We are trying to take a sort of "real world" approach to the Coker Marketing Communication class. Today, the class got to experience an agency-client visit. Dr. Robert Wyatt stopped by to explain the challenge of providing Coker with an enhanced presence in the higher education marketplace. He opened the meeting with the information that Coker is currently enjoying it largest ever first-year class and its largest day population. "So, why do we need to do a better job of marketing?" was the question he asked. At that point he discussed a little about what the experts are saying concerning growth of the traditional college; a situation that is predicted to be, at best, static in the coming years.
One of the interesting aspects of a college like Coker is that a regular academic class can get more than an hour of the President of the college's time to enhance the experience of students. The students did their part in this experience by providing a steady line of questions to help them focus on the marketing mission that Dr. Wyatt is formulating.
Sometime next week several teams of students will deliver a S-W-O-T analysis that would be the first step in providing a marketing communication plan for this client. Now, the teams are trying to decide where to find particular groups of stakeholders, where to find current information the state of higher education and where to looking for those opportunities that will distinguish the growing institutions from other institutions over the next several years in higher education. As a matter of fact, that is just one of the things the strategic planning committees of the college will be attempting to accomplish over the next few months.
It is an exciting time to be part of Coker and it felt like the students in class got a taste of the excitement as they talked with the new President.
No comments:
Post a Comment