Integrated Marketing for Education: When 1+1=3

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The concept of integrated marketing is simple, all of the different parts of your marketing campaign are stronger when integrated than when managed separately.  This is an approach that the top marketing firms in the field have employed for their big-budget clients, such as major consumer oriented companies (think car, beverage, or fast-food companies).  But this approach is valuable to anyone that is spending dollars on marketing and can be implemented by anyone that takes the time to organize their approach a little more.  Here are some key elements of an integrated marketing campaign that you may want to consider when planning your approach:

1. Repetition across channels - One of the most basic, yet most powerful concepts in marketing is repetition. The typical consumer does not respond to the first, or even the second advertisement.  The more times you reach a potential student with your message, the chance that you will break through and gain their attention actually increases at a greater than 100% rate, at least to a certain point.  But you probably won't reach that point unless you have a very large budget.  This means that every incremental increase in times that you are in front of your potential student market, the value of your marketing dollars spent increases substantially, while the cost drops substantially.  Repetition doesn't have to apply to just one channel though, this could be applied across channels.  So for example, if someone reads a newspaper ad and then sees a billboard with the same message, they are much more likely to respond after these multiple points of contact, and this is part of the repetition process that you should be trying to create.  In fact, in general, repetition across channels typically is more effective than repetition in the same channel, as long as you have at least some repetition in the same channels.  Please keep in mind though, even if you have a very small budget, one is a particularly lonely number in the world of marketing.  If you place one ad in a newspaper, for example, that is much less effective than placing at least two.  In most cases, you are better off keeping your money or spending it on another channel.




2. Consistent message across all channels “ Consistency is important in ensuring that your repetition model actually is as repetitious as you think.  Huh, say that again?  Well, if the message isn't consistent across channels, then it is as if the person is seeing or hearing each of these messages for the first time, which undermines the concept of trying to create repetition.  You need that potential student to be able to recognize that the television advertisement is about the same online MBA or after school program as what they read on the billboard advertisement they saw a couple days ago.




3. Splash campaign “The Splash campaign is the ultimate in ensuring repetition is being used effectively.  The basic concept here is that you blanket all of the channels at the same time with a big burst of spending and campaigning right at the beginning so that you significantly increase the likelihood that your message will be seen multiple times by your student market.  As much as 50% of budgets are typically thrown into the splash campaign. After the initial splash campaign, many times run in the first month, a lower level of ongoing spending across the channels helps you continue to reinforce your message and get through to the potential students that have been holding out a little longer before responding to your advertising.  Whatever you do, don't run your campaign one channel at a time!  I am not sure if there are any benchmarks for this, but from what I've seen, you are likely to get only about 20% of the effectiveness than if you ran the channels all at the same time.




4. Study the entire process - It is more than just synergy, more than just having the same wording in your online ads that you have on your billboards, it is taking the complete marketing process, studying where you are reaching your potential students, and developing an easy-to-follow trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow to eventually taking the action that you are looking for.  Today's modern marketers in most fields, not just education, have turned to the Internet as a central component in their integrated marketing approach. It is particularly effective in education though, because the Internet has become a key resource for potential students in researching their educational options. If you have a web-centric approach, your billboards, print advertising, radio advertising, and other channels work in tandem with your online search engine advertising to get them from seeing that advertisement when driving down the Interstate to searching on Google for your school to finding your website and learning about your offerings (and hopefully registering for class!).




5. Keep track, make improvements “ Integration should also take place in the tracking of channels, and methods can be developed to compare effectiveness across channels. In the longer-term, this will allow you to identify the most appropriate methods for communicating with your potential student market.

Integrated marketing takes a highly organized approach, and when hiring a marketing firm it will certainly cost more than having them handle individual channels a la carte, but the expense is very worth it. You may end up having to spend anywhere from 15-30% more for a marketing firm to manage an integrated marketing approach, and they will certainly be working hard for this additional cost if they do their job properly, but in the end, the increase in marketing effectiveness should increase your marketing effectiveness by much more, many times double or triple compared to managing channels separately. Because of this, you can ultimately spend less on the actual advertising (or spend the same and just have more of a return on what is spent). As the arrangement gets larger though, you can also find cost breaks because the agency is willing to provide the services for less as part of the overall package.