Thursday, March 25, 2010

Turning Corners

It has been an incredibly productive few weeks for the communications and marketing department here at LCC. It seems like every day we are doing new things better, faster, and easier.

Most of us have been involved in launching "Get a Skill, Get a Job"; tv ad, web site, radio spot, tv and radio segments, print ad, outdoor. The marketing campaign looks great and I believe has laid a strong foundation for success for the program. Though there is a lot of work in front of us, it is really outstanding to work in a department where good work can be done in a relative short time frame. Our next big marketing goal is communicating with employers around the State who may hire the people who complete the program.

CRM is starting to gain a foothold, here in marketing and college-wide. The work that Jane Kreha has done with the Early LCC program is exceptional. We'll be replicating this model with many other programs and initiatives, like the West Campus Open House.

We are making great progress, IMO, with social media. We've passed 2000 Facebook fans and I believe we can be the first community college in Michigan with over 3000 fans. We're starting to get some buy-in from the programs regarding social media, which is essential to our long-term success. Also, good things will be happening soon with Flickr.

Both the radio and tv stations are doing all kinds of exciting new things. If you haven't listened to LCC Radio lately, I'll bet you'll like it. You can listen online at www.lcc.edu/radio. The new radio ads are, I think, outstanding. I've taped a few episodes of a new show called "Desert Island Playlist". It's a combination of music and conversation about LCC. We'll be doing a lot more videostreaming and audiostreaming in the near future.

We are developing a marketing culture that plans, and that uses research and information to support the materials we develop. This is absolutely outstanding.

The goal is pretty straightforward - to use all the tools in our marketing tool kit to make LCC the strongest community college "brand" in the country. Every day we're moving a little closer to making that a reality. Turning corners is a lot of fun.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Is Community College Branding Important?

I am hoping to complete my Ph.D. in the next several months. It deals with community college branding and IMC. Here's an excerpt:

Very little research has been completed with respect to the branding of American community colleges. To assume that higher education branding research in general would sufficiently explain what is going on in the community college segment would imply little understanding of the distinctive attributes of community colleges in this country. One of the driving forces behind university branding is the desire to improve the academic profile of incoming freshmen. Given the community college commitment to open access, why is having a positive brand relevant or important? Aren’t community colleges the educational equivalent of generic products, or the “store brand”? I would argue that the answer is no. We live in an era of hyper communication and marketing. If community colleges do not work more intentionally to establish and communicate a strong, positive brand identity, then many individuals who may have benefited from a community college education will not pursue that education as actively as they may have. They will continue to assume that a college education is just not possible for them. A large segment of the population that needs higher education won’t pursue it. The rest of the developed and developing world will continue educating larger percentages of their populations. The change that needs to happen in this state and country will not. The implications of not adapting to a rapidly changing global environment are profound.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Good branding - a reflection of the student's experience

Sometimes, we can think of brand-building as being fundamentally a marketing exercise - clear, consistent messaging, strong visual identity, etc. In fact, the essense of a strong brand is the culture we create and the experience of our students. Strong branding initiatives are simply communicating that which is essentially true.

“Historically, brands have been thought to have been the result of the mass marketplace communication investments and approaches. That is, the brands were created through massive amounts of media advertising through clever and creative messages, icons and packages. Today, we are beginning to understand that brands are instead based on customer experiences. It is the value the brand provides the customer over time, not the short-term creative that builds customer loyalty. Thus, managing brands is really about managing customers and that is what Integrated Marketing Communications is all about.” (Iacobucci & Calder, 2003, p. xix).

So, as we work to build the LCC brand, let's make sure we are engaging our students as much as possible. When they see an LCC billboard on the highway or an on-line ad on their favorite web site, we want them to be nodding their heads in agreement, not snickering at us, as they think "yeah, right; who do they think they're kidding".

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Race to 5K

As of 11:00 a.m. on March 3rd, the college's Facebook page has 1885 fans. As far as community colleges go, that isn't bad. There are only a few community colleges in Michigan with more. From what we've seen nationally, there are no community colleges with over 2500. What is interesting to note is that even small, private colleges seem to have bases that are half the size of the student population. The last time I checked, UofM had over 80,000 fans. There is clearly a difference in how students at four-year institutions and their alumni stay connected.

So, we have a goal here at LCC. I would like to see us have over 5,000 fans on the college's Facebook page in the next couple of months. We are developing an implementing a plan to do this. I would like to see LCC as the first community college in the state (and possibly the country, but I need to do more research there) to hit that target. If you have suggestions regarding how we can do this, please feel free to post them here.

We'll also be doing some new things with Flickr, but I'll cover that in a separate post. Hopefully, we can heed Ghandi's advice here in marketing and "be the change you want to see in the world" (at least from a social media perspective).