A concept that gets bandied about without much context is that of “branding” which has a potent generic meaning but otherwise is hard to pin down with how it applies to higher education. At a recent retention-oriented meeting I observed that we do not have the money (or arguably reason) to re-brand Ferrum College. There are parts of it we may want to raise the elevation of in our marketing, but an entire re-brand is costly in more than just finances. You end up sacrificing certain amounts of association and goodwill that may be the lynchpin of your constituents interest in the first place. Essentially, you may want to emphasize parts of your brand, but not truly re-brand. We can’t afford to be Pepsi, but we certainly don’t want to be New Coke.

     That said, an institutions brand is made up of a chorus of representations. From the Ferrum Magazine to newspaper appearances, word-of-mouth to street signs, everything signals something about the college. Naturally, what is passed from one person to another has a certain amount of power beyond a solitary glance: a newspaper article shared between family; talk at a picnic about a sports score; lunch table chatter about college choice; an invitation in the mail; a brochure passed… The list goes on. The sheer number of communicative devices the college employs can be overwhelming to manage, especially since many of them aren’t generated inside the college and certainly those departments don’t have control on where they travel once they leave the mail house, the email box or the elevator speech. But undoubtedly the flurry of images, text, sounds and impressions Ferrum leaves creates a voice of some sort. Given that the Vision of Ferrum College speaks to who we are and how we would like to be perceived, the question of marketing Ferrum becomes: “What does our voice say about our vision?”

     In order to communicate to external audiences effectively, the voice of Ferrum College must be representative of its vision. Such an effort to provide a cohesive image must not be demanded via rules and policy. Simply ruling all college output with an iron fist will not solve the problem and in fact create an unwelcome atmosphere. We need a funnel that is happily fed from one side and received on the other. A common mistake in marketing finds companies telling internal audiences why they are great and painting smiles on faces rather than finding a way for sincere happiness to translate to an outside audience.

     Essentially, what Ferrum needs is a good set of ears and distillers that can encourage campus pride and emphasize our own want for the College to succeed. Brand awareness begins internally. It is important that we recognize the obstacle a lack of unity signifies. Without listening internally and helping people directly with their outside communication devices (say, brochures for an event or media publicity) we risk situations similar to the following : Poorly designed materials feature various logos and copy of equally varying quality for outside audiences; Events planned and executed with little or no real publicity; Media miss the opportunity to interact with the experts they need and we can provide; and so on... Without a climate of integration, our common voice is difficult to interpret- and any sort of change of our message is nearly impossible.

     But communication is more than just using the right logo on a public flyer or giving a quote for a press release. As a funnel of sorts, Public Relations can only do so much; We can only 100% monitor that which we handle. It does the college a much better service to raise not only awareness of the great things going on here before our eyes, but also to find new ways to provide services and promotion to lift up those great things. Although it may seem hard to believe at first, marketing to ourselves is as important as marketing to those outside. Sure, an ad in a newspaper may have several thousand “impressions” upon those who skim it. But it may only call to action a few true responses. However when a professor from one discipline encounters a potential student interested in a different one, the ability for that faculty member to describe the exciting opportunities available in a completely different department is priceless- that is a direct connection with that potential student that is far more potent. It is more important to me, as a Director of Public Relations, that our community enjoy talking about Ferrum in an informative manner and are enthusiastic about their projects and events than it does that the local paper print a simple story with a canned quote. Luckily, we can do both here.

     Ferrum has a tremendous reputation that has far more positive energy than negative. And the simple fact is that many people have not heard of Ferrum, which makes our voice all the more important to tune. Consider our primary audience for future students: A group of 16-18 year olds whose attention spans grow shorter by the commercial. They not only have little or no impression of Ferrum, their perspective can change at a moments notice. For this reason alone its important that any two mentions of Ferrum sound attractive to them, This age group defies branding in many ways. They are certainly loyal to some brands, but in many ways they have no difficulty suddenly shirking one to leap onto another at a moment’s notice. When faced with this, in my opinion, it is more imperative that we polish the flurry of interaction we have with the outside world as soon as possible while we determine if a re-branding is necessary. We have a great institution here— we’ll help you tell everyone about it!

See also:
Marketing to the Campus Crowd