Higher Ed Marketing Lab – Details, episodes & analysis

Enrollment management veteran, Laurie Koehler, joins Jarrett to talk about the challenges facing enrollment management and key ways the practice needs to evolve. 

 They discuss:
-How the practice of enrollment management has evolved over the last two decades
-Why enrollment strategy can’t be separated from institutional strategy
-Five ways we need to improve how we attract, retain, and develop the next generation of enrollment leaders
-And why it’s time for everyone to stop talking about discount rate. 

Learn more about Laurie: koehlerconsulting.net/

The challenges facing small private colleges are very real—but they’re not the whole story. In this episode, we talk to Scott Novak, former CEO of Underscore and Chief Development Officer at Carnegie, about how small colleges across the nation are adapting to enrollment trends and industry changes.

Explore Scott’s latest project: The Small College Movement

We talk with Rod Guajardo, Senior Director for Integrated Media Communications at the University of Georgia about how the university has been using Reddit to reach new audiences with science and research content.

Many institutions include brand building in their strategic plans, but making those aspirations and reality is often challenging. Brand development expert, Jennifer Holland, argues the best way to build an enduring brand is to create strong alignment between organizational, marketing, and people strategies.

We discuss:

• the vital importance of having deep internal buy-in on what your brand stands for.

• the right way to balance inside out versus outside in thinking when developing a brand.

• Jennifer's approach to hardwiring a brand into an organization so that frontline employees stay engaged and focused on the brand.

The campus visit is a make-or-break moment for traditional undergrads, but as campuses have emerged from the pandemic, the return to campus tours has been anything but business as usual. In this episode, we talk with leading campus visit consultant, Jeff Kallay, about the current state of the campus visit and what's on his mind for the road ahead. 

We discuss: 

• How pandemic fatigue has impacted students and the way they view the residential experience
• Strategies for recruiting and retaining campus tour guides
• What prospective families are most eager to learn about on your tour (it's academics)
• The trend towards fewer pre-app visits.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is top of mind for many higher ed marketers, but figuring out the practical side of applying DEI concepts to the actual creative work marketing teams produce is often easier said than done. In this episode, we'll hear from two marketing leaders at the University of St. Thomas - Minnesota who have a unique perspective on how to make it less intimidating and more actionable.

We talk with Dr. Chuck Bamford about crafting smart competitive strategies to differentiate your school in a crowded marketplace. 

In the fourth and final episode of our VP Summer Series, we talk with Kevin Kropf, EVP of Enrollment at Drury University, about generational theory and managing teams that span multiple generations.

In part three of our VP Summer Series, we talk with Brad Pochard, AVP for Enrollment and Dean of Admissions at Furman University, about building collaborative relationships with colleagues across the campus.