Marketing Imperial: Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Professor Dot Griffiths and Professor Jenny Higham

A work in progress

Our challenge

How can we position ourselves most effectively in our marketplace?

• Do we have a coherent marketing strategy?• How well do we understand our market?• Do we speak with a coherent voice?

What is Marketing?

For Imperial it means • How can we serve our customers better than our competitors

now and in the future?• What do we need to do to sustainably attract the very best?

Therefore we need to understand:• Our market position and the market segmentation• Our competitors• Our customers and the influences on their decision making

Then devise a marketing strategy addressing the changing and increasingly challenging environment in which we are working

Understanding the environment: The 4P Framework: Product, Price, Place and Promotion

Product

• The College has a number of products: our courses, our research, our innovations, our consulting etc

• USP: excellence • But …• …do we always deliver/demonstrate this? e.g. student

surveys and feedback comments• ... how do we review our product portfolio?

4Ps

Price

• Fee level: smart UG & PG can get scholarships in the US• ..and the US is hunting for talent in Europe..• International Office worries about the cost of coming to

Imperial• Yet we might like higher fees for all students to reduce our

dependence on HEFCE funds?

4Ps

Place

• Physical campuses: London, Silwood, (Wye)• Central London location is attractive for many…• Not all campus locations equal• Crowded• Accommodation: esp. PG

And New Places: Gulf? India? China? For which products?

4Ps

Promotion• Imperial is a huge brand• League tables are critical but criteria change!• We already undertake a lot of promotion:

» Departments» Communications» International office» Outreach etc

• Singing the same song?

• College Marketing Forum: compares best practice

And for Services: two more P’s

People

• People are the interface at every point between the College and its ‘customers’

• Do we have a customer focused mindset?

• How well do we manage this interface?

e.g. interviewers

Another P

Processes

• The quality of the service delivered at each of the touch points with ‘customers’

• How excellent are our processes?

• How we define excellence?

• Anecdotal ‘data’ that we do not always present as customer focused??

Data generation

Data we already have:• League table criteria and our current positions• Student barometer data

To consider:• ‘Decliner’ data: decide not to apply/ reject offer• More market research on impact of parents, counsellors, schools etc on decision to apply/ accept/ attend• ‘Mystery shopper’ to test quality of our processes?

Departmental Survey

• 17% invited feedback following students’ visits to their departments last year

• 97% have never undertaken any market research to inform their recruitment activities. 

  According to respondents, the top three factors influencing a student’s choice of institution are:•the institution’s reputation (90%)•the career value of a qualification from Imperial (86%)•department’s reputation (73%)

Next steps

•Generate and analyse the data

•Agree a strategy which pulls all the P’s together

•Devise our marketing pitch and shape it to segments

•Improve every point of contact and share best practice across the College

Aim

That the very best do [sustainably] apply from across the world…………