Ken Steele Breaks Down the Emergence of Higher Education Marketing and Eduvation

Ken is President and Chief Futurist and Eduvation, a company focused on tracking trends, innovations and bright ideas that are transforming the world of higher education. Working closely with colleges and universities, Ken looks for branding and positioning to their strategic planning along with the context around each school. Along with this, Ken also looks into schools marketing and recruitment, support tools and now in this changing world of COVID-19 also technological innovations like online courses among other things. Institutions are competing more and more with each other for enrolments, ever since the government began funding schools based on enrolments and student completions. This means schools are having to build stronger brand identities that stand out more to students than the hundreds of other options.

As this has evolved further, many workers from the marketing industry are moving into the realm of Higher-Ed marketing departments. Ken started out in English Literature but decided to work in the Education industry after falling back on his love of writing and design and found marketing to be a natural fit. Moving into the Higher Education market research in the last 20 years, Ken found the niche he is in now. Being in the unique position of having his finger on the pulse of Higher Education trends, Ken finds many things changing constantly. He finds that these schools are slowly catching up to other sectors in terms of technological and strategic efforts. Higher Ed has been spending a lot more time face to face with their audiences and are tapping into the power of social media and custom websites like they hadn't been before, creating a greater way to communicate their message.

Schools are moving farther away from the corporate institution identity into a more cultural and communal “we” to drive a greater feeling for prospective students. Sharing stories from alumni or current students, showcasing events and rebranding their identities is just some of the ways these schools are trying to grow. Ken mentions Memorial University in Newfoundland as a stand out example, they created a reality TV approach to communicate to prospective students by utilizing their own staff and students and created a series of 20 episodes tracking the students through their first year of university. “The good, the bad, and the ugly were shared there,” Ken explains, and it gave prospective students a great idea as to what to expect, an interesting example of what you can do that's out of the box.

Ken notices that print pieces are still a vital part of the recruiting process. Having something tangible in front of you to process your decisions means more to people than looking at a website. Things like brochures and glossy booklets is something that is diminishing but still important. He thinks this year there will be a greater surge of welcome packages with swag to persuade students to hold on to the offers they've received from prospective schools while working through COVID-19.

Ken recommends these resources for inspiration:

• Globe and Mail
• “Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow” by Marsha Sinetar
• “Good to Great” by Jim Collins
• “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferris

Here is some advice for those looking to get into Higher Education Marketing from Ken:

• With the inevitable loss of international students due to the pandemic, there will be cutbacks on the faculty in schools.
• The inner workings of Higher Educations schools is a very political environment that some marketers might find difficult. It always helps to have comparisons when you're working to sway board members on an idea, this momentum and new ideas, especially from larger schools, allows the smaller guy to have more room when it comes to trying something new.

Written by Juliana Bermudez