Talking Tactics

In this episode of Talking Tactics, Dayana Kibilds is joined by former Hidden Gem host and current CMO at Carroll Community College, Maya Demishkevich. Maya shares how she tripled enrollment in a continuing education course by creating a more personalized email sequence—and how that tactic has since shaped how her the team approaches course promotion across the board. You’ll get the inside scoop o...

Frostburg State University ran a game-changing billing and financial aid texting campaign that engaged 73% of admitted students and their parents—resulting in a 7% reduction in summer melt.  In this episode, Kristin Miller, Recruitment Communication Manager at Frostburg State, shares how her team leveraged texting to create personal, stress-reducing conversations with students and families. She wa...

Most fundraisers accept a 1.5% response rate from direct mail as standard. But Brenda Turner? She used cold calls to push that number to a staggering 20%, securing four major donors from just 37 letters. Brenda, a certified fundraising executive with 16+ years of experience and nearly $1 billion raised, shares the exact tactic that made her outreach so effective. She breaks down her approach—from...

Graduate programs often focus on outbound marketing, but what about capturing students who are deciding whether to go back to school in the first place? Purdue Business found a solution that works—blogging.  Shannon Hess, Director of Content and Communications at the Mitch Daniels School of Business, shares how launching a prospective graduate student blog led to a 425-keyword increase in non-bran...

In this episode of Talking Tactics, John Azoni, owner and executive producer at UNVEILD, unpacks how to capture impactful video testimonials while saving on cost. John reveals his go-to tactic: using “fill-in-the-blank” questions to draw out strong, structured responses that deliver memorable intros and outros. This simple tactic can cut editing time by up to 10% while guaranteeing your videos sta...

In this special episode, Enrollify’s Marketing Manager, Erin Fields steps into the guest host role to interview Day Kibilds. Day shares an innovative tactic she spearheaded while at Western University: a two-way texting initiative that connected admitted students to professors, current students, and alumni during the chaos of 2020. With over 4,000 personalized conversations, this approach led to a...

Sean Whitten, Senior Director of Enrollment Services at Southern Methodist University, is redefining how admission counselors handle one of the toughest parts of their job: letting go of students who choose another path. With empathy at the forefront, Sean created a clever, heartfelt tactic to celebrate the relationships built with students and families—a simple yet impactful goodbye video. Not on...

What information do you hope a student finds when they search for “why do faculty relationships matter?” or “what does success mean?” Toni-Marie Critelli’s blog post at St. John’s University doesn’t hope for the best, she makes sure her institution’s content is ranking as a response. Tune in to this episode to figure out how as a team of two, they manage to produce 10-14 blog posts a month, rankin...

Summer camps are an incredibly effective way to attract and engage students in your community to your institution, from a very early age. Typically, summer camps are hosted by academic departments, and the relationship building ends after the camp is done. Not at Siena College. Brianna Brown, Assistant Director of Marketing, shares how they launched a new career-focused summer camp called Aspire C...

In this episode Laura Rudolph of Square One Consulting shares how she transformed a holiday gift guide into a powerful admissions yield predictor. Hit play to learn all about the creative holiday gift guide email to parents that discreetly pinpointed high-likelihood deposits—with 70% of those who clicked ultimately enrolling. Guest Name: Laura Rudolph, CEO, Square One Consulting Guest Social:   Li...

This episode of Talking Tactics is all about empathy. Allie Bear and Madelin Thompson from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada share how they came up with a very successful Admissions Top Questions video series to support their prospective students through their university decision. The tactic was grounded and born from a robust student journey mapping project, and ended up getting 15,000 views (...

High school students are inundated by our emails — just go to r/ApplyingToCollege and search for “emails” and you’ll see just how bad it is. Cory Glover at the University of Michigan - Dearborn and his small email team have figured out how to break through the noise. It’s simple: Adding empathy. First, by meeting the students where they are and not just talking about the institution. And second, b...

If you could officially name a squirrel at your alma mater (or turtle, or goose, or whatever critters roamed your campus when you did), would you? The only correct answer is yes. And that’s that Caty Allgood and Brooke Preston were counting on when they implemented a Squirrel Naming campaign for Ohio University’s Giving Day. After hearing about this idea from colleagues at Ole Miss, they figured o...

Imagine a college where 80-90% of the current student body opens your weekly email every single week. And not only that, but they attend the events you send them and take the actions you ask them to take. Well, this is not a dream for Alixandra Nozzolillo and her team at Harvard College. Alix transformed the college’s communication from way too many emails to one weekly email with all the importan...

What if all you needed to boost your organic traffic was just a little collaboration? Jessica Creech, Web Content Marketing Specialist at Purdue University Northwest, shares how she worked with professors to build 6 program-specific blog posts with big results. These posts have over 80% organic search traffic to the site, resulting in 4,079 page views and 3,049 unique users. Plus, about 23% of all...

Miami University's toddler campus tour reel saw 33% more engagement than other admissions content on their main channels and won a Gold Case Circle of Excellence Award. How can we show our campus with the actual joy and excitement a prospect might feel visiting for the first time? Through the eyes of a toddler, of course. The reel featured Gerod Harder's two and a half year old son, Wesley, explor...

For many institutions, increasing access is a strategic priority. With this tactic, you can do just that. Melody Ferguson, Dean of Admissions at Pacific Lutheran University, discusses the success of their Automatic Admission Partnership Program (AAP) in increasing enrollment, and with it, the percentage of first-generation and students of color admitted to PLU. In fact, 60.7% of this year’s incomi...

Jess Frazier from Notre Dame University shares how they used custom LEGO figurines to increase engagement on the university's admissions Instagram. They rebranded their admitted student days as 'The Rally' and created a dedicated space where students could build Lego replicas of themselves wearing Notre Dame gear. The goal was to make students feel immediately welcomed into the Notre Dame family....

Meaghan Milliorn, Director of Digital Strategy at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, reached attendees of local high school graduations hosted on their campus with geotargeted ads. The goal was to take advantage of this captive audience and promote the university's affordability and scholarships. The ads were motion ads displayed on Facebook and Display during the graduation ceremonies. Th...

Keeping your social media accounts active and engaging is challenging, particularly for small colleges or teams. Sarah’s student ambassador approach (giving ambassador separate accounts connected to your college’s account) can significantly boost your content output and engagement. Schools working with Sarah have seen their student ambassador posts outperform all others, and gain the algorithm ben...

Dr. Courtney Skiles, the director of recruiting and admissions at Trinity Valley Community College, shares an unexpected tactic her team uses to engage students and increase college applications: dressing down.  By wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and cool shoes, TVCC recruiters aim to be relatable and break down barriers between college representatives and high school students. This tactic has resulted...

In this engaging episode of Talking Tactics, Dayana Kibilds delves into a unique marketing tactic with Dave Tyler, highlighting RIT's innovative use of GIFs on Giphy to drive traffic to their admissions page. Dave shares how a simple yet unexpected approach turned GIFs into a powerful tool for awareness and conversion, resulting in over 1,000,000 GIF view per week and  122 people visiting RIT's ad...

If you’re looking at your paid media campaign performance and have a feeling something’s not quite right… trust your gut. That’s Jeff Holeman’s advice, and the same instinct he followed for UF’s Warrington College of Business paid media efforts. After asking questions and working closely with his vendor and platform partners, he uncovered using first-party data and in-platform lead forms on Linked...

In this Bonus announcement, join Mallory, Chief Strategist of Enrollify, as she introduces the newly relaunched  Enrollify.org . This episode highlights the fresh features and content now available on the site, emphasizing Enrollify’s commitment to revolutionizing higher education. Learn about the variety of resources—from podcasts to ourses to webinars—that can help professionals make impactful c...

Cade was stumped. After doing all the traditional work to get applications in, he saw that applicants to the First Class Dental Assisting School of Nashville were not converting. After doing some research, he realized speed was key. When he tried an immediate and personalized conversation with one student, they became the new dental school’s very first enrollee. But how to do it at scale? In this...