“Today’s question comes from… too many people to count.”
That first question in the latest installment of Volt’s advice column ‘Dear Jaime’ is a classic in higher ed: ‘How can you repair a broken relationship between admissions and marketing?’
It’s a question that springs from a complicated and tangled web of good intentions and a lack of singular direction — and one many people working in higher ed marketing and enrollment know all too well.
Jaime offers several tips for doing this delicate, essential work:
- Reset the relationship: Start by acknowledging the existing tension openly and neutrally, perhaps by saying, “We’ve both been under pressure, and that’s shown up in how we work together.”
- Create a shared understanding of constraints: Discuss the pressures on both sides, such as the need to hit enrollment numbers or demands from the president’s office regarding crisis communications.
- Name and retire unhelpful narratives: Eliminate harmful beliefs like “marketing doesn’t understand students” or “admissions just wants us to send more emails.”
- Reanchor around a North Star: Agree on a single, shared, primary goal that both teams own, such as improving inquiry-to-application conversion, increasing yield, or reducing summer melt.
- Define success in student terms, not departmental outcomes.
- Articulate a shared philosophy: This can be something like “we are stewards of the student experience, not owners of shared tactics.”
- Clarify roles without creating silos: Identify swim lanes for who is responsible for what, who has the final say in each category, and ensure alignment on these definitions.
- Respect each other’s expertise: Marketing must respect admissions’ proximity to student decision-making, and admissions must respect marketing’s expertise in messaging, channels, and scale.
- Take accountability: Someone needs to take accountability for the relationship’s success.
Those are the highlights — watch the full video for the nuances and details.
The second question that Jaime tackles this week involves managing upward: ‘How can I help my president understand why awareness marketing is important?’
The simple, short answer is that, without awareness, admissions teams must spend a lot of time qualifying students who are not a strong fit. But, again, the devil is in the details — that you can find in the full video.
Dear Jaime is Volt’s regular advice column, hosted by Jaime Hunt, a higher-ed marketing consultant and former higher-ed CMO. To send her a question you’d like answered, you can message her on LinkedIn or send an email to jaime@solvehighered.com.
