Work Like an Agency: How to Build Your Reputation for Strategic Marketing

Would you like fries with that? Too many internal marketing offices find themselves trapped servicing “drive-through” orders instead of focusing on strategic institutional goals. Maybe you work in one of them.

If that’s true, and your days are spent dishing out business cards, refilling brochure orders and mopping up other people’s spills, it’s time to overhaul your operation.

Supersizing your reputation for strategic marketing and proving your worth will pay off for you and your institution in a big way. One of the smartest ways to do that is to adopt the work style of an outside agency.

The three of us all come from different backgrounds, but we agree on one thing: Adopting a strategic approach, a service-oriented philosophy and some best practices from external marketing agencies will make you more successful at work. That means treating your colleagues like clients. You’ll increase your visibility — and value — to the institution.

At many educational institutions the marketing function is buried within the org chart. It’s understaffed, underbudgeted and underutilized. It takes orders from customers who needed their projects completed yesterday. It reacts to each daily crisis. To break out of the counter-service mentality, the first step is to align your office with the university’s enrollment, fundraising and image-building goals.

But also manage expectations. At Zehno, an orientation kit walks clients through each stage, explains the proofing process and includes key forms. You should, too.

Find out how you can adopt the tools of the trade to make your work more successful.

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