Integrated Marketing: The Case for UW Oshkosh

1. Integrated Marketing: The Case for UW Oshkosh Richard H. Wells Chancellor UW Oshkosh March 2006

2. Compelling Needs • Feedback from faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors and other external constituents who have reviewed our strategic/operational plans strongly suggests we need to continue to improve • how we are perceived, appreciated and valued by our external constituents; b) our relationships with key resource providers e.g. elected officials, voters, donors, alumni, etc.; and c) our ability to continue to attract and retain the desired size and mix of future student bodies.

3. Compelling Needs • While our current marketing activities have improved, they remain, in large part, inconsistent, uneven and highly decentralized without much coordination. • Competition for key resources, such as faculty, students, staff, state/federal funding and donors, will continue to increase dramatically.

4. Compelling Needs • One of our most important responsibilities as a “public good” is to ensure that the public recognizes the nature of its university’s many services—be they degree programs, research expertise or community and business development programs/resources— and to make these services accessible to the public. Integrated marketing plans and programs may help ensure public awareness, understanding, accessibility and appreciation.

5. Compelling Needs • A marketing plan that is well designed, executed and strategically integrated with all of our operational planning and action initiatives will help to make the University more competitive, accessible and visible to the public. • A well-designed integrated marketing plan will improve the marketing component of the current draft of the Advancement and Relationship Development Plan.

6. Definition: Integrated Marketing[Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide] A listening-first, database-dependent approach to marketing that includes a willingness to segment and coordinate such strategic assets as product (customer), price (cost), and place (convenience), and to develop effective promotion (communication) strategies for key target audiences.

7. Definition: Integrated Marketing[Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide] • It is listening-first. This means conducting the necessary market research beforehand. • It uses database-driven segmentation tools to create customized offers involving your product, price and place for smaller segments of your larger target audiences. • It is all about promoting those offers so people are aware of them.

8. Definition: Integrated Marketing[Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide] As you can see, integrated marketing, because it deals with product, price and place issues, is largely strategic. Done well, it closely parallels strategic planning. Integrated marketing communications, on the other hand, is wholly tactical. Its focus is on getting the message out. It is all about creating awareness and generating response.

9. Definition: Integrated Marketing Communications[Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide] A comprehensive, coordinated, institution-wide effort to communicate mission-critical values and messages in ways that target audiences notice, understand and respond to. Integrated marketing communications stresses data-driven segmentation, message integration and evaluation.

10. CommunicationsVs. Promotion[Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide] Promotion is generally downward and seldom segmented. It primarily involves telling your audience what you want them to know. Communication, on the other hand, begins with listening (research) and focuses on developing messages that audiences will notice and respond to. These messages are often highly customized for your important audience segments. Integrated marketing communications is about two-way communication.

11. Charge for the Leadership Team • Help ensure the achievement of the desired size and mix of the student body as outlined in the Enrollment Management and Student Support Plan and guided by the Academic Program and Student Outcome Assessments Plan. • Support and help position the University for its first successful, comprehensive capital campaign as described in the evolving Capital Campaign Case Statement/Plan. • Help focus and improve the University’s image/brand in an honest and ethical way. • Enhance public awareness, appreciation and accessibility.

12. Team Goals • Maximize campus ownership of the planning process and the resulting plan; • Involve internal and external University constituents in the on-going key operational planning and refinement process; • Use internal and external research findings and insights to analyze existing data and documents, especially those related to the University’s strategic and operational plans; • Design and merge a plan with Advancement and Relationship Development Plan; • Execute, assess and refine the plan.

13. Timeframe

14. Support Structure • Existing well-developed and ever-improving university strategic and operational plans, processes, actions and successes; • The involvement and support of the university community and its internal and external leaders; • The use of an excellent conceptual and practical step-by-step planningguide developed by Robert Sevier. (We will invite him to campus in the near future.) • Support for team members and others for professional development programs in the area of strategic integrated marketing for universities;

15. Support Structure • Valuable information obtained through a campus-wide audit of current marketing expenditures of all university units such as the Office of the Chancellor, academic departments, intercollegiate athletics and Reeve Memorial Union. Expenditures for marketing costs to be audited include: interactive media (web, e-mail, CD ROM), advertising (magazines, newspapers, TV/cable), publications (flyers, catalogs, alumni magazine), constituent relations (donors, alumni, high school, community), direct response (telephone, postal mail, e-mail), sponsorships, promotions, publicity and collaborations, facilities and environmental (buildings and grounds, signage and perimeter marketing) and internal relations/ communication.

16. Support Structure • A five-year budget developed after the completion of a campus-wide audit of current marketing expenditures. Future campus-wide marketing budgets and expenditures will be aligned with the strategies and tactics that characterize the integrated marketing plan. We will do our best to increase the current annual campus-wide marketing expenditure by about $75,000 as well as reallocate some of the decentralized funding in order to create a five-year funding grant to support the plan’s implementation.

17. Support Structure • The budget reallocations will be guided by reallocation principles and an integrated marketing plan embraced by the university community. We anticipate the plan will require the ability to “front load” a larger amount of funding during the first couple of years.

18. Assessment The Big Question: How will we support and evaluate overall success? To evaluate the overall success of the campus-wide effort to design and execute the strategic integrated marketing plan, we need to analyze improvements in 1. the public’s awareness, accessibility and appreciation of the University, 2. the University’s financial condition, as spelled out by Sevier, and 3. the micro-level indicators of quality criteria for marketing goals.

19. Assessment • Public awareness, accessibility and appreciation of the University I believe the first macro indicator of overall success resides in the answer to this question: Have the public’s awareness, accessibility and appreciation of the University improved since we began integrated marketing?

20. Assessment • Public awareness, accessibility and appreciation of the University It is possible to improve the financial condition of the University without improving the awareness, accessibility and appreciation among all sectors of the public. To aim only at improving our financial condition ignores our public mission. We can only claim overall success if the financial condition and the public’s awareness, accessibility and appreciation of the University improve after implementation of integrated marketing.

21. Assessment • Financial condition of the University: Sevier asks this question: Has the financial condition of the college or university improved since we began integrated marking? Some people will find this question overly simplistic. But think about it. Most marketing goals have as their logical end the improvement of the college or university’s financial condition. You recruit more students because of the revenue they bring. You attract excellent faculty because they will attract better students and more grant money.

22. Assessment • Financial condition of the University: Stronger images attract more students and donors. Satisfied students stay longer. Happy alumni contribute more. Tightening bonds with a local community will help preserve the flow of resources. Is this oversimplified? Sure, but the point is an important one. One way to measure the overall effectiveness of your marketing plan is to see whether the institution is better off after the plan than before. [Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide]

23. Assessment • Micro-level indicator of quality criteria Indicators of quality are addressed by this question: Has the quality of specific marketing goals significantly improved since we began integrated marketing?

24. Assessment • Micro-level indicator of quality criteria Micro-level marketing goals need to be stated so that they are: 1. easy to measure so as to hold us accountable for progress, 2. not confused with action plans, 3. strongly aligned with the strategic plan,

25. Assessment • Micro-level indicator of quality criteria 4. the responsibility of the whole University, 5. exciting and strategic, 6. grounded in baseline data and, 7. applicable both internally and externally.

26. Marketing Goals: Sevier’s Example Sevier gives a good example of a set of marketing goals from a private university that are stated in accordance with the above characteristics: • We will raise undergraduate enrollment by 20 percent, from 3,800 to 4,560, over the next six years. • We will increase freshman-to-sophomore retention from 63 percent to 75 percent over five years.

27. Marketing Goals: Sevier’s Example • We will establish a campus culture that stresses the following qualities: • Outstanding academic quality • Programs and instruction that lead to jobs and graduate school • A friendly, safe, fun, and nurturing campus that stresses participation and individual responsibility and accountability • The economic, cultural and social impact our institution has made and will continue to make in the region.

28. Marketing Goals: Sevier’s Example • We will establish a strong institutional image within a 150-mile radius of the college. This image will stress the qualities outlined in the third goal. • We will develop a comprehensive customer-service program that embraces prospective and current students, faculty, staff, administrators, and visitors to the campus. • We will increase annual fund participation from 39 percent to 50 percent over three years, and we will increase the average contribution from $22 to $45. (Sevier 152)

29. UW Oshkosh: ACCELerated BSN Program The UW Oshkosh College of Nursing developed an integrated marketing plan for their ACCELerated [ACCEL] BSN Program that demonstrates overall or “macro” success and the achievement of clear, strategic, challenging and exciting “micro” marketing goals.

30. ACCELerated BSN Program: Compelling Needs • Feedback reaches faculty revising CON Strategic Plan on: - nursing vacancies - nursing shortages - economic downturn after 9-11 - state budget shortfalls • Prospective were students demanding: - to become nurses, and - to complete the BSN faster than traditional students because they already held a bachelor’s degree in another field.

31. ACCELerated BSN Program: Segmented Product (Customer) Potential students identified as: • Older with families • Tied to their communities • Difficulty commuting to campus • Already holding bachelor’s degree in another field • Recent UWSP graduates with majors in health promotion

32. ACCELerated BSN Program: Segmented Price (Cost) • Budget restraints freeze new initiatives • Program must be self sufficient • Promote program as “private school within a public university” • Set tuition costs to break even

33. ACCELerated BSN Program: Segmented Place (Convenience) • Put accelerated program online • Use precepted model of clinical learning - to keep students in their home communities - to decrease orientation costs if those students were hired after graduation

34. ACCELerated BSN Program: Value Added • Same criteria for admission as for traditional students. • Graduates earn BSN in one year versus 4.5 semesters. • Accelerated program mimics curricular outcomes of traditional program [only delivery differs]

35. ACCELerated BSN Program: Value Added • Approved by regulating bodies State Board of Nursing • Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education • Approved by governing bodies University level • System level

36. ACCELerated BSN Program: Assessment Financial: • Program has generated profits • Profits divided between CON and University contributing to the greater good • Human and material resources used across cohorts generating more profit

37. ACCELerated BSN Program: Assessment Serving Public Needs • All graduates seeking jobs readily find them • One of the 55 ACCEL graduates accepted into graduate school • ACCEL graduates hired into specialty areas not typically open to new graduates [surgery, public health, intensive care unit]

38. ACCELerated BSN Program: Assessment Serving Public Needs • Students pleased with online format and ability to do clinical in home community • A benchmark of success is percentage of graduates passing licensure exam on first attempt - First year of the program, 10 of 11 ACCEL graduates taking the exam passed on the first try - After first year, percentage met or exceeded the national pass rate - Comparable to pass rate of traditional students at UW Oshkosh

39. Research Foundation for Marketing[Source: Robert A. Sevier, An Integrated Marketing Workbook for Colleges and Universities: A Step-by-Step Planning Guide] • Where do our students come from? • Why do some students drop out or transfer? • What motivates our donors to give? Why do some donors give only once? • How do our programs compare against those offered by our competitors?

40. Four broad categories of market research • Institutional research • Audience research • Competitor research • Marketplace research

41. Institutional Research • The products you offer • The price you charge • Your place • Your promotion strategies

42. Audience Research Internal • Students • Faculty • Staff • Administrators (and board members)

43. Audience Research External • Prospective students • Influencers including parents, guidance counselors, coaches and club advisors • Alumni • Donors

44. Audience Research External • Employers • Community residents • The media • Legislators • Church and religious leaders

45. Competitor Research • You must be aware of who do you are competing against for • Students • Donated dollars • Legislated dollars • Public and media attention

46. Marketplace Research • External • Concerned with Demographic, job and economic trends • Focus is the environment where you must compete for: • students • donated dollars • public/media attention

47. Key Research Questions • Institutional research • Audience research • Competitor research • Marketplace research

48. Institutional Questions • The products you offer • The price you charge • Your place • Your promotional strategies

49. Product Questions • Which of our academic programs are in greatest demand? • How do our programs compare to those offered by our competitors? • Which academic programs should we add?

50. Product Questions • What aspects of our overall educational experience are most/least valued by students? • What aspect of our overall experience should we change to make our institution more competitive?