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The University/College as Business (stealing market share for survival)

Tom Dougherty Founder/CEO of Stealing Share

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State of the business – Opportunities to change

• You need to grow your business (paid enrollment) to the greatest extent possible.

• You need prospects who currently do not give your school a second thought, to reconsider or prefer you.

• You need to create a foundation of preference that goes beyond the the things you currently market.

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You see these changes everyday

So does the student. !So does the competition. ! !!

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But the small tactical messaging changes everyone in the category pretends to make are usually about as groundbreaking as dotting the “i” or crossing the “t”.

Your message has to be different and better

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The only way to win is to REALLY understand what the prospect wants.

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Everyone strategizes. But they end up talking to the converted and seem to justify the status quo.

!Focus Groups? Your own prospects?Your current students? On-line studies? Email surveys?

!What have you really learned?

There is real danger

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Start with projectable research. It is very different from the normal approach upon which everyone seems to rely. !How you do it (methodology) is just as important as why you conduct it.

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College/University Table Stakes

Happy Students Active Social Life Cost Effective Future Jobs Great Education Technology Remote Classes Happy Grads Caring Faculty Diversity Local Color Campus Life !

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What we

believe

What we need/want

What we do/use

MarketingBrand

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Highest Emotional Intensity

What is the ground in which your University brand competing? !To steal market share you must seek the highest ground, applying ideas that evoke the greatest emotional intensities. !There are two kinds of emotional intensity. Positive and Negative. Positive emotional intensities are benefits. Negative emotional intensities are about what’s lacking.

Highest Emotional Intensity

Lesser Emotional Intensity

Higher Ground Negative

Positive

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Check with your MBA program. Ask what happens to any business model with supply outpaces demand?

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Supply Demand

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If you were a business

• Understand the precepts of the target

• Understand the competition

• Position yourself as different and better

• Grab the highest emotional intensity

• Dispassionately conduct an audit of the category

You would think about your brand

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Where did the idea of BRAND originate?

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This brand is not about you or just the University or College itself. It is a measure of student’s (prospect) self-description and serves to help them define who it is that they believe they are. As such, it is PERSUASIVE and creates preference beyond simple generic category choices across the university. The best of these brands represent the aspirations and highest emotional intensity of the prospects they wish to influence.

What do you need to do differently?

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!

In order to maximize influence on University prospects — and make them your students, we need to learn three things:

Influencing Prospective Student Behavior

1. What promises (triggers) that might be made by your brand that would most encourage decision makers to remember, prefer, and connect to the brand? If any “triggers” do in fact exist, which do prospects rank as the most powerful?

2. When the prospective student (or parent of that student) thinks about what is most important in their lives, what is it that they believe to be most important (student self-description)?

3. What do they aspire to become? What do they fear they are at risk of losing?

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Great Educatio

n

?Purpose

Process

Large Public

Small Private

Large Public

?

Small Private

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About The Student

Purpose

Process

Large Public

Small Private

Abou

t The

Sch

ool

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!!Colleges and Universities should not change anything they say or do unless that message is intended to change behavior and be more persuasive. !

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As a business

• Understand the precepts of the target

• Understand the competition

• Position yourself as different and better

• Grab the highest emotional intensity

• Dispassionately conduct an audit of the category

Fix your brand

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www.stealingshare.com !

Stealing Share, Inc Suite 816, 301 S Elm Street, Greensboro, NC 27401 • 336.389.9315 733 3rd Avenue, 15th Floor • New York, NY 10017 • 866-725-1080