EDUCATION » Higher Education

Case Studies

Tunxis Community College – Farmington, Connecticut

Tunxis Community College hosted the pilot program for the Connecticut Community College System’s Integrated Marketing Communications plan. They were the first of Connecticut’s 12 community colleges to leverage the IMC strategies at the local level of implementation.

Tunxis supported adopting a thematic approach to its marketing for several reasons:

1. Its bifurcated image had left people confused about who Tunxis was, both locally and as part of a community college system
2. Sharing a common identity across the state would reduce their overall cost of marketing
3. The plan addressed their need to more clearly communicate with multiple audiences
4. IMC offered greater ease of research and tracking results
5. Distinctive professional logo and graphic standards offered a major improvement over their previous identifying mark.

The college adopted an integrated marketing approach and adapted system projects, including: research, graphics and messaging, development of advertising and collateral materials, ad placement and targeted direct mail campaigns.

In the pilot phase, Tunxis realized a 4.75% increase in credit enrollment — nearly 25% MORE than the system’s average increase. After five years of implementation, they had boosted overall credit enrollment by more than 14% and were able to reduce their marketing budget by 16.8% of their 2000 budget, after adjusting for inflation. “Our branding initiative put Tunxis ahead of the curve in marketing improvements and long-term planning, which makes more effective and cogent use of limited resources,” said Leigh Knopf, APR, Tunxis Community College’s director of marketing and public relations.