Secrets to Successful Strategic Enrollment Planning

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Jaime Hunt: Hi, I'm a higher ed CMO and I have a confession to make. I think that strategic enrollment planning is one of the most important times that marketers and enrollment management professionals can work together to help shape how an institution is gonna move forward for the next 5, 10, 15, even longer number of years.

[00:00:19] And so I hope you enjoyed this conversation that I have with Alejandra talking about this important topic.

[00:00:43] Welcome to Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo, the podcast designed for higher education marketers. I'm your host, Jamie Hunt, and I am so excited to have this opportunity to share insights and inspiration with Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo. I'm designing a different kind of podcasting [00:01:00] experience. With each episode, I'll be bringing in a guest for a deep dive into the challenges.

[00:01:05] And joys we all face in higher education marketing. After each episode, you can join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag higher ed cmo. I would love to see this become like a book club, but for a podcast. And be sure to follow me on Twitter at Jamie Hunt imc. That's J A I E H U N T I M C for more opportunities to connect.

[00:01:35] I am absolutely thrilled to be here with Allie Sosa. Peroni. Hey, Allie. How are you? I'm great, Jamie. How are you doing? I am doing well, even better, because I get to have this conversation with you. Before we jump into talking about strategic enrollment planning, tell us a little bit about your higher ed journey.

[00:01:54] Sure. I 

[00:01:55] Ale Sosa Pieroni: thank you for the opportunity, Jamie, to be on your podcast. I, I've been hooked ever since I found you just [00:02:00] because the content that you bring is so rich and helpful. Like many of us, I never thought that I would go into this type of work, but I had my beginnings and admissions, so right out of my alma mater, I.

[00:02:10] Was a business major. I was looking to do my MBA at the time cuz I thought I would go corporate right off the bat. And I got approached, uh, by the admissions office and I ended up joining the admissions office as a graduate assistant. And then from there I just moved up to the ranks. I went from Tiffany University to Florida Southern College where I was an associate director.

[00:02:32] Uh, then I went to Mercer University, took my first director's gig, went over to Walsh University, then Steon University, basically. Worked my way up from, you know, the admissions side of the house all the way up to VP of enrollment management. And when I was at Stetson, I got a call from Ruffo, no Levitt, and that's where my, my little story changes a little bit because I decided to go on the corporate side of higher education.

[00:02:56] So when I first started with Ruffo, no Levitt, I was a product [00:03:00] manager. And I was managing our entire product suite of financial aid services and student success services. So my job was to basically come up with new solutions for the higher education market. Wow. And so work with many leaders on campus to understand their needs and how we could bring about solutions to, to solve.

[00:03:18] For the problems that they had. So I did that uh, for about four years and then I went more so on the consulting side of things at r and l. So did a lot around strategic enrollment planning, enrollment management, best practices, admissions, student success, financial aid. I did a lot of enrollment assessments of the entire institution to help campus leadership identified issues and opportunities that they would have to streamline their entire enrollment operations.

[00:03:46] And so I spent about six years with r Levitt and. You know, through a consulting engagement that I had here at Georgia Southern University that I never thought would end up on me actually coming on board and [00:04:00] taking on this role as the executive vice president here. Uh, you know, we, we had the conversation.

[00:04:05] I was going through the exit briefing and about a month later, you know, I'm talking to the president, uh, Dr. Cama about taking the job here. And so now, uh, starting April one, I'm leading. Enrollment management, marketing, and student success for the institution. 

[00:04:21] Jaime Hunt: That is a tremendous portfolio of things. That is amazing.

[00:04:26] Ale Sosa Pieroni: I've been all over the place. Let's just say that Jamie. 

[00:04:30] Jaime Hunt: I mean when I think about, you know, marketing and enrollment management and student success, like those are all huge jobs. You must be managing teams that are like, are they AVPs VPs that report up through you. Yes, 

[00:04:45] Ale Sosa Pieroni: uh, definitely yes. I do have, um, you know, the, the full division is a little bit over 300.

[00:04:52] Wow. So that gives you a sense of, you know, how big the division is. And yes, I do have a VP of enrollment that then has [00:05:00] AVPs, uh, right underneath our enrollment team is about a hundred and. 40 strong or so. Then we have our marketing unit, that's probably the smallest unit. We do have our C M O Vice President of Marketing and he has about 28 on his team.

[00:05:13] And then the rest of our folks are in student success. So I have, uh, the academic support service center, and then we also have advising services. And we just created, um, Really a new position on campus, which is our assistant Vice President of student experience. So one of the goals with bringing these three units together was it enables you to really define the student experience from recruitment all the way through graduation.

[00:05:41] How do we streamline the processes so that we can create the type of experiences that are easy to engage with and personalize and relevant? To, to our 

[00:05:50] Jaime Hunt: students. That is amazing. I am so happy for you that you, and happy for Georgia Southern cause they got an awesome leader in that role. Um, [00:06:00] but we're here today to talk a little bit about strategic enrollment planning, and I know that's one of your first priorities in your new role.

[00:06:07] Can you tell me a little bit about. How you define strategic enrollment planning and why is it important? 

[00:06:14] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Yes, and you know, I will say this, you know, how I define a strategic enrollment planning is highly influenced by the methodology that ruffo no Lovet, uh, Arne uses, right? Um, they've, I think they're going on their fourth edition on the, on the book, on a strategic enrollment planning.

[00:06:28] And the way that that is defined, Jamie, is strategic enrollment planning is a data informed. Institution-wide, continuous process that unifies forces across the university so that we can align our current state, basically our market positioning with our mission. The institutional strategic plan and then the shift in market environment.

[00:06:55] So it really becomes a culturally transforming [00:07:00] process that enables us to work through silos. I mean, you say it all the time, let's bust some silos. You wanna bust through some silos, get on strategic enrollment planning process. That is bottom up, right? So at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is allocate our resources and maximize them.

[00:07:17] With a focus on our strategies. Right. You know, when I consulted with a lot of institutions, what we tend to see in higher education, we're all guilty of this, is that we just do more and more and we wanna be everything to everyone. Mm-hmm. Right? So through an strategic enrollment planning process, what you end up with is a very specific north.

[00:07:37] Here are the seven to 12 strategies that we're going to focus on to ensure student success and long-term financial viability for the institution for the next three to five years and beyond. So, you know, it really is a process that aligns where we're going and it gives us the focus so that all the trains arrive on time at the same station.

[00:07:58] Jaime Hunt: So what are the key [00:08:00] components of a successful strategic enrollment plan, and how do you ensure they're integrated and aligned with your overall institutional mission? 

[00:08:07] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Yeah, so let's talk about this in two different folds. You know, if, if you look at the first piece of this, it's number one. Is your leadership committed to providing the resources to carry out the plan?

[00:08:20] Um, you know, there could be a lot of politics involved in that and reallocation of resources because as you know, the reality is is that we don't have dollars growing on trees in higher ed, right? No, we're not. We don't have any new dollars. Many, many, you know, most of the time. So what we're talking about is how do we reallocate.

[00:08:36] The resources to ensure that we move the strategies forwards that are gonna give us the most return on investment. The other piece I would say is, you know, ensuring campus-wide participation. Hmm. So how am I getting the buy-in of the campus community? And I think we're gonna hit that on a little bit, a little bit later in the conversation.

[00:08:57] So getting campus-wide [00:09:00] participation. We also then have to define the scope. Ideally, you want a scope that covers the entire student life cycle. So all the way from recruitment through alumni engagement. Mm. So that it goes beyond graduation. So, And then you also wanna ensure that the plan is not just co-curricular and what we do in enrollment, but it's really curricular.

[00:09:21] So it should be curricular and co-curricular because our product, you know, we're talking marketing terms is the academic programs that we offer. Right. So that has to be a main component of that plan. Now when you look at the process, there's really four phases to this process. So phase one is your situational analysis.

[00:09:41] That's when you're understanding your current MA market positioning. That's when you're looking at key performance indicators and establishing what those are going to be. And then you're also looking at the organizational structure. How are you gonna organize your campus around this process? Then you have phase two.

[00:09:59] Now phase [00:10:00] two is the, this is where it gets fun. This is the ideation piece. This is when people can go and start. Bringing forth strategies and initiatives that will enable us to grow enrollment. Now remember that when we're looking at a strategic enrollment planning process, it's not just about moving up and down on the demand curve for the institution, but really it should be about moving the demand curve out, right?

[00:10:25] Mm. It's about looking. At, you know, what programs can we bring to new markets or in which new markets can we bring the programs that already exist? Uh, and it's also on how do we increase our market share in our market with the programs that we already have. And then you have, of course, diversification, which is, um, probably the, the, the riskiest one, which is new programs into new markets.

[00:10:49] So you want to have a good diversity. Among all your initiatives and strategies so that they cover each of those. Um, Quadrants, if you wanna call them that way. [00:11:00] Um, so that's that really that phase two. We also wanna ensure that every idea that comes through there is a business plan associated with it.

[00:11:08] Think of it as Shark Tank, right? Mm. You can get really creative and institutions get very creative with this. They can do it Shark Tank style, and literally you'll have people that will come in and present to the steering committee about their idea. And we wanna understand what is it. How long is it gonna take to see the impact?

[00:11:25] What is the impact that we're going to see in terms of, it could be, you know, new student growth, it could be retention, it could be any of those enrollment, key performance indicators, right? And then we wanna understand how much does it cost to bring this to fruition, right? Do have initiatives that are short term and then you'll have initiatives that are long term, right?

[00:11:45] If you're looking at a new program, for example, that needs to get through board approval. Well, that's a two year process, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, so that becomes more of a longer term strategy. You also have strategies that, you know, it takes years to [00:12:00] get them to start producing. So it may not produce anything during year one, but year two and three, that's when you're in the money, right?

[00:12:05] Mm-hmm. So that's, that becomes your phase two. Then you have your phase three, which is all about prioritizing those strategies. So prioritizing based on fit to the mission. The cost, the campus readiness, because you could have a great strategy, but the campus is not quite ready culturally for mm-hmm. The, the particular initiative, um, the return on investment, uh, the timeline of that strategy.

[00:12:30] So, you know, you'll go from maybe. Anywhere from 30 to 50 different ideas that will be brought out through this process, and you're gonna narrow that down to seven to 12 initiatives that you're really going to focus on. And based on those, then you set goals. See, a lot of people think, oh no, the goal is to get here now.

[00:12:51] Get me a plan. Well, mm-hmm. No. The planning process will really inform what the goals should be. Because as we're going through that situational analysis phase, it's [00:13:00] understanding market capacity, right? Mm-hmm. It's understanding demand for what you may offer. Because there could be a demand for a program, but they may not see our institution as the right fit for them.

[00:13:10] So it's understanding those things and then really getting down to where you prioritize those initiatives and you see what those could actually provide you then to set the goals that you should have. You know, as we go back to the key components is really the four phases, but having that commitment, ensuring you have the right scope and ensuring that you are covering curricular and co-curricular.

[00:13:32] Offering said the university has for the students. 

[00:13:36] Jaime Hunt: Hey all. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed cmo. I wanna take a moment to thank my friends at mindpower who are making season two of this volfi podcast. Possible. Mindpower is a full service marketing and branding firm celebrating nearly 30 years of needle moving, thought-provoking, research, fueled creative and strategy.

[00:13:57] Mindpower is woman founded and owned, W [00:14:00] B E N C, certified nationally. Recognized and serves the social sector, higher education, healthcare, nonprofits, and more. The Mindpower team is made up of strategists, storytellers, and experience creators. From market research to brand campaigns, to recruitment to fundraising.

[00:14:16] The agency exists to empower clients, amplify brands. And help institutions find a strategic way forward. You can learn more about their work in the world by heading on over to Mindpower Inc. That's M I N D P O W E R I N c.com. And be sure to tell the crew that Jamie sent you their way. So this does not sound like something that gets done in a week.

[00:14:40] It sounds like an extensive process. How long do the phases take to work through? Thank you for that 

[00:14:47] Ale Sosa Pieroni: question, because when you were doing a campus wide, Culturally transformative type of process that unifies forces, right? No, you don't get this done in a week, right? So this is not a recruitment plan [00:15:00] or a retention plan, uh, because of the institution-wide nature of this planning process.

[00:15:05] You're looking anywhere between, it could be eight to 12 months here at Georgia Southern, because we already have a lot of phase one done. I could see us getting done in seven to eight. Uh, so we're gonna be able to do it probably faster, but it's because we've already done a lot of the phase one of the plan already.

[00:15:24] But it's, you know, if the, the worst thing you can do is rush through this process. Mm-hmm. Because then you'll miss the cultural aspect of it, which is the most important as you're trying to advance any initiatives for the institution. 

[00:15:37] Jaime Hunt: So we touched briefly on buy-in a few minutes ago, but I did wanna explore that cuz this is a big project and it can't be just you doing it or just your staff doing this.

[00:15:49] So how do you get the buy-in from across the institution to assist with and take ownership of a plan like this? 

[00:15:57] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Thank you for asking that because I feel that is the [00:16:00] key. Of a successful strategic enrollment planning process. So let me give you an example here at Georgia Southern so that you know, as I think it's easier to talk through life.

[00:16:09] Real examples. So what we're going to do here at the institution. Number one, I am partnering with our provost. So this is not Ally's plan or enrollment's plan. This is our plan, and I'm partnering with the provost, which means faculty and staff are coming together to deliver this plan. Now we're gonna organize ourselves in a three-tier system, most likely.

[00:16:31] So we will have the president and cabinet, then we're gonna have a steering committee, and then we're gonna have working groups. Mm. So when it's all said and done, we'll probably have anywhere between. 60 to 70 people, right? Um, yeah. 60 to 70 people. And just to give our listeners some context, if you're not familiar with Georgia Southern, we serve about 26,000 students.

[00:16:54] We are in southeast Georgia. Um, we employ over [00:17:00] 3000 faculty and staff and have an economic impact of about a billion dollars. So that gives you a sense of the institution. So when we get to this planning process, we're going to have, like I said, 60 or 70 people. Now let's talk about those groups in the steering committee and how those are formed.

[00:17:16] Cause I think that's important. The working groups, what you wanna do is focus on the different areas, right? So you'll have marketing and recruitment. You'll have a research because we're an R two institution, you'll have academic programs and we may split that one into undergraduate and graduate programs dependent.

[00:17:34] Um, then we'll have a finance and financial committee. Uh, or a working group. I don't like calling them committees cuz it's a lot of work that these people are gonna have to do. Mm-hmm. Um, and then we have also a student success group. And what you're looking for, Jamie, is diversity in how you build those working groups.

[00:17:52] You usually want no more than 12 people. Eight to 10 is ideal and you one, number one, faculty participation [00:18:00] across the board on all those working groups. And what you wanna find is affinity. So, for example, for the marketing and recruitment, I may wanna bring in a marketing faculty. So, Right, because they have that knowledge already.

[00:18:11] Mm-hmm. They're doing research in the area For my student, uh, student success. I may bring in a sociology or psychology professor for my finance and financials. I may bring a finance professor, so you can see where I'm trying to align. So they have affinity to this groups and can contribute. Um, then we want staff, right?

[00:18:30] We want to ensure that we're going deep into the organization and horizontally. So this is where you goes. You bust the silos. Right. So what we're trying to do there is ensure that we have diversity. So we want fresh perspectives. Mm-hmm. We want institutional knowledge, we want early adopters, uh, we want influencers, you know, sometimes good or bad.

[00:18:52] Right? You, you want a little bit of both. Right. Carry all of the. People that may be necessarily not with the, the [00:19:00] advancement of the plan, they'll bring those people along because now they're a part of it. So we'll have the working groups. Then each of the working groups, um, leaders then will be a part of the steering committee.

[00:19:13] Okay. So that steering committee usually becomes around 12 because you do wanna add, you know, your chief of diversity, for example. Do you wanna add your ir. Uh, person to that steering committee. Um, do you want to add your, you know, chief business officer to that committee? Um, obviously you'll have the head of enrollment.

[00:19:31] The provost are also part of the steering committee, so some of those may repeat. Uh, so you'll end up with eight to 12, uh, steering committee members. Um, and also remember all of this is supported by it. Ir because this working group, mm-hmm. Are gonna need support from those teams in order to come up, you know, get access to the data, do the market research and all of those pieces.

[00:19:55] And then that steering committee reports up to the president and the cabinet where the final [00:20:00] decisions, the final approvals will be made. 

[00:20:02] Jaime Hunt: So do you outsource any of this? Do you outsource any of the market research or any aspects of the development of the plan? Or is this all fully an in-house solution that you're building?

[00:20:12] Ale Sosa Pieroni: So I've seen it done both ways, Jamie, so I've seen it where the institution will take it on, on their, on their, on themselves, or where you hire a consultant to guide you through the process. My preference is, and to be honest, at Georgia Southern, I know this process. I could do this process, but I'm still choosing to bring in a consultant to guide us.

[00:20:34] Why? Because I need to ensure the neutrality of the process. Um, It's funny cuz Dr. Marrero, our president, was asking me, well, Allie, we hire you, you do it. And I was like, I have a dog in the fight now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then that means I may be biased because I have a dog in the fight. So we need a neutral party to drive us through this and keep us on task along the way.

[00:20:59] So I highly [00:21:00] recommend that you engage with someone, uh, to guide you through this process. 

[00:21:05] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I feel that way about a lot of things, um, in higher ed marketing too. Um, we're using, uh, uh, outside vendor to do market research for us to help us with some of the creative development of what we're trying to do, in part because we're still building out a team.

[00:21:22] Again, I say this every episode, I have vacant positions. Please apply for them. Um, but you know, There's something to be said for that unbiased, outsider look at your institution and when you say you have a dog in the fight, it's like, yes, I, I feel something. But it might not be an outsider perspective.

[00:21:42] That's totally neutral and totally, um, So totally objective, you know, if there's definitely a take that I'm bringing to the table 

[00:21:51] Ale Sosa Pieroni: in this. Absolutely. And I mean, you also ask about market research, but that's something that we also have outsourced. You know, we're working with, um, you know, [00:22:00] r Levi did an academic program, domain analysis for us to understand.

[00:22:04] What are the programs we need to bring about as we seek to modernize our curriculum? Uh, we're doing, you know, a rebranding, so I'm going to use all the market research from the perception, uh, research that Carnegie, for example, is going to be executing for us. All of that is gonna be. Part of that situational analysis, uh, we're doing a student satisfaction inventory that is also outsourced.

[00:22:27] We're not creating that in-house. Um, you know, I also, you know, my team, my marketing team is small. Um, so you also have to think about bandwidth and how fast you can move through the market research, doing an in-house versus having somebody else getting that done for you. 

[00:22:45] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I've been through several rebrandings and there's only been one where I did the market research in-house and it was a heavy lift because everybody has a full-time job already.

[00:22:58] Not everybody has [00:23:00] expertise in market research. That's definitely a discipline that requires a specialized skill in education, and so. And it's also so important that you wanna get it right. And so bringing in outsized resources, that that's what they do it. All they do is market research, whether it's in higher education or beyond.

[00:23:19] But you're getting that deep, deep, deep expertise cuz you're not gonna do market research at your institu institution, you know, maybe every five years or something like that. You're. You're, you don't need to hire a market researcher who sits there for four years and then does it in the fifth year iku ask to 

[00:23:37] Ale Sosa Pieroni: you for taking that in-house.

[00:23:39] I just because of what you said is the expertise and then ensuring the validity of the research that you're doing. Um, but yes, it's, it's just a huge undertaken, um, that if I need resources, believe me, I'm not allocating them there. I'm, I'm gonna probably invest in other things that I need in my marketing team before I.

[00:23:59] Probably [00:24:00] invest money on a market researcher. 

[00:24:02] Jaime Hunt: To have on board. Right? Yeah, absolutely. So as you're going through this process, in these phases, how are you balancing sort of the short-term goals that you still have to enroll the class? You still have to retain students, you still have to engage them, uh, with the long-term vision that you're trying 

[00:24:19] Ale Sosa Pieroni: to build.

[00:24:20] Yes. You know, here at Georgia Southern, what we're going to do, we have retention plans in place. We have recruitment plans in place. So we will continue to execute on those plans as we go through this. Process. I mean, Jamie, we're taking on, on, on quite a bit. I mean, we're gonna be going through the strategic enrollment planning process starting in the fall.

[00:24:38] We're doing the rebranding starting now. We're also redoing our website. Uh, so there's a lot going on. Um, but the goal is, you know, we have, you know, we have e excellent basics here. I mean, we do have our best practices pretty much in place, so we will continue to execute on that. Also, as you think about the plan, you know, when you're creating this plan, you [00:25:00] want.

[00:25:00] A good mix of long term versus short term, right? Like how do I ensure, you know, the first 1, 2, 3 years versus the fifth year, right? So you wanna ensure that as you're prioritizing, you have a good mix of long term versus the short term. The other piece of this is as you go through this planning process, a lot of initiatives are gonna emerge that you're just going to say, this is a no-brainer.

[00:25:24] Little resources will have to be invested in this. And we have the ability to execute now. So we're gonna go ahead and just do that. Um, and this is why the process take nine takes nine months. Nine months, right? Because we're trying to execute on what we need to do to get the class for 24, what we're thinking of 25 and beyond.

[00:25:43] Uh, but it, but it's a matter of making sure that you have, this is why I say don't. Don't go on the same team people that you, that you usually go to for everything, um, because you don't wanna tap out on your resources. So you want a diversified involvement on the plan [00:26:00] and then ensuring that you can still execute on your current strategies.

[00:26:04] Jaime Hunt: So, where does marketing fit into all of this? I know we've talked a little bit about market research, but when you actually have the plan built out, where does marketing play a role in the execution of that plan? 

[00:26:15] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Well, it depends on the initiatives, right? A, as you could imagine, I mean, marketing is the revenue driver.

[00:26:20] For everything we do at the institution, whether it's enrollment, whether it's research funding, whether it's endowment and development. Right. Um, so their role in all of this, other than obviously there is that the initial situational phase, which they play a very big role in, that's market positioning analysis, um, is on executing the strategies.

[00:26:41] So they will be part of the action plans. Um, so they will be part of those committees that get assigned to initiative number one versus initiative number two. So depending on what those strategies are, then I will allocate marketing resources to ensure that if it's a new program, well we have to market that new program, right?

[00:26:59] So when are we [00:27:00] going out to market with the strategy? Because we know that we'll get through the. Process by this year. At what point do we start, uh, marketing that, uh, if it's an enrollment initiative, how are we supporting that enrollment initiative through making sure that it's out there in the market, that our constituents are informed about it, and that we're tracking the, the success of, of the strategy.

[00:27:20] So they'll, they'll play a role basically on, you know, Almost every strategy there is. You know, I'm, I'm getting our marketing team also involved in retention of students, you know? Mm-hmm. We do a lot in higher ed to get the students in and then we forget to keep selling them on what? Yeah. The education is at the institution.

[00:27:39] Um, So, you know, how do we continue to reinforce the value proposition so they know that the decision that they made was the right one. Mm-hmm. Right? What, what are the proof points that we're offering other than them sitting in the classroom that reinforce their decision so that they can continue to go on, right?

[00:27:56] Jaime Hunt: And making them aware of the resources that they have available to [00:28:00] them. Should they hit a. A barrier or an obstacle that prevents them from moving forward with their education? I think it's really interesting. Um, for me, I see the role of marketing as supporting recruitment, retention, reputation, and revenue generation and retention often gets left behind when you look at marketing strategies.

[00:28:22] But at the end of the day, um, in business, we know that it is more expensive to. Recruit a new customer Yes. Than it's to retain an existing customer. Absolutely. But it's almost like we don't think about that. Um, when once we get in higher ed, it's like, oh, we can't call students, customers, and whatever.

[00:28:40] We'll go back and forth on whether that's appropriate or not. Yeah. Um, but at the end of the day, it's the same thing. Holds true. Retaining a student is a. Obviously much less expensive than recruiting a new student. But B, it's the moral and ethical thing to do. We don't want students coming in [00:29:00] leaving with debt and having no credential.

[00:29:02] Absolutely. 

[00:29:03] Ale Sosa Pieroni: I mean, and if you think about it, Jamie, I mean, where is the majority of the students, right? Like you're at Georgia Southern, we have 25,000 students, and every year we bring around, you know, 60, you know, 6,000 or so new ones. If I wanna make an impact, you know, percentage points wise, I can make a larger impact on the retention side of the house that I can, on the incoming side of the house, and especially with the demographic cliff coming and all of that, right?

[00:29:29] We wanna make sure that we keep on the students that we already have in the pipeline. We wanna make sure that we're serving those students into your point, it's an ethical responsibility. Mm-hmm. We accepted them into the institution. We have responsibility to graduate them. From the institution, but you're right.

[00:29:45] I mean, it's a lot. And the data will tell you it costs a lot more to recruit a new student than it takes to just retain them at the institution. 

[00:29:52] Jaime Hunt: So, Yeah. And when their retention also impacts the graduation rate, which impacts the reputation [00:30:00] of the institution. And then, I mean, we could have a whole conversation about rankings, which I hate, but graduation rate is an important piece of those rankings.

[00:30:08] It is. And honestly, if I were a parent looking at a school and seeing, you know, a substandard. Graduation rate, I would start asking some questions about whether my child is gonna be supported to make their way through their college education and finish. 

[00:30:24] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Oh, absolutely. I mean, when we talk about sort of the crisis that we're going on in higher education with students not seeing the value of what they're getting, It's because, you know, in many ways we're failing to show them that value, and we need to do a better job of that, right?

[00:30:40] We know the value of higher education, but we are in many ways letting the media control that narrative instead of higher education professionals owning that narrative, uh, and doing it across the entire student's life cycle, not just when they come in in the door. 

[00:30:55] Jaime Hunt: Well, and even beyond, you know, the student life cycle, you were talking about [00:31:00] alumni, but there are opportunities to re-engage alumni in advanced degrees or certificate programs or engage them so that they're thinking about your institution for their child.

[00:31:12] Absolutely. Providing friendships. Yeah. 

[00:31:16] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Yeah. Your alums are your brand, right? Yes. You know, we have an incredible following here at Georgia Southern with our alums, and they come back to the games and, you know, it's, that, is that brand that, that keeps on bringing them back, is the feeling that it evokes is, is their time here and what they remember and how associated they are with the mission of the institution?

[00:31:37] Yeah. 

[00:31:37] Jaime Hunt: It's, they're the outcome, right? They're the, they're the product Yes. For, for lack of a, you know, better term for them, but they're, they're really what makes up what would drive someone to come to an institution. It's the faculty that provide the education. It's the staff that provide the support and services that the student needs.

[00:31:58] And then it's ultimately, it's. The [00:32:00] alumni graduating and showing what you can do with a degree. They're the proof point. What you do, they're the 

[00:32:05] Ale Sosa Pieroni: proof concept. Exactly. They're what proves that we are. Good at doing this right. And look at the impact that they're having in the world. Uh, you know, we just came off commencements and, and, and that is my favorite part of the year, right.

[00:32:18] Being able to, you know, sit on that stage and, and, and watch the students walk by. And I couldn't help by. Think of my team in the many ways that all of them had touched that journey along the way and seeing their families and their faces, especially when you see first generation students walking across that stage.

[00:32:37] That's why we do what we do. Right? 

[00:32:40] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. Absolutely. And for me it's like that when the pomp and circumstance starts to play, it's like I'm just a mess. I know my eyes get all teary and I'm like, this is, it's the culmination of so much work for so many people to get to that moment. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:32:57] Ale Sosa Pieroni: I love it.

[00:32:58] It's, it's the best feeling that [00:33:00] we could have in higher, you know, we have five commencement ceremonies and I think I, I fell emotional, all five of them. You know, it didn't work down by the time we got the fifth and it, that same feeling was still there. It's just seeing their faces. We're, 

[00:33:13] Jaime Hunt: we're at similar size institutions.

[00:33:15] We have about 24,000 students here, and we actually did one undergraduate ceremony where, Every name was called and that was intense. I've never 

[00:33:27] Ale Sosa Pieroni: been in there. Need to, we're take this conversation offline cause um, we have been thinking about how to go down from five, uh, and still have that experience of the students feeling that.

[00:33:42] You know, their name got called and Yeah. You know, they're walking across the stage. There's something about it, right? 

[00:33:49] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. I, our, I think our trick was hiring professional name readers because they, every name took three seconds, right? So you can get everybody through [00:34:00] really quickly. Wow. You can't have somebody who's maybe like taking 10 seconds to do a name or even six seconds to do a name.

[00:34:07] It just was too long. Right. Um, so it was. It was a very well orchestrated event. We, we seated 2000 people in 14 minutes. It was Wow. That is unreal. Yeah, we, we do 

[00:34:20] Ale Sosa Pieroni: have the professional, you know, the name readers and that really helps. Now, did you have students walk across the stage? 

[00:34:25] Jaime Hunt: Every single one. Wow.

[00:34:27] That is every single one. It was amazing. It was the first time we tried it and it was just amazing. But we're super digressing. I know from the conversation. Um, but so when you think about your strategic enrollment plan, how do you measure if it's working? I mean, is it something that you're going back to periodically to seeing if, if the bids that you made or the plays that you made worked, or you're talking about this as a long-term plan, how do you evaluate it?

[00:34:56] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Absolutely Jamie, I mean that, that does not get measured. Does not matter. [00:35:00] Right? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there it's, it's, it gets done in two phases. So if you look at phase one, when I talked about establishing key performance indicators, you wanna establish an infrastructure that supports that. So at Georgia Southern, for example, we already have the infrastructure.

[00:35:16] We have our KPIs, we have our dashboards that everyone can have access to, so we're able to follow that. Progress. Uh, we also have 90 day action plans, uh, that we follow. So every 90 days, what are the goals for the next 90 days? And then we measure, okay, did we accomplish everything on the 90 days? Um, but ideally what you want to do is once you finalize that plan, you get to that eight month, nine month.

[00:35:40] Do you want to transition from what I call the strategic enrollment planning process into a strategic enrollment management? So that steering committee may get some new members, some members may come off, but they become your set council. And so that same council, their responsibility is to hold the [00:36:00] action plan, uh, leaders accountable for the strategies moving forward.

[00:36:05] So every initiative will have a timeline and there will be different milestones within that. Right? And you can do it in 90 day segments or what have you, depending on the, the. The length of the strategy. So you are constantly assessing where are they? What are we seeing? You know, some strategies. You know, they're making the case where one fails, and that's why measurements is important.

[00:36:29] You don't wanna get to the end after you invested all the resources to realize that, right? Mm-hmm. You wanna realize that at the beginning and see, well, this is not going in the direction that we thought it would go. And so they this, that, that council is responsible for holding those leaders accountable and then they report up to the president and the cabinet on what's being done.

[00:36:50] They're also respond, uh, responsible for updating the situational. Analysis, uh, for the institution. So they get to sunset strategies when [00:37:00] they're done, and we have fulfilled those. They bring the campus, the campus community together to bring forth more initiatives. They vet those and then upgrade the plan.

[00:37:09] So that's how you get this to be a continuous process, right? It's always ongoing. You want to make sure that you're refreshing this every single year. Um, you know, anytime I go to a campus and when I ask for their plan, they're reaching out for the. For the bookshelf and then they're checking the dust off.

[00:37:25] That's a problem, right? Uh, it shouldn't put on a shelf at all. It should be a live document that is constantly worked on as an institution and, and that SEP council will be responsible for that. But you do need to assign that. So there's people that are accountable for that work. 

[00:37:41] Jaime Hunt: So when, when you interact with other offices and departments through all of this, are there changes to people's position descriptions that are being written to support this across the institution?

[00:37:53] Or is this, you know, something where you're kind of. Relying on the kindness of your colleagues to support you, or how, how do you [00:38:00] get that sort of everybody feeling like they're part of it? Because I think we've all had the experience of, this is a great initiative, but these folks over here just wanna do the job that they've always been doing and leave me out of it.

[00:38:12] So how do you, how do you manage that? 

[00:38:14] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Absolutely. Um, listen, right now I'm on this socialization phase. Uh, I'm gonna be honest, I am selling this plan to everybody in the community, right? Like this morning I spent time with our career in professional services. I'll be spending time with our faculty. I've spoken to the faculty senate.

[00:38:31] Uh, we're gonna have a lot more conversations. So really this is about, you know, at the end of the day, no matter what department you're a part of, the common goal is what? Let's get that student across this stage. Mm-hmm. And so what you will find is that, you know, people are passionate about that. You know, we're all in higher ed because of that.

[00:38:52] Mm-hmm. And people want to be a part of the solution. Uh, you know, I think that some of the planning process that don't [00:39:00] work is when you have the top-down mentality and you have leadership deciding exactly what we're going to do. The approach that we're about to undertake here through the strategic enrollment planning process is bottom up, and I think that when you can get people's voices as part of that process, then is their plan.

[00:39:18] Right. It, it's not just Yep. The leadership made up. It's not your plan. Yeah. And I have to follow. It's their plan. It's our plan. You know, and it's interesting, when I, when I first came to the institution and people are asking me about my vision, I was like, it's not about my vision. It's about the vision that we will create together.

[00:39:35] Yeah. Uh, because it has to be ours. It can be any one's person's vision. Yeah. And, and so I think, you know, that process of getting that buy-in is the process of socializing this and taking the time to meet with department chairs and faculty members and staff members and different services. And me talking to the rest of my cabinet and getting them on board and getting them excited about [00:40:00] this process.

[00:40:01] But that's an important piece so that when the process starts, People are willing to be committed and leaders are more willing to say, okay, you're going to serve on this committee, on this working group. Let me alleviate your load so that you can be a productive member of that working group. Um, yeah, and that is an ask that I'll be making as I go through the summer, right?

[00:40:21] As much as they can. If there's any flexibility that it can give to those participating so that we can really move along this process and, and everyone can be productive. 

[00:40:31] Jaime Hunt: How do you resource things while you're doing this and you maybe haven't yet put together a proposal for the kinds of resources that you're going to need?

[00:40:41] How do you resource the building of the plan to begin with? 

[00:40:45] Ale Sosa Pieroni: So I resource, uh, here in particular, you know, we we're looking at creating budgets for the next year. So, you know, I was, I'm very lucky that our, you know, university president is really committed to this initiative. Um, so it was [00:41:00] a combination of the CBO working with our provosts, working with our president to find dollars from here and there to just go ahead and get the plan started.

[00:41:07] So it was reallocation of the resources that already existed. So, you know, there's, for example, we were looking through our technology. We streamlined some of that and where we had duplication of. Of technologies on campus, for example, we are going to, you know, get rid of the duplicate and use those dollars to invest in this process.

[00:41:27] Um, you know, as I have vacant positions, Jamie, you know, we're really evaluating do we need that position? Is this something that could be an automated process so that we can take those dollars and then have funding for the initiatives that will come out of the plan. So I think now more than ever, we need to really.

[00:41:46] Be intentional about where we're putting our resources. Um, you know, here at Georgia Southern, we are going to get a budget cut next year because our enrollment was down last year. And so that means I, I don't get the [00:42:00] same level of funding that I was getting from the state. That means that I'm gonna have to come up with.

[00:42:05] You know, all these thousands and thousands of dollars that I won't have in my budget next year. So we're really trying to see how are we leveraging technology to help us with processes so that our, that our staff can cover other areas of the institution, right? I can cover our more productive, this is why I told you at the very beginning, if you have a leadership that is not committed to the resource allocation, then don't even start.

[00:42:31] Right. I, you know, I was working with, yeah, the campus in Florida, and I remember when I first sat down with them, they were telling me how they wanted a strategic enrollment planning process. And the first thing I asked was, okay, what is the funding that you have to go through this process? And have you all discussed how, you know, what is the likelihood of reallocating current resources to fund all the initiatives?

[00:42:53] Well, we have no dollars. And I said, well, you better not waste your time, right, because you're just gonna [00:43:00] be wasting people's time and there's nothing more frustrating than utilizing people's resources, their time, their commitment, and then you're not funding any of the initiatives that come through the process.

[00:43:09] Now, that ended in a really good story. We ended up going to campus and we ended up talking about the process and what he would do for the university. Lo and behold, they're going through that process now and, and they're doing, they're doing a great job going through the process, and there have been resources allocated along the way.

[00:43:25] Jaime Hunt: I mean, ultimately a strategic enrollment plan is a revenue generation plan because you're talking about recruitment, retention, revenue streams, all of that. 

[00:43:34] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's investing money in what you need to get the revenue you need to sustain the university. Right? Yeah. What it, what it gives you, Jamie, is, like I said, that North.

[00:43:43] It's, it's being focused because sometimes we take on 40 things. We take on 20 things, and it's just too much. So what we end up doing is that we spread our, we spread ourselves very thin. If you're taking, you know, a million dollars and you're spreading out over, you know, [00:44:00] 50 programs, you're gonna do nothing with that.

[00:44:02] You're better off saying, what are the five programs I wanna focus on? Because I only have a million dollars, so I gotta focus on. Where can I have growth? Right, right. And invest in those. So that's what it does. It really enables you to focus and then, you know, align resources and make decisions strategically as you move forward because you know where you're trying to go and you know what you need to execute on.

[00:44:28] So, 

[00:44:29] Jaime Hunt: I would say I am absolutely stunned by the number of times I talk to people that are working on, uh, marketing a new program, or they have a new program at their institution, but they have not allocated any budget to market that program. So it's like magically will, students will enroll. That's just the magic.

[00:44:49] It's 

[00:44:50] Ale Sosa Pieroni: the biggest pitfall and you would be surprised how often it happens. What is the point of creating a program if you cannot market it? And then, you know, when they have [00:45:00] five students that enroll, they're asking themselves, maybe this is not viable. Well, right. 

 

[00:45:06] Jaime Hunt: It's, it's absolutely stunning and I honestly would be 0% surprised at anybody saying that they're in the same boat.

[00:45:13] Because I've faced this at multiple institutions and I think that, you know where I'm at now, I might be the first time that I've been at an institution that like. Gets that it take, you have to spend money to make money. Like it's, it's not just ma, if you build it, they will come. 

[00:45:30] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Exactly. Well, sometimes, you know, marketing doesn't even get the heads up until the program has been approved and all this, so we were never even involved in, into the research that went into creating that program.

[00:45:41] Right. Yes. You know, it's so important that we have our marketing teams sitting at the tables as we're developing this. Yes. Um, because then we know to align resources to ensure the success of the program. But when you bring us in at the very end and the budget is gone, not much that we can do. Plus you need time in the [00:46:00] market to be able to, you know, create 

[00:46:02] Jaime Hunt: demand.

[00:46:03] Yes, you have, like in April somebody will come to you and say, for the fall, we have a new master's degree and we need students for fall. And you're like, 

[00:46:11] Ale Sosa Pieroni: what? Good luck. I don't luck. Yeah, 

[00:46:13] Jaime Hunt: right. I, I will say, um, Miami about, uh, half a year into my being there, they created a, um, Miami academic program incubator that had.

[00:46:26] Um, a place where faculty were supposed to go with their, their proposals to a group that included marketing, included enrollment management. And we actually were able to say, okay, well we're gonna run an analysis. Is there a market for this program? Right? What other schools have this program? What kind of investment is it gonna take?

[00:46:45] Cuz marketing and MBA is incredibly expensive. Um, is there, you know, is this program competing in a. Space that's gonna be really, really, really expensive. And I think that that was really smart. And I think that was in reaction to, originally [00:47:00] they just said, we have all these new programs, why aren't there any students enrolled in them?

[00:47:04] I mean, and you 

[00:47:05] Ale Sosa Pieroni: know, and you have to differentiate yourself, right? At the end of the day, yes. Looking for differentiation. We're looking for relevance, and we're looking for authenticity. So bringing up an mba, tell me how ours is different. Because the competition for MBAs is ridiculous, right? Yes. So unless we're gonna bring in something that is unique in some way to our competitors, we'll, we're just spinning our wheels.

[00:47:26] Uh Yep. Right? Just to be in a market that we're never gonna be successful at. 

[00:47:31] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. I would say to anybody considering launching an mba don't, like the market is so saturated and you're gonna have to spend like the, the cost per clip for the 

[00:47:45] Ale Sosa Pieroni: going be. Of, of the roof. I mean, you gotta have something so unique that Yes, can really create differentiation in the market, which we know that in higher ed we're not great about differentiation, right?

[00:47:59] No. [00:48:00] 

[00:48:00] Jaime Hunt: We have a bunch of pictures of students with backpacks under trees and, and I re at so many times, I. I meet with people and I ask them, what do you think differentiates us? And they list a thing that every single student has. Like, well, we have excellent faculty. Like, oh wow, no other school has excellent faculty.

[00:48:19] Or, you know, we provide hands-on experience. I've never heard that before. 

[00:48:24] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Else really care about our students. Yes, yes, yes. I think every other campus has too. 

[00:48:31] Jaime Hunt: Right? And it's, it is really hard to differentiate yourself. When there's 4,000 places and we all have, um, the accreditation standards. So there is a certain sort of homogeny to what we provide because of that.

[00:48:47] Exactly. 

[00:48:48] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Um, but that's marketing. You know, the role of marketing is, is tough. Right? We're in a defining market now, I would say you can see that as a challenge or as an opportunity because we do have the nontraditional [00:49:00] market, which is. Huge, and we need to be more adaptive to that market and create programs that are flexible and, and attend to their needs.

[00:49:08] But the, the role of marketing nowadays is, is tough. I mean, thinking about creating differentiation, thinking about always making sure that you're relevant and, and then all while keeping that authenticity right, that is uniquely used. So, you know, it's, it's not easy being a marketer in, in, in higher location today.

[00:49:27] Jaime Hunt: No, it definitely is it, it's definitely changed This fall I'll be starting my 20th year in higher education. Wow. And it's like the amount, it has changed since I started in the field. And I know there's people listening who've probably been in the field even longer than I have. But you know, the amount that it has changed and the challenges that we have are just so, um, Different than what they were 20 years ago, and I don't know.

[00:49:54] I feel like now having some outside perspectives in our [00:50:00] process is just even more important. Which kind of brings me to what my last question is, and that is how do you stay on top of all of the trends? Because you're over three really big areas, marketing, enrollment, management, and student success. How do you stay on top of what's going on in all three spaces?

[00:50:17] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Well, I'll be honest. You know, I, I do rely, I have an excellent team. Y you know, I have great leadership within those teams and they're very well informed in their different areas. Um, so, you know, I really see my role as supporting and serving that team, empowering them, and providing the resources, uh, for them to, to execute on, on the strategies that we put forth.

[00:50:38] But personally, you know, the. Chronicle inside Higher ed, your podcast as well as many others. I also like looking outside of higher ed, things like Fast Company, um, just looking for innovative approaches. I mean, looking at Disney, looking at, you know, how do we go about creating experiences, right? It's, we just created a new position with this [00:51:00] assistant vice president of his student experience, uh, and really looking at.

[00:51:03] How the, the corporate side has done that because they do a really great job with customer experiences. Yeah. Um, and we know that we are in the experience economy, so. Now. So, you know, I follow also a lot of people like Jeff Kalay and Steve McClure and yourself and you know, um, Theresa Flannery and Jenny Pay.

[00:51:22] I mean, all of those in the industry that I am so thankful for because they're willing to take their time to bring resources to the rest of us. So I have huge debt to all of those. Because it really helps us advance our cause. But it's a lot, it's a lot of reading, it's a lot of podcasts. It's, it's a lot of, you know, multitasking while I'm in the gym and ensuring that I got the podcast on.

[00:51:45] Right. Uh, 

[00:51:47] Jaime Hunt: I'm impressed you find time for the gym with the, the gigantic job that you have. I, I, this isn't my confession for this episode, but maybe it should have been my confession is that, I like to bring [00:52:00] people on the podcast that I can learn from so that I can, you know, take those ideas and get them, you know, four weeks before I share them with the good strategy.

[00:52:10] Right, right. It's my evil plan. Trick you into giving me your wisdom while I interview you. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. If people are interested in connecting with you, where can they find you? 

[00:52:22] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Well, I'm certainly very active on LinkedIn. Haven't been as active in the last two months since I took this job, but you can always find me on there.

[00:52:29] We can always connect on there. Uh, you can also reach me on my Georgia Southern email is a, so Georgia southern.edu. And Jamie, thank you so much once again for the opportunity. It's been an absolute pleasure. Um, it was one of those things that when I start listening to your podcast, I wonder if I'll ever make it to one of those.

[00:52:47] And, and here we're chatting with each other, so thank you. 

[00:52:51] Jaime Hunt: Thank you so much for coming on. It has been such a pleasure. When we talked a couple of months ago, I knew I wanted to have you come on and talk about this. Um, I just think that the role that you've [00:53:00] taken on is such an interesting one, and I think this.

[00:53:02] Conversation will be really helpful to listeners. So listeners, as always, you can find me on Twitter at Jamie Hunt imc, J A I M E H U N T, imc, or you can find me on LinkedIn where I'm spending a lot more time lately. And as always, you know how we're gonna end this podcast. Let's go bust some silos.

[00:53:27] Ale Sosa Pieroni: Hey y'all. Zach here from Enroll five. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO with Jamie Hunt. If you like this episode, do us a huge favor and hit that follow and subscribe button below. Furthermore, if you've got just two minutes to spare, we would greatly appreciate you leading a rating and a review of this show on Apple Podcasts.

[00:53:46] Our podcast network is growing by the month, and we've got a plethora of marketing admissions and higher ed technology shows that are jam-packed with stories, ideas, and frameworks that are all designed to empower you to become a better higher ed professional. [00:54:00] But Enroll Fify is far more than just the podcast network.

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