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Promote your program

Before you begin

Know your program

  • What sets you apart from your competitors?
  • What are your strengths?
  • What are your weaknesses?
  • Who do you want to apply to your program?
  • What is the final product a student will have received after graduation? Is it more than a transcript and a diploma? (A degree is a purchase. People purchase benefits—convenience, comfort, entertainment, security, status, health, savings, profit, or style—not programs.)
  • Why are you excited to be involved with this program?
  • Write a statement about your program that no other institution could honestly write.

Know your target audience

  • Who influences your applicants’ decision to apply? (parents, employers, advisers)
  • What attracts applicants to your type of program? (job prospects, research interests, promotion opportunities, desire to serve)
  • What attracts applicants to your program? (ranking, specific faculty, metro location, competitiveness)
  • What motivates your prospective students to apply? (study abroad opportunities, alumni mentoring, research opportunities)
  • What discourages your applicants? (cold, parking, lack of responsiveness to e-mail, focus of faculty research, lack of students like them)
  • What characteristics do your best students share? (professional experience, undergraduate degree in specific area, know alumni, took an intro course)
  • How can you best reach your most desired prospective students? (conference in Thailand, CLA adviser, professional association, extension service)
  • Ask advisers and former directors of graduate studies what questions prospective students ask most often.
  • Create at least one persona (fictional character) that incorporates some of the characteristics you’ve identified. You can use this persona later to help you evaluate your plan. Let’s say you create a persona named Ann who lives in San Francisco, is married, has a B.A. in English, has worked for three years in the advertising industry, and has been reading about new developments in your field and wants to pursue this new interest. Will your promotional efforts reach Ann? Will they motivate Ann? Remember that you can’t be all things to all people, but appealing to your persona will help you appeal to real prospects.

Know your priorities

  • What is your department’s biggest need? Do you need to increase the number of undergraduate applicants or would it be better to increase the number of doctoral students? Do you want more applicants or better-suited applicants?
  • How does your program reflect that need? Is it possible that efforts on behalf of the department also meet your program’s needs?

How will prospective students find you?

Search engines (Google, Yahoo!, etc.)

  • Select program names and keywords.
    • Search for taxonomies or publication indexes or graduate school Web sites to determine the most commonly used and recognized terms in your field. For instance, check CIP codes, graduate school guides, publication indexes, job posting sites, etc.
  • Use those terms on your Web pages.
  • Rename your program if necessary.

University of Minnesota search

Review catalogs and directory listings.

  • Is the program listed in the University catalog? (Graduate degree programs and tracks can be listed in the Graduate School catalog, along with certificates offered through the Graduate School. Undergraduate degree programs can be listed in the undergraduate catalog. Areas of specialization and emphasis areas will not be listed, but can be included in program descriptions.)
  • Is the program listed in the University directory?

School search sites

Is the program listed, as appropriate, in any of the following directories?:

Word of mouth

  • Promote your program by including promotional materials or your Web site URL on
    • e-mail signature line
    • stationery
    • presentations at conferences
  • Answer e-mail and phone calls from prospective students ASAP. Be available. Faculty and staff are the best examples of the quality of our programs.
  • Post to newsgroups and electronic mailing lists and put a URL in your signature line.
  • Don’t be afraid to brag about your program, your faculty, your staff, your students, your college. Prepare a few points that everyone in your program can talk about so you’re all giving a consistent message.
  • Review your admissions process to insure that every student who applies is greeted, welcomed, and encouraged to enroll. This does not necessarily have to be in person.
  • If you identified influencers on prospective student’s decision to apply, how can you best keep those influencers informed?
  • Consider the best experiences you’ve had at your favorite restaurant, hotel, garage, or clothing store. What did they do to make you feel great about your experience with them? Even if a student decides to go elsewhere, can we make them feel like they’re missing out on something here? How do we show we understand their needs and are on their side? How can we be gracious?
  • How can we keep our graduates feeling like a part of our communities? It’s not just up to the Alumni Society.

Who knows about your program?

On campus

  • Let University advisers know about your program’s strongest selling points. (Remember CCE, CLA and other college advising offices, ETC Services, St. Paul Career Center, and perhaps the Study Abroad Office.)
  • Have materials available to visitors to research and service centers in your field.
  • Make the most of your relationships with other departments and submit related news and course offerings to their newsletters.
  • Make sure the communications office knows about what your program is most proud of. Don’t neglect what your students are doing. If the communications office doesn’t know about something, they can’t provide that information to University Relations or other units on campus that can provide you with publicity and recognition.
  • Offer a freshman seminar.
  • Offer an information session and use all your contacts to invite prospective students.
  • Nominate your faculty, staff, students, and alumni for University awards.

Off campus

Creating awareness and positive associations

  • Host a regional event.
  • Sponsor a conference or seminar.
  • Seek out the most popular blogs and electronic mailing lists in your field. Post related comments. Link to your program site or faculty page.
  • Find out if any electronic mailing lists in your field allow promotional postings or sponsorship and post accordingly.
  • When providing a URL in an e-mail or mailing list, or even your signature line, place it within a context. For example, “Visit http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ci/Research/Default.html to discover research in curriculum and instruction.”
  • Write a letter to the editor. Not just to the local newspapers, but to any newsletter or journal in your field. These can be reprinted on the College’s Web site.
  • Offer an online survey course.
  • Consider authoring a Wikipedia entry for your research area. Be sure it links to the College or your program area but don’t limit it to such links or it will be removed. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_education. Harvard has a link carefully included there.)
  • Consider authoring a Wikipedia entry for your most prominent faculty and alumni. (List of University of Minnesota people.)
  • Create a blog. But only if you have the time to keep it updated.

Building relationships

  • Make sure you are communicating with prospective and admitted students throughout the recruitment process.
  • Keep your feeder schools, associations, professional groups, advisers, etc. informed. Feed them news, editorials, or programs details as appropriate. Be sure to ask them how they want to receive this information and respect that preference.
  • Ask for links to your Web site from professional associations. Be sure to consider state, national, Canadian, and international associations if appropriate.
  • Consider having a display at conferences, lectures, etc. sponsored by related organizations. Sponsor the refreshments or provide the pens.
  • Check in with your alumni. Keep them part of the community.
  • Does any industry related to your programs need more graduates in your field? If so, is there any way to enlist their assistance in promoting your program(s)? Are there administrators or business leaders you need to communicate with regularly?

Specifics

  • Use the USNews and World Report badge if applicable.
  • Demonstrate your program strengths instead of writing a few paragraphs about them. If student research opportunities are what sets your program apart, then get a photo up of a student in a lab. If your alumni consistently win awards then create a page that lists them. If students think your faculty are the best, then get a quote from a student stating that.
  • Ask someone unfamiliar with your program to look at your main Web page or brochure for five seconds. Have them tell you what they now know about your program and what assumptions they’ve made. Keep editing until you can conduct this test and get the results you want. Think simple language. Think bullet points.
  • Save the heavy details for secondary pages. Interested students will go to a second page to see course listings, sample degree plans, faculty profiles, etc.

Avoid

Avoid creating any new pages or print materials or using new media until you have a comprehensive and strategic plan. Resources are scarce.

Ask the following questions:

  • What are we doing now that we know works?
  • How will we measure success during the next year?
  • How can we learn more about the students we want to attract?
  • Do we have a budget?
  • Do we have the resources to continue any projects we begin now?
  • Do we have the support of senior administrators?
  • Do we have a goal for each promotional effort we make?
  • How do our plans support the goals of the department?
  • How does it support the goals of the college and University?
  • How do we fit into efforts already planned for the department, college, and University?
  • How can we make use of the strongest brand we have, i.e., the University?
  • Are we trying to fix a real problem or meet a real need?
  • What are our competitors doing that we know works?
  • Am I being misled by what I like? I am not my audience.

Avoid discrediting your print and Web materials by not following them up with responsive and hospitable human contact.

Avoid making any process too cumbersome. For example, if you don’t really need an additional application sent to your department, don’t request one.

If a faculty member will be unable or unwilling to answer e-mail for over a week, be sure that either a notice goes on that person’s Web page or the e-mail link is removed.

Have questions?

Although the Communications office does not work on program-level promotion, we are available for consultation. We’d be happy to use our expertise to talk through some of these ideas with you.

If our office is unable to design a printed piece or Web site for you, we will refer you to Printing Services. See details on working with Printing Services.