Here’s How to Reach Us on Social Media — Candid Advice from Gen Z for Higher Ed Marketers

Full Transcript

Zach Busekrus (00:00:01):

Hey, everybody, Zach here. People often ask me where I go to learn about what's new and next in enrollment marketing. And I tell them that most of my learning actually comes from following thought leaders on social media and then trying to convince them to come on a podcast and share their insights with me. And that's actually exactly how I met my now friend, Matt Diteljan, who is the co-founder and CEO of Glacier.

Zach Busekrus (00:00:24):

Glacier is the leader in high school advertising for higher education. Matt has been on the podcast a few times now. Some of you have probably listened to one or more of his episodes. And every time I interview him, I'm just amazed by what he and his team are up to. So I finally convinced Matt to become an official Enrollify partner, which means I get to tell you all about why I love Glacier.

Zach Busekrus (00:00:45):

Glacier offers the largest high school advertising network in North America. This unique platform allows higher education marketers the opportunity to place massive billboard-style ads directly inside theater high schools, leverage influential students as brand ambassadors and layer in a robust digital advertising component. They are actively writing the book on how to use micro influencers in enrollment marketing, and how to generate ROI from social networks like Snapchat and TikTok.

Zach Busekrus (00:01:14):

Anytime I want to know what works and what doesn't when it comes to digital advertising to high school students, I call the Glacier team. If you are ready to take your high school recruitment to the next level, or want to learn more about how Glacier can help you, you can visit their website at weareGlacier.org/enrollify. To check out their free resources or to schedule a chat with one of their team members. Again, that's weareGlacier.org/enrollify. And be sure to tell them that Zach from Enrollify sent you. All right, guys, thank you, and enjoy this week's episode. Gen Z culture moves incredibly fast and it's only increasing in the rate of its acceleration.

Matt Diteljan (00:01:57):

Higher education moves comparably slow, and therefore there's often a disconnect between higher ed and prospective students.

Zach Busekrus (00:02:04):

Everyone in higher ed wants to know what strategies and tactics work best to recruit this next generation of students. And just when folks think they've got it, preferences seem to change.

Matt Diteljan (00:02:14):

Welcome to Signals, a special series on the trends, indicators and Gen Z behaviors shaping the future of higher ed digital advertising. Brought to you by Glacier and Enrollify.

Zach Busekrus (00:02:26):

I'm Zach, founder of Enrollify.

Matt Diteljan (00:02:28):

And I'm Matt Diteljan, co-founder and CEO of Glacier, a digital advertising agency specializing in youth marketing and higher education.

Zach Busekrus (00:02:36):

You can subscribe to this series and access other podcasts, eCourses, videos and more at enrollify.org. And if you want to learn a little bit more about Glacier, head on over to weareglacier.org/enrollify, and download one of their epic white papers. All right, without further ado, welcome to the show.

Zach Busekrus (00:03:06):

All right, so Hannah and Kemal, if I were lucky enough to be invited over to your respective family's homes for a dinner, and if I were to ask your parents or siblings, or just other close family friends to describe you, what do you think that they'd say? And Hannah, we'll start with you and then we'll go over to you, Kemal.

Hannah Donahue (00:03:30):

Yeah, I think they definitely say I'm driven, but also super stubborn in the best way possible. I think that a little bit of that comes from just I really want to accomplish things, I really want to be super successful. So if it's something that I have to be super stubborn about to get there, I will, but when you put your mind to something, you really want to achieve it. So stubbornness is definitely one of my bigger qualities, but again, in the best way possible.

Zach Busekrus (00:04:00):

The best kind of stubborn person that there is. Yeah. Hey, stubborn and driven, they don't always go hand in hand. So when they do, it's good, it's good. Better than them not going hand in hand. What about you, Kemal?

Kemal Warouw (00:04:12):

Yeah. Well, to me, my mom, she kind of loves to brag sometimes, but she would describe me as someone who's creative, who loves to learn, think outside of the box, but my siblings, they're six and eight, they would say that I'm annoying. I like to pick on them sometimes and that I like to play, but it is also an amazing ways to play with them. And of course just me being a good brother, but you know how siblings are. Mom just being mom. So if you come over, we will cook you some dinner...you can get to try some Indonesian food.

Zach Busekrus (00:04:46):

I love it. I love it. Well, Hey, I'm a big foodie, so we'll have to find a day and a time that works. And I'm going to take you up on that.

Kemal Warouw (00:04:56):

Absolutely.

Zach Busekrus (00:04:57):

Well to give you guys a little bit of context, our listeners to understand this, but I've been privileged to talk to you, not quite 200, but well over 100 marketing and emissions professionals in higher ed or folks that serve higher ed. So folks that might be working at a marketing agency or a software company, where higher education is their core target market.

Zach Busekrus (00:05:22):

And I get to talk with these people all the time and everyone's talking about Gen Z and talking to me about what they think works and doesn't work when it comes to recruiting Gen Z or communicating with Gen Z. But believe it or not, this is the first podcast that we've had on this show or any of Enrollify podcasts where we've actually talked to two folks that are from Generation Z.

Zach Busekrus (00:05:45):

And so I'm really, really, really excited for today's conversation because this is, putting the student voice in particular in this show has been important to me for a while. And it's just for so many reasons something that we haven't been able to do until right now. So I'm super eager to dive in. I have so many questions for you.

Zach Busekrus (00:06:01):

As I just mentioned before we hopped on here, I tweeted and posted some stuff on LinkedIn last night asking folks to ping me with questions that they have for you. And I have several additional questions that folks have asked beyond the few that I shot over to you to prepare for. So it's going to be a jam packed conversation. But to kick us off, I just want to start by getting a sense for what your respective morning routines look like. So your alarm goes off, you grab your phone and then what happens next? And this time we'll start with you, Kemal.

Kemal Warouw (00:06:35):

Well, to me, I will personally check all the messaging apps first to see what my friends are keeping updated in the morning or any text that I missed late at night. And then I would go to Instagram just to keep up with the feed really quick for a minute or so. And then this is the worst part here, I go to YouTube and then I would watch the feed.

Kemal Warouw (00:06:54):

And then next thing you know, 10 minutes, 20 minutes later, I'm stuck watching videos. And then next thing I know, I need to get ready. So that's kind of my morning routine. I don't really check social media that much, but I'll make sure I check Instagram and YouTube and Twitter and messaging apps, just to keep updated throughout the day, in the morning as well. So, yeah.

Zach Busekrus (00:07:12):

For messaging apps, so obviously, iMessage, do you have an iPhone? I should have asked.

Kemal Warouw (00:07:18):

Yeah. I have an iPhone.

Zach Busekrus (00:07:19):

Okay. So iMessage, right. And then what other messaging apps, if any, would you check before making your way over to Instagram?

Kemal Warouw (00:07:26):

So I would check definitely GroupMe. That's where my school keep updating on stuff. So like if there's an event coming up, I would check that. Also Microsoft Teams as well, and for fun chats, so Line for my friends from Indonesia, we like to chat with each other in that platform, but also Messenger. So just to keep connected with friends, but yeah.

Zach Busekrus (00:07:50):

Love it. Love it. And just to-

Kemal Warouw (00:07:52):

[inaudible 00:07:52] from them.

Zach Busekrus (00:07:53):

Yeah, just to clarify to you, so I noticed that you said Instagram and then you make your way over to YouTube and you sometimes get caught watching YouTube for more than a handful of minutes. And then you said messenger, but do you have a actual Facebook account or do you ever go on Facebook for social browsing purposes? Or are you pretty much only using Facebook for their Messenger app?

Kemal Warouw (00:08:17):

I just use Facebook for their messenger app. Honestly, I don't really use Facebook that much, mainly because a lot of the older people use Facebook.

Zach Busekrus (00:08:29):

The older people.

Kemal Warouw (00:08:30):

Next thing I know, it's my status, my mom, aunt would reply and then next thing you know, the grandma would like my post and then, "Oh, Kemal. I miss you. It's been a long time." And we would have a conversation in the chat. And then next thing you know, the feed stack up and yeah, I mean, it's fun. But of course, a lot of the older generation being on the platform kind of makes me scared to share stuff and be myself. So, yeah. But it's fun. Facebook is still great to keep stuff updated.

Zach Busekrus (00:09:01):

I love it. Thank you for that context. All right, Hannah, you're up. What does your morning routine look like? Your alarm goes off and then what happens?

Hannah Donahue (00:09:09):

Yeah, I was actually saying to Kemal before you jumped on, I'm ashamed to say it, but I am addicted to my phone. I am always on my phone. So when I wake up, I usually start my day around like 7:30, 6:30, really depends on how tired I am. And it might sound a little weird, but the first thing I do is try to figure out which notifications need to be cleared out.

Hannah Donahue (00:09:31):

So a lot of the times, I'll usually start with Instagram and Twitter. I'll see if there's any Instagram messages I've gotten or anything like that. Twitter I'll usually check and see what's trending. I'll see if I had gotten any funny tweets sent to me during the night when I was asleep. And then Snapchat, I'll go on and I'll see the stories, but I won't actually open any of my Snapchats that I've gotten. And then usually the last thing that I check is Facebook, because it's usually just Facebook letting me know that it's somebody's birthday today. And I'm like, "Oh, just got to clear out that notification."

Hannah Donahue (00:10:06):

Maybe I'll say happy birthday to them, but they're probably a really distant person. But yeah, I'll do a super quick scroll through everything just to kind of get a summary for what's going on and what's happening in the world before I start my day. And then I'll just get up and start getting ready. I usually stray away from TikTok in the morning because that is a hole that I will absolutely fall into. And before I know it, I'll be ready for class. So I try to stick to just clearing out my notifications and then I'll just check it throughout the day.

Zach Busekrus (00:10:36):

And quick clarifying question here, so you mentioned when you log onto Snapchat, you might watch some stories, but you don't actually open any of the snaps that have been sent to you. Why is that?

Hannah Donahue (00:10:47):

It's usually just because I just woke up and I don't want people to see me right when I wake up. And I'm not in the mood to have any kind of conversation yet. I'm like, "I'll get there. I just woke up. Let me have my coffee first and then we can talk." But I'll check stories because obviously we're college students, so some people that we go to school with, they're up all night. And that's one thing, and I'll just do a super quick tap through, get it out of the way, get any notifications gone. And then I'll just be like, "Okay, clean slate. I can start my day."

Zach Busekrus (00:11:21):

Wonderful. Okay. That's super, super helpful context. All right. So you're out of bed. You guys have gotten ready for the day. You hit up your first class or you start working on a project that you might be working on, whatever it is, what happens next? How, I guess, often do you spend time, Hannah, you said you're addicted to your phone, but how often are you spending time on social media throughout the day? And what are the platforms that you tend to spend the most time on? And what do you think it is about those platforms that suck up so much of your time and compel you to keep watching?

Hannah Donahue (00:12:02):

I checked my screen time last night on my phone and I was kind of appalled. But during the day it'll usually be quick between classes. We have 10 minutes in classes if they're back-to-back. And so I'll just send a few Snapchats, again, check Twitter quickly, see what's trending. I'm big into knowing what's going on in the world, just kind of throughout the day. But as for the apps that I spent the most time on, I learned last night that I spend five hours a day on TikTok.

Zach Busekrus (00:12:35):

Five hours a day.

Hannah Donahue (00:12:37):

Which is absolutely crazy to me because if you asked me before I checked that, I would've never thought that. I would've been like, "Oh yeah, I watch a few 30 second videos every now and then throughout the day." But it's what happens at the end of the day. I come home from classes and work. I'm exhausted and I just want to do some minor scrolling.

Hannah Donahue (00:12:54):

And before I know it, several hours have passed and I'm like, "Oh my God, I have homework to do." What am I doing right now? And I have to kind of snap myself out of it because, again, it's one of those very mindless things where I'm absorbing content and I don't even realize it. And before I know it, it's been a few hours. So it's probably three hours at night and then a few hours spread out across most of the day.

Zach Busekrus (00:13:20):

What about you, Kemal?

Kemal Warouw (00:13:21):

Content? Content is king. So I'm an official person type of guy. So between classes, I like to go to Instagram, scroll through, check my feed and if there's a video I would stay and watch on it. But if I were getting home, I would check YouTube and I would stuck on it for hours again. YouTube Shorts, they're very addicting, especially stuff that is trending or the topic that you are very interested in.

Kemal Warouw (00:13:50):

And so between times, I like to make sure that I go on social media and I check stuff in a platform that has a visual content. So instead of Twitter, text-based, I just make sure, go scroll Instagram and watch YouTube or see pictures and see what's happening around the world.

Hannah Donahue (00:14:14):

Very visual.

Zach Busekrus (00:14:17):

And I'm curious, do you find that your friends pretty much consume content in a similar fashion? When you talk to your friends about the platforms that they spend time on, is it mostly TikTok, YouTube, Instagram? Are there other platforms that folks spend more time on? Or I guess, how do you think that your friends spend their time online?

Kemal Warouw (00:14:42):

Yeah. So to me, based on my experiences, for people like my friend group, we just send each other memes or some funny stuff going on. It's mostly videos related or pictures. There's barely texts, right? So we, as a Gen Z, myself, we love pictures and videos and it's what attract us, our attention, even though sometimes people say like, "We have a short attention time."

Hannah Donahue (00:15:07):

I mean, we do.

Kemal Warouw (00:15:07):

But, yeah. That's how social media kind of evolved nowadays. It's the videos where it's more short form [inaudible 00:15:17]. We grab onto it. We love it. So every day I would get videos sent to me, quick videos and it's very entertaining, but based on my experience, text is very [inaudible 00:15:29] shared.

Hannah Donahue (00:15:32):

I mean, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we literally grew up on social media. I think I got my first Instagram at 11 years old. Super early on.

Kemal Warouw (00:15:42):

Oh my goodness.

Hannah Donahue (00:15:42):

Yeah. Meanwhile, I didn't get a Facebook until I was 16 or 17, which is, I feel super backwards. But no, and a lot of our friends are the same way. I know that for me, I think I probably spend a little too much time on TikTok compared to what my friends do. I think a lot of them are Instagram, Twitter, and then Snapchat for communication.

Hannah Donahue (00:16:05):

But yeah, a lot of the times, one of my friends will again send me a funny tweet or a funny Instagram post during the day, and that is what will trigger me to go through and start scrolling through. So it's kind of, to put it into a perspective, think about LinkedIn InMail, if I were to get like an InMail message or something, or just any kind of message at all, I'm going to get distracted. I'm going to start scrolling through the social media platform again. And it's an endless cycle. Yeah.

Kemal Warouw (00:16:36):

It is. You get sucked into it.

Zach Busekrus (00:16:36):

I'm curious, just because you brought this up, Hannah, too, this distinction. So one of the things that we talk to folks about on this show a lot is this idea of the difference between platforms that folks use primarily for communication versus platforms folks use primarily for content consumption. And I guess a big question mark for folks have been, where does Gen Z spend their communication time?

Zach Busekrus (00:17:02):

Is it mostly happening through iMessage? I've heard folks talk a bit about how their actual primary method for communicating with their friends is through Snapchat. So you briefly talked on that, but when you guys are communicating with your friends, are you using different platforms to have dialogue than you are to just kind of mindlessly entertain yourself? And if so, what are those platforms that you communicate through? And which ones are the ones that you primarily go to for entertainment purposes?

Hannah Donahue (00:17:36):

So Snapchat, definitely for entertainment purposes. I usually use iMessage for any kind of actual conversation I'm having with people. But if it's going to be just some mindless Snapchat back and forth, "Oh, here's a look into my day at what I'm doing," and we don't have to say anything. You can just see what I'm doing. Again, the visual instead of text-

Kemal Warouw (00:17:57):

Yeah, visual.

Hannah Donahue (00:17:58):

... that is kind of what we'll do. I mean, in terms of, a lot of your questions sparked up a lot of conversation between the two of us. But I was talking about, when it comes to people trying to understand Gen Z and how to reach them, I hate it when they do it through Snapchat. I absolutely hate it.

Kemal Warouw (00:18:19):

I agree with you, yeah.

Hannah Donahue (00:18:20):

It makes no sense to me because it's such a quick form, where I want to talk to my friends. And then when I'm scrolling through stories and I see an ad, I immediately click through it. I could not tell you a single ad that I have seen recently on Snapchat. But I could tell you Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, I could tell you an ad that I've seen on there. But Snapchat, none of those are actually digesting because it's such a quick snapshot of a platform. So communication purposes through entertainment, absolutely Snapchat. If I'm actually trying to have a conversation with someone, it's going to be through texting.

Zach Busekrus (00:18:52):

Interesting.

Kemal Warouw (00:18:54):

I agree with Hannah. I mostly spend my time texting people via iMessage, but if I want to share a quick part of my day, I would use Instagram stories as well. But Snapchat ads, they're kind of, to me, they're very spammy. I feel like-

Zach Busekrus (00:19:07):

They feel pointless.

Kemal Warouw (00:19:08):

Yeah, target towards Gen Z on Snapchat, they try too hard and it doesn't come out as authentic as we perceive them to be. So I just skip them rather than being like, "Oh, this is cool stuff." But it's more spammy, where it's kind of different in each platform, I'm not sure whether that's the data, but on some ads, like Instagram, I would kind of check over and like, "Hmm, that's interesting." And you can actually have a link to go to that page. And it's more personalized in my experience rather than Snapchat ads, which I kind of feel more spammy.

Kemal Warouw (00:19:41):

Same thing with YouTube as well. It's more spammy where you have to wait to skip an ad. I personally want to skip an ad, even though I'm a marketing major, that's kind of my job, but yeah, I just skip ads on Snapchat and YouTube because I mean, I feel like I have to watch content. I want to see that content.

Zach Busekrus (00:20:02):

Let me get to the content I want to see.

Kemal Warouw (00:20:03):

Let me get to the content. And I feel like if the ad itself is a sponsored or an influencer, it would be better than just having it blatantly shown up to you and, "Hey, watch this for 30 seconds. You can't skip it," and have to wait for it.

Zach Busekrus (00:20:19):

Yeah. These are remarkable insights because one of the things that literally two, three weeks ago on the show, we were having a debate about where to spend money as a hired marketer. If you're trying to reach Gen Z for student recruitment purposes, right? What are the platforms that you should be spending on? And this colleague that I was talking to was talking about this very issue. It's, hey, students spend tons and tons and tons of time on Snapchat.

Zach Busekrus (00:20:45):

And yet when it comes to performance of these ad campaigns, not a lot of colleges and universities are actually spending any money on Snapchat ads or very, very little money. However, what Glacier, who's a partner of this special series that we're working on, they do a ton of research on digital advertising spend, specifically digital advertising spend to high school students. And one of the things that they have noticed with their campaigns is that, while there aren't lots of colleges and universities spending ad budget on Snapchat, there's actually pretty interesting lead gen happening on Snapchat, where the quantity of folks kind of coming through the door are small.

Zach Busekrus (00:21:31):

But the quality of those individuals that are swiping up or completing the offer that the ad is hitting on is actually really, really high. So it's interesting to hear you guys say, hey, of all the platforms, Snapchat appears to be the platform that has the "spammiest of ads". And it's interesting, their data says something a little bit different. But in many ways, that's neither here nor there, we're talking about your personal preferences, but the fact that you both agreed on that is fascinating to me.

Zach Busekrus (00:22:03):

And what I would I guess say is, if in fact what Glacier's data says is true, which I've seen the data, it appears to be true, then maybe it's more about advertisers thinking more critically about the kind of ad and the format of that ad to make it a little bit more relevant to what you would expect to experience on the platform. Because if they nail that and the data that they have, which already suggested there's decent lead gen coming from Snapchat, it seems like Snapchat could be this very viable, well-of quality lead gen for schools in the future.

Hannah Donahue (00:22:39):

That's the thing, it has to be something that's super digestible, super fast. Because like I said, I am clicking through stories because nobody's... So I can see a quick flash of an ad, but it has to be something that's going to actually resonate with me just to Actually get it to be worth something and get my attention and get me through the door and thinking about purchasing.

Zach Busekrus (00:23:02):

Yeah. No, and again, when traditional brands are advertising on Snapchat and these other platforms, they might be a little bit different than how a college or university advertises. And so there's that nuance to keep in mind as well. But I'm curious when you're on Instagram, both of you said you could tell me an ad that you recently saw on Instagram, on Twitter, maybe even on Facebook, are a lot of those ads that you're referring to, are they in Instagram stories or where are the ads that you're coming into contact with, where you do think you remember? And if so, talk to me a little bit about the format of that ad and what platform it's on.

Hannah Donahue (00:23:45):

I think, for me personally, it's directly in my feed. It's not in stories. It's something that gets incorporated in my feed that almost makes me think that I'm actually already following them. Where it's a sponsored post and it's something... And we're in that age of targeted ads. And I know with the iOS updates and privacy policies, a lot of that's going to be changing. But speaking before all of those new privacy policies, that targeting is spot on. So because it's so spot on, I'm going to think, "Oh my God."

Hannah Donahue (00:24:16):

Just for example, any kind of like food delivery service, I've never actually used a food delivery service, but I've considered it in the past. And all of a sudden they're on my feed, and I'm like, "Hmm. I was just thinking about this the other day. Did I follow them? I should check this out." That targeting is crazy. And it works. And that's what gets me to get it sustained in my mind because I'm seeing it and thinking that, "Yeah, I follow it. That's a company I want to buy from."

Kemal Warouw (00:24:45):

Yeah. I mean, Instagram algorithm is scary.

Hannah Donahue (00:24:47):

Oh my gosh, yeah.

Kemal Warouw (00:24:48):

And it blends in so well with the feed. I watch a lot of sports highlight, next thing you know, I'm getting sports highlight within an ad. I'm just so into it, and the next thing I know, "Oh, it's a promoted post? Or, "It's a sponsored post? When did this become a thing?" Next thing you know, you don't notice it, but it's really there. So it's kind of weird, but Instagram ad just works really well for some reason.

Hannah Donahue (00:25:14):

I think it's really all about knowing your audience and what do you think that they're seeing on their feed on a daily basis. How can you almost mimic that to blend your ad with what they're looking at? So again, college students, I'm following clothing accounts, food accounts, fellow students, how do you take that and make it personalized to me or to this particular generation of students to make it look like it's supposed to be in my feed and it's not out of place? That's a huge factor when it comes to it.

Zach Busekrus (00:25:50):

Yeah. I'm curious what brands or creators do you both follow? And I'd love to hear if you have any creators top of mind, I definitely want to hear who those folks are, but I'm even more curious about brands, who have you decided to follow? And what makes their content, if anything, interesting to you?

Hannah Donahue (00:26:16):

I know for me personally, I guess, a brand is constantly on my feed is American Eagle/Aerie, but that's more because I prefer to follow brands and interact with brands that have a very transparent and honest brand message. I just prefer brands that are genuine and transparent, and those are the ones that I'm going to interact with. And the same thing goes for, I know I don't actually follow really any content creators on Instagram. I follow celebrities, I don't know if that really counts. But I don't really follow any content creators on Instagram, Twitter, or anything.

Hannah Donahue (00:26:53):

I follow a ton on TikTok because that I feel like one of the primary content creating places right now for just regular people. And I've noticed the same pattern in my following habits there. It's people who seem very honest, real genuine about their motives, about themselves and just their overall mission with their personal brand. So that is just I think something in this day and age where we have to deal with a lot of, is there some subliminal messaging going on? I just really prefer when someone's going to be honest. And I think even Starbucks, personally.

Zach Busekrus (00:27:33):

Yeah. What about you, Kemal?

Kemal Warouw (00:27:35):

So for me, I definitely agree with Hannah, of course, I like to follow brands that are genuine and of course a brand that makes an impact in the world. So definitely Patagonia stood out to me personally, but also HubSpot. Personally, HubSpot kind of changed my life in some ways, helped me realize how big of an impact it is to other people. And now I'm giving back and helping other people as well through HubSpot.

Kemal Warouw (00:27:57):

But also some content influencers that I personally follow are mostly tech-based companies. So [inaudible 00:28:05] on YouTube, NexusGames, so all those people that keep me updated with technology updates on a daily basis. I just love technology. So that's who I follow overall. But being genuine and being authentic as a brand is what's going to make you resonate more with Gen Z.

Hannah Donahue (00:28:24):

Gen Z doesn't want their time wasted. That the thing. Time is very precious, I think to anybody, but especially with Gen Z. If a brand is going to try and put up a front, we're going to know immediately. It does not take much for us to know. So being honest and real right from the start, and showing that you are... It's a true differentiator these days.

Zach Busekrus (00:28:47):

Go ahead. Go ahead.

Kemal Warouw (00:28:49):

Also, you can't really make a wrong move with Gen Z.

Hannah Donahue (00:28:53):

Yeah, you can't make a wrong move.

Kemal Warouw (00:28:54):

Cancel culture is mostly made up of-

Hannah Donahue (00:28:57):

I hate cancel culture.

Kemal Warouw (00:28:58):

Yes. I know. It's scary how things can change frequently, but cancel culture is basically a lot of Gen Z participate in cancel culture. So you got to make sure that, before advertising or before putting in on a movement that you have to be authentic and you have to know your stuff.

Hannah Donahue (00:29:17):

That strategy has to be air tight.

Zach Busekrus (00:29:19):

Yeah. So I'm curious because you guys are saying so many incredible things right now. And I want to press into this idea of, okay, what does it actually mean for a brand to be authentic? A brand to be forthcoming about who they are, what they stand for, what they do, as opposed to being manipulative, right? It sounds to me kind of what you guys are saying is that when somebody comes up and it's not entirely clear what they're trying to do and/or there's a suggestion that they might be trying to trick you into thinking something or trick you into doing something that that comes across as very offensive.

Zach Busekrus (00:29:55):

So I'm curious, what is an example of a brand, or even thinking about just your own experience, thinking about college, right? How did schools interact with you? Are there any good examples that you have of how schools interacted with you or how brands interacted with you, especially when it comes to advertising, right? That did seem real, that did seem authentic. And if so, what were those things about the ad or about the communication that stood out?

Hannah Donahue (00:30:22):

Well, funny enough, actually, when I was applying to college, a lot of the schools, universities and just their brands that targeted me on social media were ones that I had considered going to, but were actually way out of my price range. Super expensive schools were the ones that were targeting me on socials. You can get me to your site, but the moment I see that price tag, sorry.

Hannah Donahue (00:30:50):

And I think that there's a lot that you can say about your program and know... I don't even know how to say it. There's a lot that you can say about your program, but you have to still will be upfront about everything. Be transparent, be honest. And anytime I'm doing any... Because I do a lot of open house events here and I've done in the past at school. And one thing I always say is ask me any question. You can ask me anything and I will be honest and transparent because I want you to make the best decision because that's what I would've wanted as a student.

Hannah Donahue (00:31:24):

Tell me what you're worried about and I can try and either comfort your worries or I can address them. And that's one thing that I feel like I didn't get from those big, expensive schools that were targeting me on socials. It felt more like a money grab than it felt authentic. And I didn't end up going to those schools. I'm from around here, but I don't even think I really got any ads from UNH, other than the stuff you get in the mail that your parents see and they're like, "Oh, look at this, look what came today."

Hannah Donahue (00:31:52):

And I'm like, "Oh, okay. I guess I'll check it out." But no, the stuff that I was seeing on social media, and especially right now, I'm starting to look into grad schools, very, very briefly considering it. And, oh my God, my feed is all the schools that are just so expensive. And I guess having that expensive price tag comes with a big marketing budget, but just keep that in mind. If you're an expensive school, be upfront, tell me what I'm paying for.

Zach Busekrus (00:32:22):

So I want to tease this out a little bit. To get really granular and specific here. Let's say you are scrolling through social media and you recognize a name brand institution that is expensive. Right? And then right off the bat, that ad were to be something like the sticker price of the institution with a big X and then B something like, but the average student ends up paying Y. And it's almost this little teaser and that it's very forthcoming.

Zach Busekrus (00:32:51):

It's saying that you've probably seen how expensive that we are, but did you know that the average student only actually ends up paying 20K less than whatever the sticker of price is? Let's just say that that's the page, right?

Hannah Donahue (00:33:02):

That would absolutely get me to...

Zach Busekrus (00:33:02):

So seeing something like that where the price is right there, but then also some interesting, compelling marketing message to click through, to learn a little bit more about what this actually means. Something like that would be interesting to you?

Hannah Donahue (00:33:14):

Yeah, absolutely.

Kemal Warouw (00:33:14):

Absolutely.

Hannah Donahue (00:33:15):

And I think also talking about, you kind of brought it up, you get the sticker price and you've got some other things that might get the student to click through. Experiential learning has been such a big factor in all schools. It's been really up and coming and that's something that I don't think schools market enough. So that would also get me to click on something. That's so huge these days.

Kemal Warouw (00:33:37):

I feel like colleges haven't done much enough of that, showing the actual value that students are getting out of college and what they're actually paying. So if I see the ads, I'm more interested to learn about the school than if I was just seeing the simple highlight about campus and some basic tours.

Kemal Warouw (00:33:56):

So value is very important to me and I'm pretty sure it's very important to Gen Z's as well. And personally, I think that if I were able to market more to Gen Z], I would be more upfront about the cost, but also highlighting the benefits as well and what students can get out of the college and universities as well.

Hannah Donahue (00:34:16):

I think something else is rankings for schools. You can tell me whatever rank you are, but what does it mean? How are your students more than just that number? What does that ranking mean? And how is it going to impact me if I start going to your school? I think that's a big thing. Some schools are so obsessed with their rankings, that you need to show me that students are than just a number to you. You need to show me some student stories. Tell me what your students are doing. And what are the outcomes? Not just, "Oh, we're number, whatever school in this." That means nothing to me. It's a number.

Kemal Warouw (00:34:55):

Word of mouth is powerful. Right? So if I were able to decide, and I have a friend that goes to a certain campus and they tell me how impactful their life has been studying in that school and how life changing it is, actually seeing the university is doing something about that, so recognizing the students, I would personally want to go there more than the other school that is just showing how we are top 10, let's say for example, but they're not showing any stories at all. So student stories and word of mouth is definitely very important.

Zach Busekrus (00:35:33):

I'm laughing to myself because our listeners are probably like, "Oh my gosh, they're confirming a lot of the things that you guys talk about on the show all the time." So this is wonderful. I'm not paying them, but I should be, folks. But a quick follow up on the rankings thing. So schools do wrestle with this a lot. One of the things I spend a lot of time doing is telling folks, "Hey, you being a top 20 in the Southern, Eastern part of the United States and flashing that all over your website," to your point, "What does that really mean?"

Zach Busekrus (00:36:03):

Everyone ranks for something. It's not that hard to actually rank for something because of how the business behind rankings work, which we will talk about another time. But to your point, yeah, I think what I hear you guys saying, which is spot on is don't just tell me how you rank, tell me why that matters. Right? What is significant about that? Why should I care?

Kemal Warouw (00:36:27):

Absolutely.

Hannah Donahue (00:36:27):

Yeah. I think so much about Gen Z is showing that we're more than just a number. You need to show that the rankings that you're getting, why are you getting them? Give me a student story, give me a testimonial. If you can do it from multiple majors, because you don't know what a good student that's looking at your website is going to be looking for. Show me someone from, I don't know, shot in the dark, someone from the political science program or the marketing program, where are they working now?

Hannah Donahue (00:37:02):

What was their time at your school like? Give me a minute to, not sit down with them, but let them talk to the user and say, "Here was my experience, had some ups, had some downs, but you know what? At the end of the day, I had a great outcome and I was successful and I wouldn't have had that opportunity without this school. And that's what led to this ranking."

Kemal Warouw (00:37:25):

I just feel like-

Zach Busekrus (00:37:26):

Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Kemal Warouw (00:37:28):

... growing up, throughout social media, all my life, pretty much since I was young, I feel like I rely more on the fact that I trust word that comes out of people, for example, my friends or my family, rather than just an ad on social media and ranking doesn't really matters unless to me my friend or person or faculty actually spoke out about what they did to get that ranking or to be able to work become the college they are today.

Hannah Donahue (00:37:57):

It's the same reason why you wouldn't buy a product that has a bad review.

Zach Busekrus (00:38:03):

Oh, so well said.

Zach Busekrus (00:38:06):

So well said. So I want to transition and start talking about Voice Z Digital in just a second. But last question kind of on this topic before we do. One of the big questions for folks that are working in admissions or marketing today when it comes to reaching Gen Z is, do we take a more program/major specific approach to our marketing and communications? Or should we take a more overall brand experience approach to our marketing communications?

Zach Busekrus (00:38:36):

Meaning, right? To your point just a moment ago, Hannah, schools are often hesitant to be like, "Hey meet Zach, he's studying political science and doing this thing. Here's his story. And now here's where he's working three years after graduation," because they're worried that, "Oh, do 16, 17, 18-year-olds that are applying to college, do they actually know what they want to do yet?" Right?

Zach Busekrus (00:38:56):

So I'm curious, when you guys thought about college, even if you didn't know exactly what you wanted to major in, how would you have preferred schools approach you? With a little bit more of a major or program specific approach or just kind of a holistic, brand experience approach with lots of drone footage on some general marketing messages? Talk to us a little bit about that.

Hannah Donahue (00:39:20):

I think there has to be a really good balance. We are on the same wavelength right now.

Hannah Donahue (00:39:27):

There has to be a really good balance and you're right, a lot of people, when they are coming into college, they don't know what they want to do or they do know what they want to do, but it ends up changing. When I was applying to college, at UNH, this was actually the only really business school that I applied to, everywhere else was more of a liberal arts focus. And I had no idea that I was more interested in that business focus of marketing rather than the more creative side. But I think that you can wow someone all you want with the pretty drone footage, if you can get them to your website, that's the perfect time to introduce those student stories because that way they're interested.

Hannah Donahue (00:40:12):

So say it's just a general advertisement, because I know at UNH we have a couple of different colleges within the university and they all vary around different things, we're in the business school, but we also have the liberal arts and the agriculture school, having those differentiated ads and being able to target someone based on that. And then once you get them to convert over to the site, showing different student stories there from various majors.

Hannah Donahue (00:40:36):

So in the business school, we've got marketing, accounting. I am absolutely not an accounting major, so if I saw accounting, I'd be like, "Oh, they're going to prioritize accounting. I'm marketing. Why would I want to look at this?" Give me, a range of options. That's another thing. Gen Z loves options. We love to see a range of things. So just paying attention to how to get people to your site, which is such a complex topic. It's so hard to know what is going to get people to convert. And even speaking as a Gen Zer, I don't know what will get me to convert. I usually don't know until I actually am doing it. And I'm like, "Oh my God, this got me to click on this ad."

Zach Busekrus (00:41:14):

Yeah. Would you add anything to that, Kemal?

Kemal Warouw (00:41:18):

Yeah. I feel like colleges needs to be aware of the journey that students are going through, like finding a good balance is definitely important as well, but if you don't understand the journey, such as with HubSpot, for example, the awareness, consideration decision, if you don't know, if students are in the awareness stage, you got to make sure to hire some of the programs as well.

Kemal Warouw (00:41:39):

So sharing the alumni stories or being able to speak out and show that what you guys are doing to help make the students where they're becoming a professional. And it just depends to finding the right balance to that and making sure that students can convert into becoming an actual students in their school is very important. So having that good balance and finding the right medium between, not just showing drone footage, but also hiring that information as well. So just find a good balance, I guess, it's good. Yeah.

Zach Busekrus (00:42:20):

Yeah. Very well said. And I lied, I actually have one last question before we transition to Voice Z Digital, but in terms of technology, right? And the role technology played in your college search process. Right? So higher ed is stereotyped as being an industry that doesn't always have the easiest to use tools and software and a lot of application portals are significantly outdated and a lot of the systems-

Zach Busekrus (00:42:53):

Yeah. A lot of the systems, right? That schools use are just archaic. So I'm curious, during your application process and just college search process in general, how did you feel about the technology that you were engaging with? Was it good? Was it fine? Did it seem kind of cumbersome? How did you feel about the tech stacks, I guess, that you were engaging with, even if you don't know which software systems those were, what was that like?

Kemal Warouw (00:43:21):

So is that when you applied to college and you have to fill out some certain...?

Zach Busekrus (00:43:25):

You fill out forms and yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Kemal Warouw (00:43:28):

Oh man. I feel like that's a lot of time taking, but as technology progressed, for example, when I applied to colleges back then, four years ago, I was able to fill out one form that can be used in multiple other applications. And that just helped a lot, but there is still this tedious process of putting in information. If it was to make it an easier process for students to enter data and just overall making the step even more easier process, I feel like that would being able to have students take out the stress from applying, but also encourage them to apply to even more colleges and see what options are, matters to them and what majors they want to pursue.

Hannah Donahue (00:44:13):

I think that when it came to actually looking at colleges website though, some websites for colleges are archaic. You need to think about who your main audience is and ease of use. You need to think that the person visiting your site knows nothing about you and knows where nothing is on your website. How do you make things easy to navigate? And then also in terms of getting them to be interested in your school.

Hannah Donahue (00:44:37):

My God, I'm always having, it's war flashbacks to the college emails that I would get. I still get like emails from one of the schools that I applied to trying to get me to transfer. I'm a first semester senior, that is-

Kemal Warouw (00:44:55):

Mind blowing.

Hannah Donahue (00:44:56):

... mind blowing. That doesn't make any sense to me. But I think just making it super easy, make the user experience so easy and enjoyable and just visually pleasing. Because again, like we've talked about, we're very visual people. If I'm going to go to a website and see a bunch of words, no, thanks. Show me what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Hannah Donahue (00:45:19):

I'll read a quick blurb of text, keep it concise. Don't, on that home page, fill it with text. I'm going to see it and be like, "Oh, that's a lot of blurb." It sounds awful, but I'm just trying to think back to when I was applying to college, I loved those clean looking websites that really were enjoyable and that's-

Kemal Warouw (00:45:43):

Especially if they launch fast too.

Hannah Donahue (00:45:43):

Yeah, if they look fast too-

Kemal Warouw (00:45:45):

Oh, gosh.

Hannah Donahue (00:45:45):

... perfect.

Kemal Warouw (00:45:46):

Perfect.

Hannah Donahue (00:45:48):

Like you were saying, that common app process, it took so long. I think I blocked all of it out.

Zach Busekrus (00:45:54):

Oh, so good. Quick, there's a debate in the industry right now around chatbots and kind of conversational marketing, and I'm curious, when you go to a website, even if it's not a school's website, how likely are you to engage with a chatbot and/or live chat feature on a site? Do you prefer chatbot over live chat? I guess, how do you just feel about engaging with a website's chat tools?

Hannah Donahue (00:46:23):

I think it depends.

Kemal Warouw (00:46:25):

Depends on the site.

Hannah Donahue (00:46:27):

It depends on the site. And I think it also depends on what I'm looking for. If it's something super specific, I'll go for live chat. But at the end of the day, I'll probably use a chatbot. And I'll hope that it's not blocked by having to give my email, because in that case, I'm going to try and figure it out on my own, because I know that if I give my email, which again, I'm an email marketer. So this is a debate that I've dealt with internally. I know that if I have to give my email to a college or university, I'm going to be blown up with emails and contact.

Hannah Donahue (00:46:58):

I filled out a form for a grad school the other day, within five minutes, they called me, because I just wanted to get more information about a program, within five minutes. I was sitting in class, I was literally in the middle of class, I was on my computer. I was bored. I was just looking at grad schools and filled out a form. All of a sudden my phone starts ringing and I'm like, "Are you kidding me right now? I'm just trying to find out more information about your program. So that is stuff that I hate. That constant communication right after, but also just, please leave me alone.

Zach Busekrus (00:47:32):

Oh, this is so good, Hannah. So what would you have preferred? Right, so you fill out the inquiry form. You raised your hand and you said, "Hey, I'm interested in learning a little bit more." You clearly didn't want a call five minutes later. What format or communication style would you preferred to get the information that you were looking for? And how quickly would you have wanted that information?

Hannah Donahue (00:47:54):

I think I would've preferred just an automated email to come through, because I'm getting it immediately, I know that it's an automated email, it's not someone that's waiting on my response, that I can come to it when I'm ready. It's all about when somebody is ready. Because for me, all of my search right now is very preliminary. I have no idea what I want so I'm just trying to get more information.

Hannah Donahue (00:48:23):

So send me an automated email with an info packet, I'll get to it when I get to it. And if I want more information, I'll PURSUE more information. And I didn't answer. So I didn't answer that phone call

because I was in class. And then later that night, the woman that called me left a voicemail. I was like, "Okay, I'm not interested. I'm not going to call you back." I didn't say this to her. I didn't call her back. I just was like, "I'm going to leave it for now. I'll get to it when I get to it."

Hannah Donahue (00:48:51):

Because again, this is very preliminary, I would like to take this on my own terms, on my own timeline. And the caller ID came up with the college's name that I was looking at, which I found very interesting. Later that night, it was about six o'clock, I was making dinner, and I get a phone call that says spam likely, or scam likely. And I'm like, "Hmm." And I'll pick those up sometimes just because I might want to mess with them. I want to hear what my car's extended warranty.

Hannah Donahue (00:49:21):

I pick up, and it's the woman that tried to call me earlier that day in class about this school. And I said to her, I was like, "Yeah, I'm making dinner right now. It's pretty late at night." And she was in my same time zone because this was a school that is in the same time zone as me, and that immediately turned me off. I was like, "That is-

Kemal Warouw (00:49:42):

That's very invasive.

Hannah Donahue (00:49:43):

This school that I'm talking about, I'm not going to obviously name names, but it's a big school. It is a very big and popular school. And that immediately turned me off. And I'm still getting so many emails. And I told her multiple times I am still like looking, I would not be going to this school for another year. And I know you do a rolling basis because you sent me that information packet that I finally went through. So I was like, "I am not interested right now, but I might be later on." And she will not leave me alone. She will not leave me alone.

Kemal Warouw (00:50:16):

Yeah. So there has to be some form of frequency kind of...

Hannah Donahue (00:50:20):

Understand that I'll get to it when I get to it, because this is one of those processes that it's something I'm interested in doing, I'm going to come back to it. It's not something that needs to be worked out right now. If it were a product I was interested in, yeah, I want to buy that sooner rather than later. But when we're talking schools and applications, there's a certain timeline for that.

Hannah Donahue (00:50:43):

And I also said to them on the phone, I wouldn't be applying for about another six months to a year. And she was like, "Oh, okay. Then let's still try to set up a meeting." And I said no. That's-

Hannah Donahue (00:50:55):

Again, it's 6:30 at night. This is my time. Which it gets back to the automated email where, when I'm ready, I'll open that email and I'll take the time to read through it. And then if I want to pursue more information, I will. Sorry, I went off on a bit of a tantrum there. But that's just something that bothered me so much.

Zach Busekrus (00:51:17):

That was beautiful. This is unbelievable. This is incredible. You both rock. All right. So I want to talk about Voice Z Digital, which is a student-run digital agency at UNH. And I want you guys to talk to us about how Voice Z was created, what it actually does, and then who some of your clients are.

Hannah Donahue (00:51:39):

Yeah. So Voice Z was created, I believe the pilot year was Fall 2018 into Spring 2019. And then our official first year was, and my official first year was Fall of 2019 and into 2020. Yeah. So I was a sophomore that year. So it was originally started by about five students who had an interest in marketing. And there were no really accredited organizations here at UNH that really worked hands-on with real clients.

Hannah Donahue (00:52:15):

So since then we have brought on tons of clients. We actually have a partnership with the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center, who we get a lot of our clients from. They fill out our client intake form, and then we start a digital presence audit with them, which will go through all of their website, their social media, SEO.

Kemal Warouw (00:52:36):

Google Ads.

Hannah Donahue (00:52:39):

Yeah. So we'll take a look at pretty much all of their digital presence, write a report and come up with some recommendations and then let them know, and then we'll present them in a presentation format and we'll deliver them this report. And then we'll say, "Okay, here are our recommendations. We can do as a..." Because we are still learning, because the background of Voice Z is to really make us ready for after graduation for people who want go into the agency setting and have that hands-on experience that other people might not actually get.

Hannah Donahue (00:53:10):

They might just end up going into an agency blind being like, "Yeah, I want to do marketing at an agency," and then have no idea what an agency actually is. So that's a great thing is we know that we're still students and we're still learning. So we'll say, "Here are our recommendations. Out of these recommendations, these are ones that we can pursue with you as a client. We can take you on. But here are ones that maybe you want to pursue another more established agency."

Hannah Donahue (00:53:39):

So in the past we recommended, I believe there was a woman who needed a total, complete website rebuild. This was in our first year. She needed a full website rebuild, and we just said, "It's not in our bandwidth right now. We do not have the capacity for it. We don't have the experience. Here's an agency that we know specializes in it. And we've already contacted her and let her know what you're interested in. If you want to pursue that route, go ahead." But since now we're in our third official year, we've actually brought so many services in house.

Hannah Donahue (00:54:15):

So a project I'm working on right now is with an indie music store in New Hampshire. They offer all kinds of different instruments, rental, to buy. They do lessons. We're completely redoing his website, which is kind of funny because two years ago, we had to refer somebody out for this, but now we are completely redoing his website, optimizing it for SEO. And then we also are working directly with the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center. So they're providing our clients, but now we've also taken them on as a client, which is a very full circle and they're doing their social. Yeah, so we have a team of about four students, I think.

Kemal Warouw (00:54:56):

Four to five.

Hannah Donahue (00:54:57):

Four to five students who are working directly with representatives from the SPDC to figure out what they want for their social mission, creating the content calendar, creating example pieces of content that they can post, making sure that any blogs that they want to post are relevant to their mission and relevant to what they're trying to accomplish. So it's been a really awesome year so far. We have never had so many clients coming to us before. We're backed up, we're pretty far. We have a wait list now of clients, which is crazy to me.

Kemal Warouw (00:55:33):

It's insane.

Hannah Donahue (00:55:34):

It's very exciting. You're working on a really big project right now, right? Yeah. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Kemal Warouw (00:55:39):

Yeah. So my client is [inaudible 00:55:41], which is a very huge eCommerce company that sells essential oil products, but also oil containers, books. And it's basically a mini Amazon for essential oils. So when we onboard the client, he's like, "Yep. I identified everything that's wrong with my site and my Google Ads and social media."

Kemal Warouw (00:56:03):

So the team, it was a great learning experience. The team proceeds to work together and learn a lot about Google Ads and Google Analytics and proceed to just work together and provide solutions to the client. We also have our advisor, which is Brad Solomon, he's the CEO and co-founder of SE Digital, who helped us learn a lot about Google Analytics and Google Ads and hand on the spot and teach us how to provide the right recommendation for clients and how to present the right way.

Hannah Donahue (00:56:34):

That's another great thing is that a lot of local agencies that are fully established professional agencies, they have been so supportive of what Voice Z Digital is trying to do. And they've said to us, "If I had this back when I was in college, I would've loved it." And they've been incredible and they've been coming to give us advice. They don't think of us as a competitor, they think of us as almost a partner. It's awesome.

Hannah Donahue (00:56:58):

So like you said, Brad, he comes in from SE Digital, which is located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and he advises us on our clients. So if we have any obstacles, anything that we're not familiar with, he has a whole plan laid out for us. He teaches it to us. He works really, really close with us.

Hannah Donahue (00:57:15):

So we have the skills that we're getting directly from the classroom and we're able to apply that in a hands-on way. Because you can only do so much with the information that you're learning in a classroom. It's when you're putting it into practice that you really learn. And especially with Gen Z, we're very hands-on.

Kemal Warouw (00:57:33):

Yeah. Hands-on learning.

Hannah Donahue (00:57:34):

So it's a big deal. We're pretty proud of it. Definitely.

Zach Busekrus (00:57:40):

Yeah. As you should be. I mean, is incredible. Right? So there are very, very, very few, I'm sure that there are models like this that exist elsewhere, but this was the first, when I first came into contact with the business and practice program, it was the first time I had heard about this and I talked to people who work in higher education just about every day.

Zach Busekrus (00:58:01):

So this is a super, super neat model. You should totally be proud of it. A couple just quick questions and don't share more than you can or want to, but are you guys paid for this work? Is it all credit based? These clients, is this all pro bono? How does that work?

Hannah Donahue (00:58:23):

Yeah. We have a process that we established this year, so we are not paid. We are getting credit for this. So this is technically set up in a class manner. So we meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 12:40 to 2:00. And we use the experiential learning space here at UNH called The Forge to operate as our office. The clients are paying the SPDC. They provide the clients and then cover the cost of an audit.

Hannah Donahue (00:58:57):

Any profit we make goes toward overhead costs. Providing software for us to use. So anything like Adobe Suites, Canva Pro. If we have any kind of thing that we might need to use that would benefit, right now, we're fronting the cost of site ground for one of our clients while we build their site, until we can transfer it over to them. So we're kind of absorbing those costs.

Hannah Donahue (00:59:24):

And we're actually a member of the HubSpot education partner program, Neal Nyman's one of the founding members of that. And they are awesome. So we get to use as part of the education partner program, the HubSpot platform to help with our agency's operations, organizing a lot of our client deals. We can't use that for our clients. It's more just internal that we're using it. But because of that, we're also getting hands-on use with HubSpot, which so many agencies and even higher ed is using today.

Hannah Donahue (00:59:54):

There are people at UNH who use that, in our marketing...they have a HubSpot portal. So kind of getting back to what I was saying, we are not paid, but there is money coming in and it's just to cover all of that. We technically are not allowed to be paid based on the credit model that we have set up.

Zach Busekrus (01:00:15):

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. Now I was just curious on that. And so one of my big questions for you all is if UNH, right? Were to come be a client of Voice Z Digital, and specifically UNH's admissions and marketing teams, and they were to ask you all to run their enrollment marketing and student recruitment campaigns, how would you start? Right?

Zach Busekrus (01:00:40):

Maybe they gave you a million dollar budget, right? To recruit the next generation.... I mean, folks spend a lot on marketing and recruitment. So if folks were to come and give you some big budget and you guys were in charge of helping recruit the next class at UNH. What would you do with that money? Where would you start? What are some ideas you have?

Hannah Donahue (01:01:04):

Yeah. So, I mean, just to kind of start off with how our process works, I'm a member of our executive board this year. So myself and the other members of our eBoard would meet with them, figure out what their goals are, first of all, so if it was for recruitment, we'd ask a few probing questions like, what's your audience? What are your goals? What would you like to do first?

Hannah Donahue (01:01:30):

And then we can either say, "Well, that's worked in the past or maybe it hasn't worked in the past." And then after, we would move the client to a specialized group of students within the agency so we can have multiple projects running at once. And then they would also do another kind of onboarding call where they can ask any questions they want.

Hannah Donahue (01:01:51):

So I think after that, I don't know, I feel like a big thing would be social media. And I know that we've kind of been talking about that a lot on this call so far, but you got to make sure that your social media present is very strong and that it's personable. And we'd want to check, okay, who is following you right now? What does your follower base consist of? How many different accounts do you have as a university? Because so many universities they've got different accounts connected.

Hannah Donahue (01:02:20):

You've got ones that are for the students, ones that are for the faculty. One that's very PR based or one that's department based. So thinking about that and how each of those accounts are running, who's following them. So that way we can get a feel for who's interested and where they're from and what their demographics look like. And then we can target further through that. Do you want to add to that at all? You're a much better social media guru than I am, but yeah, go ahead.