With so much noise from so many different and evolving media platforms, getting your message across is more challenging than ever. And, even if target audiences see or hear your message, will the message have relevance? Will they take action? How do we know if it works and why? It’s complicated, but these topics help to demonstrate the importance of market research.
Tasked with elevating the brand position of Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) in 2016, I first turned my attention to qualitative and quantitative research and led efforts to develop SLCC’s first brand & favorability research study, one that could be benchmarked over time (it was important to understand where our brand was at the time, so we could decide strategically how to build the brand over time).
The comprehensive study consisted of focus groups with potential “traditional” students (heading from high school to college), “non-traditional” students (returning to college as adults), the parents of traditional students, and in-depth interviews with high school counselors. To complement the qualitative portion of this study, a robust quantitative survey was also developed to gauge awareness, favorability, and perception of quality as compared to our competitors, and to better understand what our target audiences think, what matters to them, and why they do or do not engage with our brand.
The qualitative portion of the 2022 study is included below for your reference and includes comparisons to the first study implemented in 2016. Over the course of five years of strategic brand investment, SLCC achieved a 32% increase in awareness and rose the top spot for colleges “likely to attend.”
The research also provided key insights that informed the evolution of our messaging and campaigns. In short, potential students viewed college as an either-or proposition. They could either continue to manage the demands of their daily life (work, family, cost of living, etc.), or they could go to college. With so many resources embedded into the SLCC experience, we decided to change the narrative to and (students could manage the demands of their daily life and go to college – and we would help them). The result was The College of AND campaign, which is making a positive impact on enrollment. That’s the short story. I’d like to tell you more about it sometime.
Michael Navarre 