Here's What I Think About "For Profit" Collaboratitve or Consortium-Based Research

While this may be seem to self-serving, I wanted to at least share my opinion toward high-end consortium-based research. What is high-end consortium-based research? Without naming names, it is when colleges and universities pay a fee to all play nice together and learn from each other and the managers. It all sounds great and theoretically it should. It should; however, benefit the members more than the managers. When things are out of balance (and I lean toward higher ed), that's where I have my problem.

I think these for-profit higher education collaboratives are good for a number of purposes, but not necessarily the silver bullet for many. Here's my take on what works and what doesn't when you pay $25,000 to $35,000 into these things:

Pros:

• Access to very smart people and an ocean of collaborative data.
• Economies of scale (if it all works right).
• Collaboration between the partners (or among a hundred or so colleges and universities).
• National or international data and benchmarks that could influence leaders at higher levels of the institution.
• New program ideas or research brought forward by other partners.
  Special sessions or meetings.

Cons (as I've experienced them or heard from others):

• Mounds of data that are nice to have but not necessarily revenue generating.
• Putting a custom research report out there for the competitor to see.
• Reactive customer service. With 90-120 other clients, the managers of the collaborative can't get to the basics or have clients wait in a long line.
• Questionable return on investment.
• Sketchy custom research in some cases... three months for a report and the wrong market identified or research based on three opinion leaders?

Twenty-five thousand dollars will go a long way ... two to five custom research efforts done the right way that could validate market potential or have you avoid launching the bad program idea. In an uncertain economic situation, return on investment is essential. A $25,000 investment needs to return 2 to 3 times this amount. Would this better be invested into a prospect management system or CRM where you convert a hundred people you would have missed in the past? It might also fund a staff member to help better convert leads. It could also fund an aggressive Google Adwords campaign for a year. What's your investment getting you? You deserve better.

Marketing is a Science ... CRM is Fundamental

I've been active working with colleges and universities to identify whether they have a customer relationship management (CRM) problem. Often times, it is the root of the CE unit's marketing problems. Seems that continuing education operations are operating off the premise that advertising is marketing and marketing is advertising. This may work for some ... until the wheels fall off and the enrollments start heading south. A quick review of the organization shows that either an advertising/creative person is in the marketer's driver's seat, an IT person designed the website or that a legacy system of tracking prospects is in place.

My recent adventures have taken me down the road of putting the science back into marketing. To do so, you first need the scientist. The scientist is the marketer ... not a design professional and not necessarily the PR person or copywriter that has been with the organization for a decade. Every good scientist measures and records data and creates experiments ... thus the need for a good CRM system.

Strategic marketing cannot be done without effective prospect and customer relationship management. This cannot be done without a CRM backbone. I've been fortunate enough to meet with a number of vendors over the past few years. While I don't necessarily get in the business of endorsements (nor do I accept kickbacks or commission), I do want to say how impressed I was with Destiny Solutions on their abilities to offer continuing education units a secure student information system, as well as with Intelliworks on their web-based CRM solutions. I've seen a lot of pretenders over the years, but these two companies have it together ... they are committed to higher education, have smart people in place and are investing in technologies to keep them at the forefront. Sure there are the SunGards and Talismas of the world and they certainly have their place if you have the resources and personnel to support these higher end systems, but for now, the middle-range providers of Destiny Solutions and Intelliworks gets my thumbs up in terms of how they can almost immediately help continuing education departments.

To keep these posts marketing focused, I will be launching a new blog soon that focuses purely on technology. I'll give greater insight to vendors such as Intelliworks and Destiny, but also pee on folks that have failed me or my clients.