Maximising conversion to firm

In the private sector, successful companies involve their marketers early in the product development process, assessing the market opportunity, understanding the customer’s wants and needs, then developing a distinctive and competitive proposition.

The majority of our universities however leave programme development largely to academics, who hand over a more or less finished concept to the marketing department. Not that most academics have any objection in principle to involving marketers earlier on. It’s just that for most, it’s always been this way. Which was fine until 2012.

Eight years on, university marketing departments invest large sums on advertising, websites, UCAS fairs, social media, CRM systems, open days, and prospectuses - selling programmes which are all too often identikit. They mostly lack the time, resource or institutional encouragement to help make the product they are selling more relevant, more distinctive and more competitive.

Distinctive programmes with strong customer propositions take a lot of pressure off directors of marketing. Maximising conversion to firm is a key KPI, and a well-presented programme will drive conversion levels more powerfully than any other element in the mix. Pull marketing to complement push marketing.

You might initially expect a degree of push-back, but my experience is that most academics welcome marketing involvement. They want their programmes to be successful and value the contribution of a marketing partner experienced in competitive proposition development.