Set Deadlines Upfront
Keep your plans from rolling downhill.
If you work outside of higher education, you might assume summer is a quiet period on campus. But for enrollment marketing leaders, July is the final window to lock in the workflow. Once August arrives, the calendar takes over, and teams that haven't finalized their plans immediately shift into reactive mode.
The problem is not that campus teams miss dates. It is that too many deadlines are set without naming the owner, the approval path, and the consequences.
Timelines Are Lonely Without People
Many campaign timelines look organized but fall apart because they do not assign responsibility clearly enough. When marketing is simply "waiting on admissions" without a named owner for the next step, momentum stops.
As noted in the 2025 State of Higher Education report from SimpsonScarborough, the institutions pulling ahead aren’t doing more marketing; they are operating with better structure and operational discipline. That discipline starts by acknowledging that a real deadline is a chain of ownership. You cannot just launch a fall media campaign and assume the handoffs will happen naturally. A missed agency handoff, a delayed creative approval, or a forgotten CRM segment build creates wasted media spend, rushed execution, and confused students.
Deadlines Protect the Work
Inevitably, friction will arise when deadlines cross departmental boundaries. But firm deadlines are easier for campus partners to accept when they can clearly see the downstream mess they prevent.
Just as the 2024 Adult Learner Survey by EAB recommends setting firm dates for prospective students, we need to provide our internal teams with the same operational clarity. Tell your team what they need to know. Above all, provide context so a deadline functions as a shared agreement rather than a sudden demand.
The Deadline Check
Before you finalize your fall launch plan, run every major deliverable through these four practical questions. This mirrors the accountability principles outlined in the Harvard Business Review study "Who Has the D? How Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance."
The research demonstrates that projects routinely stall not from a lack of effort, but because teams fail to explicitly define the boundaries between who does the work and who holds the authority to approve it. To prevent that bottleneck, ask:
Who owns it?
When is it due?
Who needs to approve it?
What breaks if it slips?
Share Your Thoughts, Let's Connect!
A deadline set early is not pressure. It is protection. How do you set firm deadlines without turning every request into a sudden campus crisis? I'd love to hear your approach. Connect with me on LinkedIn to share your thoughts.
Read More
The following pieces of research, web pages, and organizational data were used to create this article, providing transparency and allowing you to explore the findings further:
EAB. "Adult Learner Survey." Washington, DC: EAB, 2024.
Harvard Business Review. "Who Has the D? How Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance." By Paul Rogers and Marcia Blenko. January 2006.
SimpsonScarborough. "Website & Marketing Technology: The State of Higher Education (2025 Edition)." Alexandria, VA: SimpsonScarborough, 2025.
Borrow My Notes
I’ve collected observations and reflections on marketing, communications, and recruitment for more than 20 years. That archive inspired me to share these insights through this blog. Here are excerpts from my collection that helped shape this article:
"Every action has to have a person assigned to it with a firm follow-up date.”
"Identify the people who are responsible for their part and create pathways for them to ask questions to become invested in the outcome."
"Tell your team what they need to know. It should not be complicated to keep it simple.”