Why university marketers need to get more involved in programme marketing

In July 2011, after a long career in private sector advertising and marketing, I found myself standing in front of around thirty marcomms professionals at the University of Exeter, as part of the interview process for their newly created position as Head of Marketing. Along with four other candidates I had been asked to give a presentation on the subject of ‘Maximising the Value of our Programme Portfolio’. 

I was a higher education marketing virgin, but the one thing I did know about Exeter was that its rise up the league tables in the previous decade had been so meteoric that perceptions had yet to catch up. All the available evidence pointed to a perceptual lag especially among parents, teachers and employers for whom Exeter remained just another middle-ranking provincial university.

But Vice-Chancellor Steve Smith had put a rocket under the university, and by 2011, it was knocking on the door of the Top Ten and the Russell Group. The trouble was that its rise had happened so fast that most people outside higher education hadn’t yet noticed. 

So with the chutzpah that comes naturally to a Mad Man, I started my presentation by saying that ‘Maximising the Value of our Programme Portfolio’ was of secondary importance and that if I was appointed, my most urgent objective would be to make the Exeter brand so hot that triple A students would reflexively put it on their short-lists. 

I got the job and within a year, Exeter had made the Top Ten, joined the Russell Group and been named University of the Year by the Sunday Times. Applications shot up and soon 50% of triple A students were shortlisting Exeter. 

Job done, you might think but no.

University brand reputation may be the most critical factor in students’ minds, but they will then turn their attention to comparing programmes from their short-listed universities. You must be able to tick their brand box and their programme box before they’ll go firm.

The problem is that marketing departments at most British universities have their hands full promoting their university brand and have little or no time to invest in marketing the hundreds of programmes their universities offer. Programme presentation is therefore usually the domain of academics, few of whom are natural marketers. The consequence is that most programme descriptors are written in the same language, look and feel very similar, and pay little or no attention to the need for competitive differentiation. Too many also focus entirely on the subject and fail to make the argument for the development of transferrable skills. I loved history as a teenager, chose history for my degree subject at York but it was the transferrable skills I developed which gave me such a good grounding for a successful career in advertising and marketing. 

Most HASS students will go on to a career which is unrelated to their degree subject. Of course, they will choose a subject they love but they’ll also have an eye on how it will equip them for a career. So programme descriptors need to be explicit about the skills that students will develop, the careers that will be open to them and the employers who will come knocking.

Whilst the search for a single USP will probably prove fruitless, each programme will have points of differentiation, and it is the most student-relevant of these which need to be given prominence. Be it contact time, cohort size, star academics, subject ranking, international or work placements, module choice or any other factor. 

This is why academics need to work alongside marketers to achieve long-lasting programme success. Together we can rescue the walking wounded, reduce the failure rate that so many new programmes suffer and reduce the burden on our academic colleagues. 

And if you’re short of marketing resources, you can always call me for help.