October 16, 2006
Know thyself | Maine colleges and universities look inward to boost their profile
By Taylor Smith
When the Thomas College men's varsity soccer team opened its season against Saint Joseph's College in September, the result wasn't quite what school boosters were hoping for. Thomas was blanked, five goals to none. But the game contained a silver lining for the college's administrators: For the first time, the team wore uniforms bearing the new Thomas College athletic logo, a design years in the making.
The new logo, replete with a profile of a gray dog looking as menacing as a terrier can look, is getting plenty of play at Thomas. It's on every uniform in the athletic department, and it's plastered all over the brand-spanking-new Harold Alfond Athletic Center, a $4.6 million facility that had its ribbon cutting earlier this month. "Other colleges have athletic logos, and we were missing that," says Rhonda Morin, the school's director of communications. "We didn't have a consistent one."
Morin was one of many Thomas College administrators involved in a multi-year effort to sharpen the school's branding and marketing message. In 2001, Thomas' board of directors began forming a long-term strategic plan to ensure that the 70-acre liberal arts school on the outskirts of Waterville would remain competitive. That plan included raising enrollment, boosting its endowment and completing the college's shift from a business-oriented school to one with a decidedly liberal arts curriculum.
And one way for Thomas College to reach those goals, the administration figured, was through a complete overhaul of its branding and marketing strategy. "We wanted to look at it as part of our strategic planning process," says Thomas Edwards, vice president of student affairs, "to identify what we are, what we'd like to be and how to get there. What were the major pieces that we wanted to communicate about the Thomas story?"
Thomas College is far from alone in developing a branding and marketing plan for higher education, according to Jim Lawlor of the Lawlor Group, a Minneapolis-based educational marketing group. In fact, he says it's a trend that's been growing for the past decade as competition in the educational market has heated up.
Schools are competing, wanting to attract more and different kinds of students to their campuses or strengthen their position in a certain academic niche. In many ways, says Lawlor, a college or university isn't much different from a company selling a consumer product. Like any good company, those colleges or universities will play up their strengths and market themselves in a way that appeals to a certain segment of the population ˆ in this case, prospective college students. "This is education, not a package of soap or a car," says Lawlor. "But branding is really what's your DNA, what's your genetic code. Know thyself ˆ what do you stand for?"
Economies of scale
Thomas isn't the only Maine school looking for a competitive edge through a new branding strategy. Unity College recently unveiled a new logo and marketing plan in hopes of burnishing its reputation as a top-tier environmental school. Meanwhile, the University of Southern Maine currently is tallying the impact of the branding and marketing strategy it unveiled in 2003. "It was probably a much longer process than what a corporate entity would go through, but it was more than worth it," says Julie Cameron, USM's executive director of marketing.
One reason schools launch re-branding efforts is to boost enrollment. It's no secret that Thomas College has been looking to build its student body during the past few years, and Morin says such things as new athletic logos and marketing materials are an important piece of its bid to bring more students to campus. Five years ago, Thomas College had roughly 500 undergraduate students, and its 10-year goal was to increase its undergraduate enrollment to roughly 1,000. That number has risen to 655 this fall, and Morin says Thomas College surpassed its goal of enrolling 235 new undergrads this fall.
But why can't a small college stay small? Why does a school like Thomas College need to grow? Simple economics, according to Lawlor and others. Lawlor notes that 80% of collegiate revenue comes from tuition. And since a school has to deal with fixed costs for things like electricity and food, schools can better take advantage of economies of scale by packing more students into each classroom.
According to Morin, collective wisdom in the education world maintains that the magic number for enrollment at many small, liberal arts schools is around 1,000. Why 1,000? Again, economics. "Private independent institutions under 1,000 students tend to be more vulnerable to a downturn in the economy," she says. "We're an enrollment-driven college. We have a smaller endowment, so we really require that we have students in the classrooms in order to keep this institution thriving."
As prospective students continue to look for more from a school than what's offered in its core curriculum, colleges increasingly are looking to branding and marketing to set themselves apart from their competition. In Thomas College's case, that meant highlighting attributes like its job-placement guarantee, in which students are guaranteed to find a job in their field of study within six months of graduation. If they don't, the college foots federal loan bills until a job is found. The college boasts a 95% job-placement rate for graduates.
It's those things that can serve as a decent marketing hook for colleges, says Lawlor. "If you're not a brand, you're a commodity," he says. "And if you're a commodity, the low price wins. Why should colleges market themselves? It's to create distinction in the marketplace."
A consistent look and feel
At Unity College, a school with an enrollment of around 550 full-time students, its marketing hook is built into its logo. The lush tree planted in the capital "U" of Unity nods to the college's environmental bent. But the marketing message at Unity goes well beyond its logo. Mark Tardif, associate director of communications at the Waldo County school, says the college has spent the last few years unifying that message across the campus, from the design of its publications to the color schemes in its dormitories. "We chose colors for our residence halls that are the same as the colors that are in our catalogs," says Tardif.
Developing a coherence among marketing materials is key for any college, says Lawlor, who says it's important to have a consistent look and feel to even such seemingly disparate things like uniforms and brochures. Sometimes, however, it's easier said than done. USM's Julie Cameron says the university performed an audit of its marketing materials in 2001 and found more than 70 different USM logos spread around the campus on such items as brochures and professors' business cards. "It was becoming more and more clear to us that our image was not as focused as it could be," she says.
It was the same story at Thomas, says Morin. At the first meeting of the college's marketing committee, which consisted of faculty, staff and college administrators, marketing materials were gathered from around the campus, from different academic departments and offices, and laid out on a table. "What they found was astounding," says Morin. "There were so many different looks and different feels, different colors and font types. There was no consistency. It was troubling."
Sue-Ellen McClain, president of McClain Marketing in Portland, worked with Thomas College to develop its branding and marketing strategy. Consistency was the name of the game, from colors and typefaces to logos and taglines. "It was really helping them try to focus on what it is that potential students would want about Thomas," she says.
And what Thomas College figured students would want was a sense of its core values. To paraphrase Lawlor, Thomas College worked to know thyself, and to get that message of self awareness to prospective students. It picked keywords such as "confident" and "connected," and played up the word "guarantee."
The hope, of course, is that such a message will continue to bring a growing number of students to Thomas College each fall. At Unity, the aim of its branding and marketing strategy has different goals. According to Tardif, the goal is to mesh Unity's marketing with its overall strategic plan, which was developed last year in hopes of buffing its educational reputation. "That's really the next step," he says.
But at the same time, Tardif says, the college wouldn't complain if its marketing captured the attention of more prospective students. "How large we're going to grow, we're going to see," he says. "But, we have a very strong strategic plan."
The new logo, replete with a profile of a gray dog looking as menacing as a terrier can look, is getting plenty of play at Thomas. It's on every uniform in the athletic department, and it's plastered all over the brand-spanking-new Harold Alfond Athletic Center, a $4.6 million facility that had its ribbon cutting earlier this month. "Other colleges have athletic logos, and we were missing that," says Rhonda Morin, the school's director of communications. "We didn't have a consistent one."
Morin was one of many Thomas College administrators involved in a multi-year effort to sharpen the school's branding and marketing message. In 2001, Thomas' board of directors began forming a long-term strategic plan to ensure that the 70-acre liberal arts school on the outskirts of Waterville would remain competitive. That plan included raising enrollment, boosting its endowment and completing the college's shift from a business-oriented school to one with a decidedly liberal arts curriculum.
And one way for Thomas College to reach those goals, the administration figured, was through a complete overhaul of its branding and marketing strategy. "We wanted to look at it as part of our strategic planning process," says Thomas Edwards, vice president of student affairs, "to identify what we are, what we'd like to be and how to get there. What were the major pieces that we wanted to communicate about the Thomas story?"
Thomas College is far from alone in developing a branding and marketing plan for higher education, according to Jim Lawlor of the Lawlor Group, a Minneapolis-based educational marketing group. In fact, he says it's a trend that's been growing for the past decade as competition in the educational market has heated up.
Schools are competing, wanting to attract more and different kinds of students to their campuses or strengthen their position in a certain academic niche. In many ways, says Lawlor, a college or university isn't much different from a company selling a consumer product. Like any good company, those colleges or universities will play up their strengths and market themselves in a way that appeals to a certain segment of the population ˆ in this case, prospective college students. "This is education, not a package of soap or a car," says Lawlor. "But branding is really what's your DNA, what's your genetic code. Know thyself ˆ what do you stand for?"
Economies of scale
Thomas isn't the only Maine school looking for a competitive edge through a new branding strategy. Unity College recently unveiled a new logo and marketing plan in hopes of burnishing its reputation as a top-tier environmental school. Meanwhile, the University of Southern Maine currently is tallying the impact of the branding and marketing strategy it unveiled in 2003. "It was probably a much longer process than what a corporate entity would go through, but it was more than worth it," says Julie Cameron, USM's executive director of marketing.
One reason schools launch re-branding efforts is to boost enrollment. It's no secret that Thomas College has been looking to build its student body during the past few years, and Morin says such things as new athletic logos and marketing materials are an important piece of its bid to bring more students to campus. Five years ago, Thomas College had roughly 500 undergraduate students, and its 10-year goal was to increase its undergraduate enrollment to roughly 1,000. That number has risen to 655 this fall, and Morin says Thomas College surpassed its goal of enrolling 235 new undergrads this fall.
But why can't a small college stay small? Why does a school like Thomas College need to grow? Simple economics, according to Lawlor and others. Lawlor notes that 80% of collegiate revenue comes from tuition. And since a school has to deal with fixed costs for things like electricity and food, schools can better take advantage of economies of scale by packing more students into each classroom.
According to Morin, collective wisdom in the education world maintains that the magic number for enrollment at many small, liberal arts schools is around 1,000. Why 1,000? Again, economics. "Private independent institutions under 1,000 students tend to be more vulnerable to a downturn in the economy," she says. "We're an enrollment-driven college. We have a smaller endowment, so we really require that we have students in the classrooms in order to keep this institution thriving."
As prospective students continue to look for more from a school than what's offered in its core curriculum, colleges increasingly are looking to branding and marketing to set themselves apart from their competition. In Thomas College's case, that meant highlighting attributes like its job-placement guarantee, in which students are guaranteed to find a job in their field of study within six months of graduation. If they don't, the college foots federal loan bills until a job is found. The college boasts a 95% job-placement rate for graduates.
It's those things that can serve as a decent marketing hook for colleges, says Lawlor. "If you're not a brand, you're a commodity," he says. "And if you're a commodity, the low price wins. Why should colleges market themselves? It's to create distinction in the marketplace."
A consistent look and feel
At Unity College, a school with an enrollment of around 550 full-time students, its marketing hook is built into its logo. The lush tree planted in the capital "U" of Unity nods to the college's environmental bent. But the marketing message at Unity goes well beyond its logo. Mark Tardif, associate director of communications at the Waldo County school, says the college has spent the last few years unifying that message across the campus, from the design of its publications to the color schemes in its dormitories. "We chose colors for our residence halls that are the same as the colors that are in our catalogs," says Tardif.
Developing a coherence among marketing materials is key for any college, says Lawlor, who says it's important to have a consistent look and feel to even such seemingly disparate things like uniforms and brochures. Sometimes, however, it's easier said than done. USM's Julie Cameron says the university performed an audit of its marketing materials in 2001 and found more than 70 different USM logos spread around the campus on such items as brochures and professors' business cards. "It was becoming more and more clear to us that our image was not as focused as it could be," she says.
It was the same story at Thomas, says Morin. At the first meeting of the college's marketing committee, which consisted of faculty, staff and college administrators, marketing materials were gathered from around the campus, from different academic departments and offices, and laid out on a table. "What they found was astounding," says Morin. "There were so many different looks and different feels, different colors and font types. There was no consistency. It was troubling."
Sue-Ellen McClain, president of McClain Marketing in Portland, worked with Thomas College to develop its branding and marketing strategy. Consistency was the name of the game, from colors and typefaces to logos and taglines. "It was really helping them try to focus on what it is that potential students would want about Thomas," she says.
And what Thomas College figured students would want was a sense of its core values. To paraphrase Lawlor, Thomas College worked to know thyself, and to get that message of self awareness to prospective students. It picked keywords such as "confident" and "connected," and played up the word "guarantee."
The hope, of course, is that such a message will continue to bring a growing number of students to Thomas College each fall. At Unity, the aim of its branding and marketing strategy has different goals. According to Tardif, the goal is to mesh Unity's marketing with its overall strategic plan, which was developed last year in hopes of buffing its educational reputation. "That's really the next step," he says.
But at the same time, Tardif says, the college wouldn't complain if its marketing captured the attention of more prospective students. "How large we're going to grow, we're going to see," he says. "But, we have a very strong strategic plan."
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