College admission cycles are like the seasons of the year. If you follow a traditional admissions cycle you know what it's like to live through the cycles of the process. Many schools are admitting more frequently than annually but there is still a big new start in the fall.
To those of you embarking on a new admissions year right now, we wish you the energy, fortitude and support you need and deserve. Don't forget to have fun and enjoy the process. Education marketing should be more than selling just another product or service. You are creating futures for young and many older students. Most of us who are involved in education marketing appreciate the value of higher education and what it means.
Why am I writing this? The media is rife with stories exclaiming the "horrible" situation in education: lack of student outcomes, increasing costs, low graduation rates, etc. We are not naive and we realize that this is part of reality --- our clients rarely forget to mention their budget situation when they negotiate a new contract with us-- but we think that it's important to emphasize that admissions marketing is the life blood of your institutions. Government support, if you are public university, is important but declining. And alumni and other donations are critical. Tuition revenue sustains most universities. It is the underpinnining of the financial viability of your entity. The admissions department needs to be treated more than as a "sales department" by the rest of the insititution. We would like to remind, in particular, our academic colleagues that there is a dependency that works both ways. We also realize that the academic staff provides the quality service that we are all marketing.
At Intead, we like to look at the services that we are contributing to "ensuring the financial future of higher education institutions and individuals attending there." I know that this sounds different than selling digital marketing services, but that's how our expertise can contribute.
Using our expertise, we will launch a new non-profit initiative called Why Education Matters
We are looking to collect 1,000 quotes on Why Education Matters from around the world. Since we are visual folks and believe that pictures are powerful, we will present each quote with a beautiful photo. Have a look at a few examples at www.whyeducationmatters.org.
We would love to get more inspirational quotes about education from you. Please submit them to WhyEdMatters@intead.com or via twitter at #WhyEdMatters or to @intead.
If you have any photos that you'd like to contribute, please submit them to us or send us a link. If we use them, we will give you full credit.
So keep your spirit up, go on the road, far and wide, domestically and internationally. Remember Education Matters and we all have to work together to motivate young and older students to value education, while improving delivery, content and reducing costs as well.
Happy Recruiting.
