How to Market an Online Graduate Program: Year Two Marketing Strategies for Online Graduate Programs

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Zach Busekrus: Welcome to How To Market an Online Graduate program, a special four-part podcast series brought to you by Enroll and our friends at Archer Education. Over the course of this series, we'll unpack everything you need to know to properly design a go-to market strategy for your new online grad program, and we'll also talk about what the first few years of marketing and growing your program should look like.

[00:00:22] We'll dive deep into where, when, and how to use paid search and paid social effectively. How you should think through appropriately balancing paid and organic efforts in years one and two versus years three and four. We'll talk about what positioning strategies you should test out. We'll also talk about how to properly leverage the personal brands of your faculty and staff members and so much more.

[00:00:43] This series is made possible thanks to our friends at Archer. Archer is an education technology company. Dedicated to personalizing student recruitment. If you wanna learn more about how Archer might be able to help your institution get more bang for your marketing and admissions buck, head on over to archer [00:01:00] edu.com and tell them that your friends at RFI sent you their way.

[00:01:03] Without further ado, welcome to this special series, how to Market an Online Grad Program.

[00:01:16] In episode two of How to Market an online graduate program, you'll meet Clayton Dean, senior Vice President at Archer and Ray Martinez, vice President of SS e o at Archer. I. In this episode, Clayton Ray and I discuss the key questions that schools should ask themselves. After the first year of marketing an online grad program, we talk about how schools can expand their non-branded search presence for their online grad programs, and we also talk about how schools can leverage the feedback loop between paid advertising and SS e O to improve their marketing efforts for their online grad programs.

[00:01:47] For more information on this series and Archer Education, be sure to check out the show notes below. But without further ado, welcome to episode two of How to Market an Online Grad Program.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:06] Alright. All right folks. We are. We are live. And this is the second episode in this special enroll Offi and Archer podcast series where we're really unpacking soup to nuts, how to build and market an online grad program. And today I'm joined by Ray Martinez and Clayton Dean from the Archer side of the house.

[00:02:28] How are you both doing today? Good. Doing well. How are you guys? I'm doing well. I am. It's hot here. Ray, you were just saying it's like hot and smelly in New York, but Clayton it's probably the hottest where, where you are in Florida. Clayton, Clayton 

[00:02:40] Clayton Dean: added the smelly. It's, I'm on the beach though, so we got a nice little breeze.

[00:02:44] So it's manageable. 

[00:02:46] Zach Busekrus: Well, I'm missing that in this incredibly humid. It's gonna be 95 in DC today. And it feels like 1 0 2 or something crazy like that. But I'm super pumped for this conversation guys. So this is the second episode in this series and you know, we spent [00:03:00] last episode talking about building the foundation of marketing and online grad program, and you guys have just incredible experience in working with.

[00:03:09] All sorts of online programs in helping them build the actual foundation of the program, helping them scale and market said programs. And in, in this second episode, I really wanna talk about kind of year two marketing strategies. So once the foundation. Uh, has been built for an online grad program. Once you've learned, tested a number of things in year one, gotten some data on what worked and what didn't work, how should you use that data to inform what your two strategy looks like?

[00:03:37] So I've got loads of questions, uh, for you all about what that kind of second year looks like in in marketing and online grad program, but I thought it'd be fun to just kind of start. With if, if you guys were sitting down with a client, right? Or even in an internal team brainstorm, and you, you were to kick around some questions around how to evaluate what happened in year one to make good [00:04:00] decisions about year two.

[00:04:01] What, what do you think are some great questions that folks should start with to begin the analysis? Because sometimes, right, you get into the weeds, you get into the data and you just get so overwhelmed you don't know what to look for, and then you end up making bad re. Decisions as a result, or you just do exactly what you did last year.

[00:04:17] So what are some good questions folks should ask as they discern what went well and what didn't in um, in year one so that they can make better decisions? In year two, I'll say, 

[00:04:28] Clayton Dean: We'll get to that part. I have a lot to, to comment. I'm sure Ray has a lot of thoughts on, on the organic side of the house, a lot of the questions.

[00:04:35] I think the most critical thing we try to stress in what we push from day one of a project even is thinking about years two, three, or four, right? Because. Yeah, everybody, I think you come out of the gates super focused on how are we gonna gain traction as quickly as we can Start gathering data, start learning, start iterating, right?

[00:04:53] But as enrollment goals, scale over as you get into years 2, 3, 4, 5, especially for like a [00:05:00] high growth program. I see a lot of programs get into a lot of trouble if they're not putting the pieces in place upfront to prepare themselves for that. So I think, you know, just kind of taking a step back on some questions we'd asked is like, do we have the data infrastructure in place to capture all the, all the information, all the insights we're gonna need when we get to years two and three, right?

[00:05:18] And to evaluate performance. So I think even thinking, you know, thinking a little bit earlier out the gates, Campaign planning and building out your strategic plan from a marketing perspective, I would ask questions there, right? First off, so that first year is productive, right? And really that first year is, is learning, testing, gathering data.

[00:05:41] So when you get into year two, you're comparing year over. You have year over year comparison, right? Which is helpful. But you know, it's an effort of, of iterating once you get into year two. That's really, I think, where the fun begins, and I think the work begins for us. So you're looking less of, you know, just getting out of the, getting out of the gates, getting [00:06:00] early traction, and let's start, let's start refining.

[00:06:02] We know the audience, we know we have a good sense of what's working, what's not. Um, let's start thinking about where we can iterate now. We'll go into some detail, but I think starting from day one, you need to be asking those questions on, on how to prepare for years two and three. So when you get to year two, you at least have a good foundation to, and, you know, data and insights to build off of.

[00:06:22] So I'd 

[00:06:22] Zach Busekrus: start there. Number one. Yeah. What would you add to that, Ray? Yeah, I, 

[00:06:27] Ray Martinez: I agree with Clayton strategy. Your business goals are and making sure that those two things are aligned. Oftentimes what I see as you know, a major pitfall is somebody thinking about the interim or short term. And I think, you know, there's a way to really balance, okay, here's what's the short-term priority versus the long-term vision.

[00:06:46] And I think it's revisiting that vision. And then, you know, from a performance standpoint, right, one of the best things we can is set benchmarks, pitfalls. And say, [00:07:00] what did we do that didn't work? I usually ask three questions, right? Like it's, Hey, what's working well? What are some things that didn't go so well and what do we wanna see happen next?

[00:07:09] And I think, you know when when we go through that exercise and we look at each individual step, hey, we're able to find where the R O I is double down there. We're also able to find those weak points and then make a plan to address that. And I think, so thinking about it from like those three buckets might be a helpful approach.

[00:07:28] Overall like metrics standpoint, it's like let's look at, let, let's actually look at spend versus what we actually drove from an enrollment standpoint and understand our cost per enrollment and then, and then measure that back. I think that's gonna be the biggest piece, right? Is like understanding is there actual r o i here and how are we actually converting?

[00:07:45] Right? Because you know, after year one, Normally what we see in organic is, you know, month six through 12 is a shifting sort of traffic, 

[00:07:56] Zach Busekrus: organic traffic coming through, 

[00:07:58] Ray Martinez: and that that user's [00:08:00] shifting in behavior because we're seeing an up an uptick in quality. So we're seeing users that start to convert down funnel.

[00:08:06] Now that we're driving that, it's it, you know, at month 12, it's like, okay, we're just hitting the beginning of peak performance. So it's important to keep in mind like, Hey, right now, You know, the best thing, especially from organic, is being consistent. 

[00:08:22] Zach Busekrus: I wonder too, right? In, in year one, if you're putting together a strategy for marketing your online grad program, you're probably, especially if it's a new program, right?

[00:08:31] You're looking at other industry benchmarks, you're looking at data from other institutions, maybe your competitors, uh, and and whatnot, to, to just give you some sense for what are good goals, right? Like what is an appropriate amount of spend. But after one year, you at least have like, Data for your specific context, for your specific audience, for your specific campus.

[00:08:53] Right. Whether it's a, a, I guess, you know, we're talking about online grad programs, so these are all virtual programs, right. But still, you have, you have data that's way, [00:09:00] way, way, way more reliable. And now you've got the industry benchmark based off of what you did in year one, and now you've got your own benchmark after one year.

[00:09:07] And I think it's just, it's incredibly crucial. It's still only one year. So to your point, I I if for all the organic work that you've done, it's really a year is nothing, right? Like it goes really quickly, like you're just gaining traction right at the end of that, that 12 month period of time. And so it's not, I, I don't know that a wise strategy would be, I.

[00:09:27] Well, you know what? It didn't, we didn't hit our marks. You know, ss e o isn't working for us because we're only ranking for 10 of the, you know, keywords that we want it to be ranking for by the end of year one. Right? That would be a stupid play, but you at least have more tangible, specific data that is pertinent to your institution, uh, and, and really the brand of your program.

[00:09:49] And so I guess, how do you guys think about like advising? Archer clients, uh, on how to, how to both keep like industry data and like general trends in mind [00:10:00] while also consulting the data that is, is now, you know, proprietary and, and, and quite specific to your context, like is there, is there a balance you like to encourage folks to, to strike there?

[00:10:11] And if so, what is that balance? Well, I 

[00:10:13] Clayton Dean: think to start a lot of those indus industry benchmarks, you have to think about the variability in there, right? So I think we're always reminding partners, like the brand's gonna come into play big time. The type of program, right? Like a, a, a niche program versus a hyper saturated program like an M B A, right?

[00:10:34] Like you have, you have to account for all that variability. So I think even getting to a point where you. Give them a reliable industry benchmark. I think that's where it's important to have a partner like DD or Archer to have to be able to reference historical data from our experience. Right. What are those variables you need to consider?

[00:10:54] What is a, where should we be aiming, but also as we do learn more about that audience? And I think this [00:11:00] especially is true for, you know, again, niche programs or emerging kind of market programs, there's a lot of unknowns, right? And it could even vary based on the geos and you know, there's so much variability in there.

[00:11:12] So I think it's, you know, the more you can kind of. Take that into account, you know, and, and at least give yourself some realistic goals. And I think once you get into year two, you at least have a better framework to work off of to give your team more realistic KPIs to work off of. And what is realistic where if we think about our long-term growth and we kind of work backwards and figuring out, okay, in year two, you know what if we can increase enrollment by.

[00:11:37] 8%, that's a win. You know? Yes, we had initially thought 20%, but looking at the data, this is gonna be a win. And if we invest more here, here, and here, then next year that that growth is gonna compound. Right? And. So I think that's really important to, to remember. Um, but again, yeah, it's a really good time to, to reset that foundation on your assumptions at the [00:12:00] beginning of the, of the launch versus after a year of data.

[00:12:03] It just gives you a good opportunity to reset on what those KPIs should be. 

[00:12:07] Ray Martinez: And, and I think to that point, Clayton, when I build a model, right, when I'm, you know, working with a partner and we're, we're looking into like, Hey, where is growth? And we're building out forecasting projections. We do that on the organic side, looking at like a one, three and five year model saying, here's what growth might look like based off of competitors, all that great stuff.

[00:12:26] But I think the main thing is keeping those assumptions in your mind as you revisit that, you revisit the model with the new benchmarks that you've set. Understanding and taking the learnings of where was I wrong or where did I see different performance? I think, you know, another, another piece I've learned with organic strategy is, you know, I've seen, I, I've seen folks, you know, Some partners move through content quicker than others, and I think, you know, just based off of, of bandwidth and workload.

[00:12:55] So, you know, we may set some, an ambitious goal and, and we, we [00:13:00] learn about performance struggles internally just from a, a process standpoint. Right. And we're like, okay, let's reset expectations. So I think, you know, it's, it's us working and making sure that. The work we're doing, of course, positively impacts performance, but it also 

[00:13:13] Clayton Dean: makes sense for a partner.

[00:13:16] Zach Busekrus: If you work in student recruitment, you are in the market for eyeball time. You're not just competing with other institutions, you're competing with every other brand that's in the market for views, clicks, and conversions from your target audience. Getting attention is hard enough, so once you have it, You've gotta do everything that you can to harness it and to keep it.

[00:13:35] And that's what our friends at Archer Education helped schools do so dang well. Archer is pioneering a new era in personalized student recruitment through its story-driven and technology enabled approach that's designed to support the entire enrollment process. If you wanna learn more about how Archer might be able to help your institution get more bang for your marketing and admissions, Buck, head on over to archer edu.com and tell [00:14:00] them that your friends at RFI sent you their way.

[00:14:02] Again, that's archer edu.com.

[00:14:11] Well, I mean, one of the things that, just speaking a little bit more tact tactically here too, right, is there's, there's always this question, I think, when you're starting with a new program and you're launching something for the first time. Specifically as it pertains to s e o strategy, do you care more about branded search or unbranded search?

[00:14:27] Uh, at, at that, you know, at the offset here and after, and like, let's say in your first year, your goal is to just build general awareness for the program. You, I think one would say that like, okay, you probably wanna prioritize branded search at that particular, you know, juncture. I, I want thought, I don't any words in.

[00:14:47] Ray Martinez: It really depends on the program and the history there, right? Like if we have a program that's being launched that's like just changing modality and has a history of an on ground and is, you know, the brand is known for this particular [00:15:00] type of program, I think, you know, we can move to non-branded quicker.

[00:15:04] But with smaller schools launching a brand new program with no history, that's where I think focusing on that branded search volume, right? It, you know, we want to build up that awareness. And usually we do those types of things in tandem, right? There are different exercises we'll do to both target branded search to make sure that we're hitting that bucket and also start pa, 

[00:15:24] Clayton Dean: you know, paving the way for non-branded.

[00:15:27] Well, and we'll, we'll try to, I think this goes just from like a strategic approach as a whole is we'll maximize branded out of the gates everywhere we can. Right? We'll squeeze as much out that lower cost, higher awareness traffic. Across the board. Um, but again, it's, I hate to keep saying this, but it is, it really does depend.

[00:15:46] It's, there's so many variables, you know, but I think to kind of simplify that, I think Yeah. Is your isn't an established program on campus. Are you working with a established brand that has, you know, strong brand recognition in the [00:16:00] market? You're mar you know, targeting? Is it a really high demand program?

[00:16:04] You know, with low search volume, that could impact our ability to go a little bit more aggressive on the non-brand and, and just focus more on key, you know, program keywords. So I think we could still bucket it in a way that it's a little bit more easier to understand, but there's a lot of variability there for sure.

[00:16:18] Zach Busekrus: Yeah, and, and I think one of the, one of the reasons I like to harp on this sort of. This sort of strategy is because to your, to your all's point, it really does depend on your context. But why I think people should actually pay more attention to branded search is it is a very helpful. K p i around, what are your other marketing efforts?

[00:16:38] Yielding, right? Like when we talk about organic strategy, right? It, we always default to ss e o, but organic is, is so much more than ss e o, it's, it's everything that you're doing on social, right? If you're, if you have an Instagram strategy, if you've got a, if you've a solid like now threads strategy, right?

[00:16:53] The amount of people that are going to be like, Clicking from your Instagram link and then going to a program page. You, [00:17:00] they might do a, people might go to your bio and click, you know, a link from there, but, but odds are right, they're gonna come back at some point 'cause they saw something and then they're gonna go to Google and they're gonna type in, you know, Ray Martinez's, SS E O.

[00:17:13] Graduate program or something like that. Right? And like, and, and so that, that's an indicator that your Instagram strategy is on point. And, or if you're seeing like no brain, no increase in branded search traffic, you should probably revisit your organic social strategy as a key component of that as well.

[00:17:28] Right. So I, I like, I like teasing this out and I think like, The reason why this is, uh, applicable in, in a year two strategy is you need year one to just test a bunch of shit, quite frankly, right? Like, and try, try, try like to figure out, hey, do does our audience engage with our reels? Like does our audience care about our social presence at all?

[00:17:48] Should we really not spend any money in organic because it's just. Our, you know, the client. We, we just don't have the resources in the house to do it, and therefore we need to spend all our, our efforts and paid what, what should that mean then, for the benchmarks that we set for [00:18:00] ourselves with respect to, to, to ss e o?

[00:18:02] So, and any commentary on that? Or I guess like, like how do you guys wrestle with questions like that? 

[00:18:09] Ray Martinez: I, I, I Labor, this is a labor of love for me, right? Like, I, I spend hours at a time trying to understand the relationship between paid so, uh, paid traffic and organic traffic as a whole. And you know, I have a great anecdote here from, you know, we had a client, they, you know, they had to turn off a particular marketing source no longer had, were funding it overnight.

[00:18:33] 50% drop in branded search. And, and I think, you know, where that client struggled was they didn't realize how much these things are interconnected, right? Our branded search is quite literally the passive impression when we're marketing theory. It's essence, right? That passive impression drives action down the line.

[00:18:55] And that's exactly what our branded 

[00:18:56] Clayton Dean: search is. Well, I think as everybody tries to [00:19:00] crack the attribution code, right, it's like, I think you have to look at branded as a, as an indicator of those efforts that are harder to track and harder understand, you know, where we're allocating budget, is that working or not?

[00:19:13] Right? The existential question that we've. Brand is your first place. You've gotta look. Part of your strategy is. If you're kind of questioning esp, we see this a lot with traditional, you know, campus-based programs that go online. They tend to use a lot of the same marketing tactics as they did on campus, right?

[00:19:34] So our first, that's where we'll point and say, okay, let's start, let's start testing and pulling back in some areas to see where we see the impact of putting a billboard in a airport. Is that gonna, is that gonna lift, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, right? If we're gonna see a lift. Across the board, then it might be worth it.

[00:19:51] But I think it's equally as important to think about where you need to pull back in your testing strategy as where you need to add to, just to kind of understand and watch the data. [00:20:00] Do it in a careful way, right? If you know you're generating enrollments from a specific channel, you don't wanna mess with that too much, but I think you could be smart about it and, and strategically pull back, you know, looking at it from both angles.

[00:20:14] A what we're talking about is. Almost like a perfect situation. Right? We're assuming a partner has, has a lot of data to work with. Is is seeing, you know, has a data infrastructure to work with. What about the programs that maybe struggle in year one where you know, you're struggling to gain traction, you're struggling to convert?

[00:20:33] You know, I, I think that's probably where a lot of. A lot of folks are right now, especially if you're trying to compete in like an RN to B S N or an M B A or something like that. Like you may just be tr, you may maybe just be struggling to understand who your audience is and how you're gonna convert them down funnel.

[00:20:51] Right. So that's just an open-ended question. I love your thoughts when it's not a perfect scenario. When you have all this data, you've been able to test, you have a testing [00:21:00] budget, how do we think about year two in that scenario? You know, 

[00:21:03] Zach Busekrus: I'll start if you don't mind, Ray, and then I Thoughts. So this. Is something that is certainly controversial, but I, I sort of like my, my approach right is, To get really, really, really deep into one channel and understand as quickly as possible, and this is hard, but like, understand as quickly as possible, whether it is a viable channel for where you are at today.

[00:21:29] It might be a viable channel for where you're at three years from now. Right? And, and there's nothing wrong with the channel in inherently, but it might, it might not be the appropriate channel for where you're at today. And so what I would do right is like, Figure out how do I go so freaking hard on one channel during a very dedicated.

[00:21:47] 30 day period of time or whatever that, that, like a, it's gotta be short enough, right? Where you can realize it's not working and still have enough time to pivot, but, but long enough where, you know, okay, we really, we gave it like our all [00:22:00] right. And, and if you go like bullish on one particular channel, and let's say that the metric, the K P I that we're using to evaluate success is branded search.

[00:22:09] Like is branded program search. If we go really hard on Instagram reels for 30 days and don't see. Much of a lift at all. I would come to the conclusion that at least at this particular moment in time, Instagram reels is not where we should be investing our time, budget, and, and effort. Right. Whereas if you were to do the same thing on TikTok, right, and see a massive increase in branded search or relevant to the program, I would argue that despite what people might say about TikTok, it's probably worth.

[00:22:39] Doubling down and investing even more on that because it's yielding some amount of traffic that that's meaningful enough that, and that conversion from that traffic is, even if it's only a couple percentage points, if it's better than your other channels have historically been, it's worth continuing to double down on.

[00:22:55] So I would try to, to summarize this a little bit more succinctly, I would try to test [00:23:00] individuals channels for, don't even create a TikTok account. Don't even try a channel as something new until you've tried. And religiously obsessed over one channel to the extent that your team can for a 30 day period of time, and then adjust accordingly.

[00:23:14] So that, that's kind of the approach I would, I would take people like to say, you have to be everywhere all the time, all at once. And that's just, that's quite frankly not That's great. And it does work if you have unlimited time and energy and resources. I don't, I haven't met a graduate program that feels that way.

[00:23:28] So, 

[00:23:29] Clayton Dean: no, I, I think you're right too. And I, I guess my, my yes and to that is I think out of the gates. Testing as like single channel, especially if you're limited budget, go brand, let's go Google search, let's start there. Right? And then let's expand out. Right? Like go where the volume is first test. I think having your creative in a really good place and trying to understand that audience as best you can out of the gates is gonna help.

[00:23:55] So then, you know, alright, if brand and Google search isn't working, LinkedIn's not [00:24:00] working. Where do we go? Where is our audience actually engaging? Right? So then, you know, let's double, let's go into TikTok and see if that's gonna work. Right. So I think setting it up that way, but like taking that approach of going where, you know, there's volume first, because you're gonna gather data a lot quicker through those channels too.

[00:24:18] Right? Where, you know, 90% of people go to Google search to start their education journey. Let's learn everything we can there then iterate. But I agree like. Especially if you have a limited budget, you can't afford to be all places at once. You have to be really strategic in that cadence of, is this working kind of okay, that's great.

[00:24:37] Let's double down. Let's cut what's not, let's double down. What is working now? Let's move on to LinkedIn. Let's move on. You know, let's start getting creative on Instagram reels and you know, et cetera, where we might, you know, a younger audience might skew to a younger audience. We might find more, more opportunity there, but yeah, I, I totally agree with you on that.

[00:24:57] Ray Martinez: I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a hot take here, [00:25:00] and I'm gonna say that we should revisit whatever efforts we did, because if we're not winning, that means we never set the foundation. And then on the on, and then I think there's a real big distinction here on the branded side between paid efforts and pushing budget to, and bidding on.

[00:25:21] Versus organic ranking naturally for brand, right? Because if my microsite is not ranking for, or my, if I have a pro, a one page program, subdomain built off my root domain and it's not ranking for branded keywords, that most likely is an indicator to me that we did not connect the entities well enough.

[00:25:42] And what do I mean by that? The program is one entity, school is another entity. Google looks for connections between those things. Those things could be like leaks. From one site to another. They could be things like schema markup on a page. If we're not making those connections like overtly, [00:26:00] we're not gonna drive that.

[00:26:00] So usually when I see no branded search on the organic side, it's because we're not, we're not, we're not hitting those foundations and we're not setting the bare minimum, and we're not creating a path for that prospective student to get from other areas of a university site back to our 

[00:26:17] Clayton Dean: program. Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:26:20] You know, one other thing that kind of, I guess kind of related to everything we're saying here is what KPIs matter though for you to be able to understand what is working and what's not. I think that's a really critical question because you could, something might work from a C P L in a lead flow perspective, but not down funnel.

[00:26:39] So that's the other challenge that you face here is like, If that other, if the down funnel is not really buttoned up right and you're not working those leads effectively, how do you really know what is working right? And I think that's another, some important consideration to have, number one, you know, make sure.

[00:26:58] You have both sides of the house [00:27:00] in a really good place out of the gates, but that they're working together so you're communicating and getting feedback as quickly as you can. Even if it's just conversations that you know you're having with students and passing that back to marketing. 'cause otherwise you might be assuming, yeah, you might generate a lot of leads, but they may not be converting down funnel.

[00:27:15] So just something to think about. I 

[00:27:18] Zach Busekrus: think there, I, I wonder too if, you know, as we think about, as we think about launching a new online grad program over the course of several years and, and the phases and, and chapters of, of the marketing of the go-to-market strategy, really, I wonder if year one really is about figuring out.

[00:27:33] Okay. Where is, where does our audience live and what are the vehicles through which we can speak to them in a way that they care enough to visit our website. Right. Like, broadly speaking, like maybe that's year one objective, whereas year two is like, okay, what we, what we're really concerned about is making sure that we have the right quality people that exist within the context of that audience.

[00:27:57] Right. And so, and I, I think some one, when we, [00:28:00] when we craft like marketing strategies, especially if it's multi-year, Typically, like any, any good marketer likes to see like an increase across, across the board, right? So if you generated a hundred leads in year one, right? You want 150 in year two or 200 in year two or whatever it might be, right?

[00:28:15] And, and that just trick it trickles down from there. And I wonder if actually that's wrong because it's like in year one, if you, if you're playing your cards right and you are taking, you're learning, like you did a bunch of work on Instagram reels that didn't work. You did a bunch of work on TikTok.

[00:28:27] That was better. Then you really allocated, you know, 30 days efforts to cranking out a ton of, you know, programmatic s e o and that's, that's working really well. You, you'll probably end up, you should end up with a fair amount of like traffic and a fair amount of like leads. Now odds are a lot of them.

[00:28:46] Aren't particularly qualified. 'cause you're kind of just trying to figure out, right, you know, who, who, who's coming to this party? Like who, who do we actually want at this party? You wanna invite everybody at first, right? But then, but then you realize, you know what, th this particular audience not, not [00:29:00] quite what we're going for here.

[00:29:01] Right? Or they're super, super interested, but just not qualified or, or they're overqualified for what we're offering or whatever it might be. Whereas year two is like, okay, maybe you actually expect fewer leads. In year two because you've figured out, no, no, no, you know what? Our audience really plays here and we gotta invest a lot more time here.

[00:29:20] Our numbers are gonna go down, but the percentage of leads that actually convert in a meaningful way is gonna go, you know, up meaning, uh, you know, a meaningful number of, of percentage points. So I, what, what do you guys think about that? Like, obviously everything always depends on your context and your data, and yada, yada, yada.

[00:29:36] But like should schools care less about seeing an increase in quantity in year two? Care way more about quality or, or what are your thoughts there? I mean, 

[00:29:45] Clayton Dean: I think, you know, if you would've asked me that 10 years ago, it would be a lot more on volume, right? 'cause traffic was cheaper. I saw a stat, um, in a Phil Hill article, I think it was through SK AI, about the increase in it was like a 20 something [00:30:00] percent increase in CPCs year over year between 21 and 20.

[00:30:07] I think you have to be thinking about efficiency these days, right? Like it's gotta be how much are you squeezing out of the leads that you're generating. And I think if the way we, we treat it, especially as we inject and. Invest in organic as quickly as, you know, as early as we can. So over time, in theory, our paid budget, we should have a lot less dependency on paid as organic goes up.

[00:30:29] Right. And for me, I'm much happier if, you know, if our lead flow is, is stagnant year over year, but we're increasing the, you know, conversion rates, increasing down funnel and we're generating more students, that's an ideal scenario. To me, it's not, our metric is not. How many leads we're generating is how many students we're generating.

[00:30:47] Right. And I think given the challenges in our market right now, you know, a lot of people are strap budgets are getting cut and, you know, enrollment challenges, it's like puts even more of an emphasis to like really understand that audience, bring the [00:31:00] right people in so you don't have to spend as much, you don't, it's not as much pressure on the marketing team to generate.

[00:31:07] Three times the amount of leads next year because you can't convert 'em down funnel. Right. So I think it just stresses the importance of looking at the whole funnel. And I think in year two, I think in an ideal scenario, if you have the volume in year one and the data, you can start shifting your focus more to mid and bottom funnel.

[00:31:23] Right. I know it's a lot of the work that that raise s e o team does a really good job with is. How do we start shifting that a little bit? We're not trying to fill as much on top of the funnel. We should have a really good idea and and be able to manage that responsibly. But now let's focus on converting those people not only through really high quality content, the nurturing process, but audit, auditing that process as well.

[00:31:44] Where are people getting stuck? Let's design strategies to reengage with those individuals and maybe some audiences were not doing a good job engaging with them and really hitting on what's most important to. 

[00:31:56] Ray Martinez: Yeah, I, I totally agree with that, Clayton. I, I think a lot of [00:32:00] folks, one of the biggest things I see, right, is I see a lot of folks build a lot of top 

[00:32:05] Clayton Dean: of funnel content very early and then not reinforce and support.

[00:32:09] So 

[00:32:09] Ray Martinez: top of funnel, it's like, you know, looking at top of funnel content, you're asking for the close without doing anything to earn it. So, so you have all this top of federal traffic that's not gonna convert and it's high volume. So, you know, the focus is really expanding out that content funnel so that users can, or, or prospective students can nurture themselves down the path.

[00:32:31] And you know, even through what I've seen, you know, even through the processes I've seen, you know, prospective students, even after applying, come back 

[00:32:39] Zach Busekrus: to 

[00:32:39] Ray Martinez: content, you know, on a microsite or I've seen it be successfully re-served up, you know, in an email drip campaign to keep folks engaged. That organic content gives you much more value than just the initial traffic it brings in it.

[00:32:52] I think it, it, you know, thinking about this a higher ed degree or program as, you know, a long cycle [00:33:00] sales product and needing multiple touch points, I think that's where having, you know, 

[00:33:05] Zach Busekrus: fleshing out that content really does that for you. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I wonder too if like, We are entering an era. And I mean, you know, the last series that we did together was all about, was called like attention retention.

[00:33:17] This whole entire podcast series was about like, attention is so fractured. How the heck do you get people to like, pay attention to your offering? How do you attract them first and foremost? And then how do you engage them in a proper way so that they end up choosing your particular program or for your competitors programs at, at the end of the day.

[00:33:35] And, you know, I, I think that like five, 10 years ago, Marketing regardless of what industry you were talking about. Right. And recruitment, regardless of what industry you're, you're talking about or, you know, change out the word recruitment for sales. Right. It really was. It, it was a quantity game. And to your point, Clayton, like, yeah, traffic was just cheaper and you knew like, hey, as long as we get like the top of the funnel to be X number.

[00:33:55] We'll, we'll meet our goals. Right? And, and basically what you do is you just define, okay, I need [00:34:00] 10 students. Right? And I know that on average, you know, it takes a hundred inquiries to generate, you know, one student, so I need a thousand inquiries, whatever it might be, right? And you just, you just do the math and you work back from there.

[00:34:09] And we're actually living in a world where it's just, I mean, obviously higher ed in and of itself is under kind of like a brand attack and folks don't know. What they think about the value of a bachelor's degree, let alone a master's degree. That's one. That's one challenge. But beyond that too, we're also just living in a world where attention is way more fractured than ever before.

[00:34:27] Like it is really difficult. We are hit with so many communications every single day across all devices, in all formats and all channels. And so the work needed is actually the work needed to convert somebody even to. Garner somebody's attention is just so, so much greater, so, right. Maybe, and, and you, you can't, you can't deliver that same level of service to a thousand, you know, leads, right?

[00:34:56] Or, or 10,000 leads, but, You could [00:35:00] potentially deliver that level of service to a hundred. Right. Leads, you, you, you, maybe you only need 10 students. Right. For this particular program in the second year, could what, how do you design a marketing funnel that optimizes for significantly less quantity, but significant, a significant increase in quality such that maybe even earlier on than you're used to?

[00:35:22] You're engaging and communicating with somebody. In a very, very, very personalized fashion because again, you're dealing with a hundred people and your team can manage that versus versus a thousand. So I feel like that's a, a long way of just saying that the future, I think for all organizations, higher ed, you know, graduate programs, online graduate programs in particular for the purposes of this conversation, Really need to focus on what are the strategies that are gonna enable our team to be high touch and, and, and high in quality with that touch as opposed to just shooting for the moon, garnering as many top [00:36:00] of the funnel context as we can and just crossing our fingers and praying that with enough email blasts a decent percentages, a decent percentage of them will wind up enrolling.

[00:36:10] Yeah, no, I. 

[00:36:12] Clayton Dean: I think it's just, it's resetting the expectations of, of, you know, what are the KPIs and how do you measure success, right. For a marketing team. And I think for us, when we think about quality versus quantity, our objective too, and again, working with, with the, you know, enrollment team or coaches, is to enable them and provide them with as much information as possible and also help them prioritize, right?

[00:36:36] So we have a digital student experience technology that helps do that. So, To point around creating this really personalized experience, right? Let's make sure we're engaging with them.

[00:36:51] From like university competitors but com, you know, competitors for eyeballs, right? Let's speak to what we know they're gonna care about. Make sure that's a consistent experience all [00:37:00] the way through. But also once they're in the funnel, we need to make sure you know, the three or four enrollment coaches working on the other end.

[00:37:09] I wanna make sure I'm optimizing their time and providing them with some background and information on who are these people that they're talking to? Where should they spend their time? Who's most likely to convert now, who maybe is thinking more long-term? That's fine. We wanna make sure we support them, but let's focus their time and attention on.

[00:37:26] These hundred, but then we have another 300 that then that that switches on the next phase of our strategy. And that's really, I think the key of like building a sustainable funnel is making sure we have the mechanisms in place for that other 300 who have raised their hand, they're interested, we have them in our pipeline, we're delivering high quality content to them, but.

[00:37:46] You know, that's really where I think you can unlock a lot of growth and you're engaging with them in a much, you know, your cost per acquisition starts to drop quite a bit. If you can really focus your time and attention there. Right. Convert those that are ready to go and [00:38:00] who are high quality, you know, high priority, but then think longer term as well and how we're gonna, how we're gonna work with those individuals.

[00:38:07] Zach Busekrus: Yeah. Ray, I'm, I'm curious about your, your thoughts around just like content formats and, and more tact, you know, tactics that you think. Our, our, you know, work and are helpful for prioritizing more of a quality, highly engaged, getting those folks through the door, so to speak. What are some tactics that you pay attention to that you think more folks should be paying attention to?

[00:38:28] Whether, whether organic or paid? 

[00:38:31] Ray Martinez: Yeah. I think on the organic side, the biggest thing to me, if you want to understand quality, you need to read what's called Google's EAT guidelines. So it stands for experience. And trustworthiness. And essentially what that is, is that's a rubric that they use to understand quality of a website, right?

[00:38:50] So part of what they're looking for with that expertise and experiential piece. Faculty content, right? Like we have these faculty [00:39:00] members at, you know, in our program that are subject matter experts. Literally the smartest person in the world on X subject, right? Why would we not leverage them as a unique value proposition for our actual program?

[00:39:12] I think, you know, there's, there's another piece here too. It's the student voice, right? That experiential piece. Try this. And they give up and abandon it because, you know, production costs can be high if they're working through video. It may be hard to coordinate writing an article with a student or alumni.

[00:39:30] And I think, you know, there are ways that, you know, you can actually send out Q and As get answers back and really, you know, lean on your community. To drive some of this user generated content that's really gonna give you a voice and really show, you know, prospective students, you know, behind the curtain.

[00:39:47] Right. And, and I think those types of pieces of content are gonna become 

[00:39:51] Clayton Dean: more and more important because, you 

[00:39:53] Ray Martinez: know, over the last decade we look at organic search, right? And on the non-branded side, we were so focused on [00:40:00] being neutral and not selling it. Right, like on, on a lead generation site, what the content that was rewarded was content that was always neutral.

[00:40:09] I don't think that's the case anymore. Google's looking for that voice. You know, when we think about products that they're doing next, they, they're, you know, rolling out Bard, which is their AI tool that's gonna be right on search engine results pages. So, you know, if, if a prospective student.

[00:40:28] To, you know, content around that intent that shows that our unique value proposition really hits that intent. It, it's def definitely something Google will source us on and pull us in and, and, and give us a link for. So I think that's sort of from a tactical approach where my mind 

[00:40:43] Clayton Dean: goes, I, I like to use an example is, this is not easy to do, I'll preface this, but we've done this in a lot of situations.

[00:40:52] It takes a lot of coordination, but understanding like, We were, we were working with the online social work program and we knew the [00:41:00] audiences. There's like six kind of audience groups, very specific. One audience group was focused on solving food deserts. One was family trauma, one was, you know, marriage counseling, right?

[00:41:11] Like we, we knew these audience groups really well. All were very applicable to the core competencies associated with the program and the outcomes of, of the program, right? So what we did is design content, working with faculty members. Delivering to that audience that was very interested in food deserts.

[00:41:28] One of their faculty members was a leading, leading, you know, voice in solving food deserts who was in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. So not only were we getting them featured in major media and sharing that content with that audience group, right? We were also doing faculty interviews where we're just diving in deeper on the subject and saying, Hey, audience group one.

[00:41:49] This is gonna be your professor in this, you know, in on this subject area, who's a leading voice in solving food deserts. They're gonna teach your first class, right? Like, let's get them excited. Let's [00:42:00] connect the dots as best. So you're thinking, you know, if they're looking at three other social work programs, who the heck's gonna compete with that?

[00:42:08] Right? Like that is a very, very powerful way to do it. Again, it's not easy to do. We had to do a lot of legwork to not only understand those audience groups in a certain way, but have the coordination with the programs, with the faculty members. Everything aligned really well. But I'll tell you, that was, it was extremely, extremely valuable in being able to deliver that message to that group and have it so personalized.

[00:42:30] Zach Busekrus: I, I love that example because, You know, in marketing generally, we're sort of living through this moment where we're all obsessed, or, or the industry is kind of obsessed with creator marketing, right? And this idea of like finding people that have kind of a, typically a niche audience and fueling them. Uh, you see this all over Instagram, right?

[00:42:48] Uh, you see this all over TikTok, like Creator Marketing as an industry is exploding right now. I mean, it's, it's becoming a multi-billion dollar industry in and of itself, right? And this is just a, a subcategory of overall advertising. [00:43:00] What you just described, Clayton, is an incredible example of what this looks like in the context of higher ed, right?

[00:43:07] You've got these industry experts that are sitting in many cases in the building next door to you, right? And these, these are like thought leaders, right? Thought creator marketing is just kind of a Gen Z way of talking about like a thought leader to, to an extent anyways. And you've got these incredible voices who really should be driving the overarching narrative around the future of a partic of the particular industry that they're.

[00:43:29] Associated with, and it, they're so underutilized and or if you go to, you know, their, their websites, it's, it's, the content is so freaking academic and it's so beau like, it's, it's, it's all true, I'm sure, but the way it's positioned is just poorly positioned for a prospective student. And it's like if they're, whoever, the universities that can crack that nut.

[00:43:53] I can figure out how do I just, how do I like take Dr. So-and-so's incredible thought here, an [00:44:00] incredibly progressive perspective on the future of this industry, and how do I transform this into content that will work for recruitment? Those are the folks that, that are gonna win, quite frankly, 

[00:44:10] Clayton Dean: a hundred percent.

[00:44:11] And you know what? That's how cost effective. Is that right? The content's already there. You're just repurposing. You can find a freelancer to help, like a high quality freelancer to help you repurpose that content. Into something digestible. You could build a whole nurturing campaign, blog content, all off of that content.

[00:44:28] Right. And you're right, I mean it's it, and I would say the one pushback we always get, 'cause we always think about how do we use these faculty experts? And a lot of our marketing is, you know, faculty don't have time. They're too hard to work with, they're gonna push back. But every single partner we work with that where we're working with faculty, there's always one or two.

[00:44:49] Who are actually really interested in this. Right? And it tends to snowball when they see, I think they, they're kind of itching to be part of, especially with a new online program. You're gonna get a lot of pushback from faculty, [00:45:00] but there's gonna be one or two who. A bit more progressive in their thinking and like, you know what, I wanna be part of this.

 

[00:45:05] And, and I think the sooner you can grab those folks, get them part of it, it's like pulling a string. All of a sudden everybody's like, well, you got, you got that guy in the Wall Street Journal, I wanna do that. Or, you know, you're, you're almost their publicist in a way, you know, but they also feel part of the program.

[00:45:21] They feel invested in it and become an ally in the effort. Right. So you're not only getting this partner, You know, who's, who's a thought leader, who's only gonna help, you know, from a brand approach, A lot of times, well, Ray will build content around a faculty member who already has a brand to drive leads for the program, right?

[00:45:38] Like it's another avenue to drive leads, but you're getting a cost effective content generator, right? Content source that can really help if you're, especially if you're struggling with, with budget, 

[00:45:50] Ray Martinez: I mean, yeah, so,

[00:45:57] It's, it's such a valuable piece, right? Like faculty [00:46:00] names in themselves are keywords. They have a respected volume for, for them. And if you're not ranking for them, someone else's. So if the faculty member doesn't even have their own website, somebody else is ranking for their name and, you know, that's, that's pretty important piece there.

[00:46:15] And I think, you know, from a larger standpoint, like involving faculty voice across content,

[00:46:24] It adds that assurance, right? We wanna make sure that we're actually adding value there. And I think, you know, the biggest thing to me that I, I see missing from faculty content is how does it add value? And I think the, the great, some of the great pieces of content I've seen have contextualized faculty expertise and really done it in a way that you can just expand it out across all channels and, and really see like a comprehensive campaign really 

[00:46:51] Zach Busekrus: work.

[00:46:52] Yeah. Yeah. So, so well said. And I think that this is like a, a perfect sort of like end to this conversation right around [00:47:00] like year one. If I can kind of summarize where I think we're at. Year one is really about let's test a bunch of things and let's figure out where should we be playing ball. Who wants to play with us, right?

[00:47:11] Year two is, okay, now that we have some sense, we don't, we don't know it all. But now that we have some sense of kind of the game that we are equipped to play, given the resources that we do have, let's go, let's go hard on this and let's, let's, let's see, see what happens. And the way that we're going to assess sort of like a continual, whether, whether or not like we're, we're making momentum is, Are we generating quality conversations and quality engagement with the right fit students?

[00:47:39] So year one's about quantity, year two's really less about quantity and much more about quality, so that in year three, you've really got a good understanding of who the heck we're going after. What are the channels and strategies that we are going to triple investment on? What are the channels and strategies that we're gonna completely stop investing in?

[00:47:58] And who are our key fat [00:48:00] champions that we can work with as we do this? And I think year two is really that sort of like learning refinement year. You're always learning. But year one, you're just, you're trying to just figure out what the heck you're doing. Quite frankly. Year two, you have a little bit of better sense of what you're doing, and so by the end of year two of launching a new online grad program, you really should be well positioned to have much, a much more stronger and reliable strategic approach to year three.

[00:48:25] Would you guys kind of agree with that, or any last comments 

[00:48:27] Clayton Dean: there? Yeah, I would say everybody's sort of like the 1% better everyday kind of approach. And I think our VP of media, he loves to use that for, especially as you get out of year one, it's the incremental growth that matters. Get 1% better every week, whether it's your ad copy, your landing pages, focus on that incremental smart growth.

[00:48:49] Right. And, and yeah, and I think it's, it's shifting the focus to. Quality over quantity. Looking at mid funnel, bottom of the funnel, [00:49:00] really making sure you stick with organic. I think the biggest, you know, issue we see is, I think you mentioned this earlier, Zach, you know, oh yeah, we hit 12 months and we're not seeing any traction.

[00:49:10] Organic is just a, it's a product of compounding interest, right? It's like you just have gotta stick with it and are most successful. Partners that are in years 4, 5, 6 are the ones that stuck with organic. Right? Their paid advertising spend isn't doubling every year. Right? If anything, their spends either stagnant or going down because they have that really solid foundation of organic to, to build on that keeps them healthy and sustainable, right?

[00:49:39] And I think that's the key to, in, in today's market. You've just gotta think a few years down the road. 

[00:49:46] Ray Martinez: Clayton said it great and summed it up. I, I think, you know, I don't have much to add besides that because I think he 

[00:49:51] Zach Busekrus: captured it perfectly there. Uh, well, this has been great guys. I, I'm so thankful for, for your time, your expertise.

[00:49:58] You guys have, you know, quite, quite the [00:50:00] scope here in terms of, uh, examples of, of clients you all have worked with. Of partners whose programs you've helped to build and scale. So this is just a real treat. If you're tuning into to this podcast for the first time and you haven't listened to episode one of this special series, we'll have that linked in the show notes below.

[00:50:18] And if you're listening to this in late fall or, or uh, early winter of 2024, all of the episodes will be added in, in the show notes of, of this special series. The special series will drop in early fall of 2023. So if you're listening to this in January of 2024, Rest assured you can go binge this entire series by clicking on the links in the show notes below.

[00:50:38] And if you wanna learn more about the great work that Archer and the team, uh, that Clayton and Ray are a part of, are, are doing, we'll have links to Archer's website and a little bit about, uh, them if you're interested in looking for a partner to help you scale and, and builds, and then ultimately scale your online grad program.

[00:50:53] So thank you guys so much for your time, Clayton and Wright. It's been a, it's been a real pleasure. 

[00:50:57] Clayton Dean: I enjoyed it Zach. Thank you for [00:51:00] having us, 

[00:51:00] Ray Martinez: Zach.

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