We urge you to make your CRM administrators regular participants in meetings any time strategy is addressed. Power is becoming less a matter of place in a hierarchy and more about access to and knowledge of the functions of your CRM. CRM technology is stretching the horizon for personalized connections with your many and varied audiences, and it’s changing the power positions in your marketing team. For higher education, the two strongest options (Salesforce and Slate) are working toward more seamless data management for lifetime engagement with your constituents. Begin with strong customer relationship management (CRM) software. Not only will you need an adequate team, you’ll also need the tools for your efforts. Conducting an organizational assessment will provide insight about your level of capability to adequately meet the task of advancing your brand. The success of your brand also rests on your capacity to do the work of marketing and relationship building. Consistency will generate the trust you need to build a strong brand. While you are telling the truth through messaging and behaviors, your audiences are testing the truth of your messages and behaviors. If you are picturing a circular diagram as you read this, you’re on the right track. Of course, this means that your behaviors must align with the story you are telling. As your audiences interact with you, that is, exchange with you through communications, conversations, encounters or your marketing efforts, they’ll be verifying the consistency of their experience with the story you’re telling. You’ll want to tell your story to your audiences often to cement it in their minds. Again, because you are telling the truth, you’ll be able to repeat your story with confidence. And while you may point out different wonderful aspects of your glorious self to prospective students than to your prospective donors, you’re telling the same truth again and again until you have a trustworthy brand that others talk about with integrity.Ĭonsistency in telling your true story-even when you tire of telling it-will serve as the path to ensuring accuracy in your brand building. You tell the same story to everyone, because it’s true. By telling the truth about yourself, you won’t have to remember what version of your story you told to others. The prize you derive from coherence is confidence.
And it’s precisely why you must invest in knowing what’s true about you-especially if it’s a little weird-and telling your remarkable story with confidence.Īnd that brings us to a concept we call coherence: achieving a level of authenticity that defines the one place you alone can occupy in the higher-ed landscape. That’s why it’s so important to know and tell the truth it’s why being your authentic self is critical to relationship building.
So when you try to sound like a college or university that you clearly are not, they’re not convinced. They read comments and reviews from current students and alumni they know what their friends think about you. They note what you are saying and compare it to what others are saying about you. More than that, those you’d like to convince to join you as a student or donor can ascertain when you are being authentic. In so doing, they mask what makes they themselves beautiful.Īnd in the same way that parents and close friends know the real person underneath that teen’s crazy haircut, or set of clothes, or funky nail color, those closest to you-students, faculty, alumni, prospects, parents-know when you are being disingenuous, when the real you isn’t showing. In the same way that teenagers choose to dress alike, institutions market themselves in ways that reflect other more prestigiously branded colleges and universities. So eager to emulate the top 10 or 20 schools, they self-describe using words that mirror more-securely positioned institutions. They fear standing out by being different. Unfortunately, like pubescent teenagers, most college and university leaders aren’t aware of or feel uncomfortable with their differences.
You need clarity yourself to give you the confidence to tell it convincingly.Īnd here’s the rub. Most often we unearth evidence that you have a distinctive story-it’s just not very clear. Our practices are designed to discover how the experience you deliver is one-of-a-kind. And by “help,” they generally mean a compelling articulation of what makes them worth enrollment or donation. We hear, more than ever, the line “we need help with our story” from prospective clients.