Interactive Workshop: The Post-Pandemic Ecosystem for Enrollment and Marketing

For most institutions, the pandemic created opportunities and revealed sustainability weaknesses.  As a result, abundant and necessary shifts were made to enrollment and marketing strategies to drive enrollment and reputation performance in the new normal.  While the pandemic was the ultimate test of relationships between marketing and enrollment, the leaders of these two important campus operations often struggle to find common ground.  This session will dive deep into effective post-pandemic communication flow design, channel strategy and customer segmentation, while revealing the latest best practice strategies, measurements and data-driven research techniques that will improve your ROI.

Scott Ochander

Chief Client Solutions Officer, Carnegie Dartlet

Ben Arendt

Vice President, Enrollment Strategy, Carnegie Dartlet

Interactive Workshop: Inclusive Marketing and Its Impact in Higher Ed

Join Shelley Willingham, founder of the National Organization for Diversity in Sales and Marketing (NODSM) and Vice President of Business Strategy, The Diversity Movement, for this compelling and interactive session. Shelley will highlight the importance of inclusive language and inclusive marketing and how ignoring this puts you at a competitive disadvantage. This session will also cover the mistakes that many in Higher Education marketing make from not having an inclusive team at the table making decisions to reactionary, “woke-washed” marketing tactics that fall flat. Join this session to discover what it takes to be an inclusive marketer, the importance of tailoring messages to specific audiences and how these actions strengthen efforts to attract prospective students.

Key Takeaways:

• Why inclusive marketing matters
• Why inclusive language is important
• How to become an inclusive marketer
• The must-haves for an inclusive marketing strategy
• Common missteps marketers make
• Challenges to “getting it right”

Workshops provide an interactive deep-dive on specific higher ed marketing topics with top industry experts. You can anticipate hands-on instruction, in-depth discussion and actionable takeaways to immediately apply to your work back on campus.

Shelley Willingham

Vice President of Business Strategy, The Diversity Movement

Welcome Reception

Re-connect with your colleagues after eighteen long months! We look forward to welcoming you to Denver to rekindle valuable relationships and connections among the higher education marketing community. This opening reception if your first chance to reconnect, build new relationships, and kick off the conference on a high note!

Breakfast

Seating is available throughout the general session and event hall. Enjoy some time to network with colleagues and visit the exhibit hall!

Higher Ed Marketer of The Year Award Ceremony and Presentation

The AMA Foundation recognizes marketing visionaries who have elevated the field and supports the next generation of marketers who will transform the profession. The AMA Higher Education Marketer of the Year Award, sponsored by Lipman Hearne, honors extraordinary leadership and achievements in the field of higher education marketing.

Join us to hear from the 2021 Higher Education Marketer of the Year on his/her perspective on leadership and what lies ahead as the landscape of higher education marketing continues to evolve in a COVID-19 climate. We’ll also be announcing the winning 2021 Higher Education Marketing Team of the Year.

Keynote: From Burnout to Bounce Back: What Teams Actually Need to Thrive Right Now

Please note that this keynote will take place immediately following the Higher Education Marketer of the Year Award presentation, in the same room. You do not need to choose between the two- attend the HEMY presentation and stay to hear from our speaker! 

It’s been a tough time to focus on recruitment campaigns and homepage redesigns. Between 18 months of pandemic anxiety, racial justice reckonings, and increased uncertainty all over, there’s been a lot to distract us from our routines and goals. So as talk of a “post-pandemic” workplace gets louder, it’s tempting to simply try to put this time behind us. After all, we’re all tired of talking about COVID, right?

We can’t bounce back until we heal. If we don’t, our teams will pay a massive price: some people will burn out and turn cynical or quit. Others will let their unprocessed anxiety leak out as aggression and accusation. And still others will shut down, too scared to share their ideas or give necessary feedback. All of it will erode trust—and without trust, we can’t innovate or keep momentum.

In this talk, we’ll explore common challenges teams are facing right now—challenges like burnout, emotional exhaustion, and trauma. Then we’ll explore what it looks like to show up to those challenges with the vulnerability, courage, and compassion our teams need.

Sara Wachter-Boettcher

Active Voice LLC

Protecting Your Brand (and Your Hard Work)

Building your brand and keeping it fresh and relevant is hard work. It takes focus, discipline, and a keen understanding of the marketplace. But it also takes a strong reputation earned over time and rooted in the actions and behaviors of every person associated with your school: your researchers, your student-athletes, your alumni and even your founders. Is that something you’re ready to leave to chance?

As marketing leaders of your institution, you play a key role in ensuring that your reputation is protected. In this interactive session, the team from BMCG will introduce its Reputational Risk Maturity Model – a way to assess how capable and prepared your institution is to effectively and proactively manage reputational risk. With key concepts introduced, attendees will be asked to score their institution against a host of critical variables – from initial (1) to optimized (5).

In the words of Warren Buffet, the Sage of Omaha, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Sponsored by Bluemoon

Simon Barker

Managing Partner, Bluemoon

Erin Bossen

Senior Consultant, Bluemoon

Jason Cody

Senior Consultant, Bluemoon

Breaking Down Barriers Between Brand and Enrollment Marketing to Maximize ROI

While the desired outcomes for enrollment marketing are clear, the objectives for brand marketing can be less tangible. Learn how the leaders of brand marketing and enrollment marketing at the University of Arizona coordinated their efforts so that brand spend strategically “softened the ground” for enrollment outcomes. Reporting to different leaders in different departments, intense collaboration was key to deploying resources and measuring ROI for both brand and enrollment marketing spend – and together produced results more impactful than either team could on its own.

Christie Harper

Vice President, Campus Brand Engagement, University of Arizona

John Denker

Vice President, Marketing, University of Arizona

Leader's Guide to Change Strategy and Consensus Building

Marketing leaders are often burdened with the task of institution-wide change – something that comes with immense challenge and strategic reward.  In this dynamic and demanding post-pandemic world, leaders need strategic frameworks to guide their thinking around managing conceptual change and consensus from within and across the institution. In this presentation, two established change leaders will share best practices, examples and models for success as you prepare for your own strategic change efforts.

Scott Ochander

Chief Client Solutions Officer, Carnegie Dartlet

Renea Morris

Vice Chancellor for Marketing & Communications, University of Denver

Buffet Lunch and Networking

Seating is available throughout the general session and event hall. Enjoy some time to network with colleagues and visit the exhibit hall!

Best Practices for Website Optimization to Grow Enrollments

A lot of time and money are invested in your website and various marketing tactics to drive traffic to your site; However, if enrollments don’t follow, then you’re left wondering if you’re targeting the wrong audiences or if you need to invest more money. The answer is usually “no”. The real issue is often the foundation of the website itself.

Today’s students have high expectations around the ease of use, rapid access to information, and self-service options on websites. To compete in today’s marketplace and maximize your website’s performance, the foundation must be a priority. In this presentation, learn how one university grew their enrollments (after years of low site conversion and traffic) through optimization and data enablement. In addition, we’ll discuss the four key components that comprise a strong website foundation and share best practices for enhancing each area to improve your performance and ROI. Sponsored by Collegis Education

John Endrud

Executive VP & Chief Development Officer

DEI Hits and Misses: 30+ Real Marketing Examples

Examine your marketing and recruitment materials through a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) lens leveraging our DEI Viewfinder tool. Developed through an audit of our own marketing & communications materials at the University of St. Thomas (MN), these nine (9) questions will help attendees create more inclusive content across the recruitment funnel – from images and body copy, to presentations and emails. Through more than 30 real examples, you will learn to identify common pitfalls that can send unintended messages and undermine inclusivity.

Katie Jensen

Associate Vice President of Insights and Analytics, University of St. Thomas (MN)

Kymm Martinez

VP of Marketing, Insights & Communications (MIC) and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, University of St. Thomas (MN)

Let's Get Digital

By now, we know our institutions should have a strong digital presence. But knowing and actually having are two different things. It’s like saying you need to work out versus actually working out. It can be hard. Where do you start? What can you do to make an impact? How do you keep the momentum once you’ve started? In this session, Utah State University’s Digital Strategy team will go through a digital fitness warm up, work out, and cool down that can help you “Get Digital” at your institution.

Lindsi Glass

Associate VP of Digital Strategy and Analytics, Utah State University

Ben Renard-Wiart

Director of Web Strategy, Utah State University

Matt Gerrish

Assistant Director of Social Media, Utah State University

Break: Exhibit Hall with Sponsor Appointments

INNOVATION SHOWCASE TECHNOLOGY THAT ELEVATES YOUR STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Bob Rafferty

VP of Creative & Digital, SimpsonScarborough

Cameron Chelo

Solutions Engineer, Acquia

Sarah Carpenter

Manager of Account Executives, Cvent

Strategic Priorities or Support Accountabilities? Why Not Both?

How do you deliver the strategic work to grow your university brand when you are also accountable for providing marketing and communications support to every academic and administrative unit on campus, have a limited staff and don’t charge back? You partner with each dean and VP to help them prioritize their needs, shift the relationship from order taker to trusted advisor and set their staffs up to succeed with everything else via low-cost internal support, below market-rate vendor support and self-service.

J.C. Huggins

AVP for Brand and Digital Strategy, University of South Carolina

Minneapolis Campus Lessons Following George Floyd's Murder

Augsburg University, one of the most diverse private colleges in the Midwest, is three miles from where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. The aftermath impacted our entire community, including students, faculty and staff. This is a look at the crisis communications lessons learned during that time and how we applied them in the run-up to the announcement of the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of the murder months later. Close collaboration with student leaders informed our planning and our ability to execute those plans quickly as developments unfolded.

Briana Alamilla

Communication and Social Media Specialist, Augsburg University

Michael Grewer

Augsburg University

Roundtables

Join us for robust, peer-to-peer conversations on the most pressing topics for higher education marketers today. Enjoy all the benefits only possible with real-time, face-to-face connections and collaboration. Feel free to move between sessions as conversation ebbs and flows.

Topics Include:

• Changing/Hybrid Work Environment – How is your institution adapting in a post COVID work environment where the demand for hybrid work and a changing work environment is high?
• Hiring/Restaffing
• Marketing Online Programs – We’ll share and converse regarding best practices for marketing online-only programs. Are you doing something different to promote your online programs? How do you fit your online learning brand into your overarching brand?
• Brand Strategy – We’ll discuss how to implement a new brand or an evolution of your current brand. We’ll also cover the challenges and opportunities of maintaining and communicating your brand.
• Graduate Programs
• Diversity Equity and Inclusion – Join us for a strategic conversation and discussion on the value of diversity, inclusion and equity in higher education marketing.
• Women in Leadership – Join us as we share conversations about advancing your career as female professional.

Women in Leadership session sponsored by

DEI session sponsored by

Christie Harper

Vice President, Campus Brand Engagement, University of Arizona

Reception

Breakfast

Roundtables

Join us for robust, peer-to-peer conversations on the most pressing topics for higher education marketers today. Enjoy all the benefits only possible with real-time, face-to-face connections and collaboration. Feel free to move between topics as conversations ebbs and flows.

Topics Include:

• Changing/Hybrid Work Environment – How is your institution adapting in a post COVID work environment where the demand for hybrid work and a changing work environment is high?
• Hiring/Restaffing
• Marketing Online Programs – We’ll share and converse regarding best practices for marketing online-only programs. Are you doing something different to promote your online programs? How do you fit your online learning brand into your overarching brand?
• Brand Strategy – We’ll discuss how to implement a new brand or an evolution of your current brand. We’ll also cover the challenges and opportunities of maintaining and communicating your brand.
• Graduate Programs
• Diversity Equity and Inclusion – Join us for a strategic conversation and discussion on the value of diversity, inclusion and equity in higher education marketing.
• Women in Leadership – Join us as we share conversations about advancing your career as female professional.

Women in Leadership session sponsored by

DEI session sponsored by 

3 Industry Experts speaking on the following topics: Branding in Student Recruitment, Applying student Mindsets to a Digital World, and The Enrollment-Optimized College Website.

Branding in Student Recruitment

A college’s brand is defined by its culture and values. This brand experience is what draws students to a school and keeps them as loyal alumni after they graduate. But the climate around student recruitment has changed as a larger and more diverse group of students look for the college that’s right for them. Is your school delivering a strong, consistent message with its brand marketing? Attendees will learn how today’s students differ from the past and how to evaluate their college’s brand, deliver a consistent recruitment experience and assure various departments remain on-brand. Presented by Lucidpress

Applying Student Mindsets to a Digital World

Over the course of the pandemic, institutions across the country made a substantial pivot to heavily invest in digital media as a way to engage Gen Z in a newly virtual world. How is your institution ensuring that you are reaching the current generation of students digitally with the messaging they want and need? Join Encoura as they share how one institution used the latest prospective student research to shape more engaging digital communications and effectively personalize the student recruitment cycle. Presented by Encoura

The Enrollment-Optimized College Website

College websites are often expected to serve many masters–prospective students, current students, faculty, etc.–a fact that virtually guarantees a suboptimal user experience and diminished ROI. The surest route to addressing this problem is rigorous goal setting–a process that often (and appropriately)identifies improved student-recruitment outcomes as the measure of the .edu’s success. Counterintuitively, this narrow focus helps ensure productive working relationships with the full range of key college-website stakeholders, including faculty. This presentation shows these principles in action, via a case study of a website redesign undertaken by Nova Southeastern University in partnership with EAB. We will also examine, by way of case studies, particular enrollment management and recruitment marketing approaches that help or hinder efforts at growing share. Sponsored by EAB

Christina Sanders

Sr. Inbound Marketing Manager, Lucidpress

Meaghan Cahill-Dunn

Digital Team Member, Encoura

Jason Stevens

Senior Digital Strategist, Northeastern US, Encoura

Kamilah Lewis

Principal and Consultant, EAB, Agency Services Division

Organizational Design in Higher Ed Marketing: Pitfalls, Innovations and Opportunities

What does the university marketing department of the future look like? How do we find the successful organizational balance between collaboration, brand integration and brand integrity? Why is centralization not always a panacea? How did marketing departments adapt to the challenges of 2020 and 2021?

This session will address these questions and share relevant takeaways for marketing leaders as they evolve and influence their organizations. You’ll hear themes from 65+ one-on-one interviews with marketing leaders, and you’ll learn from American University’s strategies toward organizational and brand collaboration in developing and launching its new brand campaign, Challenge Accepted, during the pandemic.

Rob Zinkan

Vice President for Marketing Leadership, RHB

Julie Zito

American University

It Takes a Village: How to Leverage Your University's Collective Mar/Com Talent

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that organizational pivots take an entire village of  professionals to pull off. At UTSA, we knew the key to success (and our survival) would be overcoming our traditional siloed approach and finding a way for all our institutional talent to row through the storm together. This session will tell the story of how we formed three cross-divisional teams to tackle the pandemic-fueled workload, forever transforming our approach to marketing at UTSA. This session will appeal to higher ed marketing professionals whose institutions struggle with brand alignment, messaging adoption or a siloed organizational structure.

Brett Calvert

Executive Director of University Marketing, University of Texas at San Antonio

Anne Peters

Associate Vice President for University Marketing and Special Projects, University of Texas at San Antonio

Break: Exhibit Hall with Sponsor Appointments

What's Next For Higher Education Marketing?

Join past Symposium committee members to talk about the future outlook of marketing in higher education. With the landscape of our industry changing daily, how can marketers adapt, learn and grow to keep our institutions thriving and keep students front and center? Join us to hear from these insightful marketing leaders where they think the industry is moving and how we can adapt. This will be a dynamic and interactive conversation with current and past committee members. You won’t want to miss it!

Buffet Lunch and Networking

Seating is available throughout the general session room and event hall. Enjoy some time to network with colleagues and visit the exhibit hall!

To Brand or Not to Brand? Is a School's Academic Offer and Experience "Brandable"? Or Are We Going Too Far?

Small, private liberal arts institutions have all the same challenges as their larger higher ed peers but also struggle mightily with differentiation.   A fairly recent trend has emerged where many of these schools have significantly reworked their academic offers and student experiences to be more experiential, more collaborative, more career-focused and mostly more relevant to today’s economic and cultural environment. Many of them have branded these offers. Are these really brands? Or sub-brands? Or something else altogether? Should these schools have embarked on new branding for these enhanced offers or simply let them drive an evolution of the school brand?

Jennifer Chrisler

Hampshire College

Beth Steele

Hartwick College

Kristen Lainsbury

Earlham College

Becca Altimier

Client Engagement Director, Ologie

Checkpoints For Managing Your Brand Through Major Change

Need a roadmap on how to manage change? We’ve got you covered. The last two years afforded Converse University the opportunity to develop some process muscles we didn’t know we had. Our particular version of change was twofold: moving from single-gender to co-ed and from college to university – all at the same time.   We’ll share the process we followed to ensure our community – and our brand at large – were ready and positioned for success. This workshop-style session will share the checkpoints we used for managing change and help you craft a plan for your institution.

Holly Duncan

Chief Communications Officer, Converse University

Jenny Brower

Mindpower, Inc.

Closing Keynote: Behind the Scenes with the DDC: And other fibs, lies and perjuries.

Get the inside scoop with Aaron Draplin and learn what goes on behind the scenes at the Draplin Design Co. From sketch to screen to file hand-off, he’ll give an in-depth walk through recent projects big, small and downright ugly. Sometimes, bigger isn’t better, and Aaron will show how the tiniest of projects can have a big impact. Loose and lighthearted, he’ll set the record straight on 9-page marketing briefs, communication tedium and offer up pointers on how to keep your chained-to-their-desk graphic designers curious and excited. His methods, momentum and mania in a fun, loose setting. Questions answered. Riddles solved. Enigmas discussed.

Aaron Draplin

Founder, Draplin Design Co