personalized e-mail and online chatrooms to allow faculty to talk to students.
"Schools are pouring a lot of money into Web sites, and some have dropped print publications altogether," Palmer says.
"We're putting a recruiting module on our Web site, where undergraduate and graduate students can apply and register online, says Roseann Diana, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at SCSU. "We also have an entire graduate program, Master of Library Science, that can be done online."
UNH uses its Web site as an institutional bulletin board," Shapiro says, adding the school is launching a new site in December that will provide "much more information about programs as well as an interactive financial estimator."
Although some schools announce new programs with some fanfare, other programs may not need any.
The Henry Lee Institute of Forensic Science at UNH, for instance, recently received a $2 million federal grant to train professionals in various aspects of crime scene investigation. Named for "arguably the most famous criminologist in America," the course is likely to sell itself, according to spokesperson Eaton.
"There will be people clawing their way into this program," he says.
Vanderberg sees an even greater proliferation of niche marketing as schools create and market programs aimed at setting them apart from others in their area.
"They're becoming more sophisticated in developing appealing programs and promoting them to ever more demanding consumers, who want to make sure they're getting value for their money."
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