2021 AMA Higher Ed Virtual Conference

Opening Keynote: Dreaming in the Midst of a Nightmare: Marketing Tomorrow from the Frontlines of a Pandemic

We are all living through the most difficult period in modern history. Everywhere we turn we are faced with discord, disruption, and disappointment. Inherent in the role of marketing professionals and leaders is the ability to communicate, and belief, that next will be better than now. But what happens when we do not know when our next will begin or how it will be better than now? How do we market a better tomorrow when our now is so difficult? Join Paul Quinn College President Michael J. Sorrell as he answers these questions and more during his talk “Dreaming in the Midst of a Nightmare: Marketing Tomorrow from the Frontlines of a Pandemic.”

Michael J. Sorrell

President, Paul Quinn College

Branding in Student Recruitment

A university’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 university that’s right for them. Is your school delivering a strong, consistent message with its brand marketing?

You will learn:

• How today’s students differ from the past
• Ways to evaluate your university’s brand
• Tips for delivering a consistent recruitment experience
• How to keep different departments on-brand

Christina Sanders

Senior Inbound Marketing Manager, Lucidpress

Acing Student Recruitment With Video Marketing

Education marketers face common struggles in their efforts to recruit prospective students: short attention spans and an abundance of competition. To lure Gen Z, video is a necessity at every step of the student journey. This rich and versatile content allows you to address top searched information about your school and create an emotional connection to engage and encourage next steps.

On social channels, Snapchat is leading the way with its ability to quickly provide bite-sized content for college age audiences. With over 210 million snaps sent daily, Snapchat gives schools high visibility to make a powerful and quick impact in the college search process. Join our webinar to learn how to leverage video across platforms throughout the college search process.

We will discuss:

• Why video helps develop a more personal connection with your audience.
• Ways to leverage its power throughout the college search process on platforms such as YouTube.
• How to cut through the clutter along the student journey using concise and compelling messaging.

Lindsy O'Connor

Senior Sales Director, Adtaxi

Marketing Operations in 2021 - Why the Future is DAM

Early last year, as marketing teams made the shift to working from home, many operations that were built with the office in mind started to crumble. Project hand-offs were more complicated, communication channels were reduced, and on-site servers were rendered useless. What’s become clear in 2021 is that the future of marketing operations is remote. One of the most glaring gaps in marketing operations is consistent, easy and secure access to files — the logos, images, videos and graphics your team needs to do their job. Leading marketing teams are closing this gap with a digital asset management system. This session will share how digital asset management systems (DAM) are helping lay the foundation for future-proofed marketing operations.

It will share:

• Why DAM is the foundation of strong marketing workflows,
• The benefits of upgrading from a server or file sharing solution
• Real-life customer success stories

Carlie Hill

Sr. Manager of Content Strategy, MediaValet

Advertising to High School Students without Wasting Your Media Spend in 2021

Wondering how you can build an impactful high school student advertising strategy? Discover the latest insights into this rapidly changing demographic and how you can leverage this information to amplify your internal advertising strategy. Matt will take a deep dive into Glacier’s primary research, real campaign case studies and showcase how you can deliver the right message, to the right student, at the right time and place.

Matt Diteljan

Founder and CEO, Glacier

Create New Digital Experiences Faster Than Ever Before

With the massive restructuring the pandemic has forced upon higher ed, the alumni, faculty, staff and student’s journey has become almost completely digital. The problem universities are now faced with is a different challenge – content creators need solutions that are flexible and easy to use, while IT and security teams need a solution that is robust and secure. Content authors like to focus on effective and inventive ways of communicating and building relationships between alumni, faculty, staff and students.

However, not all content authors are technically inclined. For this reason, they need tools that are easy to use and allow them to work quickly.

Join Acquia in this session to learn how to create rich content with Drupal through low-code tools and experience first-hand how an animated page with engaging and visually appealing layouts can be created in Drupal with virtually no code.

Marvin Oey

Senior Solutions Engineer, Acquia

The 3 Must Haves To Increase Student Enrollment In 2021

Prospective students are turning to online research more and more as programs and class options keep changing and evolving. The competition is getting stronger as more universities offer online and in-person options. These changes in research and the increasing competition will require you to align your marketing with a new and more complicated student journey. Are you prepared?

It’s not about bouncing back; it’s about bouncing forward with the changes for higher education.

Learn the 3 must-haves to increase student enrollment in 2021:

Digital-first strategy: measure and act upon your school’s current gaps/wins.

Student-focused content: align your content with your prospective students’ new needs.

Authority & visibility online: well show you how to build your visibility and authority with a strong backlink portfolio

Together, we’ll discuss these practical strategies when developing your digital-first marketing plans, share tools, resources and tactics so you can take action immediately.

As a leading communications company, Investis Digital has helped numerous colleges and universities strengthen their schools digital marketing over the years through our unique Connected Content approach. We look forward to sharing our knowledge with you.

Samantha Kermode

Senior Director of Strategic Development, Investis Digital

Mike Huber

Sr. Director of Strategy & Education, Investis Digital

Best Practices in Total Event Management for Higher Education

In 2020, the world of higher education changed forever. While much has been written about the rapid transition to virtual learning, other departments – like recruitment, continuing education, and advancement and alumni relations – were also forced to make sudden adjustments. As in-person recruitment, alumni engagement, and professional development events were canceled or moved online, staff scrambled to pull off these changes with little guidance on best practices.

In light of these priorities and challenges, forward-thinking leaders developed and executed comprehensive event technology strategies to unite their efforts. In this webinar, you will hear how a comprehensive event technology strategy played an integral role in the transition to virtual events and how it is influencing future plans to continue to engage a broader audience through hybrid events.

Jane Rodriguez

Director of Global Events Strategy, Office of Advancement, The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Alyssa Manse

Client Success Manager, Cvent

Opening Keynote: This Is Serious - It’s Time to Support and Value Social Media Managers

Higher ed social media managers have played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, that work has done significant damage to their mental health and day-to-day lives. It’s critical that we start taking care of these experts on our campuses. This presentation will unveil survey results from West Virginia University’s 2021 higher ed social media manager mental health survey. As part of this presentation, we’ll provide detailed results on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected social media managers. Results show that mental health is poorer now compared to date from early on in the pandemic, and despite institutions having to rely on these individuals in a much bigger way in 2020, they feel more undervalued and underappreciated than ever before. We will end the presentation going over some ways supervisors can address these concerns and how they can be better communicators and mental health advocates for their employees.

Tony Dobies

Senior Director of Marketing, West Virginia University

Rickie Huffman

Senior Marketing Specialist, West Virginia University

How to 10X Your Video Library Without Breaking the Bank

Nearly 100 universities and programs, from small liberal arts colleges to major state universities to top-rated business schools, have adopted CampusReel to drive student engagement over the last 12 months. Why? Because we’ve cracked the code on delivering scalable, consistent user-generated videos that show the diverse range of student experiences from the dorm room to the classroom. Traditional video is expensive and time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be that way. This session will dive into how CampusReel turbocharged video content for university partners, returning real leads and measurable ROI, and will show how three particular universities partnered with CampusReel to see incredible results from their new video strategy.

Awarded “2021 Enrollment Management Solution of the Year” by EdTech Breakthrough.

Matt Pellish

Vice President of University Partnerships, CampusReel

Lunchtime Keynote: Student Parents: An Important Equity Population for Postsecondary Institutions

Today, more than one in five college students (22%) are parents. They are a population that are majority women of color, experience basic needs insecurity and other barriers at a higher rate than non-parents, yet tend be extremely motivated and have higher GPAs than their peers. This is a population that is growing at four-year institutions yet the experiences of student parents are unfamiliar or unheard and they speak to stigma associated with telling faculty and administrators about being a caregiver. This session will feature leaders within the Aspen Institute’s Postsecondary Success for Parents (PSP) Initiative, which was created in 2018 to raise awareness of and share recommendations to better support student parents in postsecondary institutions and workforce programs.

David Croom

Assistant Director for Postsecondary Achievement & Innovation, Ascend at the Aspen Institute

Amber Angel

Ascend Parent Advisor and Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) Adjunct Instructor and Family Resource Center Coordinator