The following is a post I was asked to write for sales organizations. It is a topic, though, I write about in higher ed. So I re-wrote it for higher ed. Want to read the original?
I was asked recently to define the line between where marketing ends, and where recruitment begins. It's a difficult line to draw, and it truly will vary depending on your institution, as well as the relationship you have with your marketing team.
First, it is important to note that marketing and recruitment in higher ed are not completely distinct tasks; instead they blend together.
In a business setting, I like to think of marketing as the broader, long-term focused efforts, while sales is focused on the immediate, short-term efforts that generate revenue for an organization.
In higher ed, though, recruitment in the typical four-year model can be a very lengthy process. And that is even more of a reason that marketing and admissions need to not only work together, but understand the approaches each sees as important in converting new students.
The old model places admissions as the experts with marketing in a support role. Now I don't want to flip the apple cart, but those models need to be modified, and if marketing isn't ready to play a larger role, then they need to quickly prepare.
Marketing teams need to know how prospective student behavior is changing, and understand how the broader marketing-related efforts in other industries can be used in our industry. As a consultant, I can tell you that higher ed is typically two to five years behind other industries.
Our marketing strategy today must help prospects learn about our institutions, build a level of trust with us and even manage themselves across the enrollment lifecycle.
In other industries, you may find customers now controlling more than 60% of the sales process before a company even knows who the customer is. In our world of stealth applications, how far into the enrollment process will a prospect go before she/he lets you know who they are?
In business, companies are investing heavily in technology like Hubspot to build intelligence and follow the prospective customer across their digital channels. Many higher ed CRM's are behind, and the other technologies are difficult to integrate (at least without help). Some schools have taken that extra step to integrate tools like Hubspot in lieu of, or in addition to, their CRM.
The technology we have today allows schools to capture prospect information and learn about their habits and interests (without them filling out lengthy cards and forms). We do this to customize the information they receive so that when they (the prospects) are ready, their information gets into the hands of the admissions team.
So why is there such a void between marketing and recruitment? I've found that many times its because schools are defining the marketing process and the recruitment process separately, and are rarely considering how the two combine from the student's perspective.
When you blend the two processes into one, a college can build a single strategy that converts more students.
Marketing teams can feel confident that the inquiries they produce are the right prospects the admissions team needs, and the admissions team can feel confident that when they reach out to a prospective student, that she is ready to talk about your programs and know why she is looking to enroll. Better yet, your new students will have the answers they want and need exactly when they want and need it - if not just before.