2019 AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education

Marketing Applied to Higher Education - Real Fast!

Pre-conference tutorials are optional and have an additional fee associated with them. Available for purchase soon!

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 over the next three days.

Tom Hayes | Williams College of Business, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio

Designing for Growth: Innovations and Best Practices in Commflow Strategy

Pre-conference tutorials are optional and have an additional fee associated with them. Available for purchase soon!

For higher education institutions to remain sustainable, enrollment and marketing strategies must be successful. But marketing and enrollment leaders often struggle to find common ground. This session will dive deep into effective comm-flow design and student segmentation while revealing the latest best practice strategies, measurements, and data-driven research techniques that will improve your ROI.

Scott Ochander | Partner, Chief Marketing Officer, Carnegie Dartlet
Eric Page | VP Strategic Enrollment and Marketing, Carnegie Dartlet

Higher Education 101: What You Need to Lead

Pre-conference tutorials are optional and have an additional fee associated with them. Available for purchase soon!

To succeed in higher education, you need to know the landscape—the history, structures, governance, and culture that make it distinct. Challenges inherent to our field—and external pressures, economics, and politics—impact us daily. Leave empowered by the assets you have, skills you can develop, and benefits you gain from working in higher education.

While we will explore higher education as a distinct market, we will not address the topic of Higher Education Marketing 101. This session is not an exploration of brand development, strategy, tactical implementation, or evaluation.

Holly Moline Simons | President, CLARA Consulting
Deb Maue | Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Aurora University, Aurora, IL

First-Time Attendee Meet & Greet

New to the Symposium? Meet other first-time attendees as Peter and Christie, our committee co-chairs, take you through their Top 10 things to do to ensure a great conference!

Opening Night Reception

Meet your fellow conference-goers and get ready for a great event! Drinks and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Breakfast

Opening Keynote: "How to Sell Higher Ed"

Amidst a period of declining enrollment, cuts in state funding and waning public confidence in higher education, how do we create a strategy to flip this script?  Part of the strategy involves the words we use to describe higher education.  Another part involves understanding the critical nuances of what resonates with the various constituencies in higher education.  And, finally, it involves a careful understanding of the qualitative value drivers of the college experience–and an extreme focus on ensuring that value proposition for all students. This session will provide a digest of compelling data and provocative thinking that will fuel your work for years to come.

Brandon Busteed

President, Kaplan University Partners

Exhibitor Solutions and Networking Time

Check out the vendor hall on your way to your morning session of choice

Power of Content: How to Transform Your Team

Why invest in content? Instead of telling audiences about your school, pull them in with content that reflects how they want to be engaged. Leaders from St. Edward’s University will share how to transform a marketing team into a content engine that is a competitive differentiator.

Christie Campbell, St. Edward’s University | Frannie Schneider, Rede Atlas LLC

University Website Redesigns: Maximizing Budget and Results

A website redesign can be an ordeal—many cooks, many opinions. So once it launches, it can be instinctual to collapse into a chair and breathe a sigh of relief. But what about the epilogue? We’ll tackle the untold story—how to keep your website relevant, functioning and accessible post-launch.

Mike Lockrem, South Dakota State University | Chris Kappen, Epicosity 

An Integrated Approach to Amplifying Research and Faculty Expertise

Boston University’s Public Relations | Social Media team will give a crash course on how to effectively use social media and content platforms together with traditional public relations strategies to amplify research, connect faculty with broad and highly targeted audiences, and elevate faculty profiles among the general public and the media.

Hilary Katulak, Boston University | Molly Gluck, Boston University

From A to Gen Z: The "How To's" of Reaching, Communicating With, and Enrolling This Generation

Teenagers today have never known a world without the internet and have been brought up in an entirely digital world—smartphones in hand, addicted to tech and social media. What does this mean for student recruitment? Gen Z is defined by a different set of characteristics than millennials: they use technology differently, and they have different expectations for how to communicate and be communicated with. That’s a game changer for college admission and marketing offices trying to reach, influence, and serve the right-fit students for their institutions. In this session we will explore this generation and their obsession with social media. We will not only share stunning statistics and social media behaviors but also learn how the University of Pittsburgh is using storytelling and personalization to effectively communicate with the Gen Z population on their urban campus. They’ll also share results of some communications experiments with Gen Z and their parents to reinvent recruitment funnel marketing and communications strategies.

Kate Ledger, University of Pittsburgh | Alexa Poulin, Carnegie Dartlet

The Adult Student Market: Research Insights to Drive Recruitment Strategies

When it comes to higher education, adult learners are often an underserved and overlooked audience. The tools, messaging and recruitment approach that works for teenage prospects won’t connect with the adult student market. Our marketing personas, backed by a nation-wide survey, will highlight how to serve this audience more effectively.

Kirsten Fedderke, Lipman Hearne | Suzanne Grigalunas, Lipman Hearne

Future Trends in Higher Education MarTech

Want to harness the power of new AI technology and digital tools for your University?  Learn about three innovative solutions in MarTech to help optimize your University’s cost per enroll, illustrate employment outcomes data on your campus, and deliver an agile and flexible digital experience for your customers.

Topic 1: The Knapsack Problem: The ultimate tool to achieve your cost per start objectives.

Topic 2: Using Employment Outcomes Data to Engage Prospects and Drive Enrollment.

Topic 3: Why Savvy Businesses Should Lead with a Digital Experience Platform.

Arthur Saint-Père

Founder and CEO at Dolead

Doug Heckman

Senior Account Executive at EMSI

Gregg Shupe

Digital Experience Thought Leader at Progress Software

Keynote Luncheon: "Emerging Trends in Adult Online Education"

We’ve gathered a panel of marketing leaders from a variety of schools to discuss online adult education: where it is and where it’s going. Moderated by Seth Odell, National University.

Panelists include:

Kathy Urban

Director of Undergraduate Programs, University of Pennsylvania, College of Liberal and Professional Studies

Adrian Haugabrook

Senior Vice President, University Chief of Staff, Southern New Hampshire University

Christie Harper

Associate Vice President, Enrollment Marketing and Communications, University of Arizona

Dave Bruno

Vice President of Marketing, Lipscomb University

Seth Odell

Vice Chancellor, Marketing, National University System

Creating Brand-aligned Conversations by Teaming with Athletic

Athletics influences the size and type of online campus-related conversation, but is often siloed, making that conversation at best a missed opportunity and at worst a liability. It doesn’t have to be that way. Learn how Beloit College works with coaching staff and student-athletes to drive brand- aligned conversations.

Tim Jones, Beloit College | Steve App, Campus Sonar

Social Media Metrics from Scratch

Data rules but it can be unruly. With countless tools and ways to tackle social media data it can be a challenge to develop a reporting rhythm. Our UGA team has developed a monthly social media dashboard template and year-end report. In this session, we will walk you through how to assemble your own dashboard and spotlight your successes.

Kalena Stull, University of Georgia | Leslie Colvin, University of Georgia

Marketing Matters: A Presidential Perspective

University marketers know the challenges they face all too well. But do you understand the perspective and pressures your leaders face when asked to invest, defend and support marketing? This panel discussion will provide insight from university leaders that see marketing as an integral component of their institutions’ success.

Steve Stoute, DePaul University | Jeffrey Armstrong, California Polytechnic State University | Brian Ralph, William Pace University | moderated by Jason Simon, SimpsonScarborough

Stop Posting. Start Collaborating: Digital and Gen Z

Throw out what you know about higher education digital marketing. A new generation has arrived, so new rules apply. Generation Z doesn’t want to be confined to your content calendar; they want to create it. Learn how Coastal Carolina University digitally empowers the new generation of current and prospective students.

Lindsi Glass, Coastal Carolina University | Brent Reser, Coastal Carolina University 

Using Mixed Methodologies to Inform Effective Marketing Strategies

This joint session between George Washington University and Hanover Research discusses how institutions can leverage a mixed methodological research approach (primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative) to provide robust and comprehensive insights towards the development of a strategic and targeted marketing plan.

Gabrielle Julien-Molineaux, Ed.D., George Washington University | Fox Troilo, Ph.D., Hanover Research

What the Data?! How Centralized Systems Can Empower Data-Driven Decisions

The ability to capture, aggregate, report on and generate insights from data for faster decision-making is one of the most pressing challenges in higher ed. In this session, we will explore how a centralized data system can create efficiencies, cost-savings and revenue growth.

Dan Antonson

Associate Director – Marketing Technology | Collegis Education

Exhibitor Solutions and Networking Time

Complacency is Failure: Building a Values-Based Challenger Brand

In 2017 Colby was gearing up for the largest-ever liberal arts college campaign. To challenge the standard and showcase leadership, the campaign brand takes its cue from consumer branding — not higher education. Beyond fundraising, it cracked the school’s cultural code, positioning Colby to Dare Northward in all pursuits.

Jennifer Eriksen, Colby College | Anthony Ronzio, Colby College | Dan Olds, Colby College | Kim Hallman, 160over90

Dashboard Data Drives Precise Personalization, Surge in Inquiries

With one change to our digital strategy, we increased the number of inquiries to our programs by more than 400 percent. How? By deploying a real-time dashboard with the ability to understand and optimize engagement across all platforms, including social and websites, and across all 12 of our graduate programs.

Timothy Bohling, University of Notre Dame

Herding Goats? Gaining Leader Consensus and Buy-In

Gaining consensus and approval on a historic mass media buy to establish a brand and support a philanthropic capital campaign is like herding goats: administration, alumni leaders, vocal legislators, and opinionated staff are all part of the herd. See how two small departments and one agency manned the pens despite the bleats.

Gretchen Yordy, University of Illinois System | Sue Johnson University of Illinois Foundation

The New Recruit: Prospective Parents

It’s no longer enough to just keep parents in mind—they’re craving their own relationship with their student’s college. In the last two years, Fordham has launched more robust, multi-platform campaigns for this audience. These initiatives have seen record levels of engagement, creating a connection with the true influencers of Gen Z.

Alexandra Loizzo-Desai, Fordham University | Logan West, Fordham University

E-Expectations 2019: Exploring New Opportunities and Deepening Strategy on our Digital Standbys

E-expectations™ research has provided thought leadership and support to the higher education marketing community for nearly 15 years. The 2019 breaks new ground while continuing our study of prospective student use of websites, texting, social media and email. New questions focus on use of voice search, keyword strategies, AI and personalization.

Stephanie Geyer, Ruffalo Noel Levitz | Lance Merker, OmniUpdate

Future Trends in Higher Education Branding and Marketing

Want to become a more innovative, creative and data-driven team?  Hear how top industry experts guide collaborative marketing communications teams who drive success for their organizations. You’ll learn how to speed up graphic design, create frameworks for measuring ROI and reach “digital natives” who expect immediate engagement.

Topic 1: Brand templating: The secret to doubling your communication team’s output in half the time.

Topic 2: Analytical Creativity: The Key to Successful Collaboration with Marketing.

Topic 3: Connecting With the Digital Natives of GenZ – Using AI Chatbots + Humans to Deliver a Real-Time Experience (RTX)

Coleman Kuhre

Higher Education Strategist, Lucidpress

Elise Hauser

Product Marketing Manager at inMotionNow

Bassam Salem

CEO at AtlasRTX

Roundtable Discussions

Join your peers at expert-led tables on topics such as:
– Branding
– AMA Higher Ed for First-Time Attendees
– Data, Metrics & ROI
– Small Schools
– Content Strategy
– Colleges of Business
– Graduate Programs
– Adult Learners
and more

Evening Reception

Breakfast

Tuesday Morning Keynote "New Rules for Higher Education Marketing"

Terry Flannery has been breaking ground in higher education marketing for almost as long as the AMA Symposium has been a thing. She learned from the Symposium’s founders and has watched the profession grow, mature, and come into its own, just as the Symposium has grown in size, sophistication and influence.

So, when the Johns Hopkins University Press was looking for someone to write the book on the strategic value of marketing in their series for higher education leaders, they asked Flannery to take it on.

As she wraps up the manuscript, Terry will give you sneak peek at what she is going to say to your leaders about the process of building value and meeting core strategic goals through marketing. She will:
· Share “new rules,” designed to challenge leaders.

· Empower marketers as you carry out your work in higher education.

· Spur your thinking about how to start the conversation after you head back to campus.

Terry Flannery

Author, Former VP for Communication, American University

Ambition Can’t Wait. An In-House Designed, National Awareness Campaign for Influencers

Drexel’s brand elevation iniative, designed in-house, represents one of the most ambitious awareness campaigns the University has ever put in-market. During a time when peer institutions are committing significant media spends targeting prospective students, Drexel is sharing its mission and academic model with a broad, influential audience.

Craig Kampes, Drexel University | Larry Bender, Drexel University | Joseph Master, Drexel University

Growing Enrollment Through Niche Micro-Marketing

The session explores how two different small private colleges–a HBCU in New Orleans and a private liberal arts college in Virginia, each achieved success using micro-marketing tools, leveraging the strengths of traditional and omni-channel digital tools with research, segmentation, visionary leadership, and the help of the larger campus community.

Keyana Scales, Xavier University of Louisiana | David Lesesne, Randolph-Macon College, Mike Wesner, enrollmentFUEL

Strategic Marketing Services for All: Building an In-House Agency

Brown University recently built an integrated, strategic marketing operation to support campus partners, moving from a fulfillment service model. From staffing the right teams to launching a new project management system and designated vendor program, this session offers a view of the operational infrastructure required to deliver strong creative.

Carly Kite Lapinski, Brown University

Slay It by Ear: Building a Better University Podcast

Three communications pros at the University of Connecticut had a vision to tell UConn’s story through the growing medium of podcasting, without making it feel like stiff PR. Hear how we got buy-in to create the award-winning UConn 360, how to produce and promote a compelling podcast, repurpose content, and fit it all into your existing workload.

Julie Bartucca, University of Connecticut | Tom Breen, University of Connecticut | Ken Best, University of Connecticut

The Reasons Behind A Student Saying 'No'

Every higher education program has students that inquire but don’t end up enrolling. Ever wonder why? Using survey data straight from the source, we look at the reasons these students chose a different path to their degree than yours and how you can use that information to inform and refine your marketing strategy.

Rich Funk, Eduvantis

What's Next? The Future of Digital Recruitment Marketing

Please note: This session runs from 9:45-11:45am

A panel discussion from key industry leaders in the education space on the future of digital enrollment marketing. What are the latest trends, what will be the next “big thing” and how do we apply these best-in-class strategies? The panel includes a cutting edge marketing firm and the leading digital organizations.

Panelists include:
Joyce A. Lee, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Geoff Colon, Microsoft
Sayani Dutt, Google
John McAdams, Pandora
Tom Affinito, Kenshoo
Moderator:
Tracy Kreikemeier, Thruline Marketing

Future Trends in Higher Education Recruitment and Enrollment

Want to learn more about how to boost recruitment, enrollment, and retention efforts at your University?  Attend this session to hear how top industry experts utilize authentic storytelling & personalization in the recruiting process, create innovative student journeys through conversational marketing, and improve audience targeting capabilities through multi-platform digital recruiting.

Topic 1: Perfecting “Fit and Feel”: Authentic Brand Storytelling Using the Power of Personalized Rich Media.

Topic 2: Conversational Marketing for Higher Ed: How Schools Can Use Chatbots to Recruit Today’s Students.

Topic 3: Mastering Multi-Platform Digital Ad Targeting – Recruitment, Public Influence and beyond.

Jonathan Clues

Founder & CEO of StudentBridge

Tony Fraga

CEO at DirectDevelopment

Brenton Riley

VP of Sales, Q1 Media

Let’s Rock & Enroll: Experiential Marketing At Work

Colleges put a lot of pressure on campus events—for good reason. They’re high-converting opportunities, giving you the chance to engage with captive audiences on your home turf. That’s why every visit should be unforgettable. If you’re not yet thinking like an experiential marketer, you will be after this.

Allison Turcio, Siena College | Ned Jones, Siena College | Katie Szalda, Siena College | Lauren Herrington, CCA 

Monetized Behavioral Metrics

The higher ed digital experience is becoming an increasingly complicated space. With website features competing for scarce resources, finding a way to understand the value each offers is a challenging and mission-critical task. Learn how Google Analytics can be customized to monetize behavioral metrics, providing key data for strategic decisions.

Alan Etkin, British Columbia Institute of Technology

From Instincts and Intuition to Methodology and Metrics

Becoming a Crisis Ninja: As brand building has become ever more sophisticated, the discipline around protecting it has lagged. We share 5 strategies to help you apply the same rigor, methodology, and focus that you apply to your brand to the issues that risk becoming crises and the crises the risk your hard-earned reputation.

Jen Rettig, Blue Moon Consulting Group | Kent Cassella, Blue Moon Consulting Group

Our Commitment to Diversity. Their Commitment to Enroll

Technically a public school, the United States Coast Guard Academy is highly selective: cadets pay nothing. The cost is a commitment to serve. Enrollment isn’t an issue, but a diverse class is a federal mandate. Learn how a national marketing campaign engaged minorities and females to apply and enroll.

Susan Bibeau, U.S. Coast Guard Academy | Jim Paskill, Paskill, Stapleton & Lord

Five New Insights About Transfer Students

Eduventures’ Transfer Student Survey provides needed insight into a hard to reach and little-understood, population of prospective students. For transfer students, the process of transferring from one institution to another can be overwhelming. For institutions, engaging these students can be challenging. This session seeks to bridge these gaps.

Cara Quackenbush, NRCCUA/Eduventures

Experiential Branding ► How To Ignite Consumer Love

In an era of digital everything, marketers everywhere are turning to experiential branding to connect with clients and consumers to cultivate passionate brand advocates through brand experiences. Promotional products, the only medium invited into spaces and places other media can’t touch, deliver the best reach, recall, response rates and return on investment for marketers and advertisers.

This session will feature evidence-based strategies, proven tactics and a fresh perspective on promotional marketing, as well as trends and techniques marketers are using to create measurable brand experiences, curate cultural capital, build communities, and earn the trust and loyalty of clients and consumers.

Join PPAI’s Communications and Branding Strategist, Kim Todora, for this thought-provoking content and key takeaways.
• Dos and don’ts for developing a scalable experiential strategy
• How to build a brand strategy that works on the street and in the boardroom
• Localizing brand strategy to create relevance for the consumer and local communities
• Creating a tribe and understanding consumer passion points
• Proven ways to intercept consumers at key touch points
• How to reach today’s multicultural consumer
• Unique ways to breakthrough in a crowded, emerging space

Kim Todora

Communications & Branding Strategist, Promotional Products Association International

Lunch and the AMA Higher Education Marketer of the Year Awards

The AMA Foundation Higher Education Marketer of the Year Awards were established by the AMA Foundation and Lipman Hearne to recognize outstanding marketing visionaries and extraordinary marketing teams in the field of higher education marketing.

This luncheon will recognize the 2019 Individual Winner and 2019 Team Finalists.

2019 Award Winner
Aimee Rose, Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President, Integrated Communications, Mary Baldwin University

2019 Team Finalists
Stony Brook University
University of Notre Dame
Claremont Lincoln University

Courting a Cowboy Controversy

In 2018, the University of Wyoming launched “The World Needs More Cowboys” marketing campaign. The campaign faced internal and external critics, as well as several unexpected challenges. This session will provide a case study of how a strong campaign concept can overcome criticism and become a movement that ties directly to enrollment growth.

Jennifer Petty, University of Wyoming | Chad Baldwin, University of Wyoming | Michelle Eberle, University of Wyoming

Staying in the Feedback Loop: Developing a Marketing and Recruitment Dialogue to Increase Online Enrollment

How many times have you executed a marketing campaign without making a single change to the strategy along the way? Chances are you can count those times on one hand. At the University of Arizona Online, the marketing and recruitment teams have a continuous feedback loop to exchange information and verify the success of marketing strategy and tactics leading to mutual success and increased enrollment.

Jana Hayhurst, University of Arizona | Suzana Diaz Rosencrans, University of Arizona

Mariners and Marketers: Four Leadership Lessons from the Sea

A higher education leader and ship’s captain joins a veteran leadership and communications consultant in applying lessons from leading at sea to leading communications and marketing on campus. They deliver practical takeaways from four essential cornerstones of effective leadership at sea: Navigation, Anticipation, Adaptation, and Communication.

Dr. Jessica McWade, McWade Group, Inc | Peg Brandon, Sea Education Association

What You’re Not Doing (Yet): Data-Informed Retention Marketing

In higher education, marketing has always been about driving enrollment, but what if that funnel continued past enrollment into retention? Discover how data mining and predictive modeling – using data you already have! – can fuel a retention marketing strategy that moves the needle in your enrollment outcomes.

Meredith Purvis, University of Maryland, Baltimore County | Matt Walters, VisionPoint Marketing

Influencing Decisions with Alumni Insight Communities

Learn how to build and sustain an alumni insight community so you can create a culture of agile, data-driven decision making.

Jordan Zivoder, Ohio State University | Molly Schmied, Ohio State University

Future Trends in Higher Education Digital Experience

Yesterday’s buzzwords are today’s reality for higher ed marketers. In this session, you’ll learn how to become more agile in your digital marketing while incorporating technology like chatbots, voice search and augmented reality. Plus, we’ll look at how you can use these new tools to create a personalized journey for prospective students, alumni and donors that has consistent branding and messaging across all digital touch points.

Topic 1: Kill The Website Relaunch! Replace It with an Iterative, Results-Driven Approach.

Topic 2: Emerging technology: What marketers need to be doing now to keep up.

Topic 3: Outsmarting Digital Sprawl: Leveraging Open Platforms

John Sepassi

Platform Sales Executive at Pantheon Systems

Fernando Bergas Coria

Director, Integrated Marketing - Ologie

Chris Hoffman

Solutions Architect and Product Feedback Manager at Acquia

Exhibitor Solutions and Networking Time

9x5 Round Robin Session

Back by popular demand! We’ve picked nine hot topics and nine super-smart, smooth-talking marketing pros, each sharing five minutes of their most unconventional wisdom.

Kira Walsh, Emory University
Mallory Willsea, mStoner
Dan King, Bluecadet
Sam Waterson, RHB
Ali Santander, University of Arizona
Lisa Snedeker, Campbell University
Tara Hornor, The Citadel
Melissa Lindell, Clarkson University
Suzanne Grigalunas, Lipman Hearne

Breakfast

Wear your school gear down and enjoy an inspirational and fun final day!

Keynote: "How the Knights Struck Gold in the Desert"

When the NHL owners approved of the NHL’s 31st expansion team on June 22, 2016, the sports world expected very little from the unnamed Vegas franchise both off and on and off the ice. Fast forward three years, and the Vegas Golden Knights have turned the hockey world on its head. From a Stanley Cup Finals appearance it its inaugural season, to record setting business metrics, CMO Brian Killingsworth gives an inside look at the business, brand and marketing strategies that helped propel the Vegas Golden Knights to the top of the NHL.

Brian Killingsworth

Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Vegas Golden Knights

School Spirit Celebration and Final Exhibit Time

Celebrate your school pride, 30 years of the AMA Symposium, and take one last lap around the exhibit hall!

Closing Keynote: "How to Evangelize a College"

Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist of Canva, former chief evangelist of Apple, and father of four, explains how he would evangelize a college. He will use his experiences at Apple, Google,  Canva, and Wikipedia to help you gain a new perspective of the college marketing game using tech, social media, and whatever else it takes.

Guy Kawasaki

Chief Evangelist, Canva

Closing remarks

Please see previous years’ agendas & keynotes here:

2018 agenda

2018 keynote videos

2018 presentation slides

2017 agenda

2017 presentation slides