The Registration Office at Idaho State University was asked to take over the summer marketing strategy from the previous department in Fall 2007. In response to this request the Registrar at Idaho State University put together a Summer Committee of which I was the chair. The summer committee was asked to evaluate the current marketing strategy and create a new advertising campaign for summer programs at
ISU. The goal of the initial assessment was to determine whether or not the marketing approach in passed summer semester was in–line with the current mission of the University.
The committee began evaluating the business definition by determine why and how the summer semester is different from the other semesters at ISU; and how those differences related to other public Universities in the State. After the initial assessment the committee determined what internal and external factors were affecting the Universities overall goal, of generating more revenues during the summer months. Below is a brief SWOT analysis
Type
Class Offerings
Class Times
Financial Aid
Major Requirement Classes
Beginning and End dates
Internal Factors
Description
Video conferencing, fully online, Internship
Opportunities, Night classes, Location.
Offering courses that fulfill major requirements.
The dates and lengths of the different summer sessions.
Morning, Afternoons, Evenings: Days of the week.
Qualification for Financial Aid and awareness about what type of aid is available.
No Tuition Break in the Summer Sessions Per-Credit Cost
Above is a review based on student needs vs. internal controls. ISU has done a good job over the past few years of offering all types of General Educational Goal classes and Teacher Recertification Workshops. However, with the advent of the Internet many Universities are now able to offer fully online courses and degree programs.
The committee felt that this was an area of improvement and opportunity for ISU especially in the summer months. The other key areas for student enrollment were looking at major and upper division course offerings, as well as the per-credit costs during the summer months.

Type
Economic Conditions
Loaning Standards
Competition
Burn out
Permanent residency
Traditional Vs Non-Traditional Student
External Factors
Description
How the Economy is doing as a whole can have an impact on whether or not students can afford
College in the Summer months
How easy it is for students to get access to the financing they need to take summer courses.
Independent study, online course, other
Universities can all pull students from ISU campus.
Students need a break
Whether Students are local or not
This affects a student’s time and other family obligations.
The above list was created based on student needs vs. external controls. Current economic conditions national and locally have a huge effect on enrollment in the summer months. Nationally the US dollar is down in the global market and consumer price index for has risen overall by 0.3 according to economist Martin
Crutsinge. Student financing has also slowed due to the credit crisis currently going on in the Nation. This has a direct effect on how much disposable income students have to use toward summer courses. Other threats are BYU-Idaho, U of I, Boise, and any University that offers courses that will fulfill ISU student requirements.
In order to more thoroughly assess ISUs strengths and weaknesses from the above evaluation it is recommended that both a Student and Faculty survey be developed.
This would provide an opportunity to better evaluate the internal and external environment affecting student retention during summer.
After considering some of the contributing factors it was determined that the current marketing strategy for the summer semester seemed to be loosely linked with the Universities overall goal of creating consistent branding and product recognition (in this cases the image). Due to this loose connection the committee decided to design a new penetration strategy by creating a new logo and name that would be used every year. This created a more consistent advertising campaign strategy that assisted in branding summer academic programs and brings them back in-line with the core image of the University.

Once the new name and logo were created the committee began re-organizing the publications sent out in the past. First the Class Schedule and Summer Brochure were re-designed. Due to budget constraints, there is a need to push students to look for information on the web, and so an effect was made to make the summer class schedule available online only. Once the web was established as the main communication strategy the committee began assessing the look and feel of the webpage and how to incorporate useful links.
The market was segmented based on Age, Occupation, Usage, and Family Life Cycle variables. The targets were narrowed to Academics, Professional Development, and
Family Activities. Each of these targets was relatively homogenous in their educational needs and possessed certain buying patterns there in.
Once the target areas were determined the focus of the campaign turned to the summer site. The webpage was set up to reflect an informational student perspective primarily in the new style of the navigation bar which was laid out with the same division breaks as the brochure; Academics, Professional Development,
Workshops and Family Activities. Underneath the main navigation bar the committee created a summer navigation bar that included online campus resources students might need, such as, Moodle, MYISU, Webmail, and a GPA calculator. Once the navigation bars were established an announcement and summer links section were created in the body of the page to provide a look and feel more consistent with the ISU homepage. The goal was to create consistencies between all mediums of communication.
After the webpage was established the committee began to focus on the continents of the brochure. This part of the project was difficult due to the short time line and

the number of departments that needed to provide information. The previous summer brochures design did not coincide with the new focus on Academics and so the format for the brochure was re-organized to have clear section breaks from our targets: Academic, Professional Development, Workshops, and Family Activities.
Once the brochure was created the committee focused on other mediums for advertising. The target date for radio and web advertising was Feb 11, 2008, the first day to register for summer classes. Part of the new web advertising was to have the homepages in all student computer labs changed to the summer site from
Feb 11-22 and then again at the start of the summer semester. The committee also placed an announcement on ISU Homepage from Feb 4-15, and made a link on the student and faculty web bulletin boards.
Radio ads were run on 92.1 The Edge and 94.9 in conjunction with our web advertising. The radio stations were picked based on type of listenership. 92.1 The
Edge has an alternative music format that is gear to ages 18-35. The station 94.9 plays music from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s, which is gear to those 30-55.
These stations seemed to fit with both an older working class demographic and a young starting out demographic. As a way to create greater exposure the last two weeks of March the committee ran a 30-second radio ad six times a day on Z103.3 emphasizing summer programs. The same ad was run again on KBEAR 101.1 from
April 7-April 21. Both of these stations focused more on gender than age.
The committee had prior obligations to attend both the Spring Fair and Tech Expo as part of the advertising campaign from the previous department. Booths were set up with lab tops for people to sit down and register, lookup course offering, or apply to ISU. Campus Departments provided pamphlets and program information to distribute at the booth, and a PowerPoint presentation was created and run in the background highlighting campus activities and programs. The Spring Fair was good medium for our Family target, but not for Professional development or Academic.
The Tech Expo didn’t fit with any of our targets. The Expo would have been a good fit for the early college programs, but ended up being a poor advertising venue for summer programs, due to the age of the students. Below is breakdown of the types of merchandise that was giving away at both events.
Give away Merchandise at Spring Fair and Tech Expo
1.
Orange bags with our ISU summer logo and website
2.
Summer Brochure
3.
Chap-stick with our logo and website
4.
Summer cups
5.
Frisbees
6.
Starbursts
7.
College of Technology color changing pencils
8.
Merchandise left over from previous year.

The committees focus for the advertising campaign was to push academics and create broader awareness of summer offerings on campus. Sandwich boards were created with the summer logo and website on one side and the brochure cover with program highlights on the other. Each of the boards was distributed across campus in areas that were close to pedestrian and car traffic areas. Two 8’x3’ banners were created with the logo and website that were hung outside the Student Union area.
A window painting was also placed on the inside window of the Student Union.
Hot and cold cups were purchased that displayed the summer logo and website.
These cups were distributed for use in the cafeterias on campus in Pocatello and
Idaho Falls. The purpose of the cups was to create greater exposure to the new logo and help create broader awareness for the summer website in high traffic areas.
Brochure and Postcard mailing lists were created from Alumni relations and the current student address databases. 5,000 brochures were distributed to local
Alumni whose graduation dates fell within the years 2002-2006. The graduation dates were chosen based on the assumption that these students had been out of school long enough that they may be interested in professional development, workshop, or family activities; all of which were the main focus in the brochure.
15,000 postcards were sent out to all current students and any student that attended summer courses in the last 3 years. All lists were cross-referenced to minimize duplication.
The summer committee had many constraints during this re-organization process.
Most of the advertising material had to be created from the ground up which caused some communication issues due to departmental expectations from how summer semester was handled in the past. Despite the many obstacles encountered throughout this process summer registration has been up between 4-19%since it began February 11th. A letter is being designed and will be sent out to all departments on campus informing them of how they can best use the summer website to advertise courses, programs, workshops, or news pertaining to their summer semester offerings.
An overall list of recommendations for future Summer Semesters is provided below:
1.
Determine how price sensitive students are to the per-credit fee as opposed to creating the same tuition break that is used during regular semesters.
2.
Determine how much interest there is in Summer Internships, more hands on courses, or having more visiting professors.
3.
Focus more on Graduate programs and the needs and wants of this student population.

4.
Utilize the webpage counter information made available through Laird
Duncan. This would help determine where how people are entering and exiting the webpage.
5.
Create a summer survey for both the student and faculty to help evaluate needs in all areas.

Outline For Summer School project
1.
Planned Spring Fair Event
2.
Created brochure
3.
Created Advertising a.
Banners b.
Cap stick c.
Disposable cups d.
Website/Student Computer Labs
4.
Created a logo/Consistency
5.
Internet survey