W. P. Carey Marketing Strategy. Xiaoning Liu, Victoria Sullivan, Jordan Young

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1 W. P. Carey Marketing Strategy Xiaoning Liu, Victoria Sullivan, Jordan Young Background: Arizona State University is one of the largest universities in the United States and currently the W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU is ranked #30 on US News s Top Business Schools list ( Arizona State University (Carey) ). This ranking comes from the high quality undergraduate and graduate programs offered at W. P. Carey and the high caliber students that attend the university. How does this school attract these quality students to the school? The answer is through their marketing. In this report we will explore the marketing strategies of other universities and colleges, the current marketing strategy of the W. P. Carey School of Business, and provide examples of improvements of how W. P. Carey could improve their strategy to attract more students to the business school. First, let us explore the marketing strategy of various other colleges and universities. One of the most common ways colleges market to high school students and current college students is through social media. Social media includes websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr and YouTube among others. According to the Student Advisor s Top 100 Colleges for Social Media, Harvard takes the top ranking (Coren). Harvard, a prestigious university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, utilizes several different social media sites, but focuses mostly on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Upon looking more in depth at the Harvard Facebook page, we can see how they use it as a marketing tool. The first impression of the page is professional. The images include a photo that demonstrates the beauty of the campus, and the school s crest, showing their long heritage and dedication to academics. Looking further into the Facebook posts, the posts serve to show students the achievements that current students, staff and alumni are achieving, creating the illusion of a successful school to all who view it. The posts are simple, mostly links to articles, with a few captioned pictures and scattered videos. They do not post on Facebook every day, but rather once every month, or when very important events and achievements need to be recognized. This helps to subtly remind users of the college without overwhelming them. For more constant and trivial updates, Harvard utilizes the social media site Twitter. Twitter allows for short bursts of information that can reach students quickly and effectively. Harvard posts on Twitter several times a day so that students, alumni, staff and any other followers can stay updated. This page also looks very professional with similar images to those on the Facebook page to allure students. They tweet constant updates about events on campus, links to interesting articles, videos, pictures and testimonials to the greatness of the school. All of these lead a potential student to think about how great their college experience could be if they attended Harvard. W. P. Carey uses similar social media techniques to other schools such as Harvard. They both utilize Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. W. P. Carey utilizes Twitter similarly to how Harvard does, primarily tweeting out links, and updates so that followers can stay updated about the goings on of the school. One strategy W. P. Carey utilizes that Harvard does not is that they often retweet tweets from other important people and officials within the school. W. P.

2 Carey s marketing plan is designed to do this to incorporate other voices within the school and to publicize and promote them. Retweets also encourage some interactivity between the community and the school. Like Harvard, W. P. Carey also utilizes Facebook in order to encourage student participation. They encourage students to follow their page and to like and share their posts. Their page also appears very professional, however their content is slightly different. While they do highlight achievements from students and faculty, they include more pictures and videos reflecting student life. In addition, they also post more about happening in the community, as well as events happening on campus. For example, while Chinese New Year did not directly relate to W. P. Carey, they posted about it because it was important to the community and the student body. Another way that W. P. Carey distinguishes itself from other social media marketers is by making sure that they are widespread across multiple social media channels. Unlike Harvard, W. P. Carey utilizes the Social Media app and website Instagram to share pictures with students who may not have a Twitter or Facebook account. A way that W. P. Carey could improve upon their current use of social media marketing strategy is by expanding onto different websites and platforms. This could include apps like Snap Chat and Tumblr that students are using, but schools have not expanded to as far as marketing. In addition to social media, W. P. Carey utilizes high school outreach in order to attract prospective students to their schools. There are several different ways that colleges attempt to reach out to high schoolers across the nation and around the world. One of these is through digital or physical mail. Nearly any high school student has received mail from colleges trying to persuade them to go to their college. These can be formatted as physical letters, brochures, flyers and magazines that arrive in the mail. When I was a prospective college student less than a year ago, I recall receiving mail from different schools across the country. This mail came from all over the country (and even a few foreign schools) and came in all different shapes in sizes. The mail received by students like myself does have some aspects in common though. They are usually very professional looking, printed in color and on nice paper to create a professional appearance for the school. They normally display the school colors, as well as a school logo. These letters and flyers often contain testimonies from students or report statistics demonstrating the high quality of the college in question to prospective students. Often, they even encourage students to engage with the school by visiting a website, sending a letter back to receive more information, or to visit the campus. s from colleges to prospective students work similarly to physical mail. Colleges are able to send mail directly to students through their s. The s they send are usually formatted very neatly, including colors to draw students in. The s usually contain the same information that is present in the physical mail, including school logos, testimonials and pictures. There are some aspects of s that cannot be utilized in a letter or other physical advertisement. Hyperlinks are often included in s to link students to more information about the school, places to book tours, the school s website, social media pages, and even how to apply to the school. All of these hyperlinks create an interactive experience for potential students and inspire them to look at more of what W. P. Carey has to offer. The other aspect of s that cannot be found in physical mail is videos. Promotional videos depicting a school s campus, facilities, dorms and academic status among other things are common in s. These commercials have a huge impact on prospective students and their decision to attend W. P. Carey.

3 Other than mail, high school outreach also includes recruiters actually going to high schools. Recruiters will often travel high schools and hold meetings and information sessions in advisors and counselors offices to try to persuade prospective students to attend the college they are form. Sometimes they will bring merchandise or what is popularly known as swag such as sunglasses, lanyards, keychains and other items adorned with the schools logo to remind students of the school when making big decisions. These visits also allow representatives from schools to pass out brochures, talk to students, answer questions, and even collect names of students to send more information. Once again, these visits just further a student's involvement with the school by putting a face to the name of the school, and thus encouraging them to look more into the college. Another way that many colleges will advertise is through traditional advertising mediums such as taking up ad space on websites, billboards, and commercials. Digital ad space and billboards often consist of similar aspects. They both will usually include a catchy slogan about the product being sold, in this case, W. P. Carey. It will undoubtedly have the school s logo, the name of the school and be covered in the school colors. It may contain an interesting statistic about the college, or the college is ranking to try to draw people in. The ad will also have a way of contacting the school, in case of interest, whether that is with an address, a phone number or a website. Commercials are another traditional medium that is used by colleges. These video advertisements are usually between 30 seconds to a minute long and combine aspects from all of the previous marketing strategies. They utilize pictures, video, sound clips, testimonials, statistics, school colors, school logos, slogans and other aspects of previously mentioned marketing techniques. These are less effective at encouraging students and prospective students to interact with the school but often times reach more students. These commercials reach a larger audience of whoever is watching television or the video online. These will at least get the name of the school out into the world and could eventually leave to name recognition and a future student. All of these techniques are popularly used marketing techniques that are used not only by W. P. Carey but also by colleges and universities around the nation. Method: There are many methods that companies can use when marketing for their product or service. ASU s business school, W. P Carey, is selling the business school education that they provide. The greatest indicator for the W.P Carey marketing team that they have been successful in marketing their service is the number of students that enroll as members of the business school at ASU each semester. Although this is the ultimate sign that they have been successful in selling their service there are other checkpoints that they can use to see if their marketing is successful. One of the most common methods for colleges to reach out to potential students is through social media. They consider their social media outreach successful when they get more followers, likes, shares, comments, etc. on their social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). W.P Carey also offers tours in person tours for potential students and puts on informational session/ events. Attendance for these events and sign-ups for tours shows the

4 marketing department that they have been successful in taking the first step to reach out to the people who attended. Of those students that they reach those who end up enrolling in the business school are proof of the effectiveness these tours and information events have. Finally, any positive ranking done by third party that posts ASU s W.P Carey Business School high up on the list is a great source for the business school to use when marketing their service. Taking steps to increase the schools ranking such as, increasing diversity statistics, increasing average GPA and proving job opportunities come as a result of attending ASU can all improve a colleges ranking (depending on what the ranking is based on). There are many ways for ASU and specifically the business school to measure if their marketing methods are being successful in reaching their intended audiences. W.P Carey Business School has very large audience they try to reach with different marketing methods. Arizona State University has a student population that come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some of these backgrounds include students are coming right after they graduate from in state or out of state high schools, students transferring from other colleges and universities, students who come from outside of the country through exchange programs or other study abroad and more. Reaching each of these groups has some variations but things like social media, mailed flyers and in person outreach can be used with a few tweaks to market to each group. In addition to potential business students, the W.P Carey School also reaches out to alumni to ask for donations and support. They do this by writing letters and making personal phone calls. Also parents and high school advisors can play a huge role in determining where students chose to attend college. Reaching out to them and selling them on the W. P Carey college experience is very important. There is a large audience that the marketing team for the ASU Business School to reach and many different methods that are used in order to be successful at marketing to each audience. Pitch The W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University offers these departments and concentrations: accounting, finance, supply chain management. Ad dream it. Do it. This is advertising video for ASU, in this video, we can saw the all of them think ASU can let you have good future, realize the goal, and you will a lot of change can try your dream because ASU have innovation to the students. Arizona state university sell point would be social aspect, some like in the shopping mall has advertisement, when we came to shopping, we can see on the elevator, ASU put the picture on here, and it write dream it, do it, also near the elevator, it write picture your dream on ASU. It is good selling point, because it nears the dining, when we eat food or take a break, we can get this message on anytime. Also they use the Website, in china, all most people use the weibo every day, so when the ASU open a weibo to publicity W.P Carey School, a lot of student add friend with it, then when the website put some information on the online, they can know it right away.

5 The selling point is import for the school, W.P Carey school use point is good for the publicity. For examples, the selling point of school, we can say student-professor ratio, it explain the ensuring the small class sizes and personalized attention from instructors that you need to excel. And the econs, value it is tremendous faculty, wonderful facilities, unique programs of study, quality worth the investment. All of the students take care the professor and future, so if we can do a project of this part, it can appeal to student join the ASU. W.P Carey school have a lot of club, some like accounting major, each Saturday they have volunteer job, you can use your knowledge do some volunteer work, it is not hard work, it only do some basic word, like take account record. on the job part, each year, a lot of company will come to W.P Carey to recruiting new employees or inter. we can bring the resume come to here find some job or internship, it is good for our future. ASU take tour on each month, the volunteer will come with students visit a classroom or each building. The environment. Presentation: In marketing, there are two different ways that one must present information. One of these ways of presenting information is through the actual advertisement itself. The advertisement is obviously meant to persuade people that a product or service is worth spending their money on. It is targeted towards the customers and the investors in the product or service. This is a persuasive way of explaining findings and data to customers. Before one can create an advertisement though, often one must pitch to a marketing firm. These are usually much more in depth strategy plans that produce the ads that one would see to persuade customers. These are strategy plans are presented as pitches and strategies to marketing firms and owners. These reports analyze the audience, and marketing techniques that could be most effective for the company. In addition, there is usually a follow up after the marketing strategy is implemented. This is to determine and discuss how effective the strategy is. A marketing firm will collect data to see if the product or service is gaining more business or revenue based on the different marketing strategies implemented. For our project, we have opted to present our marketing strategy as though we were marketers pitching our marketing plan to our bosses, rather than pitching to a group of students or prospective students interested in W. P. Carey. We chose to present as a pitch because we felt it would be more useful to the students to see the ins and outs of our marketing strategy and have it broken down rather than just seeing the finished product of a marketing campaign. The pitch as though we were presenting it to our marketing firm boss will be more effective because it will allow us to more closely and specifically analyze the different components of our marketing strategy including the audience, the background research and the pitch itself. Closing Statement: Arizona State University has a great business school that produces many successful businesspersons and women. W.P. Carey strives to attract a bright and diverse group of students

6 to their program. ASU s different marketing methods help to achieve this population of students that apply to the school of business. These marketing methods include outreach through social media, hosting information sessions, offering campus and department specialized tours, working to achieve high marks from credible third party rankings, etc. ASU is not the only college that uses these methods, but their uniqueness comes from the opportunities that they can offer that are specific to the W.P. Carey School and not available at other schools. The marketing program measures their success by monitoring the number of students that enroll/ apply to the W.P Carey School of Business, number of people at information sessions or attending tours and more. By monitoring their success, they are able to make necessary adjustments and increase their statistics. Some of the specific things that ASU can offer are the student to professor ratio, achievements of alumni, high tech facilities, etc. Arizona State University is a wonderful university and when marketed correctly attracts a great pool of students for the W.P Carey School of Business. References: "Arizona State University (Carey)." US News and World Report Education. US News and World Report, Web. 2 Apr Coren, Sam. "Harvard University." Top 100 Social Media Colleges:. Student Advisor, n.d. Web. 03 Apr Published by Google Drive Report Abuse Updated automatically every 5 minutes