Web Strategy Lessons in Search of a CEO

Reprint

Web Strategy Lessons in Search of a CEO

By Michael Stoner1

Now is the time for colleges and universities to start acting as if all their important
constituents use the Internet—because if they’re not yet, they soon will be. In the
next five to ten years, the Internet will become the single most important channel by
which colleges communicate with their entire range of constituencies.

Aside from this crucial role in communications, the Internet and Web will be central
to institutional management, learning and teaching, and e-commerce. In fact, how a
college or university responds to opportunities presented by these rapidly advancing
technologies may affect the future of the institution itself. Developing an
institutional strategy for the Web is one of the most compelling challenges facing
turn-of-this-century CEOs.

While it will take some time to determine whether the early promises for distance
education are real or so much hype, what should be an immediate concern is that,
right now, an institution’s Web site influences the perceptions of a broad range of
constituents—including prospective students, alumni, funders and donors, state and
federal legislators—for better or worse. Yet, because the Internet is a new addition
to an institution’s marketing/communications tools, it is often underutilized and
underfunded—not to mention ignored in many institutional marketing plans.

1
Michael Stoner is president of mStoner, a Chicago-based consulting firm that specializes in communications
and marketing strategy, estrategy, content management, and technology, and develops marketing
communications programs for colleges, universities, and nonprofits. Learn more on our Web site
<www.mStoner.com>.

Reprinted from Public Relations and the Presidency: Strategies and Tactics for Effective Communications,
John E. Ross and Carol P. Halstead, eds. (Washington, DC: CASE), 2001.

A Snapshot of Current Reality
To give you a sense of where we are—at this writing (late 2000), more than 50
percent of American homes have an Internet connection. In short, we have reached
a critical mass, as we did in 1953 when more than 50 percent of American homes had
TVs. Like it or not, the Web has become mainstream. The American public
increasingly turns to the Web for news and information first, augmenting their Web
research with print and TV coverage. Almost all journalists have Web access, and an
increasing number say that they use the Web to generate leads for stories; in fact,
only 1 percent say they never go online.

The current generation of college students does not remember a world without
computers. Soon, teenagers will not remember a world without the Web, email,
Amazon.com, and instant messaging. It is well known that young people have taken
to computers and the Web with alacrity, often teaching their older siblings, teachers
and parents—not to mention university faculty.

What may not be well known is how important the Web has already become in
student recruitment. According to the 12,000 students who have completed Lipman
Hearne’s Web Site Effectiveness Study (WSES), the college Web site is the most
important “published” source of information in their college search. The Web
ranked higher than traditional sources such as college viewbooks and guidebooks, as
well as letters from college representatives. What ranked higher than the Web site?
A visit to campus and conversations with current students—neither of which the
college can control.

Furthermore—and what should be more alarming to institutional leaders—students
equate the quality of an institution’s Web site with the quality of the institution
itself. A college’s Web site clearly shapes perceptions of an institution. A sampling:

“I had no desire to consider this college as an option with the [paper] mail I received
[from the college]–I do think more highly of the college now.”

“The information on the site was very organized and complete and it was arranged in
a very attractive manner. It makes me think highly of the college.”

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Last year, MIT reported that 85 percent of alumni had Internet connections at home.
MIT’s alumni may be early adopters—but the fact is that many institutions will soon
see similar patterns of adoption of the Internet among their own alumni.

Lessons for Institutions and their CEOs
When I first began consulting with colleges on Web strategy and development, it
was often difficult, if not impossible, to schedule an interview with the CEO. Now,
five years and some five dozen institutions later, I find the CEO one of the most
interested participants on my schedule. (Board members, alumni, students, faculty
and staff—among many others—are also vocal in expressing their opinions about the
institution’s Web site!)

While we have come a long way in five years, some of the basics of the Web are still
not clearly understood, in part because the Web is different from other
communications vehicles. Here are some important lessons about the Web and its
relationship to institutional marketing.

1. A great Web site currently offers a competitive advantage, but one
that will be short-lived.

As more institutions understand this and start to develop great sites, the current
leaders will have to improve, creating shorter lifecycles for sites and a need for
vigilance as to how an institution stacks up against its competitors. This means
ongoing staffing, funding, and management of the institution’s Web site, of course.

Furthermore, we have learned from other research that we have done that many
students do not consider technology itself to offer a competitive advantage for
institutions. Prospective students expect networked residence halls, a well-developed
intranet, and abundant computers. If a college lacks these amenities, they will notice.
But unless an institution can demonstrate effectively their relevance and importance,
prospective students won’t care.

2. In an age in which so many relationships will be mediated by the
Web, an institution’s brand will take on extraordinary significance.

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While it may seem impossible to compete with Harvard’s brand, we believe that
other education brands will continue to be valuable in their own markets. But all
education institutions must focus on developing, managing, and extending their
brands, ensuring that their messages are consistent across the media they use to
market the institution. This is increasingly true because of the Web. Twenty years
ago, one audience segment (i.e. prospective undergraduate students) seldom saw
communications developed for another audience segment (i.e. alumni). Now,
however, the Web essentially invites side-by-side comparison, making inconsistency
in branding and in messages painfully apparent.

And we know that the entire Web site matters—prospective undergraduates look at
academic department sites, faculty Web pages, and alumni Web sites. So having a
well-managed site is essential (a lesson that businesses learned early on, reining in
rogue Web sites and making sure that the external site was developed and managed
by marketers, not technologists).

We also know that audiences—especially prospective students—are very brand-
aware. Your audiences will judge the clarity of your brand on your Web site against
that of MTV, Amazon.com, and other commercial ventures, which means that you
have to differentiate your institution and do it quickly. In our research with
prospective students, we hear comments like this: “What makes this place different
from any other college? This looks like a typical college Web site.”

They will also judge your site against the savvy, convenience, and consistency of
commercial Web sites. Does your site make transactions easy? Does you r staff and
faculty answer email promptly? The most successful commercial sites do.

3. An institution’s communications and Web site must be connected to
the overall marketing and communications strategy.

In marketing, everything is connected, and print, PR, and advertising must leverage
your Web site (and vice-versa). This requires a well-thought-out strategy, one based
on a clear understanding of the institution’s marketing challenges. This, of course, is
a hard lesson for many institutions to learn and to manage when communications
activities are fragmented across many offices. Nevertheless, it is important to
understand the communications and marketing activities of your institution as a
totality and to use media for what they can best accomplish. In some cases, of

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course, this will require reallocations in budgets—for example, shifting budget from
printing catalogs to developing a more effective Web site, for example. We don’t
believe for a moment that emphasis on the Internet will cause print to disappear, but
institutions will think differently about how to use print communications, including
viewbooks and alumni magazines.

4. Staffing and funding Web development will be an ongoing challenge
since technology is evolving so rapidly.

We believe that to develop and maintain an effective Web strategy, appropriate
roles must be assigned to appropriate staff: content and the site interface are best
developed by people who understand marketing, and infrastructure (hardware,
software, the network) should the responsibility of IT staff. But neither of these
components stands on its own—staff must work together and the CEO must
promote a team approach. These and other site developers (including those
developing academic sites and e-commerce applications) have to work together to
achieve the best results for the college.

Web development is not a one-time expense. While a college or university may
spend a large amount of money to rebuild or redo an existing site—developing a new
site architecture and interface, adding new content, providing some tools for people
on campus to use—institutions must look at Web development as a recurring
expense, and budget for it. Web sites demand constant feeding, updating, and
maintenance—unlike print communications, which are done once and then revised
when they need to be reprinted some time later.

Thus, funding Web development will continue to be an ongoing challenge, but one
that must be met. Well-managed sites cost money for technology and for staff. A
growing number of institutions believe that this expenditure is essential if they are to
beat their competition.

Some element of central coordination is essential to ensure that the institution’s site
meets the needs of its main users—usually prospective students and alumni. Of
course, other users are important and their needs must be factored into the site
development. An effective Web team will keep abreast of new developments in
technology and ensure that an institution’s site will evolve, but avoid jumping on
bleeding edge technologies that add little to a site’s value for key audiences. Also,

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CEOs must recognize that roles and responsibilities will shift across campus as the
Web assumes a more prominent role in campus life.

5. E-commerce will also be increasingly crucial as constituents come to
expect services and transactions such as online tuition payment and
donations.

Currently most colleges are developing their e-commerce strategies piecemeal. One
vendor may serve admissions, clearing credit cards used to pay the application fee.
Another vendor may serve the alumni association. A third may take orders for
tickets for athletic events. Eventually, many of these niche vendors will disappear as
colleges and universities view credit card transactions as a cost of doing business.

E-commerce becomes a marketing issue because here, as in other areas, colleges will
be driven by the expectations of their audiences. Prospective students, their parents,
alumni, visitors to campus cultural or athletic events—all will expect the institution
to be able to manage commerce online, as do CD, book, appliance, and even
automotive sites.

6. Expect tectonic shifts as alumni and others come to demand a
deeper relationship with institutions because interactive
communication allows them to have one.

Alumni who once had to travel physically to take part in events and activities and
interact with friends, professors, and students, can now do much of this online.
What will happen when they expect to be more completely involved in campus life
and decision-making? What expectations will parents have now that they can have
ongoing, daily relationships with staff members via email and the Web? Clearly,
campus leaders need to be aware that as Internet access and use becomes interwoven
in people’s lives, it may bring with it different demands stemming from a deeper
sense of connectedness to the institution’s key audiences.

Underlying these lessons is a single force that’s particularly difficult to describe and
achieve. This is the institution’s Web culture, its readiness to manage a tool that is
likely to transform not only the way we market and communicate, but the way we
think about communicating, processing information, serving our constituencies, and

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doing the basic work of the college. That wider sensibility, that intangible
adaptability and excitement, almost always comes from the top and it is vital to a
successful Web strategy.

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Web Strategy Lessons in Search of a CEO

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