I have the pleasure of serving on the conference committee for the American Marketing Association (AMA) Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. The conference is the largest single gathering of higher ed marketers, and last month approximately 1,200 convened for this year’s AMA Higher Ed. The conference covers a broad spectrum. Tracks include brand… Read more »
Entries by Rob Zinkan
Three takeaways from Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
As I’ve written about previously, we established a Marketers’ Book Club in 2016, where each semester interested staff read a non-marketing book that has marketing implications and then gather at the end of the semester for a discussion over lunch. The purpose is to provide a learning opportunity and an additional way to informally connect… Read more »
Thinking about your higher ed marketing career
Each month I host the webcast and podcast Marketing Live on the Higher Ed Live network. It’s a great opportunity to meet colleagues from throughout higher ed and have interesting discussions on a variety of topics. I recently interviewed the CMOs from the University of Arizona and Ohio State University about advancing one’s marketing career…. Read more »
Answering the ROI question
We recently rolled out the Marketing Budget Deliverables process for FY 2018. Marketing budget projections are among these deliverables, because as marketers we cannot determine ROI without first knowing the “I.” Marketing expenditures are growing across higher education, particularly in the area of digital marketing. In our highly competitive industry, institutions are on average increasing… Read more »
Three Takeaways from Originals
This fall semester we started a marketers’ book club, and our first book was Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Wharton professor Adam Grant. We had a great book discussion earlier this month. Marketers brought a thoughtful and critical eye to the book, sharing not only the points that resonated with them, but also… Read more »
The five essentials of brand strategy
The last three years have been an incredible journey working together to develop and deploy Indiana University’s brand strategy. The process has included research (the largest quantitative brand study in the history of the university), creative development, many meetings and presentations to inform and involve, and, beginning last year, full media deployment. We have also… Read more »
Lessons from Starbucks to higher ed marketers
Looking beyond higher education can be a fruitful source of brand inspiration. I wrote a piece last month for Inside Higher Ed about lessons from Starbucks on moving past features and communicating benefits. Below is a portion of that post. (For a deeper dive, I highly recommend Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate… Read more »
Creating marketing leadership at the unit level
Recently, I wrote an article for Inside Higher Ed advocating for more school and unit level marketers to have a seat at the leadership table. Why? Because marketing and communications professionals are pulled in a variety of directions at the unit level, and—in the increasingly competitive higher education marketplace—it is vital for marketing to play a strategic… Read more »