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Intelligence
Web Budget Getting the Big Squeeze?

Intelligence

Web Budget Getting the Big Squeeze?

Mar 23, 2009By mStoner Staff

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Almost everyone is concerned about their web budgets for next year, and some are already facing cutbacks. And you can rest assured that you won’t be asked to do less this year just because things are tighter. Those requests for new sites, new services, redesigns and new technology to be implemented will still be coming fast and furious.

When you’re faced with this situation you have two choices. You can either get efficient and find some way to do more with less resources, or you can get strategic and keep or even expand your budget.

What do I mean by “getting strategic”?

One of the things I’ve noticed in 18 years of working either at or with colleges and universities is that money has a way of appearing when you’re working on something that a)is tied clearly to the goals of the institution, and b)is getting results. 

Now is a great time to take a step back, pull that 5 year institutional strategic plan (that you’re 3 years into and nobody has looked at) off the shelf, blow the dust off it, and ask yourself three questions.

  1. In what ways has the web site been helping us achieve these goals?

  2. What have our results been so far?

  3. What are three things we could do with the web site this year that would significantly move the strategic plan forward?

For example, if one of the goals is to improve recruiting execution by cultivating feeder high schools and feeder community colleges, to what extent are students from those target schools visiting your web site? How many of them are signing up for a campus visit? How many of them are applying online? Are those numbers going up or down over time? And for next year, what actions are you going to take to specifically influence those numbers?

Based on the answers to those questions, you can be prepared to present a business case that says in a nutshell, “Here are the results we’ve been achieving with our website. But I believe that if we do these 3 things in the coming year, we can achieve x,y and z. All that will require is for me to have an extra $200,000 this year. We’ll be measuring our results regularly, and providing reports on our progress throughout the year.”

Now, will you necessarily get everything you’re asking for by using a more strategic approach? Maybe not. But you’ll be in a great negotiating position. And in the end you don’t have to have a perfect argument for your budget, you just need a better one than everyone else who’s asking for a piece of the same pie.