Community college marketers know the e-mail well. It usually arrives a few weeks before the start of the following semester. The subject line is brief: “Can you promote my program?”
The message is not unreasonable, and the need for enrollment is true. And surely a flyer, an event or some ads will set all things right.
What often gets lost in the exchange is that promotion without strategy rarely produces results. So how can the marketing team become a strategic partner instead of an order-taker?
The enrollment environment demands that community colleges view marketing strategically instead of transactionally. And with many colleges offering academic programs in the upper double digits, marketing dollars will not stretch to all of them. Besides, all programs are not equal in the college’s strategic focus.
This article is part of a monthly series provided by the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations, an affiliated council of the American Association of Community Colleges.
It’s a continual struggle for the marketing team at Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC), which has found that the most effective marketing teams begin with strategy rather than materials. As a marketer, it’s critical to ask:
- Who’s our audience?
- What’s our desired outcome?
- How do these goals fit the college’s strategic plans?
- How do these goals fit the workforce and student demand?
When promotion is driven by institutional need rather than individual urgency, results are more predictable — and more sustainable.
Formalize the request process — and start at the top
Program marketing is where academic affairs and marketing partnerships can reap rich rewards because deans see the full academic portfolio. They understand which programs have workforce demand, face capacity limits and are positioned for growth. So when deans prioritize academic marketing, faculty requests become part of a strategic marketing plan rather than a queue of competing urgencies.
Best practices call for formalizing this process. At KCKCC, marketing partners with the Dean’s Council to set academic promotion priorities. The group defines academic program marketing priorities for a two-year window. As stated directly in the college’s marketing plan, “Marketing will focus on program areas that are in demand, provide a strong living wage, and have capacity for more enrollment.”
The academic program marketing follows this three-step process:
- Dean’s Council program identification: The council identifies 10 academic program areas for strategic marketing focus based on enrollment trends, workforce demand and institutional priorities.
- President’s Cabinet program prioritization: The cabinet reviews the 10 recommended areas and designates seven as the highest institutional priorities for annual marketing investment.
- Dedicated annual marketing resources: The marketing budget includes dedicated funding each year to support these priority programs, in addition to the college’s standard brand and student recruitment efforts.
Community colleges vary in marketing structures, from centralized to decentralized. At KCKCC, brand standards, advertising and policies are centralized to ensure consistency, and departments can support their own promotions within division budgets. As the college’s academic marketing strategy has proved successful, requests for support and collaboration have increased.
Create a toolkit to help faculty with DIY promotion
Once priorities are set, developing plans through collaboration and implementing effective tactics is critical. Rather than waiting for faculty to request flyers, colleges can develop standardized program marketing toolkits with tactics that can be replicated across programs. This shifts faculty participation from requesting materials to supplying content themselves.
At KCKCC, the marketing team creates individual marketing plans for programs based on student and program demographics; however, many of the most successful tactics have become part of this standard academic toolkit:
- Effective, robust program web page: When KCKCC marketing began this work, not all program pages were standardized. So creating that page with student-focused content was a foundational step. Now every academic program has a student-focused page with the same basic information categories.
- Collateral display items: These low-cost materials provide identity and recruiting power for faculty to use as they promote their own program. This includes one-page flyers, pop-up banners and up-to-date brochures.
- Student-focused video: Working with academic departments and a videographer, the marketing team created videos for each program. The audio focuses on student, alums or instructor testimonials; and visuals highlight hands-on, practical and innovative classroom experiences. Videos are typically between 60 and 150 seconds each.
- Lead generation: Digital and social media campaigns included prioritized programs with specialized content and landing pages. Marketing shared leads routinely with academic departments and customized CRM messages with enrollment management. Direct communication with faculty proved most effective.
- Open houses: This looked different for each program, and some programs chose to go into high schools with information instead of hosting open houses at KCKCC. These events used the entire toolkit and often generated meaningful leads. Academic units planned the open house, and marketing provided support materials, learn-more forms and giveaways.
Marketing funds toolkit items for programs identified by the administration; and this toolkit has been so successful that other programs have paid for toolkit items — such as pop-up banners, video and social media posts — themselves.
Trust develops when faculty and marketing understand the rules of engagement and partner effectively. Faculty don’t resist strategy if it benefits students, not departments. Program marketing at community colleges should focus on alignment — between workforce demand and academic supply, recruitment messaging and student behavior, faculty passion and institutional strategy. If marketing teams can guide that alignment, the question shifts. Faculty no longer ask for promos: They ask how their program fits into the college’s story.
And that is when marketing becomes not a service point, but a strategic partner in student access, workforce preparation and institutional stability.
