What is MaXimizE?
Marketing Excellence in Education (known as MAXIMIZE) is the most widely used tool for evaluating and benchmarking university marketing orientation, culture, processes and systems.
It was originally developed in 2003 by The Knowledge Partnership based on research into best practice in university student marketing in six countries including the UK, Northern Europe, North America and Australasia. It was also shaped by quality frameworks and informed by balanced scorecard approaches and by studies that sought to reveal what drove success in education markets.
MAXIMIZE has been designed specifically for the university sector and reflects the importance of people, culture, reputation and referral, courses, vision, the student experience and engagement. It does not evaluate the quality of your website or your advertising, but assesses the whole organisation’s approach to students and student markets. MaXimizE includes 95 best practice statements in 18 modules against which your university can be evaluated using one or a combination of three methods.
How does MAXMIZE work?
There are two methods (options) that we can use to evaluate marketing performance:
1. MAXIMIZE CAMPUS – uses an online self assessment questionnaire that has been derived from the statements of best practice. The questionnaire is completed by a defined stratified sample of university staff including the senior management, marketers and academics with admissions, programme leader or management roles.
The deliverable is a report containing benchmarking against the framework and other universities; it highlights your strengths and weaknesses at a detailed and more strategic level. Recommendations for action are informed by responses to questions that reveal the factors that are deemed most critical in underpinning future student market success.
The benefits of CAMPUS (self assessment) are:
- A great way to set a baseline against which to set targets and subsequently evaluate improvements
- Ensures that the review of marketing is strategic and captures perceptions from a range of academic, managerial and marketing perspectives
- A sound basis for setting priorities and for identifying specific areas where consultants might be able to add value through review and development
- An educative process that by engaging a wide range of staff stimulates then to think more holistically about what delivers success in student markets.
2. MAXIMIZE REVIEW is an expert independent evaluation of your university also incorporating the Campus component. It typically involves three stages:
- CAMPUS self assessment and reporting
- The lead consultant then spends several days on campus interviewing those lead staff and gathering evidence of current policy and practice. Special attention is paid to those areas that CAMPUS identified as being priority areas. The consultant uses the best practice standard specifications to guide this phase and his/her reporting
- The reporting and presentations are focussed on recommendations for action and advice on how improvements can be implemented.
The additional benefits of REVIEW (independent assessment) include:
Deeper and objective analysis of strengths and weakness, focussing on priority areas (critical strengths and critical weaknesses)
- Face-to-face engagement with the consultants creates greater buy in to subsequent change and allow for real time advice to be offered
- Allowing internal perceptions of the University’s market orientation to be reality checked against the objective conclusions of an experience education marketing consultant.