Virtual Workshop

Marketing for Higher Education- Real Fast!

This session will take the principles of marketing and apply them to marketing universities and colleges in a whirlwind! The session is content heavy, highly energetic and interactive. It is guaranteed to set the stage and increase learning for newer attendees of the Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.

 

Virtual 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!

Virtual Workshop

Take a Critical Look at Your Search Engine Marketing Strategy

If your institution utilizes an agency to handle your Search Engine Marketing efforts, then understanding the right questions to ask and the reports you should be looking at can mean the difference between reaching your target audience and wasted ad spend. At UNCG, they uncovered that more than 65% of clicks on Search Ads were coming from queries that contained “UNCG” or “UNC Greensboro”. By restructuring their campaigns into branded campaigns and prospecting campaigns with distinct keywords and negative keywords, they allowed their ad budget to go farther and reach a suspect audience that wasn’t actively searching for UNCG.

Virtual 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!

Virtual Workshop

The Leader as Communicator: We're Communications Pros, but Does that Expertise Apply to our Practice of Leadership?

We know the communications and marketing professions quite well. Whether you’re leading a communications or marketing department or hope to do so, however, applying that expertise to your practice of leadership is essential.

Dr. Jessica McWade will lead a workshop with practical insights and inspirations in five areas: developing and sharing vision, serving as an advocate for your unit, being an effective public speaker, refining your interpersonal dynamics and engaging in active listening – both in person and virtually.

Virtual 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!

Virtual Workshop

How Clear Stories Lead to Career Growth

In this session, we will discuss how the stories we tell ourselves and others shape our career trajectory. Join us to learn:

• How to organize your career narrative.
• How to communicate your value.
• How to advocate for a promotion.
• How to find more happiness in your work.

Virtual 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!

Virtual Keynote

B. Da’Vida Plummer’s Keynote Presentation delves into how Ignoring the depth of hurt levied when addressing any human being outside of the full measure of his/her/their identity inflicts harm whether it is done knowingly or unwittingly.  This truth is critical to successful communication on all levels –interpersonal, intrapersonal, journalistic and/or persuasive. Why?
Because Identity matters in all matters of gender, race and place.  Understanding how to first embrace before encoding to the decoder of any message is instrumental to marketing and all areas of communication studies.  The nuances will be explored revealing how just a few misplaced identifying pronouns and modifiers can not only make or break communication, but spark and fuel division.

Higher Education Marketer of the Year Award Panel Discussion

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 for a panel with the 2021 winner, Timothy Bohling and the 2020 winner, Ethan Braden as they share their perspective on leadership, pivoting with purpose, and what lies ahead as the landscape of higher education marketing continues to change and evolve in a COVID-19 climate.

Marketing Strategy

A Student-Centric Approach to Higher Ed Marketing: Panel Discussion

Are you drowning in data, but lack the true insights needed to optimize your Higher Ed marketing programs? Join Salesforce, Volt, and industry experts to learn insights and introspection on what’s working (and what’s not!) in today’s education marketing landscape. We’ll also share findings from our latest student survey and show you how these marketing strategies stack against students’ real perceptions.

Sponsored by

Smashing Silos Not Pumpkins

Audience Engagement

Current Students Count: Using Marketing Tactics to Remove Enrollment Stumbling Blocks

When it comes to enrollment marketing, prospective students tend to dominate the conversation. But retention is an essential piece of the enrollment puzzle. What tactics are being used to target current students? In this session, you’ll hear about three marketing initiatives at UNC Greensboro that helped improve the experiences of current students and drive enrollment goals: A multichannel campaign to promote FAFSA completions; an integrated website designed to create a one stop shop experience… virtually; and a set of strategic comms that prevent student holds before they become a barrier.

The New Normal and Beyond

Tik-Tok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts- What Does Dancing Have To Do With Enrollment?

Social media is one of the great influencers across all age groups, but particularly those often found within the higher ed demographic. If universities truly want to stand out with their enrollment messages these days, they must avoid the me-too marketing syndrome that’s evolved over the past decade where every school’s ads and approach start looking and feeling the same. It’s important to at least get a baseline understanding of how to use these social channels to your benefit and start dipping your toes in the water.

Digital Transformation

Enabling Digital Transformation with Better Data

Many institutions have struggled in their attempts to digitally transform and, as a result, have invested considerable time and money without achieving the desired outcomes. There are several key reasons for this, however, the ability to capture, aggregate, report on and generate insights from data for faster decision-making is one of the most pressing challenges. In this session, we will explore what digital transformation is, why it’s critical to higher education’s future and how colleges and universities can start realizing its benefits with the creation of a centralized data system.

Sponsored by:

How the Pandemic Changed Conversation About Higher Ed

As marketers return to campus, you’re tasked with how to make sense of the academic year that was 2020-2021. In this session, join Sonarians Liz and Steve as they share multi-year social listening data from a representative sample of US-based higher education campuses. With industry and marketing insights from before and during the pandemic, you’ll leave this session with the confidence to put pandemic-related metrics in proper context, a contextual understanding of your own campus results compared to the industry overall, and insights that can inform a pitch for a larger marketing investment on your campus.

Research, Measurement, and ROI

The Manifestation of Social Justice in Marketing Materials

This study was a critical discourse analysis of media produced by higher education institutions. The study aimed to uncover how universities manifest social justice discourses in their marketing efforts. Diversity discourses differentiate from social justice discourses in that they do not explicitly advocate for action that addresses inequities faced by marginalized groups. This study found that diversity discourses were rampant in university marketing websites, though the definitions of diversity were vague. This study also found that social justice discourses were more silent than diversity discourses. Through this presentation, Dr. Esra Hashem provides recommendations on how you can use your role in higher education marketing to advocate for social justice.

The New Normal and Beyond

The Digital is Now- Making the College Search Acessible

As higher education has grappled with the effects of COVID-19, one reoccurring problem seemed to appear: how do you take the “campus” out of campus visit? Instead of seeing this as a problem, Rice University chose to take this a challenge to build a digital ecosystem that increased access to our content while employing honest and thorough communication strategies that meets students where they are. With a 26% increase in applications, students responded to this increase in accessibility we plan on continuing as a regular part of our strategies – a strategy that is easily replicable for any university.

Audience Engagement

Securing and Ensuring Buy-In For Your New Brand

Higher Ed brands used to be articulated by a select few.  Once vetted, these brands were unveiled at a public celebration, replete with free t-shirts and branded snacks.  But, times have changed!  Our audiences increasingly react negatively to surprise reveals and take their dissatisfaction to social media. Even if the “big reveal” doesn’t blow up—it misses the opportunity to invite stakeholders into the change process.  Join us for a lively panel with three marketing experts who have successfully launched new or refreshed university brands. Learn how each created effective socialization processes, leading to universal brand adoption and success.

Innovation Showcase

The Time is Now: Reach your Students through the Right Channel

Join us to hear from three industry experts on innovative marketing and communication strategies to meet your students where they are and deliver a consistent, compelling, and memorable recruitment experience.  At this session, you’ll hear from Niche on Omni Channel Relevance, Lucidpress on Branding in Student Recruitment, and Glacier on Tik Tok Advertising and Higher Education.

Audience Engagement

Elevating the Online MBA: A New Product Launch

The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business got ahead of their competition by creating the first online MBA program from a top-ten ranked business school, but the program launch faced some significant challenges: low awareness, concerns about online programs among elite candidates and selective admission requirements. Michigan Ross and Gatesman developed a position for the first-to-market program and accompanying campaign to drive awareness, inquiries and ultimately enrollment. This session is a case study on successfully launching a premium – and premium-priced – offering to meet a market opportunity, while navigating significant barriers and staying true to brand values.

Brand and Content Strategy

Content Strategy on a Shoestring Budget

Relevant, authentic content is key to attracting students to a degree program and pulling them through the admissions funnel. This presentation will give you a toolkit to develop a content marketing strategy from the ground up with limited resources, starting with journey mapping and persona building. Learn how to authentically connect with prospective students through curated content across multimedia platforms. Finally, hear best practices on how to integrate degree marketing content across your school and university to expand audience and reach, build brand, and meet enrollment goals.

The New Normal and Beyond

Re-Imagining Student Search

Uncovering prospective student leads for the top of college/university recruitment funnels will be more challenging in a test optional environment. Historically, many prospective leads came from two places: test-taker lists (SAT, ACT, GRE, professional school exams, etc.) and in-person recruitment, such as admission counselor travel. These are both now in flux. In this session, we will discuss look-alike modeling and forensic lead generation as crucial student search tactics for the future. We will also explore communication best practices for top-of-funnel audiences at the undergraduate, transfer, graduate/professional and continuing education levels.

Research, Measurement and ROI

The State of Digital Marketing in Higher Ed

In 2020, mStoner conducted a survey to help improve higher ed’s understanding of digital marketing services, goals and resource allocation at colleges and universities. We explored how institutions organize themselves for digital marketing, who executes the work, how they fund it, and how they use various platforms.  What did we learn? That there’s tremendous opportunity for digital marketing to grow on campuses across the US.

Innovation Showcase Panel Discussion

Meeting Your Audience Where They Are: A Modern Survival Guide

Join 3 industry experts to learn more about the new model for marketing in the higher education landscape.  The discussion will focus on three pillars: 1)Targeting the right people (Primacy), 2) Creating Content (ClearMix) and 3) Engaging throughout the funnel (Gecko).

Virtual Roundtables

Join these robust conversations with your colleagues on some of the most pressing issues facing higher education. Walk away with solutions to some of your current challenges, as well as valuable connections with colleagues to share knowledge moving forward.

Topics Include:

• Diversity Equity and Inclusion – Join this strategic conversation and discussion of the value of diversity, inclusion and equity in higher education marketing.
• Social Media – We’ll discuss how the role of social media has changed during and post-pandemic and what future needs might look like.
• International Marketing and Recruitment – How is marketing toward international students different your standard marketing? What factors influence reaching these students?
• Influencer Marketing vs Paid Ad Marketing – As privacy concerns reshape paid ad marketing, join us for a discuss of how and if we are going to move toward (more) influencer marketing tactics
• Women in Leadership – Join this open conversation about advancing your career as female professional.

The Women in Leadership roundtable is sponsored by:

The DEI roundtable is sponsored by:

Innovation Showcase brought to you by Ologie

Leveraging First-Party Data after a Third Party World. How data privacy will change the way we market to prospective students in the future.

With the current digital landscape, data privacy is a hot topic making it difficult for some marketers to continue reaching audiences as they have previously. Luckily, in higher ed, there is an understanding that prospective audiences are reaching out to schools to learn more and see if the college or university is a good fit. Learn how your school can leverage the right kind of data and meet your audiences where they are while keeping your integrity intact as you market to your potential students.

Sponsored by

The New Normal and Beyond

What the pandemic taught us about .edu design

The sudden and extreme virtualization of student recruitment brought about by pandemic served as a fascinating
test–and validation–of the role that well-designed .edus play as a hub for recruitment-marketing activity.

This session will focus on three related stories: areas where .edus can match or exceed the impact of in-person recruitment interactions; how the rapid-cycle innovation forced on college websites by the pandemic has laid the groundwork for a more permanent sort of agility; and how .edus serve as a crucial lead-generation tool in the face of reduced standardized testing.

Effective Leadership

Overcoming Pathological Resistance to Change

In a perpetually changing world, marketing communications offices must continually evaluate their approaches to stay competitive. Universities are complex and often subject to arcane rules or cumbersome policies that make these efforts more difficult. One constant we all must tackle is resistance to change. There is good news for leaders trying to change. The Beckhard-Harris change equation (Dissatisfaction + Vision + Concrete Steps > Resistance) can help you overcome the psychological costs of change that keep organizations chained to the past.

Research, Measurement, and ROI

Knowing What They Want: Findings From a Survey of Prospective Graduate Students

It’s never been more important to understand what today’s graduate students expect from the institutions and programs in which they enroll. The National Student Clearinghouse recently reported healthy YoY graduate student enrollment growth for spring 2021, following similar growth last fall – the two pandemic semesters. Both semesters beat graduate growth from the previous two semesters, implying that the pandemic has had a positive effect on graduate education. This stands in stark contrast to the multi-semester contraction that was reported at the undergraduate level during the pandemic and before.

Brand and Content Strategy

Branding & Engagement

Today’s CMOs face many unpredictable disruptions that challenge the brand identities of their institutions. As universities face the challenge of “It’s Not Business as Usual”, university presidents and CMOs are becoming increasingly involved in strategic communication decisions to embrace rapid responses while optimizing resources and protecting their institutions’ brand identities. Challenging mandates demand redefining brand communications to build an agile culture that is responsive to value co-creation with a focus on a better understanding of the emerging expectations of internal and external stakeholders. This presentation offers insights from best practices on how universities are managing brand identity to sustain growth.

Presenting Session

Expand Brand Awareness and Alumni Engagement with Virtual and Hybrid Events

Join us for a session from our Platform Sponsor Cvent on brand awareness and alumni engagement in Higher Education.

It’s no secret that higher education institutions have had to modify nearly every aspect of their operations since 2020. In-person events at higher education campuses historically served as an incredibly valuable opportunity for the host institution to expand their brand awareness and engage various audiences through meaningful experiences. While shifting traditionally in-person events to virtual and hybrid introduced new challenges in planning, execution and engagement, it also opened doors for expanded brand awareness across diverse audiences — from prospective students and parents, to alumni and donors, scholars, community members and more. With virtual and hybrid events on the rise, colleges and universities are discovering the new benefits of expanding the reach and accessibility of events that were historically limited to in-person attendees. Join us for a panel discussion as we share lessons learned from virtual higher education events and the steps institutions are taking to prepare for a boundless future.

Sponsored by Cvent

Alumni Engagement

How to Drive Student and Alumni Engagement with Hybrid Experiences

Attend “How to Drive Student and Alumni Engagement with Hybrid Experiences,” where ON24 Solutions Marketing Manager, Rachel Gordon, and Senior Director of Platform Product Marketing, Elena Hoffman, will show you how to transform the way you engage prospective students, alumni, and donors with a digital-first strategy built for a hybrid world.

You’ll learn how to combine in-person and digital elements to:

• Drive student enrollment and retention

• Achieve advancement and fundraising goals

• Reinvent the campus experience for a hybrid world

• Maximize return on engagement with personalized follow-up messaging and Netflix-style content portals

It’s time to bring together the best of both worlds.

Sponsored by

The New Normal and Beyond

"New Normal" Tactics that Shape Communities of Inspired Learners

As the world faced a growing pandemic, higher education institutions met a consequent challenge: recruiting top candidates without the customary handshakes, résumé hand-offs or business card exchanges that characterized the pre-COVID recruitment experience.  Despite this “new normal”, the Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business’ Marketing and Graduate Enrollment team leveraged its integrated, cross-functional structure to successfully attract a more diverse and robust class profile than ever before. Learn how this team achieved double-digit, year-over-year increases in enrollments across residential programs and attracted its highest numbers of female and underrepresented minority candidates through a truly digital-first approach to higher education marketing-admissions.

How It's Made

But First, the First P: Creating a Product Category

“Can you promote our program?” This question may sound familiar. As might the answer. Marketing each program individually was not only inefficient but also unrealistic. Further, the question really became about packaging of the programs as compelling products. So, we launched a pilot: In partnership with Admissions, we identified programs that met a certain set of criteria and developed an area of study with a positioning strategy that laddered up to the master brand. Not only did each program see individual success but the effort bolstered overall brand awareness for the university.

Effective Leadership

Building a Better Higher Ed Marketing Team

Between April-May 2021 OHO Interactive led a research study to better understand the staffing resources marketing and communication departments have, to capture the current and future states of higher education marketing teams — including roles, skills and capabilities. In this session, we’ll share the survey results, including what new roles departments are hoping to add to their team, what skills they have or plan to add in their department, who the marketing/communications division reports to and much more.

The New Normal and Beyond

Beyond Okay: Integrating Wellness and Mental Health Into Social Media Marketing and Management

Texas Tech University’s “Beyond Okay” campaign focuses on student wellness in a holistic way as a way to address mental health concerns exasperated by COVID. This session will not only discuss integrating wellness into higher education social media messaging, but will also take the tenants from the campaign a step further to show practitioners how they can also incorporate wellness into their workflow to avoid burnout and focus on mental health.

Keynote- The Agile College: Navigating Demographic Change

Nathan D. Grawe, author of Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education (2018) and The Agile College (2021), will briefly review recent demographic trends and their implications for higher education. Then, drawing on interviews with higher education leaders, he will share how proactive institutions are attacking demographic challenges through initiatives in recruitment, retention, academic programming and consortial collaboration. In  conclusion, Nathan will draw connections between responses to COVID-19 and adaptations designed to address demographic change.

Livestreamed In-Person Keynote: From Burnout to Bounce Back: What Teams Actually Need to Thrive Right Now

Note: This Keynote Will be Livestreamed from Denver, Colorado, and will Takes Place at 8:30 MT.

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.

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

Note: This Keynote will be livestreamed in the Attendee Hub from Denver, Colorado, in MT.

 

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.