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What to Consider When Building a 12-Month Enrollment Marketing Game Plan
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Enrollify_ThePivot_Audio_Episode7_PresidentTakes15percentaway_Version1
[00:00:00] Tony Fraga: I'm a big believer that every year, like when you make up a a, an enrollment marketing game plan, your team really only has the energy for one or two new things. I rarely see a school able to do one or two new things from like get them up and off the ground and running within a year.
[00:00:25] Jaime Gleason: Have you ever wondered if there is a different, maybe even a better way to tackle an enrollment or marketing issue? Are there processes or practices in your institution that you wonder why does this exist and why has no one bothered to disrupt it? Or what
[00:00:41] Tony Fraga: about a hot new enrollment marketing trend that you've been asked to jump on, but you're not really sure how to do it the right way?
[00:00:49] Or even if it's worth doing at all?
[00:00:52] Jaime Gleason: Believe me, we get it. I'm Jamie Gleason, a 20 year veteran of higher ed. Who has worked both [00:01:00] inside and outside the institution and on the vendor side of enrollment marketing.
[00:01:04] Tony Fraga: And I'm Tony Fraga,
[00:01:05] an 18 year recovering higher ed marketer who has seen just about every enrollment marketing model in the industry.
[00:01:12] And we've teamed up to launch the Pivot podcast to take an issue, a hurdle, or an outdated process, and suggest ways to pivot into a new direction or launch into a better process. Us as much as possible. We'll use actual examples, but we'll try to keep all the takeaways as fresh as
[00:01:32] Jaime Gleason: possible. You'll laugh, heck you might even cry, but we promised this is a podcast that you won't want to miss.
[00:01:41] The Pivot is proud to be a part of the Enroll five podcast network, and you can subscribe to this podcast@enrollfify.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:01:55] Tony Fraga: Hello
[00:01:55] Shane Kehl: and welcome to episode seven of The Pivot. [00:02:00] It's Friday again. We have, we got in this nice rhythm, rhythm of recording on Fridays, which I like.
[00:02:04] I feel, who doesn't love a Friday higher on Fridays than it is on a
[00:02:07] Jaime Gleason: Tuesday afternoon? No, that's true. Although I do feel like I have a lot of energy on Tuesday
[00:02:10] Tony Fraga: afternoons. You do not seem like a typical Tuesday statistic
[00:02:13] Shane Kehl: to me. Yeah,
[00:02:14] Jaime Gleason: that's true. I don't know. We'll see. I guess we'll see if I can maintain my energy level.
[00:02:19] Throughout the podcast today. So
[00:02:21] Shane Kehl: if this episode's 20 minutes long, you know why. Okay, so last week we had talked about putting together a yearend report, how to create one that's gonna have actual value, whether you're on a sophisticated tool or not, and kind of your different options there. And, And maybe how to start migrating into a better plan moving forward and, and what that investment like look might look like, both with budget and with time.
[00:02:43] Um, so I think kind of a logical next thing to think about is, okay, we're entering this new year now. Um, we're getting close to it. We're not there yet. How do we build a high level 12 month enrollment marketing game plan that [00:03:00] covers kind of the core. Things that you all would want to focus on in a year.
[00:03:05] Again, it's a 12 month plan. Shit's gonna hit the fan and it's not gonna go right. But what would your 12 month plan be for starting today? Couple prefacing comments. We, let's say are at a university that had pretty flat enrollment, which in this market may actually be seen as some growth. You know, the goal is to increase year over year by 5%.
[00:03:26] Um, what are some things that you think. Our best to kind of focus on, um, at this hypothetical university. I'd
[00:03:34] Tony Fraga: say most schools right now are, they're down. I'd say applications and enrollment is down for
[00:03:39] Jaime Gleason: most schools. Can I just say, yeah. I was on a phone call yesterday with a client of ours and both, uh, weekend and evening and graduate up by like, Double digit, um, numbers, which was like an amazing, like they were so excited.
[00:03:58] Inquiries are up. That's awesome. [00:04:00] Applications are up. Boom. Drop it. That's,
[00:04:03] Tony Fraga: that's great. I'm just gonna go out and say that's prob for most people listening, that's probably not the reality. Oh yeah. Just because of the trends in enrollment right now. But that's amazing. And also I was like
[00:04:14] Shane Kehl: doing
[00:04:15] Jaime Gleason: cartwheels.
[00:04:15] I was so comfortable about it. It was amazing.
[00:04:17] Shane Kehl: So huge. Yeah, but also, but also creating a 12 month enrollment marketing game plan, whether you're flat, down 5%, down 10%. Yeah, for
[00:04:28] Tony Fraga: sure. I actually think most people are just trying to get back to where they were. There's this like, can we just have a game plan that just gets us back to where numbers used to be, whether that was last year or the year, fall 2019, fall 2019, or fall 2019, right.
[00:04:41] Everybody wants man, like. No matter how bad your fall 2019 was. Yeah, now it's good. Oh yeah. Because that's the one. So I think we need plans that help, um, yeah. That help get us, get people where they're trying to get. And some of these, some folks in in enrollment [00:05:00] management and university marketing right now are facing huge asks from the top.
[00:05:07] That are like, get us these numbers. And some of those numbers aren't attainable actually. That's what's hard.
[00:05:12] Jaime Gleason: Yeah, totally. Like moving. I feel like there's this Yeah, moving FTE that like. You hear, you hear a school that's doing well and it's like, oh wait, can we move the goal post because you're doing well?
[00:05:24] Like, no. Yeah, no, let's just accomplish what we set out to do originally. Okay. So Shane, I'll, I'll try to take a stab at what you, what you wanna do here in order to like kind of make this game plan. I think we first have to figure out like where are the areas where we are underrepresenting. So I think the first thing I'm gonna do if I'm making a 12 month game plan is first.
[00:05:47] Analyze the previous 12 months. I'm gonna like take a very solid look at like, where did things fall apart and, and I'm just gonna use actually some of the things that I've heard recently from our clients of like, where are some of the problems. [00:06:00] So the, the two problems I'm gonna use are, uh, there was a, uh, limitations in yield.
[00:06:06] I face limitations in yield that I want to get in front of. And, uh, there weren't enough, uh, leads in the first place, right? So we got lead problem, and I've got a yield problem, which is like probably everyone's problem. So maybe I just took, took some of your ammunition, Tony. Um, So if those are the two things that I want to do, the, the next, the next part of my 12 month game plan is to take a look at what is on my website that is prohibiting leads from coming in.
[00:06:41] So I've been thinking a lot recently about like, just pathways and, and I just feel like. A lot of institutions, maybe this isn't, maybe this isn't a fair statement, but I feel like a lot of institutions are kind of like at this, we're almost like entering CRM [00:07:00] 2.0, right? Mm-hmm. Remember 10 years ago when everyone wanted to crm and it was like, oh, we got our crm.
[00:07:04] It's like everything's gonna be the right with the world. And now it's like everyone has to go back through and like, They're not only like we're, we've gotten this routine of like we're updating our website, but now we've gotta update our CRMs and like understand like where are pathways, what, like what trajectory are we sending our students on?
[00:07:22] If maybe it's through the communication flow and maybe it's through like, you know, other pages that like just ha click calls to action and things like that. So I think my next thing, so in the analysis of the previous 12 months, My next big area where I'm gonna spend some time is I'm gonna audit my communications.
[00:07:42] I'm gonna take a look at like, what are the communication pathway like, what is this like laddering scaffolding that I'm doing in order to get my students, and I'm, again, I'm thinking of this as like an undergrad guy, but like, how am I getting them like on this pathway that I want them to follow to mitigate [00:08:00] not having them submit a form.
[00:08:02] Shane Kehl: Sorry, before we, before we jump in, the end goal here I think is to have an outline of five to eight things that are primary focus areas. Would you, can we bucket those as kinda like website optimizations, like ui ux optimizations on the website? Is kind of that, that core bucket that you think is worthy of a good chunk of time?
[00:08:19] Totally.
[00:08:20] Jaime Gleason: And I would say also in like another bucket would be communications, auditing, understanding, like tho, cuz those two things are going to lead. Yeah. They're basically gonna like, okay. They're gonna move the progression, they're gonna move people. Like they're either gonna see the email and you know, like if that's the mm-hmm.
[00:08:37] The communication that they first see. It's like they're either gonna say, I understand that experience, or I'm out because their website is terrible or something. You know, something of that nature.
[00:08:47] Tony Fraga: Yeah. I would add to that first bucket of I, you know, we play the No Dead Ends game, right? That's the communications audit.
[00:08:54] That's my favorite game play, no dead Ends, and start clicking on a social post. Come in from an email, do a [00:09:00] Google search, click, click, click until you hit a dead end. That's like, Ugh. We don't really offer any other pathway here. That's what Jamie's saying there. So then that's just reiterating the importance of that as step one.
[00:09:11] Love your step two, Jamie I ux, user experience audit, cleaning up the website and filling those gaps where that can be done. I'd say the third thing, if I were to jump to next things that need to be in this plan, I would the next two slots, like one would have to do with existing stuff. Yeah. And one would have to do with new stuff.
[00:09:33] Yeah. So like to speak in really simple terms and trying not to use. Marketing jargon, I would say. What do we have that has, because I did that audit, that's working really well. Yeah. How do I position what we have already so it's not making something new? How do we position it better next year? Yeah. So that, that could be, that could be a variety of Chan channels or [00:10:00] tactics that could be pushing it out more on ads or making it on the webpage, on the homepage more or in two places, or including it in the conf flow, but, Finding your best assets.
[00:10:09] Mm-hmm. One or two things. And positioning them to make them more available. Like push 'em out there more, get 'em to rank better on organic, do more ads, emails, text, whatever it is. What do we have? So the whole category of the game plan is like existing stuff that's working. Yeah. And, and like doubling down on that.
[00:10:30] The fourth thing would be new stuff. Like we don't have this. I'm a big believer that every year, like when you make up a an enrollment marketing game plan, your team really only has the energy for one or two new things. I rarely see a school Yeah. Able to do one or two new things from like, get them up and off the ground and running within
[00:10:58] Jaime Gleason: a year.
[00:10:58] Yeah. And so many try to [00:11:00] do it and then they fail because they're like, oh, we're throw, we're going in like five different directions. We got this new visit strategy, we got this new like blog that we're trying to always, you know, amplify. It's like, no, like, or Jamie,
[00:11:12] remember
[00:11:12] Tony Fraga: that one where it was like new crm, we're gonna implement slate in three months or six months.
[00:11:18] Jaime Gleason: Fingers crossed on that one.
[00:11:19] Tony Fraga: Fingers crossed that one. We have yet to see, uh, a new CRM implementation. On me like an app based CRM happening that fast. But anyways,
[00:11:31] Zach Busekrus: all righty. We're gonna play a game guys. Okay. So first and foremost, get a pen, get a paper, pull out your notes, app on your phone, whatever it might be.
[00:11:40] Okay, got it. Great. Alright. What keywords does your website currently rank? Four. Take a couple seconds, right? 1, 2, 3, 4. I gave you a few, not just a couple. What doesn't it rank for that you think it should rank for? Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4. Now, what are a few keyword opportunities that you could be winning on [00:12:00] if you just simply tweaked some of your existing website?
[00:12:02] Copy. Got it. Okay. How'd you do? Ooh, not so hot. Not sure what you can, what you're currently ranking for, or not sure what you could be ranking for. Well, that's okay, because our friends at DD Agency want to help you answer all of these questions. Didi Agency is a higher ed specific marketing technology agency that it's conducted countless SEO audits for colleges and universities across the country.
[00:12:27] In these audits, they detail where you currently rank. What you could be ranking for, exactly how copy should be tweaked on a website, pages and so much more. If this sounds like something that you could benefit from, give the guys a de agency a ping and be sure to mention that enroll I sent you to claim a 10% discount on any of their s e O offerings.
[00:12:48] So head on over to enroll fify.org/dda seo. That's DDA as in DD Agency seo. Or simply follow the link in the show notes below that will guarantee you get a [00:13:00] 10% discount off of your audit. Alright, right, head on over to enroll fify.org/dd s e o or simply Google Didi Agency. Find Didi Agency's website and be sure to mention that you heard about them through enroll I when you request your audit.
[00:13:14] All right, folks, back to the show.
[00:13:19] Shane Kehl: So do you think, Tony, if we had to, if categorizing yours, I think maybe the, the first one you mentioned, remarketing campaigns. Sure. Re remarketing the things that went well, that, that includes optimizations of, you know, website, pa, a couple of those things that maybe do overlap with some of the other stuff, but, Yeah, the leveraging of, of what went well.
[00:13:35] I think maybe bucketing that is remarketing campaigns and then Yep. Um, kind of having one of just new marketing campaigns. And you're saying that should be one to two things. When you say it's very precise, very precise, um, is a new thing. Right. I'm hoping, and I'm assuming you do not mean this, a new thing could be a new website, a new thing could be a new email template.
[00:13:58] Like where, where do we fall [00:14:00] in the level of. Newness and, and the quantity that, that then, you know, needs to happen for that, for that new campaign, that new thing or stuff to happen.
[00:14:12] Tony Fraga: Yeah. I normally, I think my top two things on that, to be more specific on the new things, would be new content pieces. So like a resource, a survey, a video, a quiz, some sort of asset.
[00:14:26] What is new you're going to make. An ad. Another one would be a new channel or a tactic like SMS text. We aren't using SMS text. We need to use it. We're gonna do SMS text this year. That's our new tactic that we're gonna add text messages into our com flows, our post cree com flows, so that would be new things.
[00:14:50] And I I'm saying you only have the stomach for one or two new things. If you were to do, we're gonna do SMS text, and we're gonna do a new video and a new [00:15:00] ebook, and we're gonna revamp half of our website and we're gonna do TikTok ads. That's dizzying already. I don't, you're not gonna do it like I, I. My theory is pick two, like, it's like it's an all you can eat buffet, but just pick two so you don't get sick.
[00:15:15] Jaime Gleason: Yeah. I, I want to drill into that a little bit too, because I think there's a difference between, right. Picking two things that you're. That you know you can do. Right? So like, making a piece of content is one thing. I actually think, like starting the work in a new channel is like, almost like there's this, this experimentation factor there.
[00:15:35] So I would actually wanna put those in two different buckets because I feel like, you know, higher ed, there you go. False prey to this. Like, you know, this is the way we've done it. So, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that unless you never change what you've always done, but like, You can use existing methodology and just add to that methodology.
[00:15:56] And there's the other, the other part, and this is, you know, kind of something [00:16:00] we try to think about a lot at our company is like, how are we always like experimenting and ideating on something new? Yeah. So like, So I was listening to Kyle Campbell this morning on a LinkedIn thing when I was driving at like six o'clock in the morning.
[00:16:14] You know, he was talking about TikTok and you know, regardless of how you feel about TikTok, like the reality is right now in this present time, that's where students are. Like, so in the next year, students are still gonna be using TikTok. So maybe it's the, maybe you haven't ventured into TikTok world and Shane doesn't agree with me, but maybe you haven't ventured into TikTok world yet.
[00:16:37] But if that's where students are on, then maybe that's where you experiment. Maybe that's like your, you just, you know, and it's not a big percentage of your time. It's not a massive like, Move all your social investment over to the TikTok. No, that would be bad. But like what's it look like to take 5% of your budget and, and create a campaign that's really, you know, the K P I [00:17:00] is one particular thing and you're not trying to have it be, oh man, we need more enrollment.
[00:17:05] Let's get on TikTok. It's like, no, that's not gonna do it. Like it's, you know, like let's figure out the exact goal. Yeah. And let's move some experimentation dollars over to that side. So I would kind of differentiate
[00:17:16] Shane Kehl: those two. And I think that's, that's an important note too when thinking about new channels and tactics is, particularly if it's a new platform, a new software, techno, whatever it might be, is making sure that it weaves into what you have currently and aligns from a reporting standpoint.
[00:17:32] Yeah. Right. Of like, we get into TikTok, but we don't have a sense of KPIs or. Any sense of like real measurement? I dunno how, yeah, what did we expect? We do it a year later you're like, oh wait, we never developed any way to measure the effectiveness of it. So now we kind of have to do it again and now measure and we wasted a year and we may said budget and, and we opportunity cost of been doing other things and that's
[00:17:54] Tony Fraga: why you need a good content marketing platform that.
[00:17:58] As proper source tracking [00:18:00] of all kinds of tactics and channels, right? So when you do these new experimenting things that Jamie's talking about, right? You can hold them accountable and see how did the experiment go? But that's three, four, and five. So three was EXI remarketing campaigns for stuff you got.
[00:18:14] Mm-hmm. Two, four was um, yeah. New content piece of some sort. And five is new channel like experiment in some sort of new channel that you hadn't been done. I love that. I think that's. Those are, we've got five elements here, five step things. Mm-hmm. You've gotta do. And I think
[00:18:33] Shane Kehl: those five also encompass a lot of the core, like Right.
[00:18:36] Your open houses and info sessions. Mm-hmm. Probably fall under that remarketing. Right. You did, you probably did them last year. Whether they were hybrid, fully online or in person and you wanna make them now fully in person, let's say like that's still remarketing. It's, it's more of the same. All your kind of usual stuff, those are we'll bucket, those as remarketing.
[00:18:53] So I think that captures. A lot of the core of where somebody should focus, I think in the next couple [00:19:00] minutes, would love to give, would love to try and get a rough percentage, let's say out of a hundred. Again, not literally everything you do is gonna fall within these five buckets, but if you had to break them down into percentage of time and budget, so just combine those two as one unit of measurement, how would you break them out among the five?
[00:19:21] Like what deserves. Third one. That's a good question. 5%. Um, like also thinking new channels. That's just time consuming cuz there's a lot to learn and do and experiment there. So you need more time. Even though it might be something simple like texting is simple, you just put together message and done.
[00:19:39] It's like, well you gotta get a platform. It's timing right now. Yeah. Determine how that platform's gonna be measured and what you're gonna evaluate, how it's gonna weave into your comp flow. There's so much thing to do, how much to do there. While it might feel simple, and I think maybe that's why you were also saying earlier, Tony stick to one or two is.
[00:19:52] You overestimate how easy it's going to be to implement something and then you're four months down the road, you're like, we've almost gotten nowhere. Don't [00:20:00] divide them evenly. That's a cop out.
[00:20:01] Tony Fraga: I give about 15% to each, but yeah, it does. It's too easy. It's too easy. There's a certain percentage of your budget that has to go towards auditing and researching first.
[00:20:09] So your first step is right. There's
[00:20:11] Jaime Gleason: actually six items, then, yeah, you gotta count the audit. I, that's fine. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha.
[00:20:17] Tony Fraga: That was one I have. So, so the audit is underestimated, undervalued good. Yeah. But it makes the regular, the rest of the 90, 90% be spent better. Mm-hmm. Yes. So I say you need to reserve at least 10% of your budget and in good in time.
[00:20:31] Yep. Right towards the audit. Yeah. I'll say that. That's 10% of a hundred thousand or 10% of 10,000. I don't care. But you gotta fight percent some way. Yep. To at least 10%. Yep. Towards pausing and looking back. Yep. Doing that analysis because you'll make smarter decisions with the rest of that 90% of that budget.
[00:20:50] Yep. In time.
[00:20:51] Jaime Gleason: I might even go to 15% on that one. Depending on how, how deep you're gonna go. Like if you're auditing comms and you're auditing web performance, I feel like Yeah, that's [00:21:00] true. There's, there's, there's some room there to like, yeah,
[00:21:02] Shane Kehl: there's so much, but 10 to
[00:21:03] Tony Fraga: 15%. 10 to 15% have 85 to 90% left.
[00:21:07] The problem is that next part, Shane, that's hard because I, yeah, it could really vary depending on what you find.
[00:21:17] Jaime Gleason: Yeah. On average.
[00:21:18] Shane Kehl: All right. But think on, think on on average. Yep. Yeah. But, but you've done this a hundred times Yep. And played the noted ends game. Sure. And it. People are always shocked at how terrible they, everyone's joke, oh, my website's terrible, whatever.
[00:21:32] And they're like kind of joking about it. And then you go into it and you're like, yeah, this is, oh man, actually even worse than you probably thought it was. Um, and they see it and they're like, oh my gosh. Like they, it's, it's a running joke. I feel like in higher ed, anytime we go to a com, oh, don't look at my website,
[00:21:45] Jaime Gleason: 15% for audit.
[00:21:46] And they're kind of saying 15% goes to optimization, like cop out web website optimization. Okay. Because I feel like that's a combination of like, Like, okay. SEO keyword, word optimization on page, but also and visual [00:22:00] stuff. Yeah. Also, here we go, drum roll on this one. Also, getting rid of pages that are just bad, like just don't do anything.
[00:22:06] Yes. Which is a real, it's a reality, folks. Yeah. Like I feel like. Again, this is kind of that web, you know, like Web 2.0 is like, we went from, oh, we've got a great website. We rebuilt it, and now it's like, now let's call that material down because there's like 80% of the stuff that's on your website is built for an internal audience, and it's not your storefront.
[00:22:26] So like, let's get, let's get rid of it, or let's put it somewhere else.
[00:22:30] Tony Fraga: I think you're at 25% each for number three and four. So 25% of your time. So if 15, 15, that's 30% what? Remind me what? Three and four. So number three, I'm gonna remind you the benefit. So number one was your audit. Number one is your audit.
[00:22:46] Your analysis, you're looking back and auditing things. 10 to 15%, let's be generous, and conservatives say 15, 15% to implement website updates based on that optimizations. Could be seo, [00:23:00] could be graphics. Removing pages, year out 30% of your budget in your time. I would say for three and four. Number three is remarketing your existing stuff that you know, work.
[00:23:11] I think we spend a lot of time,
[00:23:13] Shane Kehl: oh, three's communications. What do you mean? Three. Is communications still like we juggled them around Three's communications four is remarketing. We have six now. One is audit, two is website. Three is communications. What's communications then is re marketing. Five is new contents com flow audits
[00:23:29] Jaime Gleason: or comp flow updates.
[00:23:32] Shane Kehl: Com flows? No. Oh, that definitely
[00:23:34] Tony Fraga: doesn't need to be 25, which I feel like doesn't need to be 5%. So I, I disagree. I think that's part of two that could easily be, have six things. I, I think that's unfair because what you update Yeah. What you, number two was just about updating stuff after you've done it so.
[00:23:48] I think we need to be immediate agnostic a little bit on this because we're assuming too much, so like,
[00:23:53] Jaime Gleason: well, I mean this whole, this whole scenario, because is
[00:23:55] Tony Fraga: not an assumption. Sure, sure. But I think [00:24:00] optimizing things takes less time. Yeah.
[00:24:04] Jaime Gleason: Yes. Yeah. When the audit's done
[00:24:05] Tony Fraga: well, Yeah. If you have a com flow with eight emails and you audit it, we found email chooser pretty bad.
[00:24:12] Yep. And email seven needed at a CTA update. Yep. You go and you tweak those things. We're not talking about rewriting the
[00:24:17] Jaime Gleason: whole com flow. So we're talking at 30% for those two. That 30% for those. I agree.
[00:24:22] Shane Kehl: That's, that's, that's
[00:24:23] Tony Fraga: good. So then I wanna keep this simple. Yep. Yes. Okay. 25. So 25 for remarketing energy, going into do the best of what worked before.
[00:24:34] Yep. And remarket the hell to your best existing assets. Yeah. Number four, baby energy. To make a new thing, we need to respect what making new things takes. That's why I think it also takes 25%, so I know that's 50%, but that's what I would put My experience has taught me like. You need to put a fair amount of time
[00:24:52] Jaime Gleason: that lands us right and that only leaves 20% left.
[00:24:55] 20%. That's perfect. I was thinking 25% originally for new channels, [00:25:00] but I think that new channels, I will let 20% go. I think that's a good, because the other thing with a new channel is that you don't wanna overinvest in how much you're are putting into it. It's like, Put your, dip your toe in the water, test it a little bit.
[00:25:13] Right. Put a 5% of your butt, your dollars to it, and maybe a little bit more time. But it's mostly about like seeing if it's going to move the needle on, you know, whether it's probably lead generation in most cases, if it's a new channel. Um, perfect. I love it. 15, 15. 25. 25. 20. Okay.
[00:25:33] Shane Kehl: Here's the pivot. Drum roll.
[00:25:36] President Keel, no relation to me, just came in and said 15% has to go. We just made the perfect, what are you? Cutting
[00:25:44] Tony Fraga: plan. And we've already
[00:25:45] Shane Kehl: made our plan. Can't divvy it up by anything less than 5%. So it has to be 5%, yep. Has to be 5%. Chunks at minimum. Can be 10, can be all 15. Um, I
[00:25:57] Tony Fraga: would cut out the, but can't be less than 5%.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] I would cut out number five. The TikTok ad or the, or the, yeah, that was 20%
[00:26:06] Shane Kehl: we had for it by all 15%. Right, so So you would use all 15% that needs to be cut. I
[00:26:10] would
[00:26:11] Tony Fraga: cut out number five entirely and put that 5% extra into one of the other areas and doubled down there. And I would take the risk of not being, not doing innovation in r and d.
[00:26:22] Mm-hmm. See, I, because I think the energy and the new piece Yeah. Disagree. I knew you
[00:26:26] Shane Kehl: would. I knew you would.
[00:26:30] Jaime Gleason: I would not touch the experimentation. All right. So Jamie, what would you do? You're such a risky, actually, maybe I would take, you're a risk. I would take 5% from the experimentation, so that that leaves me 10%.
[00:26:43] Um, I would take. Another 5% off the production. Actually I would take 10% off. Uh, I'd take 5% off the production of new, and I would take 5% off [00:27:00] the optimization. I would take 5 55. Um, I would really wanna double down like, so the remarketing stuff like, you know, it works already. It's not like there's no question marks.
[00:27:13] Yeah. The audit, I, you gotta leave that because you need to understand. You need to understand what works and you need to double down in the re in the remarketing stuff. But I feel like higher ed has gotten into this like space where we don't experiment and I like, I like I am diametrically opposed to that just because I feel like that maybe has So
[00:27:34] Shane Kehl: you would just do a
[00:27:34] Tony Fraga: smaller
[00:27:35] Shane Kehl: experiment
[00:27:35] Jaime Gleason: though?
[00:27:36] I would, yeah. Yep. Yeah. Maybe I would if it's possible program level. If it's possible. If it's possible.
[00:27:44] Tony Fraga: Yeah. I mean obviously, but you, you risk doing it so small it's not statistically reliable. Yeah, right. It's kinda like luck hit
[00:27:49] Jaime Gleason: or miss. Yeah. I mean, I understand that, but I think we can, if, if you have the right marketing software, you can assess like a small beta on something and really get [00:28:00] like an understanding.
[00:28:01] Shane Kehl: It also depends too, I mean, your example of TikTok is one that you really need a full Yeah, well strategy for that. It's. That's a comfortable chat. That versus we want to implement texting at what scale we want to do. We wanna do texting announcements for our events and for our application deadline and try and collect numbers through Sure.
[00:28:19] Our forms that we already have that's a little less like, yeah, whoa, we gotta do all these things. That's finding a platform, getting the platform. Making sure that you can, you know, link in those texts. Yeah. And track those. Um, and then you send them. All right. That's a little easier than launching a full TikTok thing where that right.
[00:28:38] Tony Fraga: Yeah, exactly. My fear, and again, this is gonna be really relative cause we're just using percentages, but at a certain point it does actually matter what the dollar amount is. Yeah. Oh, totally. Because if it's a certain percentage of a small number versus a larger Sure. You really like what my fear is like, You whittle the TikTok thing down just to pick on that one again.
[00:28:56] And you do one thing in like September, right? And there's [00:29:00] like two videos posted and then you like, that didn't work. Where it's like the difference of like, we're gonna run TikTok for three months. Mm-hmm. We're gonna publish a ton of stuff. Right. And really give it the time to mature. Yeah. We do this with LinkedIn all the time.
[00:29:13] Schools wanna get on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is more expensive. This happens with LinkedIn all the freaking time. Yeah. LinkedIn. LinkedIn's more expensive. Yep. They believe they should be getting something out of it. We spend a thousand dollars on LinkedIn, they get nothing. Nothing. LinkedIn stuff for a thousand dollars of ads.
[00:29:27] And it's like the LinkedIn inflection point is more like 5k. Yeah. And you gotta stick with it. Yeah. And you have to have professional profiles and it's like there is a way to get something outta LinkedIn for certain schools and certain programs, but. You can't limp in with a little, there's like a minimum amount and so some, it depends on what it is.
[00:29:43] Yeah. But it's, I worry that for some folks you take that 15%, that 20 and you make it 15. Just make sure there's actually enough to do damage in whatever area you're experimenting. Yeah. So it's sound enough,
[00:29:59] Shane Kehl: [00:30:00] right? Yeah, and I think that's a good point too, cuz with new channels, right? With TikTok it's a little more.
[00:30:06] Awareness level where it's harder to see the impact in that same year versus if you're doing texting, getting people to, it's more immediate RCP to an event through texting, it's, well, you can measure the impact pretty immediately and then be like, all right, this is worth our time. Let's double down later.
[00:30:21] We may actually pull 5% from remarketing and put that back into texting because it worked well and we wanna do, figure out how to do more of it versus TikTok. And other channels, not just TikTok, but like you kind, it's a waiting game of like, all right, will this turn into anybody? How are we actually measuring this?
[00:30:38] It's like nobody's going through a lead ad on, on TikTok or anything, and so it's a little bit harder to measure the effectiveness of it. Yeah. And then therefore, are you left kind of sitting and waiting most of the year and just hoping it works out. And if you're in a bind, that's maybe not the best spot for you if you have.
[00:30:56] Extra time and
[00:30:57] Jaime Gleason: energy like Yeah, it's fair. I mean, I'm, I'm [00:31:00] not gonna, might be, I won't concede to the point where I'm just saying, let's get rid of it. I think there is, there are a lot of budget variables there. I guess my, you know, the big thing is you don't wanna let go of experimentation. I just don't wanna let go of experimentation cuz I think, which is good.
[00:31:11] I think it's an important part of, you know, where we, where we need to find ourselves as an industry. I also think too, just to be fair, I often even, it's funny because. You know, I shouldn't think this way, but I often consider, when I'm thinking about situations like this, I think about it as like, I'm on the, I'm on the institution side and I'm working for myself.
[00:31:34] Whereas I think sometimes there's a little bit of a delta when it comes to us thinking about it as, you know, working for a marketing agency and we think of like these, you know, bigger level campaigns. Um, So it's, it's, it's slightly different. It's, it's, I'm, I'm still reconciling all that, you know, like the, like me being a small shop in Northwest Philadelphia as opposed [00:32:00] to like, you know, doing more significant contract level work.
[00:32:04] Um, but anyway, it's a good exercise. Shane, this was a good one. This was fun. This is a good one you really made us think, which we appreciate on a Friday afternoon after, you know, getting up early, early, I think. I
[00:32:16] Tony Fraga: think the hard choice for schools in this question, Shane, in this pivot, both the original question and the pivot is balancing between a diversified portfolio where your risk is not all in one basket.
[00:32:29] With your enrollment marketing strategy, with the pressure of you got a shrinking budget, you lo you don't have as much as you thought you had and you gotta make a hard decision. Yeah. Where do you slice and you like, we're trying to help schools. I think, yeah, we, we partially want to really make sure there's enough a diversified portfolio because marketing just requires that today Totally.
[00:32:53] Where there's so many variables and yet we need enough to be powerful and make a splash. [00:33:00] And if there's not enough, I'm more of the mindset, and I may be alone in this of like, I don't wanna limp into things like there's the minimum amount needed Yeah. To pay, to play the critical mass. Mass. Yes. And if you don't have that, yeah, I then don't.
[00:33:15] Then just, yeah. Less is more.
[00:33:17] Jaime Gleason: That's, I mean, that's a good point. I, I don't disagree with that point. Yeah. I think that that's, That is the consideration that I think would be, you know, like once we knew the budget, once we knew how big our team was. Yeah. Once we knew it's like internal versus external spending.
[00:33:29] I think all that like would, might sway a little bit, but mm-hmm. My, my point is like, like I would just try as hard as possible if, if things haven't, you know, it's like it, it's the adage right. If you have always done, sorry. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
[00:33:50] Tony Fraga: Keep doing it. Keep you, you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you're
[00:33:53] Jaime Gleason: getting. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, we just have to move beyond that, even if it's incremental. [00:34:00] And I think
[00:34:00] Shane Kehl: that's too, to, not a counterpoint, but a complimentary point on the other side of, I think sometimes we've heard things like.
[00:34:08] You know, why aren't we on? That's my favorite, this thing or faculty com. I googled this and we don't show, how come I
[00:34:14] Tony Fraga: never get our ads? Or a vendor emailed me and said, we looked up your website and you don't rank on all these places. Right. Um, and they scare you with where you don't have and, and all that.
[00:34:22] Shane Kehl: Yeah. Yeah. Or they see their competitor in a newsletter or mag, whatever it is. And why aren't we there? Why aren't we there? And you know, it might feel. Easy to fall into the trap of like, okay, let's just do that because our competitor is, or because other people have brought this up a couple times, whatever, and not think through everything and just kind of feel this, this pressure of like, well, let me just please, yeah, if I please the faculty, it will kind of work itself out.
[00:34:52] Um, and that's just the worst justification to do anything. I think. Um, no slight to faculty, but. They're not [00:35:00] in the marketing department or the admissions department for a reason. Awesome. Okay, so last episode, when we chat about what you all were up to, we were prepping for nagap, putting together big reports.
[00:35:11] Um, what are you all in the middle of now for, for clients? We're kind of approaching renewal season and getting close to it where? Everyone's going through, you know, budget shifts and structures and things are just, you can, you think you can bank on something and then some president cuts 15%. Um, what are you all in the middle of, of kind of dealing with now or things that clients maybe are facing that you all are kind of helping them, them navigate through?
[00:35:40] I got one.
[00:35:41] Tony Fraga: I got one right off the bat. That's super, super different. Um, working on this, um, this is really different for me to, to be able to co-present with. I, um, there's a lot of stuff prepping for the GEM Summit, but um, getting able to work on a workshop on the topic of how to work with a new dean. So there's a lot of new deans who [00:36:00] have come in or a new leader of some sort, whether it be assistant dean.
[00:36:03] Associate dean, new, new dean overall of a school. And how do the enrollment management team and maybe the assistant dean work with the new dean in the, the re-imagining effective partnership. So you want to, hey, the story of this is what we are been doing, this is what's going well, this is what's not going well.
[00:36:25] And then the new deans got ideas. I'm like, Well, I came from this institution and we did this, and why aren't we doing this? And so the new dean normally has new initiatives. So there's this, there's this really interesting tension between wanting to do the new things but not mess up the things that are working.
[00:36:42] So you don't wanna throw out the baby with the bathwater, but you also wanna please the new dean and do the new initiative. So it's like, There needs to be this balance, and I've seen this a lot through our partners, so it's really fun to work on a presentation where I get to work with an assistant dean who's, who's the, the assistant head of the school and is new [00:37:00] dean, and this partnership has gone really, really well, but, They had to do very special things to make it work well and they, it worked really well with us as well because we got to come in and tell a story as like the outside consultant partner that got to say, look, we've been working with this school for like four years and here's the data and the trends we've seen.
[00:37:19] Here's what we're doing. Here's what's working well, here's what needs improvement, and we want to shift. And align that with the dean's new priorities. And it was like this amazing trifecta. That was really fun. That's what I've
[00:37:30] Jaime Gleason: been working on. That sounds like a blast actually. Yeah.
[00:37:33] Tony Fraga: Um, it's a topic not talked about.
[00:37:35] Shane Kehl: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Jaime Gleason: Well, yeah, I know, I know. Well, I think I'm gonna, just going on, you know, what you were talking about, I've been emailing even this morning with, uh, A number of our client success managers, and they're all, you know, like gearing up for report season and really like, you know, what's it look like for us to come, come in and really talk about what's, what we've done and what's happened.
[00:37:59] And [00:38:00] also, uh, you know, this is maybe the, maybe I shouldn't say this on the air, but like there's this other part where it's like, how do we, very similar to what we talked about here is like, how do we continue to be. More creative. Right? So channeling a little bit of Simon Sinek here and thinking about the infinite game that we, mm-hmm.
[00:38:17] That we all need to be thinking about. It's like, you know, it's really easy to come in and say, okay, this is a year. Here's what we did. Here's the end of the year. Here's what we hope to do. And it's like very kind of like chopped up rather than thinking like, how do we help this institution? You know, like five years from now, how do we make this company, like how do we make our, you know, the offering, the portfolio offerings that we have for marketing, how do we continue to add to those?
[00:38:44] So really just like working with the team in order to really like guarantee excellence in consulting when it comes to those renewals is like, that's kind of where my head's at right now. It's not client, it's not necessarily like client stuff, but it's more like [00:39:00] how do we keep just. How do we just think about this, like the infinite nature of what we do and and how to just compete against ourselves really
[00:39:09] Tony Fraga: requires more of that experimentation you were talking about earlier.
[00:39:11] It
[00:39:11] Shane Kehl: does and does. Well, thank you all for listening to seven episode seven of the Pivot. If you want a, an outline of all the things we've put together, hit up Jamie or Tony on LinkedIn, but I'll send you a breakdown. Other than that, we hope to see you again in two weeks for episode
[00:39:28] Tony Fraga: eight.
[00:39:41] Zach Busekrus: Hey all, Zach here from Enroll Fight. If you like this podcast, chances are you'll like other enroll FI shows too. Our podcast network is growing by the month, and we've got a plethora of marketing admissions and higher ed technology shows that are jam packed with stories, ideas, and frameworks that are all designed to empower you to become a better higher ed professional.[00:40:00]
[00:40:00] Our shows feature a selection of the industry's best as your host. Learn from Mickey baes, Jeremy Tier, Jamie Hunt, Karen Myers, Jamie Leason, and many, many more. You can learn more about the Enroll five Podcast network@podcasts.enrollfive.org. Our shows help higher ed marketers and admissions professionals find their next big idea.
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About the Episode
The what's what...
Building a 12-month enrollment marketing game plan can be tough, but we break down what to consider when putting it together and how to be sure you won’t overcommit yourself or your team.
This episode is brought to you by our friends at DD Agency:
DD Agency is a higher ed-specific marketing technology agency that has conducted countless SEO Audits for colleges and universities across the country.
In these audits, they detail where you currently rank, what you could be ranking for, exactly how copy should be tweaked on website pages, and much more.
If this sounds like something you could benefit from, give those folks a ping and be sure to mention that Enrollify sent you to claim a 10% discount on any of their SEO offerings.
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About the Enrollify Podcast Network
The Pivot is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, chances are you’ll like other Enrollify shows too!
Our podcast network is growing by the month and we’ve got a plethora of marketing, admissions, and higher ed technology shows that are jam-packed with stories, ideas, and frameworks all designed to empower you to be a better higher ed professional. Our shows feature a selection of the industry’s best as your hosts. Learn from Jeremy Tiers, Zach Busekrus, Jaime Hunt, Corynn Myers, Jamie Gleason, and many more.
Learn more about The Enrollify Podcast Network at podcasts.enrollify.org. Our shows help higher ed marketers and admissions professionals find their next big idea — come and find yours!
About the Podcast
Tony is the CEO and a marketing strategist at DD — an enrollment marketing technology agency that specializes in implementing inbound, content-based methodologies. He leads a team of fast-paced marketing innovators, who handle everything from content creation to marketing automation, and thrives at the intersection of strategy and technology. Tony speaks regularly at higher education and non-profit marketing conferences on the topics of content marketing, SEO, and the latest trends in digital media.
Shane is the Chief Edutainment Officer for Enrollify. He takes any opportunity to make marketing fun and enjoyable while maintaining a healthy level of helpfulness and data-backed information. When he’s not being sarcastic or irritating Zach, he’s enjoying a sports game or nice brunch – mimosa, hold the OJ. His goal is to make higher ed even more fun and lively by injecting new ideas wherever he can.
Jamie Gleason is the Vice President Of Enrollment Strategy at Direct Development. He brings over 15 years of higher education experience to the team; almost a decade of which was spent on campus(es) and nearly six years was in edtech. A self-proclaimed "farmer + fixer," Enrollment has always provided the perfect challenge for him! He's happiest when mining through spreadsheets, results, and (generally) any type of data!
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The Pivot is a bi-weekly podcast that addresses real-time enrollment marketing challenges and meets them head-on with strategic insights and tactics. Join Tony Fraga, Jamie Gleason, and Shane Kehl to get inspired, build a game plan, and find your next great pivot.
This show is hosted and brought to you by the giant slayers at DD Agency —an enrollment marketing technology agency that helps colleges and universities recruit right-fit students through SEO, content marketing, and marketing automation. Learn more about DD Agency here.
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