Academic Marketing

Challenge

Universities and colleges have always understood the importance of communication. From viewbooks to first-year orientation, the student's academic experience is full of new information. Today, however, these simple tools no longer suffice. The modern institution has dozens of audiences with hundreds of needs, all of which must be addressed for the school to be successful. This is especially true in the current era of decreasing budgets and increased competition for students, faculty, and donors.

Solution

Agencies that specialize only in academic marketing have tried to meet this need for years. At first, their focus seems like a good solution, and some of the work has limited use. But, years of working entirely in this market have left these agencies with little understanding of contemporary communications tools and techniques. Often the design and communication quality, as well as the scope, is out-of-date.

Another approach is to hire an agency with good design skills. But, these firms usually have little experience with, or knowledge of, higher education. Thus, while their products are attractive, they are not strategic and not usually appropriate for the academic client.

Synaxis Solution

Synaxis offers a better solution because we are a firm with a foot in both worlds. We understand the special requirements of the academic world as well as modern approaches to marketing, branding, technology, and communications. At the heart of this approach is the idea that academic marketing deserves the same skill, thinking, and dedication given commercial marketing. Behind this idea is the belief in the universal importance of communication.

Benefits

Institutions that work diligently on their communications will be able to increase the enrollment of desirable students, increase retention, hire better faculty, attract quality staff, increase their research funding, enhance their donations, and improve their alumni relations.

Approach

While institutions of higher education share many features, each one is different.  We start by listening to you about your communications needs and goals. This includes surveying your current tools, materials, and processes. Then, we work out a vision with you for the future state of your communications. Based on this vision, we create a plan to move your organization from the current state to the desired goals. This plan identifies needs for strategies and materials while outlining how success will be measured. Armed with this plan, we work with you to execute the projects required.  Along the way, we monitor key metrics to assess how well the rollout is unfolding. If additional changes are needed, we can help make the appropriate adjustments.

Services

• Communications assessment
• Branding
• Marketing operations consulting
• Technology assessment
• Undergraduate communications
• Alumni communications
• Donor communications
• Web sites
• Brochures
• Advertising
• Social media