Strategy Makes or Breaks Marketing for Higher Ed
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“You are the experts,” is one of the most common phrases I hear from my clients. And although I appreciate the compliment, my clients are much more essential to a project’s success than they realize. Yes, we are online marketing experts who specialize in higher ed, and proud of it. But you, the client, are the expert in your specific higher ed institution. And before we can apply our expertise, we have to fully understand yours.
Engaging with a marketing firm can be overwhelming, especially if you are entering unfamiliar marketing territory such as your first PPC campaign, a rebranding project or website design and development engagement. Many of my higher ed clients have so much on their plates that they’ll apologize in advance for missed phone calls and email delays. So when I discuss strategy as the first phase of their new project, clients cringe at all the work they think is ahead of them.
The truth is, clients are often surprised by not only how painless the strategy phase is, but how effective and important it is for the project. They are especially surprised by how much they learn about themselves.
At VisionPoint, we perform a wide array of research in order to create an effective strategy specific to your institution. This includes technology, brand and content auditing as well as extensive competitor research. We’ll also hold interviews with your top stakeholders, perform user testing and analysis and conduct focus groups. We want to know what face you show the world and what the world thinks of you.
And while we conduct a vast array of research tasks, our strategy phase revolves around two primary objectives: uncovering the user goals and understanding the institution goals. Creating a positive user experience is our top priority. And since your end-user has little to no voice during the course of your project, we consider ourselves the advocate for your users. As for the institution goals, our purpose is to gain insight into who you are, how you got to where you are now and, most importantly, where you want to be so that we can help you get there.
By understanding your goals and performing intense research of you, the competitive landscape and your target audience groups, we can find your sweet spot, which will enable us to elevate you to the next level of success.
Once all tasks have been performed, we’ll combine all of our findings into a strategy document. This document becomes VisionPoint’s guide for all decisions made during the life of your project. So think about it this way: by combining our expertise of higher ed online marketing with your expertise of your higher education institution, we’ll create a strategy that will enable you to be greater than you thought possible.