Thousands of small colleges across North America try to differentiate with exactly the same claims. Successful institutional positioning stakes out unique territory in the marketplace, where institutional strengths overlap with competitive weaknesses and student priorities. Academica Group has a proven framework to guide the process...
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Higher education is one of the most complex, expensive intangibles most people purchase in their lifetime. Purchase decisions are often made based on incomplete information, peer opinion, and a gut-level sense of how well they will "fit in." Most students are in no position to judge the real quality of professors, facilities, or curriculum, and claims of superior quality fall on deaf ears, unless they are matched by a prestigious reputation.
For commuter students within an hour or two of your campus, all that matters is that you exist. But for students considering moving away to live in residence, your institution needs to stand out as different – in a clear, significant, credible, and unique way. The essence of brand positioning is being able to state succinctly why students should choose you over any other institution in the country.
Our research has proven time and again that, if an institution fails to clarify and communicate what is truly unique about it, the marketplace will assign it a default position as an elite, nurturing, campus, outcome, or commodity school. (See the white paper, "Classifying Universities," for more detailed information.)
