Marketing, Advertising & Branding Your College

(A. Solano)

Marketing is how you see yourself.
Advertising is how you act in public.
Branding is how others see you.
Peter Gasca, Business Advisor & Lecturer

Peter Gasca has a helpful analogy to reframe basic principles of marketing, advertising, and branding.[1] Let’s apply his analogy to higher education in order to help people from across the campus develop common language, and by extension, common purpose to ensure the college’s identity, mission, vision, and values are perceived positively by the community.

According to Peter Gasca, marketing is how you see yourself.

Marketing is the image that you are trying to present to others. It starts with how you dress, the colors and patterns you choose, and how you groom. We all have a strategy for this--yes, everyone, including your unkempt second cousin who rarely showers and wears the same Star Wars shirt he's worn since college. Even not having a strategy for your personal appearance is a strategy itself.

It isn't fun to admit that appearances are as important as they are, but let's be honest, first impressions are driven by appearance. Impressions can evolve and be molded later, but as we all know, they require time and effort to change, so we do our best to get it right up front.

Application for Higher Education:
A marketing strategy should consider how you want the community to perceive your institution. It should convey the vision and values of the institution and express these in a way that the public will recognize and associate with the college.

Therefore, how you "dress" your college will determine how effectively your message and image will be accepted by K12 partners, business & industry, government and nonprofits, families, and most importantly, by students.

For example, if your college has failed for years to become a Hispanic-Serving Institution by a few percentage points (which comes with opportunities for more funding), how is the Latina/o/x community perceiving your college? (By the way, ask them. It’s worth the effort.)

What examples can you come up with for your campus? Here are some more.
- Is another college “taking” your students? How is the other college “dressing itself” in the community compared to your college?
- Are the bathrooms dilapidated? Is the grass dead? Is campus signage confusing for students? Does it take a PhD to read the campus map? Are buildings adequately labeled?
- Is the website easy to navigate? Is it mobile-friendly?
- Are there murals and other art work that is culturally representative of the community the college serves?
- Do you dress your campus with student success stories or are there mostly rules and regulations posted of what students are not allowed to do?

For example, Citrus College has large student success story posters all over campus. They also include college personnel who share their own student success stories.

Bottom line: Is how you see your campus aligned with how the community sees it? Is there a disconnect between the images the college uses on social media (where students get most of their information) and what the campus actually feels and looks for students? Don’t guess or use anecdotal evidence. What does qualitative and quantitative data reveal?

Advertising is how you act in public.
If marketing is how you see yourself, advertising describes your actions.

How you carry yourself, where you hang out, and what you say are just as important as how you look. All of this should be considered with your marketing strategy to assure that you have consistency between your image and your actions.

For instance, imagine that you wear a New England Patriots jersey and get a "I Heart Tom Brady" tattoo, but during the Super Bowl, you cheer for the Philadelphia Eagles and celebrate their victory. You will confound--and probably infuriate--all of your friends and likely be exiled from future Sunday game days.

Your business advertising strategy is the same. If you execute it in the wrong places, with the wrong message and tone, at the wrong times, or to the wrong audience, it will ultimately confuse consumers and could turn them away.

Application for Higher Education:
Using the same example of an institution struggling to become a federally designated HSI, do a good number of the people who perform outreach look like the people in the community? Do they have the cultural street smarts to connect with and explain to Latina/o/x families the benefits of their kids enrolling at your campus? Are college Latino/a/x students included in outreach efforts?

What examples can you come up with for your campus? Here are some more.
- Dual enrollment is an opportunity to demonstrate the college’s “actions.” Does the college offer dual enrollment? Are high school partners and students satisfied with dual enrollment? Do the college faculty that teach dual enrollment understand and apply culturally responsive and equity-minded teaching practices or are they not engaging and PowerPoint high school students to death?
- Are custodial and grounds staff helpful to students when they’re lost on campus?
- What symbolism does the president provide? Is she or he at select high school graduations? Send congratulatory notes to teachers of the year at the local K12 schools? If near a base, does the president visit the base commander to collaborate on veterans’ transition to college? (I have the privilege of working directly with presidents and understand how extremely busy they are. But if enrollment needs to increase and be maintained, nurturing relationships with the local secondary schools, and where applicable, with military bases, is critical.)

Bottom line: How are staff from across the campus—from custodial professionals to dual enrollment faculty to the president—acting in public?

Branding is how others see you.
While marketing is how you want others to see you, branding is how they actually do.

Your marketing strategy should assess and consider your personal brand. If you have a strong brand, you can spend more time building on it. If you have reputation problems, however, you need to focus on rebuilding or changing perceptions.

As an example, if your professional network believes you to be a fraud or slacker, then it will require more than just dressing professionally and mastering your LinkedIn profile to change this perception.

Application for Higher Education:
Understanding how the community perceives the quality of your college’s education and services is crucial for how you decide to execute a marketing and advertising strategy for your campus.

Are student-facing college professionals kind, respectful, generous, and helpful to students? If branding is how others see your campus, they get this perception from word-of-mouth and from their own experiences. Imagine the disconnect to learn that the college offers a variety of in-demand programs and manages to recruit and enroll students (marketing and advertising), only to learn that the quality of instruction and services are subpar (branding).

What examples can you come up with for your campus? Here are some more.
- Do some faculty still begin the course with the classic yet dreadful, “See the student to your left, see the student to your right, only one of them will succeed in this class”?
- Is there no difference between a student reading the PowerPoint on their own from home and the PowerPoint presented in class?
- Are grading policies equitable?
- Do student tutors and peer mentors text and check social media while providing services to their fellow students?
- Are counselors and advisors uplifting, aspiring, and leave no stone unturned to help students?
- Does student success data show an upward trend and a decrease in equity gaps?

Bottomline: If there was a "Rate Your Professor" version for the institution, what would it score? 

Business principles can be complex. I’m sure there are business professionals and business faculty who recognize Gasca’s oversimplification. However, the purpose is to break down principles that are relatable to people across the campus so they can apply them at the institution. It also gives the institution common language it can use to express with colleagues what it is trying to achieve when the goal is to serve a greater number of students to help them achieve their academic, personal, and career goals. Everyone at the campus—from the custodian to the president—is involved in one or all aspects marketing, advertising, and branding the institution. Give the institution’s marketing and public affairs office the ammo it needs to effectively and passionately tell the college’s story.

Onward…

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[1] Source. Direct quotes are italicized.