Higher Ed Marketing Lab

As a senior leader, you need a strong working relationship with your board. Unfortunately, there's no manual for how to do that. As a result, most leaders end up learning through experience (read: observation, hard work, and some painful mistakes). In our latest VP Summer Series podcast, we sit down with Joel Bauman, SVP of Enrollment at Duquesne University, and Karen Foust, former EVP of Enrollme...

This is the first installment in our VP Summer Series, a podcast mini-series focusing on the unique challenges facing senior enrollment and marketing leaders. In this episode, we'll be discussing the role of the Vice President--how it differs from other roles someone would occupy on the way to a VP-level position and what it takes to be a strong candidate if you've got your sights set on a VP-leve...

In this episode, we talk about financial aid leveraging—the common, but sometimes controversial, practice of using data-driven approaches to inform how schools award financial aid. Joining us in the conversation is Echo Delta data scientist and consultant, Dr. Jimmy Jung. As a higher ed veteran with over 20 years of experience, Jimmy has successfully led enrollment management at multiple instituti...

The quality of input you deliver on creative work can be a make or break factor that helps your team reach new creative heights or sends them spiraling into uncertain territory. Echo Delta's Creative Director, Rachel Newell, joins us to talk about how to deliver the kind of feedback your team needs to reach the full potential. 

Tracking and attributing marketing activities in the real world is far from straightforward. In this episode, analytics consultant and agency vet, Chris Sietsema, explains how analytics-savvy organizations get it right.

We sit down with Will Patch, Enrollment Marketing Leader, at Niche.com to talk about strategies for more effectively engaging parents during the college search process. We start our conversation with a review of some key findings from a recent survey the Niche team conducted with parents, then we dive into concrete steps schools can take to engage parents more effectively.

Liz Gross, CEO of social listening agency Campus Sonar joins us to talk about all things higher ed social media and her new book, Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy: A Guide for College Campuses .

Echo Delta's Senior SEO Strategist, Catherine Reich, joins us to discuss the long-term trends shaping organic search today, along with a major algorithm update Google will be rolling out in 2021.  As an episode bonus, Catherine has developed a guide you can share with your web developer to optimize your site. The guide is available for download in this episode's show notes at EchoDelta.co. 

In this episode, we talk with Matt Sluzinsky, Director of Web Strategy and Services at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. While Mayo Clinic is one of the most recognizable names in medicine, many are surprised to learn the clinic also provides over 400 academic programs ranging from entry-level certificates to elite residency programs. As part of the school's efforts to raise awareness a...

In this special episode, we talk with President Richard Dunsworth of the University of the Ozarks about the impact of COVID-19 on his school. From leadership in times of crisis to wide-ranging operational changes to the long-term impact this global crisis could have on the institution, we explore how one school is coping with profound and rapid change. 

Podcasting ranks right up there with influencer marketing and AI as one of the most hyped marketing trends over the last few years. But what's really involved in launching a podcast, what's the potential pay-off, and is it too late for your school to jump on the podcast train? We tackle these questions and more in our latest Higher Ed Marketing Lab podcast. Joining us is Jenna Spinelle from Penn S...

In this episode, we'll be talking about social media, and specifically, what do when you suspect it's time to sunset a social media account that's outlived its usefulness.  Joining us in the conversation is Rebecca Stapley. As former Assistant Director of Social Media at Nazareth College, Rebecca has first hand experience managing social media at her school and engaging with colleagues in other de...

We talk web accessibility with David Carpenter and Jennifer Garvey of Colorado State University. David is the Director of Operations and Jennifer is Assistant Director of IT for Web and Business Systems at Colorado State's College of Health and Human Sciences. In this discussion, we shy away from the technical details surrounding accessibility, and instead focus on how to effectively align people...

Jason Buzzell is Director of Digital Communications at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I met up with Jason at the 2019 eduWeb conference to reflect on some of the most interesting ideas and themes we encountered at this year's conference. We discussed: How to humanize digital experiences (which was the topic of a talk Jason delivered). We talked about why today's students place such a high pr...

The campus visit remains one of the most impactful moments in the college decision process, and there's probably no one who knows more about the campus visit experience than Jeff Kallay, Principal of Render Experiences. His work on campus visits has been featured in numerous publications including the Chronicle of Higher Education, University Business Magazine, and the New York Times, and we were...

We'll be diverging a bit from our usual discussion around higher ed marketing to talk about leadership, which is a topic relevant to anyone who has to work with and through others. Joining us in that conversation is retired Air Force Major General, H. D. "Jake" Polumbo. Over his 34 year career in the Air Force, General Polumbo acquired a great deal of wisdom around how to lead and manage others, e...

We'll be talking with Dr. Jennifer Sumner about people, process, and technology, within the University of Central Florida 's online program. In this wide ranging conversation, we hear about UCF Connect , the university's success coaching program for online students. We hear how the university is leveraging SalesForce and other technologies to improve the student experience. We talk about ways they...

If you've ever felt that public relations was a mysterious black box, then this episode is for you. We discuss public relations for higher ed with Barbara Pierce, president of Tipping Point Communications. Barbara has over 25 years experience leading global, national, and regional public relations initiatives, and she's worked extensively in higher education. We start by hearing Barbara's favorite...

This is part two of a two-part episode in which we explore how the University of the Ozarks, a small, private, liberal arts university in rural Arkansas, has managed to consistently grow enrollment despite the challenges facing small private schools.  In this episode, Reggie Hill, Vice President of Marketing and enrollment at the University of the Ozarks and Amy Lloyd, Ozarks' Director of Marketin...

Small, private liberal arts colleges face significant headwinds as they try to grow enrollment. Despite these challenges, University of the Ozarks, Arkansas' oldest private liberal arts university, has managed to buck this trend. In part one of this two-part episode, we talk with Reggie Hill, Vice President of Marketing and Enrollment at Ozarks, and Amy Lloyd, Director of Marketing. We touch on ho...

Marketers and enrollment managers are swimming in data, but making it digestible and actionable is easier said than done. In this episode, we talk with Ken Reaves, Director of Research and Strategic Projects at Southeastern University. Ken is an expert when it comes to combining hardcore data and research with creative storytelling, and he's got tons of advice for anybody looking to make their dat...

Historically, CRMs have been seen as a tool for Admissions, but today's CRMs are capable of so much more. In this episode, Kris Hardy, Director of Web and Digital Marketing at Messiah College, stops by to share how the school's CRM has transformed their digital marketing efforts. We discuss: How the CRM has changed the way the marketing team interacts with their colleagues in other departments Spe...

Research suggests roughly 75% of students use word of mouth to help determine what school to attend, yet few schools have an intentional strategy for generating positive word of mouth.   In this episode, we talk with Daniel Lemin, co-author along with Jay Baer of a new book on the topic called Talk Triggers. Daniel lays out an actionable framework higher ed marketers can use to create the kinds of...

Susan Baier's research focuses on uncovering how groups of people think and feel as they make important decisions, like selecting a college. We discuss specific ways schools have used her research to improve their enrollment and advancement efforts by better understanding critical attitudinal differences in their target audiences.

We talk non-invasive website governance strategies with Shelley Keith, Senior Strategist at Modern Tribe.