Five Strategies for Branding on a Budget

As a college Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, I regularly think about the importance of a university brand. A strong brand drives perception, trust, enrollment, philanthropy, pride, and much more. 

However, not every institution can take on a big, beautiful brand campaign with cinematic video, polished glossy ads, and sweeping out-of-home displays. For many, it is a matter of resources. 

At the same time, higher education is facing broad pressure to improve affordability, and the public is scrutinizing the return on investment. Those issues don’t just sit in the ether. They land on the desks of marketing teams creating a real challenge: How do you build a strong, differentiated brand while also being responsible stewards of limited resources?

With that context and knowing the importance of brand work, here are five strategies to do this work managing resource constraints.  

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Use the data you have – The best brand work starts with research. Chances are there are data sets that exist on your campus that can be of use. One of my favorite data sets is the Common Data Sets that institutional research offices submit each year. This data includes a breakdown of students based on age, state, campus residency, financial assistance, and more. It is a great way to understand your campus population and where there are opportunities to modify enrollment. Another set of data I like to use is the enrollment data by program. Knowing the highest and lowest enrollment areas can have a big impact on brand. A technical-heavy student population will feel quite different from a liberal arts student population. 

*One thing to note: the above data is who is currently your student. If your goal is to grow a particular way, make sure that isn’t forgotten in brand work because it won’t be reflected in your current students. 

Use AI to help: Plug in this data to build data-informed personas of your students. This can help you to better visualize your students and ensure that work is aligned to them. 

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Leverage your community – When I started working at my current university, I went on a tour of campus and the community and held dozens of meetings. At the end of each, I asked people to write down three words that described the university. I gave them a sticky note for each word. It didn’t take long, and I had hundreds of sticky notes all over my walls. However, I also had a great qualitative understanding about the university brand. Using this data as a starting point, I had our team review the data for themes and develop core brand pillars based on this data. This process is an easy, low-cost way to engage the campus and community to understand the university’s perception in the community. Taking an approach like this doesn’t require a significant time commitment from any one person, but it does help surface key trends quickly. 

Use AI to help: Plug the data into a spreadsheet and have AI review it. It can help you with key themes that emerge and help in developing summary phrases for each theme that surfaces. 

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Competitive analysis – Part of branding is also understanding competitors and what they focus on. I think this work should be done in two phases. First, it is important to look at local competitors to understand their value proposition. Your message will be viewed in the context of their message. Additionally, it’s important to examine peer or aspirational organizations. A few places to start in a competitive analysis are the website homepage, social media content, social media advertising, news messages, and print ads. Reviewing these for each competitor will help you understand their messaging and their brand approach. This gives you a baseline to compare them to your own messages and begin making decisions. For example, if affordability is important locally, you may decide to emphasize that since your competitor is not using it at all. Conversely, if the competitor is already talking about affordability, you may need to find a way to either own the message as well, blend it with another message, or make the decision to step away from that message. Knowing your student data and your own perception will help you determine the right step to take.  

Use AI to help: Once you’ve pulled the data for each competitor, ask ChatGPT for help reviewing it for key themes from your competitors. Additionally, if you can provide your own value proposition, it may be able to help you identify gaps and opportunities to expand your brand narrative. 

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Think bigger than a logo – Too often, I think people only think about branding as a nice logo. However, it involves imagery, design, and messaging. One way to build brand work on a budget is to think larger in scope. While it sounds counterintuitive, being more consistent with the brand across a variety of mediums can increase impact without having to spend thousands on advertising. Here is an example from the university where I work. Innovation was a core brand word. The team then started to explore how to show how lighting, framing, and camera placement could show innovation in photography. Additionally, the design team looked at how design portrays innovation by using graphical elements and forward motion angles. However, I think the biggest opportunity is in the thousands of messages a university puts out each year. I challenged our team to subtly frame every news story with a brand message. This helps even something as small as a hiring announcement move the brand forward. Ensuring brand is present in imagery, design and messaging can have a major impact over time. 

Use AI to help: Once you’ve identified the themes for your brand, have AI help you to develop a style sheet, photography guidance, and a message guide for each word. Together with your insight, it can help you brainstorm how to incorporate your brand in a way that’s more than a logo and can permeate all your marketing messages. 

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Train others – Everyone on campus is a communicator. I have long said that people want to do great work they just don’t know how to start. Our job, as MarComm leaders, is to make this easy. At several institutions, I have led a MarComm academy that hosted a monthly training session on messaging, imagery, and design. The trainings help showcase how to incorporate the brand into existing messages or how to add graphic elements into design. This is a great first step and didn’t require any resources other than time. A further step was adding in branded templates to help make adoption easy. This allowed people to follow the branded approach without having to have the skills to design. Now, with the availability of AI, the options are even better. It is possible to provide campus partners with a customGPT that speaks the university brand or deploy an AI tool that can build branded graphics and presentations, making it easier than ever for campus partners to align on the brand.  

Use AI to help: Brainstorm with AI to come up with a training plan for branded work on your campus. Also, consider building a university customGPT that is trained to help build branded messages. 

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Build momentum, not just campaigns 

Strong branding does not always require a massive budget. However, it does require consistency and intention. By applying the strategies above with focus and consistency, your teams can build meaningful brand momentum that compounds over time, without breaking the bank.