Higher Ed Marketing Lab

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 recently conducted a nationwide survey to understand how college-bound students factor politics into their decision. We packaged it all up into a report, Politics and College Choice: How Students’ Political Views Influence Where They Enroll—and our results were informative and surprising. Today, Jarrett sits down with our research partner, Grant De Roo, to share three insights from the research they found most interesting.

Download the full report: https://echodelta.co/politics/

Jarrett sits down with author Ben Guttmann to discuss practical ways to simplify your marketing communication strategies. An expert on simplicity, Guttmann explains why simplicity is essential if you want to reach and move audiences—and shares plenty of tips and tactics you can use immediately to craft simpler, more effective communications. 

Read Ben Guttmann’s book, Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win―and How to Design Them

Student recruitment can only happen if you sell your institution well. But because higher ed typically avoids the word “sales” like the plague, admissions counselors miss out on key skills they need to succeed. In this episode, Jarrett sits down with higher ed consultant Chris Lewis to discuss how your admissions team can embrace sales during student recruitment—and steps you can take to do so.

Explore the "Performance Marketing Trap" with Jarrett as he discusses the pitfalls colleges experience when they over-rely on so-called performance marketing channels to advertise. Learn why brand marketing is crucial for long-term success and get actionable steps you can take to create a more balanced strategy. 

TikTok is the platform of choice for many of today’s prospective students, but consistently executing relevant and engaging content is a challenge many colleges and universities are still trying to overcome. 

In this episode, you’ll hear from Morgan Goodwill, social media manager and producer at Flagler College, and someone who has seemingly cracked the code on TikTok content. 

We discuss:

• Details on how Flagler College’s marketing team works with student creators to generate 80% of their TikTok content

• Why quality over quantity and audience over platform is a critical social media success

• Morgan’s favorite tactic for increasing the reach of important but less engaging institutional content, and  

• Some of Flagler’s TikTok home runs, surprising flops, and the lessons she learned from them.

Geoff Baird, CEO of EnrollML, shares pragmatic insights on how to evolve enrollment management. Discover how understanding market share, addressing foundational weaknesses, and leveraging data and technology can transform student recruitment higher education.

In this episode, we dig into the results of a fresh survey from Niche, exploring the campus visit from the perspective of students and parents.

Joining the conversation is Will Patch, Senior Enrollment Insights leader at Niche, and Jeff Kallay, SVP of Enrollment Consulting at Echo Delta and leading campus visit expert. We explore:

• The experiences students want to have most and least during their campus visit
• Expectations parents have for the visit, and
• Practical ideas on how to lower barriers so that more students can participate in your visit program. 

Analytics expert Chris Sietsema of Teach to Fish Digital gives us an update on the current state of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). We discuss some of the most important differences between Universal Analytics and GA4, and some of the ways the switch to GA4 has already impacted higher ed marketers. We wrap up with some of Chris’s favorite GA4 resources.