Creating an in-house integrated marketing and communications strategy

Most higher-education executives overseeing marketing and communications share the same challenge — an adequate balance between strategy and tactics. This equilibrium provides the foundation for sustaining an effective and efficient infrastructure founded on the tenets of an outcomes-focused reputation management strategy. The ability to provide counsel to top university administrators, oversee a dynamic and nimble team and simultaneously ensure a high level of quality rests within an institution-wide understanding and commitment to an integrated and collaborative approach. Creating and sustaining an effective integrated marketing and communications strategy is critical for effective institutional reputation management. Chief communication and marketing leaders must start with three areas of focus: vision, expertise and priorities. Efforts within the framework of an integrated marketing and communications model support a higher degree of reputation management supporting recruitment, fundraising, alumni engagement as well as retention. The ever-widening landscape of higher education — fundraising and recruitment of students, faculty and staff — requires a different approach to reputation management and supporting institutional goals. The process to establish and maintain an integrated culture is underpinned by a change management process and defined leadership roles to guide the institution towards a sustainable solution able to anticipate and respond to internal and external factors. Chief Communications and Marketing Officers must guide the organisation and its culture in adopting an integrated and collaborative approach embracing a new model of marketing, while founded in the four ‘Cs’ defines a new approach founded in three ‘Cs and one I’. This paper outlines the process needed to shift culture, garner university-wide support and establish a new infrastructure focused on effectiveness and university-wide acceptance.