Marketing Research: Using Netnography Effectively

What image does your school project to the public? What is the institution's reputation? Is it positive? What are people thinking and saying? In this increasingly competitive environment, colleges and universities can never have enough information about how prospective students and the general public perceive the institution's reputation and image. Both are important components of designing your marketing communication strategy and if you seek to attract and enroll more adult learners, there may be a way to more easily find out what people are saying by using the Internet.

The formal term used to describe this practice is netnography, or the process of seeking out and finding websites where people are talking about topics that are of concern to you and your institution. With the increasing popularity and activity of blogs, social networks, and forums, the data you seek may be out there just waiting to be collected. Using the Internet, you can find out all sorts of things about your own school, your students, your instructors, that help to monitor and analyze opinions and sentiments that will help your school compete.

Conducting a netnographic study is as easy as beginning with an Internet search. Start by looking for anything written about your school by typing in the school name in a search engine (Google is a good place to start). Then write down the key words you would think people associate with your institution. Is it a nationally recognized business school? An upper division nursing school? What is the institution known for, where is it located, are courses offered online? Decide on a few key words and type them into a search website...see what comes up...or doesn't. Perhaps people are writing about your competition...that might be helpful as you gather this information. You may find a blog or website that mentions your school...favorably or unfavorably. Netnographic research can put you in touch with rich information often from the people who know you best. It is worth the look...

Netnography can provide rich information to inform your campus community of the current external image, reputation, and so on.

Good luck!

Strategies for Higher Education Markets

Your institution may be satisfied with targeting and attracting high school-aged prospective students exclusively. For some colleges, this is the only mission and a core business objective.
However, for institutions that are experiencing declining enrollment or attract adult learners by default or as a side product through continuing education programs, it may be worth considering adult learners as a more central part of your overall recruiting strategy.
You may be missing the boat…if your school is not actively looking at the adult learner market as a growing opportunity and a segment you can either attract in greater numbers or serve better to increase retention and loyalty.
As more and more adults continue to return to school for whatever reason, it is incumbent upon universities to consider how they serve this population today and how they might serve this population better tomorrow.
If you are interested in exploring this further, a good place to begin is by taking a look at your existing organizational structure.
Pose these questions to your college community to begin a dialogue to determine if serving adult learners might be a good fit for your institution:

• If your institution serves the adult market, where are they being served now?
  
• Is it part of your core strategy to attract adult learners or do they find you and attempt to fit their schedule to the school’s schedule?
  
• Does this make sense?
  
• Is there a better structure that would better serve this audience?
  
• If your “adult learning” programs is in your “outreach” or continuing education department, how integrated is that function in the rest of the operation?
  
• How is enrollment handled?
  
• How are teaching assignments and schedules made?
  
• What programs does the school offer that help adult learners as they transition to life plus school?
  
• How does it compare with some of the career colleges that cater to this market?

Think also about registration and orientation and parking and on and on…just as I would analyze the campus beginning with the campus visit, I encourage you to map what the experience is like for the New Traditional.