Organizing for Effective Marketing Communications in Higher Education: Restructuring for Your Competitive Edge in Marketing

This paper posits that the structures, policies, and procedures of organizations in higher education and marketing today are archaic and do not adequately address the challenges and problems with solutions on a timely basis. The answer lies not in expanding resources, but rather through solutions than can be found by clearly and precisely integrating the institution's communications and marketing goals with its strategic and academic goals. The successful marketing structure will support the institutional profit centers, and more specifically, will focus on its primary profit center: student recruitment and retention. Effective market and communications plans, and resulting strategies, can be best accomplished through a task force concept that melds the capability to create and implement plans that effectively respond to those opportunities identified through an integrated marketing effort. The desired net result is the employment of all the resources and assets from development, alumni relations, communications, and admissions in a synergistic way that introduces and reinforces the institution's image in those key areas. Marketing and communications are not the central purposes of an organization; but they are critical functions and, as such, cannot be, as is done in many colleges today, relegated to the lowest rung of the organizational ladder. The process of restructuring and rebuilding can be successfully facilitated using techniques such as Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) that focus on reforming thinking and constituting new tasks. However, these tools and techniques can provide effective change only if the parties involved agree that change is required and can be achieved only through revolution, rather than evolution. While true integration is a lofty goal, it is critical in today's noisy marketplace because the more integrated and consistent an institution's marketing and communications activities are, the more likely it is to realize significant gains in its visibility and reputation.