Market/Program Strategy Developer

Nectar/Alchemy is seeking a Marketing Strategist specialized in online learning solutions for colleges and universities. This role combines educational expertise with strategic marketing skills to help higher education institutions enhance their digital presence, increase student enrollment, and optimize their online learning programs. The project will assess existing attitudes, incentives, and barriers related to online education while incorporating current trends in higher education, focusing on regional data.

The objectives of this project include the following:

• Assess current attitudes, barriers, and incentives related to online program adoption within a university’s colleges.
• Develop a comprehensive strategy to encourage and facilitate online courses and program development.
• Create resources and templates that can be used to promote online learning throughout a university.
• Establish a clear framework for collaboration between the central office and colleges.

This project will require the following:

Needs Assessment and Stakeholder Engagement

• Conduct stakeholder interviews and focus groups with deans, faculty, instructional designers, and administrators to understand perceptions, challenges, and support needs regarding online program adoption, including the role of existing successful programs developed in collaboration with the central office.

• Develop and distribute surveys to gather quantitative data on faculty and administrative attitudes toward online programs, with a focus on identifying awareness and perceptions of existing collaborative programs.
• Analyze existing online program adoption trends and barriers by reviewing enrollment data, student success metrics, and past institutional efforts in online education, especially those involving the central office’s support of college programs.
• Review current resources and support structures provided by the central office to determine gaps and opportunities for improvement, highlighting successful examples where the central office has already supported colleges in online program development.
• Identify best practices from peer institutions and industry leaders through benchmarking research to inform the strategy development process.
• Synthesize findings into a stakeholder assessment report that outlines key themes, challenges, and opportunities for expanding online programs, incorporating examples of existing successful collaborations.

Strategy Development

• Define key messaging and value propositions for online program expansion by aligning institutional goals with faculty and college priorities. Highlight the role of the central office in supporting successful existing programs as a trust-building strategy.
• Develop a strategic roadmap outlining the phased approach for engaging colleges, incorporating feedback from Phase 1 findings, and emphasizing successful collaborative efforts as part of the plan to increase adoption.
• Identify and recommend incentives such as grants, funding support, faculty training, and recognition programs to encourage participation, including incentives tied to leveraging existing programs as models for new initiatives.
• Outline support structures and policies to guide colleges in their online program development, ensuring clarity on available central office resources, and reinforcing the benefits of partnering with the central office by showcasing existing success stories.
• Create a governance model defining roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes for collaboration between the central office and colleges, encouraging further engagement by demonstrating successful past collaborations.
• Develop an engagement and communication plan specifying how to reach and work with colleges, including targeted outreach strategies, showcasing successful online programs already supported by the central office.

Resource & Toolkit Development

• Develop communication templates, including email scripts, presentations, and FAQs addressing faculty concerns and college leadership needs, leveraging examples from successful existing programs developed with central office support.
• Create training materials for faculty and administrators, including workshop content, self-paced modules, and step-by-step guides on online program development, featuring case studies from colleges that have worked with the central office.
• Design a comprehensive step-by-step guide for colleges to initiate new online programs or improve existing ones, outlining required approvals, instructional design considerations, and technology recommendations, with examples from collaborative programs.
• Develop standardized templates for proposals, course planning documents, and assessment rubrics to streamline the program development process, with built-in references to existing programs as models.
• Provide policy recommendations and best practices for online course quality, accessibility, student engagement, and compliance with accreditation standards, referencing successful examples of colleges that have worked with the central office.
• Pilot-test resources with select colleges and incorporate feedback to refine materials before broader implementation, utilizing existing programs as a basis for piloting new resources.