MARKETING HIGHER EDUCATION A periodic electronic Newsletter to help you market your school, community college, college, or university. Vol. XII, no. 12, December, 1998 -------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS Marketphobia: A higher education disease. Curable? by Robert "Bob" S. Topor, Topor Consulting Group International Gebbie Press All-in-One Media Directory: A Rich Marketing Resource by Robert "Bob" S. Topor & Elizabeth "Liz" Pollard Coffee and Donuts by Robert "Bob" S. Topor -------------------------------------------------- Marketphobia: A higher education disease. Curable? by Robert "Bob" S. Topor, Topor Consulting Group International "Fire?" I asked, appraising the leaping crimson and orange flames as the curl of gunmetal grey smoke rose up slowly to the blue heavens. "Fire?" "What in the world would we do with fire?" The cavewoman, my significant other, responded. "With fire, we can cook our meat and heat the cave," came the reply. "And we can light the cave at night for parties." "Cook meat?" "Heat cave?" "Light night?" I said. "Who needs it?" "Personally I like antelope tartar. And my new Piagello® designer bison fur keeps me plenty warm, even in the chilly Fall evenings. As for light, when it's dark it's time to sleep. When the sun comes up I get ready to hunt. Simple as that. I have no need for fire. This fire thing will never catch on." The cavewoman gave me a knowing, sympathetic look. Fire, she knew, was the future. Deep down, much as I hated to admit it, I knew it too! But that didn't mean I had to like it. Or even act as if I did accept it. And I decided I never would. ***** Marketing higher education is like fire. And the caveman is like many people in higher education. One would believe many faculty clubs and administrative dining rooms often serve antelope tartar. Despite all the advances in marketing higher education, many, we hope, spurred on by this newsletter and related support materials (InFaxFormation, Educational Catalyst Books and Publications), there still are those who don't really believe marketing principles, ideas, processes and procedures can help them in their work. They may think marketing is used only in admissions. Or they may believe marketing doesn't have any place in higher education. Higher education and the activities they do are too pure for the practice of scummy, manipulative, dishonest, circumspect, Machiavellian (fill in your own additional nasty adjectives here) marketing! Well maybe that's a bit too pessimistic. For look around you. Marketing is being used in ways never before contemplated in higher education. Marketing has moved beyond admissions and enrollment management in higher education. There are, believe it or not, people working in higher education who have marketing in their titles (and they are not professors in the School of Business). We hope we have contributed to that change. Maybe the times have been as great a factor as anything though. Let's face it. Times are as difficult as they have ever been in higher education. These are not days of roses and daffodils. These are days of turmoil, distrust, fear, apprehension, and concern. And that concern has migrated outside the ivy walls to the general public, the media, and in some cases, to legislators in state capitols and in Washington, D.C. These are not the happiest of times. It shocks me to find major institutions with people who still resist, or, in some cases, are not even convinced they need to consider marketing, despite facts such as continuing enrollment decline, the student body loss of quality, growing attrition, donations falling off, alumni who are bored and feel the only time they hear from their alma maters is when they need money (note the plural, alma maters, since more and more alums have allegiance to more than one school, and some, especially parents, have switched allegiance to the schools attended by their children). Just now, at some schools, I find that marketing is beginning to be considered in alumni relations, for example. Where have you been, alumni directors? Content with the past as you let one of the prime constituent audiences for your school slip away? Marketing research. I'm astonished and often find my mouth hanging open in stupefied disbelief when I find academies, in this day and age, still producing outreach communications materials from the seat of their pants. Faculty, deans, administrators, and staff are sitting on their glutei maximums, blithely cranking out copy, concepts, ideas, and messages with little or no regard for the audiences to whom those messages are ultimately intended. It's as if the audiences don't matter. These introspective, navel-gazing, myopic, self and ego centered approaches must give way to the reality of audiences, perceptions, and the analysis and application of external ideas. It just makes too much good sense. I don't understand those who are unwilling to accept the idea. And the "I don't have a budget for that" (research) has become the Great American Higher Education Cop Out. I find it unbelievable that faculty and staff can produce departmental brochures and web sites with the lack of quality I have seen lately and feel good about themselves. I have recently seen examples of departmental brochures that don't even have the NAME of the University on them! Astonishing. I wonder what would happen if Coca Cola started producing their products in unidentified containers. How long would the Pepsi-Coke war last? Or what if each of us began to avoid using names? Of ourselves and others? How would we know who is talking? I am shaken to the core when I find institutions who have let their communications areas atrophy over the years, in downsizing and budget cutting, while facing communications problems of incredible magnitude. Have we lost all our good sense? I recently visited a major campus, its name would be instantly recognized by you, and found that the decentralization had become so wanton over the years, that there was literally no centralized approach at all to messages, missions, concepts, or ideas they were presenting. The messages ranged all over the lot. It's as if you took all the words in the dictionary, shook them out on your floor, and randomly put them together with the hopes of achieving a well written, nicely plotted, interesting, in fact becoming, novel. Lot's of luck! What is this? What is happening? Have our collective attentions been so diverted by other matters (crises) that we have lost all good sense of marketing, communications, promotion, advancement, advertising (for some), and all the principles they represent? Where has all the good taste gone? Have we allowed our schools to become bastardized at the expense of quality and care? Are we the patrons of decline? Don't we realize it? Have we become so bureaucratic that we cannot find ways to make collective things happen? With quality? Have we come to expect that anyone who can poke out words or copy an image on a computer is capable of doing what needs to be done? Where are our professional organizations and agencies? Have they become so intent on looking at their bottom lines that they have abandoned the real issues now and in the future? Are they hollow shells of what they once were? Where are the professionals? In our zeal to avoid large salaries and benefits, have we fostered the accumulation of an inexperienced, uninformed and uninspired staff... people who have little or no idea about the place? Where are our leaders? Are they out fund raising when they should be leading? Replication. Replication. Replication. Have we lost all ability to come up with new, creative, fresh and unusual ideas? Does every viewbook have to look like every other one? Do admissions videotapes all come from some mediocre factory where they are produced by some master formula? Why does School A have to look like School B? All the time? I see this happening in web sites too! Why are we so afraid of ourselves? So uncertain? On the other hand, why are we so certain when we should not be? When we really should be concerned about others? Students? Families? Parents? Peers? Counselors? Alumni? Donors? Colleagues? Friends? Web surfers? Have we lost all ability to speak out, to discourse, to question and to debate? Have we all fallen into placidly permitting committees to transform ideas into euphemisms? Where are our heroes? Where are those who have the guts to stand forward when they need to? Are we all dillywimples? No one of us has all the answers. We are all students of these questions. Higher education and ideas of marketing higher education are much too complex for any one person to claim total expertise. Why can't we use our own business (education) to help ourselves? What schools offer a marketing higher education degree? Curriculum? Course? Seminar? Time is short. For decades, long gone, we could procrastinate, knowingly or unknowingly, biding time to see what happens, feeling safe in our own indecision and inaction. Higher education clocks have become much less merciful. They are ticking. And ticking. And ticking. They won't stop (until maybe its too late). Marketing is not a panacea and I'm not suggesting it is the answer to all your problems. But I am suggesting that it can play a major role in much of what you and your colleagues do. The question is: will you let it? ***** Editor's note: Bob Topor, author of this article, lecturer, publisher of this newsletter, consultant, and author of many books about the subject of marketing higher education admits to being a higher education zealot and evangelist. You may want to take his words and ideas with large grains of salt. On the other hand, you may not want to. You make the decision. ***** -Bob Topor * Marketing Evangelist Web Site: http://www.marketinged.com Email: topor@marketinged.com ***** NOTICE: As a subscriber to this electronic newsletter, you have permission to reproduce and use this article on your campus. All others please note ©1998, Topor Consulting Group International. Comments about, or requests to reprint should be directed to Bob Topor at topor@marketinged.com. ********** -------------------------------------------------- Gebbie Press All-in-One Media Directory: A Rich Marketing Resource by Robert "Bob" S. Topor & Elizabeth "Liz" Pollard The 1999 Gebbie Press All-In-One Media Directory is now available in printed book and disk form. We don't normally provide endorsements but in this case we make an exception. If you've ever spent hours on end at the computer or in the library compiling mailing lists for the media, you will understand why immediately! Just read on. Marc Gebbie provides excellent products to steer you to media sources.... a super marketing resource. The data included in this directory in disk form is arranged in a handy format which adapts itself easily to suit your purposes. Plain text files can be read and/or searched with any word processor for immediate location of information, or the files can be sorted or imported into your database program with a minimum of effort. Gebbie truly has thought of the user's convenience in producing this product! The information you can find in these files includes all the usual data for mailing, phoning or faxing a media source, but for the World Wide Web user, it also includes Web site URL's where available, as well as email addresses. The format of the data makes it easily accessible for export to most email programs, as well as database ones. The formidable print version contains Over 23,000 listings. Contents include: All TV and Radio Stations All Daily and Weekly Newspapers Consumer and Trade Magazines Black and Hispanic Media News Syndicates, Networks, AP/UPI bureaus The book is compact, 6 x 9", spiral bound, 500 pages, lies flat for easy use. The All-In-One Directory - Disk version -- PC or MAC disks of the directory for creating your own database. Once imported into your software, future mailings, e-mailings or faxes will be a snap to run! There is no new software to learn, no installation problems, and you may modify the data in any way. One disk includes ALL TV and AM-FM Radio stations in the USA. Includes station format (news, talk, country, etc.), call sign, AM or FM, metro market ranking, address, 9 digit zip code, phone number, Web URL and E-Mail address. Black and Hispanic radio sections are in separate files. Hispanic TV section. Another contains ALL Daily and Weekly newspapers in the USA. For Dailies: Fax, Phone, E-Mail address, URL, Toll-free phone number, address, 9-digit zip codes and separate morning, evening and Sunday circulation figures. Weeklies now include fax numbers, URL and E-Mail address. Separate Black and Hispanic press files are included. A third lists magazines, trade and consumer, in the USA. These are listed by category (farm press, beverages, automotive, etc.), with details on address, phone, fax, editor name, publisher, readership, circulation, URL's and E-Mail addresses. Files are stored as standard ASCII text, in variable length fields (quote enclosed, comma delimited), or fixed length fields for IBM users. MAC disks come in tab delimited format. Simply import the data into your software...and then...your future mailings will be automated! ***** -Bob Topor * Marketing Evangelist Web Site: http://www.marketinged.com Email: topor@marketinged.com ***** & ***** -Liz Pollard * Smoke Signals Enterprises Web Site: http://smokesig.com Email: lpollard@smokesig.com ***** NOTICE: As a subscriber to this electronic newsletter, you have permission to reproduce and use this article on your campus. All others please note ©1998, Topor Consulting Group International. Comments about, or requests to reprint should be directed to Bob Topor at topor@marketinged.com. ********** -------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL OFFER For Marketing Higher Education newsletter subscribers ONLY. Download the updated second edition of Bob's "classic" book, Marketing Higher Education - A Practical Guide, directly from his Web site at http://www.marketinged.com Special Deal: As a subscriber to this newsletter you have permission to make copies and distribute on your campus... a great aid for marketing committees! Make as many copies as you like (limited to your campus). You can get this book from the Home page on Bob's web site. It costs $40 (U.S.) It is easy to download to your computer, then you can reproduce it in your print shop or make photocopies. The first edition of this book has been one of CASE's best selling publications and has been used around the world. If you have questions call Bob at (650) 962-1105. NEW! "The Complete Guide to Focus Group Marketing Research in Higher Education" book is now available for downloading to your computer... Bob Topor's 55-page practical guidebook for running focus groups is now available for downloading. As subscriber to this electronic newsletter you have permission to purchase this book and make unlimited copies for use on your campus (copyright free). Regular cost is $32 in printed copy. You can purchase it for only $25. It is a great guide for how to do focus groups and has been Bob's best selling book ever! Don't miss this special offer! It's easy to order (secured credit card) and download... just log on to Bob's web site at http://www.marketinged.com and find it on his home page. Questions? Call Bob at (650) 962-1105 or e-mail him at topor@marketinged.com NEW! Download "Wasabi & Ginger" ($35.95 US) .... a book by Bob and his partner Dr. Moshe Engelberg .... for life development. It combines ideas from the business world with ones for personal satisfaction and success. You can use these ideas both in your business ventures as well as your personal life and success activities. Bon Appetit! This book is easy to download from Bob's web site: http://www.marketinged.com -------------------------------------------------- Coffee and Donuts by Robert "Bob" S. Topor Dedicated to the memory of Bob's late wife, Martha Flint Topor (1942-1998). Last year, I accompanied my wife Martha to a small shopping area in our town for her haircut. Since she was early for her appointment, I suggested we stop at a nearby coffee shop... an up-scale boulangerie serving a variety of freshly baked goods, croissants, donuts, etc. as well as my favorite cafe latte. Despite the fact that this establishment offers excellent products, the way they are organized to serve customers is not efficient. They have two separate areas for service. After you stand in line for baked goods and pay for them there, you have to go to a separate line for drinks. Martha ordered a croissant and I ordered a cholesterol-laden cheese danish. Then we had to go over to the drink line to get my latte and Martha's tea. When it was our turn to order drinks there was confusion about whether we had paid (we had paid at the baked goods counter) and no-one behind the drinks counter was sure about what we had ordered. Things seemed very disorganized with folks confused, asking each other questions, hollering back and forth between baked goods and drinks, and general inefficiency. Later, when we sat down at an outdoor table to enjoy the early morning California sun, as well as our purchases, a young couple and their two children sat at a table next to us. They had met friends for an early morning snack. A couple about their age sat across from them, all well within our earshot. Here's how their conversation went: Couple One: "Wow, things are really screwed up in there. I was in one line for a long time and then had to go over to another line. Very confusing." Couple Two: "Yea, whomever is the owner of this place should come here to try it him or herself and find out what it's really like." Couple One: "Yes, although we enjoy the items here we don't often come here just because it's so confused. The service sucks." Couple Two: "It seems like they could easily set up a system that works much efficiently with less confusion on both sides of the counter." Couple One: "Yea, somebody ought to do an efficiency check of this place. They may be able to save it before it is forced to close!" Couple Two: "Why do they have to have two lines anyways? Couldn't they set up a better system with one line and, say, some signs?" Couple One; "I'll bet no one ever thought about it." Couple Two: "Don't you think our society is just getting used to poor service and poor planning and crummy business execution? Service quality seems to be dropping in all sectors." Couple One: "Yea, I agree, service may be dropping, but that doesn't mean we need to like it!" With frustrations vented, the conversation went on to other things. I thought to myself... "this is similar to the kinds of service problems I sometimes find in higher education. We should learn from it." Recently I read that the Malcolm Baldridge award, offered to companies who have demonstrated significant improvement in corporate customer services, is creating categories for nonprofits and for education. I suspect the way the coffee shop and boulangerie is organized is from the point of view of the service providers and owners; not users (customers). The baked goods are created in an area behind the baked goods counter. This probably makes it convenient for the bakers to wheel out fresh products and stack them on the shelves (a nice sales feature since the appearance and aroma is very enticing)! Coffee, tea, and drink products are created in an adjacent area set up for that purpose and staff are not assigned tasks, so they run back and forth, sometimes making mochas, sometimes serving croissants! The problem is that there is no coordination between the two areas. So most customers, ordering both a drink and baked goods end up in frustration, confusion and in both lines! It seems like a simple and easily rectified problem but it hasn't changed since I have been going there. I'll admit to frequenting other shops just to avoid the problem myself! There are no survey cards to get user feedback or to determine customer levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction. So, in this case, the owner/proprietor probably doesn't even know a problem exists! How often at your school have you found similar situations? (processes, systems set up at the convenience of the provider not the user)? How often have you discovered systems that exist just because that's the way they have always been? In many cases problems are not discovered because there is no way to determine they exist. In others, people are simply more concerned about what is best/easiest for them; and simply don't care about customers (i.e., students, faculty, users). The best way to find out about situations like this is to ask. Focus marketing research groups can be used to determine systems efficiencies and inefficiencies. Surveys are good ways to determine problems/opportunities. (Each problem is also an opportunity to succeed.) In the case of this boulangerie, the owner simply needs to sit out front and listen to customers! I have worked at colleges and universities administered by people who had never sampled the "wares" they administered: food service managers who never ate there, preferring the faculty club to "student food," parking administrators who had their reserved spot close to their office, who never had to walk too far. I have also been astonished that many administrators had never attended a class at the school from which they accepted monthly paychecks. The best way to learn about a registration process is to register! In fact, I have worked at a university where administrators existed in an administration building, rarely exploring beyond that haven, secure with their assigned parking spaces and safe from problems on other parts of the campus. The best way to know how a service or product works (or doesn't) is to use it yourself! The next best thing you can do is to research those who are using or have used your school's services. ***** -Bob Topor * Marketing Evangelist Web Site: http://www.marketinged.com Email: topor@marketinged.com ***** NOTICE: As a subscriber to this electronic newsletter, you have permission to reproduce and use this article on your campus. All others please note ©1998, Topor Consulting Group International. Comments about, or requests to reprint should be directed to Bob Topor at topor@marketinged.com. ********** -------------------------------------------------- Original posting: 12/31/98 Marketing Higher Education Newsletter is published by Topor Consulting Group International (http://www.marketinged.com). Newsletter posted by WEBB Internet Marketing & Consulting (http://www.firstchapter.com). copyright 1998 Topor Consulting Group International