Marketing Can’t Lead If It’s Shackled by Structure
Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to conduct organizational assessments for a range of colleges and universities, from small private institutions to large public campuses. Despite the wide variety in size, mission, and complexity, one core issue continues to surface:
The greatest threat to effective integrated marketing communications in higher education isn’t a lack of creativity, talent, or ambition; it’s internal misalignment. We have to get out of our own way.
This misalignment isn’t just a problem with processes or a cause of inefficiencies. It directly impacts a university’s ability to generate revenue, build and protect its reputation, and, ultimately, secure its long-term viability.
Below are five consistent themes I’ve observed across the institutions I’ve worked with, including those I personally worked for before consulting. I have found patterns that emerge regardless of structure, budget or institutional type. They’re internal challenges that severely undermine the very work marketing and communications professionals are tasked to deliver.
1. Decentralized Chaos
Most institutions operate under some form of distributed marketing where individual colleges, divisions, and programs employ their own communications and/or marketing staff. That’s not inherently problematic. The issue arises when these teams operate independently without shared planning cycles, coordinated messaging, or a central strategy to anchor their work.
At best, this results in duplicate efforts, inconsistent voice, and campaign overlap. At worst, it results in undertrained and underresourced staff holding the institution’s reputation and revenue in their hands with anchor to a central strategy.
2. Roles That Don’t Match Reality
Job descriptions across campuses are often written for tactical support roles: social media posting, event promotion, basic writing. In practice, many of these individuals are leading strategic initiatives, advising campus leaders, coordinating major campaigns, and serving as the face of their departments.
This gap between expectation and reality leads to chronic role strain, under-recognition, and burnout. Institutions end up relying on strategic thinking that they haven’t resourced or defined. Additionally, these roles tend to live in isolation, left to their own devices to prioritize their time and resources and even improve their own skillsets, while any connection to the central marcom unit is deemed optional.
3. Data Without Direction
Marketing technology is everywhere (CRMs, CMSs, project management tools, calendars, analytics platforms). However, the ability to extract meaningful, coordinated insight from those systems is rare. This may be the most critical issue I have seen uniformly across campuses.
Too often, teams track different metrics (if they track at all), interpret success in different ways, and lack access to integrated dashboards or audience journey data. There’s no central hub for marketing intelligence, and no unified approach to campaign evaluation. And in most cases, there are no connections between data sources to see if efforts are working.
4. Strategy Without Governance
Even when a university-wide marketing strategy exists, it often lacks enforcement mechanisms. Central communications teams may offer brand guidelines, campaign frameworks, or shared messaging, but unit-level teams aren’t always required or even incentivized to use them.
This results in fragmentation of messaging and a reactive culture in which strategy is optional and consistency is left to chance.
5. The Forgotten Internal Audience
Internal communications are frequently overlooked in the broader marketing ecosystem. Staff often describe a culture of “self-navigation,” where onboarding is informal, institutional goals are unclear, and team alignment is hit-or-miss.
Without strong internal communication, even the most ambitious marketing strategies falter. People can’t execute on what they don’t understand or weren’t invited into.
The Cost of Misalignment
These internal barriers are often invisible to the public but have real consequences:
- Missed enrollment targets
- Ineffective or underperforming campaigns
- Brand inconsistency
- Lack of alumni engagement
- Delayed crisis responses
- Low morale and high turnover
- Internal resentment and lack of respect
- Risk to institutional reputation
In short, when internal teams aren’t set up to succeed, the institution’s ability to drive revenue and protect its reputation is compromised.
What Institutions Must Do Now
If colleges and universities want to compete, marketing and communications cannot be treated as a service unit or support function. They must be positioned as strategic leaders with the authority and infrastructure to drive outcomes that directly influence institutional viability.
This means moving beyond collaboration and into accountability, with clear decision rights, cross-campus responsibility, and presidential endorsement. Just as individual units cannot hire a person without HR, they should not be able to advertise on behalf of the institution without central authority.
Here’s what that requires:
Elevate Marcom to a Strategic Leadership Function
Marketing and communications must sit at the strategy table, not just in times of crisis or campaign launches, but as a permanent fixture in institutional planning. That includes having a seat on executive leadership teams. While a reporting line to the president or chancellor is ideal, it isn’t necessary if access and support exist.
No major initiative—enrollment, advancement, academic innovation—should move forward without Marcom’s leadership embedded from the beginning.
Centralize Authority, Decentralize Execution
Establish a clear governance structure that defines who owns the brand, who approves campaigns, and how messaging is prioritized. Marcom should lead the strategy, planning cycles, audience research, and brand integrity, while colleges and units execute within those frameworks.
This approach balances institutional consistency with local relevance and eliminates duplicative, misaligned marketing efforts.
Redefine Roles to Match Reality
Audit all marketing and communications roles across the institution. Rewrite job descriptions to reflect the actual strategic, analytical, and leadership work staff are doing. Then, align titles, compensation, and reporting structures accordingly, building accountability to the central Marcom strategy.
The reality is that many professionals are already acting as strategists but without the recognition, decision-making authority, or organizational support to do so effectively. This should include much-needed professional development for those typically forced to self-teach.
Build the Infrastructure for Insight and Alignment
Invest in integrated systems (integrated CRMs, content management platforms, campaign dashboards, and persona libraries) but pair those tools with processes. This means shared campaign calendars, institution-wide planning cycles, and a unified set of performance indicators.
Without alignment on audiences, channels, timing, and outcomes, even the best content will underdeliver.
Use a Marketing Maturity Model to Drive Progress
Adopt a clear roadmap to measure and grow marketing capabilities across six key domains: brand management, audience journey integration, insights infrastructure, strategic alignment, risk management, and organizational culture.
Then give Marcom the responsibility (and the resources) to lead that transformation. Not just participate in it. Own it.
This is not about creative polish or tactical execution. It’s about institutional sustainability. The higher education market is louder, more competitive, and less forgiving than ever.
Institutions that continue to treat marketing and communications as a support function will struggle to adapt. Those that empower it as a core leadership discipline, with the needed structure, authority, and resources, will build stronger brands, increase revenue, and secure their relevance for the future.