Forget the Funnel

For marketers in higher education, recruitment season is an elaborate game of channels and funnels: Lock down your creative. Build out your landing pages. Tweak your forms. Buy your lists and ads. Send out mailings and emails. Then sit back and wait.

Not all of your targets will click an ad or submit a precious RFI, but for the ones that do: BAM! They’re in the funnel. Then it’s time to work that flow with some sweet, sweet emails, and they’re as good as yours!

So if it’s that easy, why are so many schools hurting for enrollment?

OK, we get it: demographics, economics, student loan fatigue, and so on. There just aren’t enough prospects to go around, right? If there were, they’d be knocking down your door.

But that doesn’t explain why you might have a hard time filling those graduate program seats. After all, now that Millennials have graduated and entered the workforce, shouldn’t the largest generation since the Baby Boomers be teed up and ready to enroll in professional graduate programs?

The short answer is no. And there may be myriad reasons for the lack of interest. Maybe they’re not ready. Maybe your programs just don’t appeal to them. Maybe the demographics in your region have changed. Maybe your ranking isn’t where you want it to be. Maybe your agency’s work sucks. Maybe you’re working the funnel wrong.

Or, maybe, what if there isn’t even a “funnel” anymore?

Marketers traditionally think in terms of the “sales funnel” when it comes to purchasing decisions. The prospect moves from interest to purchase, following a series of discrete steps along the way.

Traditionally advertisers have concentrated on the “top” of the funnel, the “widest” part with the most prospects. Conventional marketing wisdom is a numbers game: Get in front of people to push a sufficient number of them into the funnel, stay in touch with them until they buy, and eventually—even though the initial herd may be thin during the transition from intention to action—you’ll have your customers.

But is that how you buy things?

Sure, the attention-interest-action model may apply when you buy something that you don’t need to think about too much. That’s why grocery stores put those tasty, irresistible treats on the endcaps near the checkout counter. They’re not counting on you doing research or gathering opinions from your friends on social media before you toss those ChocoMarshy SaltySnax in your cart. But the sales funnel is a lot more complicated in the Digital Age.

Information drives purchase decisions and we’re all exposed to way more media (and, therefore, information) than ever before. And that complicates things. A lot.

The sales funnel isn’t a funnel anymore. It’s a circle. And you should get used to spreading your marketing efforts along the entire student lifecycle.

Marketing in the Analog Age

During the less enlightened Analog Age marketers took great pains to time their messages to you, based on when you might be likely to buy. It could be the season—summertime is always good for cars, kids think about college in the fall, etc.—or it could be a life change like buying a house or having a baby.

Marketers knew these kinds of triggers got you thinking about a new set of wheels, the College of Your Dreams, a new living room suite, or maybe even life insurance. They carefully cultivated their lists or timed their ads (print, radio, billboards and primetime TV) and hoped that you’d take the bait and fall into the funnel. Once you were there, they knew that they controlled the conversation (more or less). Regardless of the individual outcome, you were only fooling yourself if you thought you were in control of the experience.

The Digital Age Difference

Many of the analog channels still exist in one form or another. But today’s consumers are bombarded with information from the minute they wake up and check their calendars on their phones until the moment they fall asleep while streaming a show on their tablets. In between, they’re tethered to their phones and computer screens. Who’s in control? It’s hard to say. But it’s not a limited number of commercial interests who can afford to buy broadcast media.

Consumers’ digital journeys are now a garden of forking paths: new branches in the decision tree split off in near-infinite options. There may still be a linear, attention-interest-action progression, but influencing the course of that progression now requires understanding a few important new facts:

1. Timing promotions has limited value. Yes, time of year and life events matter increasingly less. This is especially true in higher ed as the population of prospects moves further away from the traditional high school teenager with a singular focus on college to a more complex population of teens and adults at various stages of their life experience.

2. Media matters. People use different media for different reasons. Mobile isn’t the same as desktop because people looking up information on a phone often aren’t in the same stationary situations as their desktop counterparts. Ads on social media don’t work like ads in publications because people use social media for different reasons and in different ways than browsing the web for news, product information, or entertainment. An ad forwarded by (or endorsed by) a friend has a different impact on a consumer than an ad that pops up unbidden online. A text message is more personal than a banner. You get the idea.

3. Customers can be powerful advocates. Before the Digital Age, we didn’t have that much potential individual influence. If we regretted a purchase, there were a limited number of people who could hear about it. Today, one post to our timelines or one tweet can potentially voice our displeasure to hundreds (or a lot more). Thinking that the sales funnel ends after a purchase is nuts. In many ways, it’s just beginning.

4. Attention ain’t what it used to be. This one’s a no-brainer and it’s a well-known source of frustration to all marketers. But we can’t forget it: Attention is a scarce commodity. If people didn’t care much about your messages in the Analog Age, they care infinitely less today.

5. The consumer is now in control. The digital age shifted power from producer to consumer and from hierarchies to networks. Power is very much about control of information, and today, it’s impossible to believe that any marketer can be fully in control of the information about their products and services. Therefore, the sales process is much less about guiding consumers to a purchase decision and a lot more about giving them the information and tools they need to move themselves to a purchase decision. This is a critical distinction. Marketers: Give it up. You’re no longer in control.

So how do these new realities impact the sales funnel in real life? For higher-ed marketers, it’s perhaps most instructive to look at how the new realities impact marketing to someone who:

• decides to enroll in a professional graduate program;

• completes the program; and

• has the potential to become a life-long advocate or brand ambassador for the school.

Beyond “The Funnel”

Let’s look at a traditional recruitment sales funnel.

Figure 1 – Sales Funnel

Looks pretty familiar, huh? From intent (“I need to get an MBA”) to the final action in the funnel (“I’m going to enroll!”), the traditional funnel operates on a few assumptions:

1. The prospect has the intent to enroll in the first place.

2. There’s a smooth progression from one stage to another in the decision-making process.

3. Repeated contact will move the decision along to the next stage.

4. The “sale” ends with enrollment.

Of course, as we’ve discussed, most of these assumptions are wrong. How do we know someone understands they want an MBA? Maybe they aren’t even sold on grad school in the first place? Are the contacts they receive from us the only information they’re going to use to make their decision?

No, of course not: They’re going to do some intensive online research, look at school websites, reach out to their social networks, and maybe even ask questions on some forums.

Are they going to read each thing we send them through the mail? Are you kidding?

And what happens after they enroll? Are they going to stay?

Are they going to tell others about their experience? They may go somewhere else–after all, there’s practically an infinite range of choices–and you can bet they’re going to tell others about their experience.

Now let’s look at a better way of thinking about the process:

Figure 2 – The Loop

This recruitment process operates on an entirely new set of principles:

1. You can’t predict when someone’s going to want to pursue a professional graduate education.

2. People have questions that arise at each stage that need to be answered.

3. To answer their questions, people turn to different forms of media—and you have to be there. It’s not about controlling the conversation.

4. Understand your prospects and be nimble and responsive enough to meet their needs.

5. Making a decision doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

6. Decisions are made with verbs, not nouns. It’s an active process, not a series of neat, discrete stages.

7. Once the “decision” has been made, customers can become advocates…or ex-customers.

8. The “sales” process never ends..and if it does, it means that you’re doing something wrong.

Forget the funnel! Think about your prospects as participants, not passive recipients of your messages and recognize that no “sale” is final: you’re looking to develop lifelong customers and advocates.

Work The Loop!

Applying these new principles doesn’t mean throwing out everything you know. Instead, it means thinking more creatively about how to apply those principles. Meet your prospects wherever they start their journeys and provide the resources and incentives to take the next step.

Let’s say you’re recruiting for a professional graduate program. It can be hard to identify prospects and predict when they are going to apply. In fact, they may not be sold on the idea of going to graduate school at all.

To reach prospects at this stage (#1 on Figure 2), you’re going to have to cast a wide net, although not necessarily directly towards any previously identified group of prospects. Social media, public relations/earned media, and content marketing are good places to start. Focus on creating content that’s useful to those who might be thinking about the next stage of their career and promote the concept that grad school might be a good option for professional growth. It doesn’t even need to be branded content at this point. After all, you don’t want them to perceive your content as “advertising.” You’re just trying to get some portion of your prospects to think, “Hey! Maybe I need to go to graduate school.” Help them to embark on the graduate school journey.

The next group is beginning to explore its options (#2 on Figure 2). Don’t assume they’ve got the same kind of knowledge about the professional graduate program marketplace that you do. That’s a quick way to lose them. Instead, think of these prospects as explorers entering unknown territory.

How do you reach the explorers? Go to their main exploration vehicle: search engines. Targeted paid search and SEO based on keywords/phrases that neophytes might use will yield the best results. Optimizing for questions is a good tactic here: “What are the best business programs near me?” “What do I need to do to get into business school?” “Should I get an MBA or an MS degree?”

Give your explorers a destination designed for them. Don’t hit them over the head to take an action at this phase. They’re not ready yet. Instead, make sure that they can get the information they need to make a decision—costs, number of credits, platforms, mandatory tests, financial aid opportunities, etc.—and make it easy to find by putting it on the homepage of the programs you’re promoting. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with providing a link to an RFI page, but don’t shove it down their throats. They’re gathering information before they make a decision…and they’re gathering it from other schools, too. You don’t want prospects to remember your programs as the ones that couldn’t provide the information they needed.

Content marketing, out-of-home, and even targeted email are good tactics to try here, too. Provide content that helps them in their search, perhaps clearly explaining common jargon or providing a helpful general timeline/checklist they can use in their search. Out-of-home can help reinforce their thinking about graduate school and keep your brand top-of-mind, particularly if you use it to advertise something of value to them such as an open house. For explorers who have moved through their journey and have started to register for standardized tests (e.g. the GMAT), try sending direct mail to the list with content that reminds them of why your institution’s a good match. Provide information they need—for example, how to interpret your test scores—to help move them from being an explorer to someone ready to engage.

The engagement phase (#3-4 on Figure 2) is where a lot of your traditional recruitment marketing techniques come in…and where you’ll have to work in some new ones. Again, you can’t assume that someone is engaging with you because you moved them there: Think of all the “ghost applicants” you deal with. But here they are, and it’s time for you to help them make a difficult decision.

People who reach this phase are particularly delicate. What may have been an abstract concept (going to grad school) now has gotten real. They may have not even decided to go yet, but they’re certainly a lot closer. You need to help reinforce their decision to go to that next phase in their careers—and their lives. Make it easy for them to choose to apply to your institution.

To help them make that decision, get closer to them. Nurture the relationship. Personalized websites tailored to their interests, helpful emails reminding them of important dates, and long-form content about what to expect (especially if they’ve been out of school for a while) can all be helpful ways of showing that you know and care about them.

Social media is also a good channel to use at this stage, but carefully. Be available, both online and on the phone so they can answer questions when they ask them. You don’t have to be available 24/7, either: set up “virtual office hours” for applicants who need last-minute help and then make yourself available. If done right, you’ll overcome all the obstacles between someone who is engaged and someone who becomes an applicant.

Once they’ve applied (#5 on Figure 2), your job’s not done: Even if they didn’t apply anywhere else, they still could decide to walk away from the decision. Your goal here is to get them to enroll (#6 on Figure 2); keeping up that personal contact through the web, through email, over the phone, or through social media is key. It’s an investment of time and resources that will pay big dividends when they enroll in your program.

We’ll say it again: Just because they’ve applied doesn’t mean they’re going to enroll. As all higher ed marketers know, melt is a big problem, one made even bigger with the advent of the Common App and the ease of applying online. But if you’ve built relationships with your prospects as early as possible, been responsive, and assisted them with the process of applying you’re going to have a much better chance keeping them once they’ve been accepted. “Melt” melts away with the application of sufficient attention.

Once they’ve accepted, it’s all about their experience (#7-9 on Figure 2). We know that phrases such as “customer experience” can make many in the academic world head for the hills, but like it or not, they are your customer and you want to make their experience as rewarding as possible. You can enhance their experience as a student by staying in touch and letting them know that you still care after they’ve enrolled in your program. Occasional emails asking how things are going or offering advising help if they’ve run into a snag can have a big impact. Personalize the experience and let them know that they’re not just a student ID number.

But while it’s vital that you concentrate on their experience as a student, maintaining that relationship once they graduate is the key to creating a lifelong brand champion who’s going to contribute as a donor, return (if possible) to earn more credits or even another degree, and — perhaps most importantly — someone who’ll advocate for your institution for the rest of their lives, influencing future generations of customers (#10 on Figure 2).

When you create advocates, you reinforce the cycle, turning The Funnel into The Loop, an ongoing machine that generates prospects and, eventually, students.

But people will only advocate for you if they’ve had a good experience. Student life and their studies create that experience—and it’s a part of your marketing. Social media (and online contacts in general) mean that the experience your students have is multiplied innumerable times by the people they come into contact with online. Their experiences, good and bad, will influence countless others. Why not create great experiences?

To do so, you’re going to have to reach out across campus to all of the offices that interact with students. For undergrads, that means student Life, Career Services, the campus health resources, and recreation and wellness. For grad students, your efforts have to be more department-focused, but anything that helps build community and a connection to the program is worthwhile.  For all students, make sure you include the faculty, too: If a member of your university interacts with students, plans events for students, teaches students, or helps students move on to a career, then they’re involved in the overall “customer experience.”

Your students are certainly there to learn, but they’re also there to make connections, have life-altering experiences, live, play, and prepare for the rest of their lives. And while the student experience might seem well outside the realm of “marketing,” turning students into lifelong advocates is really the best marketing activity you can do.

People stay at school because they feel like they “fit”; anything you can do to help enhance that fit—and enhance the overall experience of attending your institution—can help lower transfer rates and ultimately save recruitment costs. It’s a lot easier to keep a student than it is to find a new one.

It’s not enough to simply get prospects into the “Funnel” and move them along. You don’t know who they are and when they’re going to enter and you don’t know when they’re going to pay attention to your marketing efforts. Set your recruitment efforts free from practices that encourage marketers to sift prospects through a tired linear progression to a single and absolute end. That might have (kinda) worked in the Analog Age, but times have changed.

Forget the Funnel: Embrace The Loop.

Brands, Know Thyselves

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

Polonius, spoken to his son Laertes in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III, lines 78-82.

“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.”

Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything, 1989.

“I yam what I yam.”

Popeye, 1933.

Recently, while doing research for this “mission-driven” issue of our newsletter, I was poking around the interwebs looking for info about “mission-driven companies” when I came across this article by Lief Abraham on Medium.com.

Now, Lief’s a pretty accomplished entrepreneur, currently serving as Co-CEO of stock-watching-app developer Public.com as well as being founder of two companies acquired by tech giants And.co and Pay With A Tweet. And, based on his article, he seems like a pretty smart guy: his advice is one of the most cogent and insightful statements about mission-driven companies I’d read.

“I believe,” he stated simply, “a good mission statement is something actionable you can vet ideas against.”

He then went on to use the hypothetical example of Google pondering the idea of starting a fleet of food trucks. Turning Google’s mission into a question, he asked how this food truck idea would stand up.

“Does this [starting a fleet of food trucks],” he asked, “help [to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful]?” (brackets his)

If you think about it for a microsecond, the answer is, not surprisingly, “no.” While a fleet of Google food trucks might help alleviate the hunger of the techies who ate from it (while lightening their wallets a bit … unless the food was ad-supported, but that’s a different post), it definitely wouldn’t advance Google’s mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.

What would? Lief suggests that simply moving from the idea of running actual food trucks to developing an app that tracked food trucks would align Google with their mission, a recipe for success (apologies for the pun).

This made total sense to me. Having a clear, concise mission statement allows an organization to vet just about any idea that it cooks up. Google food truck? Doesn’t match. Google food truck tracking app? On point.

It’s a great way to test mission statements. Not only does it let you test your organization’s mission statement for conciseness and real-life applicability, it also lets you test the intent of your mission statement. If you can match a mission statement to any particular move, then go for it. If not — or if the mission statement is too vague and convoluted to test anything against, either re-think the idea or, in the latter case, rethink your mission statement.

A great idea. But the more I thought about it, I realized that Lief’s test was more than about the mechanics of constructing a mission statement. It was really about organizations knowing themselves.

No doubt you’ve heard at least one of the quotes introducing this article. You may have even heard all of them if you’ve of a certain age (or have a particular pop culture sensibility).I chose them because they do a great job of exemplifying the heart of Lief’s insight: to be successful, an organization has to know itself first. If your organization doesn’t know itself, you can’t be “mission-driven,” because you don’t have a clear-cut mission that can drive you.

So how can an organization “know itself?” Sounds easy, right? Maybe it is, but being an “insider” makes it tough. After all, there are multi-thousand-year traditions devoted to helping human beings know themselves by being mindful of who they are. How can organizations accomplish the same thing?

It’s not easy, but if nothing else it requires a hard look at what your organization is and what it does. It means looking beyond the bland — and often committee-created — “mission statement” to look at the characteristics of your organization and what you do.

Doing so can have a profound impact, but it can only happen if you’re willing to take the incredibly hard step of making a decision about what your organization really is, not what you wish it could be.

In real life (as opposed to blog posts), this isn’t as hard as it might seem, although it’s probably scarier than you might imagine. Why? Because defining your organization as having a singular mission means appealing to a specific audience who thinks that mission is important and — here’s where it gets scary — rejecting those who don’t.

Many organizations make the mistake of thinking they can somehow craft a mission and a brand that’s not going to offend anyone. After all, why limit yourself? But once you define your organization, you can’t be Y, Z, or A through W. That said, what about all those prospective customers who might be attracted to all those other letters?

Guess what? They’re not. Or, if they are, once they find your organization’s not Y or Z, they’re not going to be happy. They thought you were one thing. Turns out you’re something else. Who wouldn’t be disappointed?

Limiting your mission and your organization means that you can’t be everything to everybody. And that’s scary, no argument about that.

I can point to many organizations that I’ve worked with who thought they were playing it safe by appealing to everyone — trying to be something they weren’t — only to realize] that being true to themselves is what really matters.

One of the best examples of this is a university I worked with years ago. Located in the far northern reaches of the U.S., they had snow somewhere on campus almost throughout the academic year (although, to be fair, those snow piles may have been located in some of the shadier parts of campus).

But was that how they presented themselves? Heck no! If you looked at their admissions materials, you’d think they were a tropical paradise, with pictured students sporting shorts and T-shirts as they frolicked about the campus on green lawns.

Harumph. As far as I could tell, this school must have done its viewbook photoshoot on the one day of the year before graduation when the sun came out and a heat wave rolled through the region. The reality was that, for most of the year, it was frickin’ cold.

While the sunny-day photoshoot might have made for attractive pictures, the fact was that their retention rate was terrible, especially for students not from the area. And this was a problem. A big problem.

Why? Because the reality of their brand experience was almost completely divorced from the image they projected. The result? Students who didn’t know what to expect left as soon as they found out the reality.

Our solution was simple: don’t be afraid of being who you are. This isn’t a school for everyone. It takes a special person to thrive under the conditions of their campus. If you’re up to it, please come! If you’re not, it’s best to look somewhere else.

When we launched the university’s new website — their primary marketing vehicle — it prominently featured winter pictures from the area. It wasn’t apologetic about stating clearly what student life was like.

The result? Better student retention than they’d ever had. In fact, the new true brand image was so successful that they ran out of campus housing and had to rent accommodations in their town.

That’s a win.

We didn’t change their mission statement, but the lesson is still the same: being true to who your organization really is works. Whether you’re a global tech giant with a mission to organize and make all the world’s information accessible and organized or a small public university in the northern reaches of the U.S., understanding who you are — and not being afraid to express it — works. You can try to be something else, but your customers and prospects are going to figure it out. And when they do, they’re going to go somewhere else.

This is true of marketing and mission statements. The truth can be tested. Lies will out. For us, we’ll stick with the great philosopher Popeye. We are what we are. Your organization should be too.

“This Branding Stuff is Stupid”

We pride ourselves in our relentless quest to find the nugget of insight from which an arresting, authentic, and memorable brand is hatched. Along the way we always run into skeptics–clients that don’t believe in brand or its power. Several years ago while in the throes of a brand qualitative research study, we ran into a client who couldn’t have been more clear bout how he felt as he decreed, “This branding stuff is stupid.” In time, our research-based and methodical process converted this brand obstructionist into a brand champion.

Branding is not about altering reality, it’s about owning it.

Brand nonbelievers are everywhere. And for good reason. There are plenty of hacks out there bending reality to fit what they want the brand to be. But branding is not about altering reality, it’s about owning it. And when you do so well and constantly, the brand itself becomes a force of nature. 

Case in point

One of the best illustrations of the power of a brand came to us recently, not in a case study or conference presentation, but by way of Apple TV’s new science fiction series “Invasion.” In the first episode, frantic mother Aneesha Malik arrives at the pediatrician’s office with her two children, one of whom just suffered an inexplicable nose bleed with the rest of her class except for her brother, who just as inexplicably was the only one not afflicted with a bloody nose. There’s no indication of the cause of this sudden outbreak, but the experts are suspecting toxic chemicals.

As the scene opens, the doctor walks in and Malik explains that she performed a complex-sounding medical procedure on her children during the car ride over. The doctor asks, with equal parts concern and condescension, “Are you a doctor?” Malik haltingly replies that, well, she is (sort of): “I … no … Well … yes. I went to medical school.” “Oh?” the doctor replies, his condescension intensifying, “Where did you go to medical school?” Malik defiantly looks the doctor in the eye and answers “Harvard. You?” “Ummm,” he stammers, “Hofstra.”

That brief scene illustrates the power of brand — university brands, specifically — better than any business book we’ve ever read does. By telling the doctor — who could barely contain his lack of respect for her — that she had an M.D, from Harvard, not only did Malik establish her bona fides in an instant, but she also communicated an enormous amount of information about her character to the audience as well. By uttering one word, she established that she’s a smart, resourceful, learned, and capable woman, one who may have sacrificed a brilliant career as a physician or researcher for her children. On the other hand, the doctor, portrayed as somewhat of a condescending jerk, comes off as an even bigger jerk as soon as he mumbles “Hofstra.” The audience instantly is aware that, while he may be a competent physician, he is definitely not intellectually superior to Malik. It’s not that his medical school has a bad reputation, but even if a viewer is unfamiliar with the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University, they certainly know that Hofstra is no Harvard.

All of this takes place in just a few moments of screen time, but those few moments convey an enormous amount of information because of the power of the Harvard brand. When Malik reveals that she has a medical degree from Harvard, all the characteristics of the Harvard brand transfer to her character. It’s a brand so strong and so recognizable that the show’s writers could be confident in knowing that even viewers not fortunate enough to be higher education marketers would recognize it and appreciate what it means for someone to have graduated from Harvard Medical School. One word communicates volumes of information and — just as importantly — positive emotions so effortlessly that it almost seems like a magical incantation.

Here’s another brand takeaway from the scene:  the word “Harvard” means nothing in and of itself. It doesn’t describe where the school is located, what goes on there, or how we should think about it. It’s a blank canvas that only means anything because of all the knowledge we’ve accrued about the institution. Just that one word — a word not accompanied by colors or taglines or logos — is all we need to hear. The word “Harvard,” like all iconic brands, means nothing but signifies everything.

And so…

“Brand” is one of those words that we all use on a regular basis in some very inconsistent and often confusing ways. To some, “brand” means a mark or a visual representation of a company or organization — in other words, a logo. To others, it is the ineffable feeling that you get when you come into contact with a company or organization. A “brand” is what we feel. Other folks regard “brand” as a verb, as something that has to do with building awareness or recognition of a product or organization. 

The reality is that none of these are completely right. “Branding” isn’t something you just do on a whim: it’s a comprehensive and measured process that demands clarity of insight and intent. 

And this stuff can’t be faked.

The Decline & Fall of the Brand of Higher Education

In Mark Twain’s 1897 travelogue Following the Equator, Mr. Clemens begins chapter twenty-five with a quote from Puddin’head Wilson’s fictional New Calendar defining the word “classic” as applied to books. 

”Classic,” defines Wilson, “A book that people praise and don’t read.”

This definition is one of Twain’s most enduring quotes and one of Wilson’s pithiest “quips,” mainly because it rings true with so many of us. Even if we consider ourselves to be “well educated” we probably might stumble a bit if asked about some of the finer points made by Heraclitus or tasked with dredging up and reciting choice bits from some of Cicero’s orations. Ahem.

But we’re not quoting Twain here to apologize for the less-than-perfect retention of our often less-than-perfect educations. 

No, we think the quote does an amazing job of describing the brand of the liberal arts in higher education today, especially when it comes to prospective students, their parents and influencers, and employers.

Not a new debate, but new circumstances.

While the debate over the value of liberal education has been raging for decades now, oddly enough there seems to be no lack of consensus about the value of a liberal arts education among employers, at least when they’re asked about what they value when hiring recent college graduates. 

From numerous studies published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers to a recently published survey of college and high school students published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, employers seem to consistently place skills developed by a liberal arts education — critical thinking, analysis, ethical reasoning, writing, public speaking, just to name a few — at the top of their lists of skills they look for in new hires. 

At least that’s what they say they want. The reality? Well, there’s a reason that higher education has become obsessed with STEM and “job readiness.” 

As schools seek to increase brand recognition, the discrepancy between the lofty ideals espoused by employers in surveys and the realities of what gets graduates hired isn’t — excuse the pun — academic. At one level it’s a matter of survival, although we recognize that institutions have weathered the pandemic. At another level, that of messaging, the constant drumbeat of vocationalism and the denigration of the liberal arts is a major hurdle to overcome as schools look to expand their brands into new markets. 

But this isn’t the only hurdle higher ed faces, especially in the post-COVID era. While it’s difficult to identify an industry that hasn’t been touched by the pandemic, education — especially, we’d argue, higher education — is one that probably has been changed the most. Test scores went “optional but preferred” in many places, leading to unprecedented applications to “stretch schools” and a decrease in applications just about everywhere else. Learning went virtual at all levels, leading to learning loss, especially among traditionally underserved populations. Facing massive uncertainty, unprecedented numbers of high school students looked towards gap years until more normal times arrived. Business closures due to the pandemic resulted in massive losses to businesses, reductions in incomes due to layoffs, and ratcheted up the uncertainty levels for everyone, especially those in rural areas. For many, the answer to “Where should I go to college?” became “Should I” or “Can I?”. 

One of the toughest challenges facing higher education today is the brand of higher education itself. 

The transition to virtual learning — even if only for a relatively short amount of time for some — left many students (and the parents footing the bill, in many cases) feeling cheated, even if concessions were made by their institutions around reducing fees for some campus services. And while many students adapted, many are asking, “What was I paying for anyway?  What is college for? Is it only about acquiring knowledge, or is it about a much more comprehensive experience?” The “will-we/won’t-we” vacillations of many campuses over opening back up again have led to uncertainty and negative feelings even in those who aren’t going to college. Overall — and fairly or not — the pandemic didn’t help the brand image of higher education, already dinged by arguments over academic freedom, worries about rising costs and mounting student debt, and soul-searching about the relevance of a four-year degree in a rapidly changing world.

A new survey from DC think tank New America and Third Way makes this change in attitude abundantly clear. The poll was fairly extensive, reaching out to 1,002 college students nationwide, including samples of 242 caregivers, 269 Black students, and 325 Latinx students. The survey also included 200 high school seniors. While they found that most students who were in college during the pandemic were likely to return to school in the fall, when they asked whether they agreed with the statement “Higher education is not worth the cost to students anymore,” most of the students they surveyed agreed. Even worse, the percentage of students who agreed with the statement increased during the course of the pandemic. 

While some analysts have chalked up this result to concerns over cost, we think this college ambivalence goes deeper than that. While “going to college” used to be an article of unshakable faith for many students, today their faith seems to have been shaken pretty severely. Of course, cost and debt are major issues, but what students and prospects seem to be saying is that they no longer believe that investing in a college education is no longer a sure thing. 

While we think it’s possible to chalk up some of their ambivalence to jitters about an economy damaged by the pandemic, we also think that their perception of the value of a college education has been damaged by the mixed messages they’ve been receiving about the purpose — and ultimate value — of college. 

If the purpose of college has become simply to acquire the technical skills and credentials that are going to get them a job (skills and credentials that employers ostensibly want), plenty of alternatives have arisen that don’t require a four-to-five year commitment, a price tag of six figures or more, and a future crippled by debt. After all, why suffer through the literature you don’t want to read, painful language requirements, or “irrelevant” subjects like history if you can just spend a year in a coding boot camp or a short certificate program to acquire the skills and credentials that are going to get you a job without being saddled with crippling debt?

That’s the key question that institutions need to be able to answer. Why should a prospective student choose an institution when there are so many alternatives? Why should they choose to commit to an education like your university offers when the world tells them in so many ways that a liberal education is, at best, a waste of time and their parents fret over their return on investment? Why should they choose a school over another?

“Why us?” is the question that every brand needs to answer, but the answer hasn’t needed to be as clearly defined as it is now and certainly will be in the world of higher ed. 

During more certain times with a large supply of prospective students, sometimes that answer may have been as simple as “because we’re close” or “because we’re cheaper” or “because you know us through your parent/relative/older friend who went here” to sometimes even “because you can get in.” Not that any of those aren’t valid reasons for someone to choose an institution, but those reasons don’t require an institution to define itself too distinctly or take many risks with its brand. Touting “small class sizes” or “world-class faculty” or the institution’s ability to “prepare you for your future” seemed to work fine for many — at least that’s how it seemed based on what schools were putting out in the market.

We’ve crossed a border. Poorly defined brands aren’t going to cut it anymore.

Why? It’s not just the inevitable increase in competition that’s driving the need for clear differentiation, it’s the way we consume media, discover information, and make buying decisions in post-covid times. While the world was headed in the “virtual” direction on most things before the pandemic, the change was gradual, though inevitable. However, once the pandemic forced us all to physically distance ourselves from the world and others, the physical became virtual out of necessity. Online spending rose 44% in 2020. So did online grocery sales. Home delivery of takeout food doubled. 

The results of this transition have far-reaching implications for all brands. Distinctions such as “local” and “national” (and even “global”) mean a lot less now than they did before. Distance disappears online. Word of mouth has been amplified in ways that couldn’t have been imagined 10 years ago. Search drives discovery, probably even more than advertising (if most of the server logs we’ve looked at are any indication). “Brand experience” is what we experience online, first, and “online” is now more likely to mean “on your phone” than it is “on your desktop,” especially for prospective undergraduates.

There’s no doubt the border has been crossed. But while crossing that border has brought change and with change uncertainty, we think that this is the perfect time to clarify the brand. Or perish. 

The world is different and, frankly, we believe that the experiences of the past 16 months — the pandemic, the politics, the changes in awareness around many social issues — have changed people, too.