Presentation Info
Tuesday, July 18 | Wednesday, July 19 | Thursday, July 20
Seth Odell
Keynote: 8:30 - 9:30 am
Pitch Perfect: How to Build Buy-In, Sell Big Ideas, and Get Great Marketing Out the Door
Seth Odell, Founder & CEO of Kanahoma
Great work may start with a great idea, but it takes a lot more than that to get it to market.
In this action-packed keynote talk, enrollment marketing expert Seth Odell will share practical and tactical tips and tricks on how to build trust, secure budget, and get your projects green lit. Combining personal anecdotes from his nearly two decades in education (SNHU, UCLA, Kanahoma) with actionable insights shared from many of our industry’s top leaders, this talk will give you the tools you need to survive and thrive in an increasingly competitive market, one where budgets are shrinking and risk aversion is on the rise.
Don’t let your best ideas die on the vine. Join us for eduWeb Summit 2023 and see for yourself how shipping your best work may be closer than you think.
Erica Colaianne
Track Presentations & Roundtables - 9:45 - 10:45 am
Marketing, Branding & Communications:
Weaving the Threads: Building Social Strategies that Succeed Across Platforms
Erica Colaianne, Interim Director for Social Media and Public Engagement, University of Michigan
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Presenting on dynamic social media strategies for higher education institutions that not only endure but thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of social platforms, and to engage attendees in a discussion on the current state of social media platforms and the new waters our audiences—and therefore our brands—are navigating.
Raman Bhalla
Web & Digital Experience:
Web Accessibility for Universities: Creating an Inclusive and Enhanced Digital Environment
Raman Bhalla - Assistant Vice President, University Web Services, Rochester Institute of Technology
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This talk will focus on the importance of web accessibility for universities ranging from legal obligations, to promoting equal access to information and resources, to improving the experience for all users, not just those with disabilities. We will discuss practical strategies and best practices for implementing and maintaining web accessibility, including design considerations, importance of training and awareness among web developers and content creators, and use of tools to scan web properties to identify gaps.
Overall, this discussion aims to empower universities with the knowledge and tools to prioritize web accessibility, foster an inclusive digital campus, and align with the values of inclusivity and diversity that many universities strive to uphold.
Ned Jones
Kathleen Fenlon
Allison Turcio
Enrollment Marketing:
Admissions, Financial Aid and Marketing: A One Team Approach
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Siena College is a small, private, regional, liberal arts school with a high discount rate. On paper, it’s not the place you’d expect to achieve its highest enrollment ever—knocking revenue goals out of the park in the process. What’s our secret? Marketing, sales and pricing are built as one strategy and marketing, admissions and financial aid work as one team.
Fredrick Martin
Leadership & Innovation:
Unlocking the Path to Progress: Empowering Higher Education Institutions with Meaningful Organizational Change
Fredrick Martin - Senior Director, Change Management; University of Virginia
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Discover strategies and insights needed to propel your institution towards its future goals. Discover how to effectively implement transformative change within your organization, with a focus on the unique challenges faced by the higher education sector. Gain valuable knowledge on the following key topics:
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Unveiling the Power of Cultural Transformation: Overcoming Barriers to Becoming a Strategic HR Organization
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Building Stronger Teams: Aligning Culture to Meet the Evolving Needs of Higher Education
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Putting the Human at the Center: The University of Virginia’s Human Resources Organization Journey towards Organizational Transformation
Jason Smith
Analytics:
Unlocking the Power of Conversation Analytics to Boost Your Enrollment Strategy
Jason Smith, Industry Expert, CallTrackingMetrics.com
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In today’s higher education landscape, tradition is great for school rivalries and graduation gowns, but tradition in enrollment tactics can kill growth. To win the enrollment race, you need innovative approaches that put you at the top of a student's wish lists. Join CallTrackingMetrics for this fun, informative session and discover how conversation analytics give you valuable insights into student and parent interactions by analyzing sentiment, intent, and interests with laser precision. Start making every interaction with your students and their parents count.
Jonny Holsten
Track Presentations & Roundtables - 11 am-Noon
Marketing, Branding & Communications:
Clarify Your Marketing Message With StoryBrand to Increase Enrollment & Community Engagement
Jonny Holsten, Messaging Strategist & StoryBrand Guide, South Mountain Messaging
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A breakdown of the StoryBrand framework and how colleges can use it to tell the right story in their marketing. This session will end with a Q&A on the framework and a review of a recent project with a community college in Tennessee.
Zach Barnett
Jason Huebsch
Rachael Nelson
Web & Digital Experience:
Easier than Herding Ducks: Unifying Digital Experience
Zack Barnett - Assistant Vice President, Digital Strategy & Communications; Jason Huebsch - Director of Web Development; Rachael Nelson - Assistant Director of Digital Communications; University of Oregon
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The digital strategy team at the University of Oregon helps create signature web experiences across an organization of fiercely individualistic schools, colleges and divisions. Within such a decentralized organization, the same platform that supports the university’s homesite also powers more than 85 sites, including primary properties for all schools, colleges, campuses and major efforts. How do you foster such unity? It’s actually easier than herding Ducks.
Carrie Phillips
Enrollment Marketing:
The Enrollment Cliff: How We Start Preparing
Carrie Phillips - Chief Communications and Marketing Officer; University of Arkansas at Little Rock
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We’ve heard about the enrollment cliff and its likely impact on higher education. For her dissertation, Dr. Carrie Phillips researched how marketing strategies might help mitigate this cliff. This session shares findings from visiting with chief marketing officers about how they’re preparing. The session will begin with a high-level overview of the enrollment cliff followed by a deep dive into how marketing strategies might lessen the impact. You’ll hear about the challenges participants face, strategies they’re exploring and best practices to consider. As you’re looking to navigate change at your institution, this session is a great place to start.
Kader Sakharia
Leadership & Innovation:
Innovation and Strategies for Technology-driven Wellness and Mental Health Management
Kader Sakkaria, CEO, Uplift Array
Jack Brzezinski, Ph.D., AI and Analytics, Uplift Array
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This session focuses on higher education's growing wellness and mental health problems. Kader Sakkaria will discuss ways for higher education institutions to build strategies to address these issues. Michael Dain and Dr. Jack Brzezinski will focus on an overview of technology-driven methods that reduce the impact of wellness and mental health problems on the student journey. We will also discuss the impact of the expanding landscape of artificial intelligence and generative machine learning technologies. The team will discuss the growing role of research focusing on behavioral data models and the theory of change for proactively identifying areas where students might need help. By the end of this session, you'll know organizational, technology, and data-driven strategies for addressing wellness and mental health problems in the context of higher education.
Jack Brezezinski
Kris Hardy
Analytics:
Digital Marketing Analytics
Kris Hardy - Director of Web and Digital Marketing, Messiah University
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Tracking your digital marketing campaigns can be complicated due to the numerous tactics and platforms involved. Plus, tracking users across campaign landing pages, our main website(s) and CRM portals can further complicate our tracking capabilities. During this session, we will discuss ways to take our digital marketing analytics beyond impressions, clicks and conversions. We will focus on tracking across multiple web assets, looking at the data through users and session scopes, and fully integrating our web analytics platform with a CRM.We will also review third-party tools that can help us aggregate our digital platform metrics, web analytics and CRM analytics all in a single Looker Studio report.
Kati Pratt
Bill Faust
Keynote: 12:30 - 1:45 pm
The Comeback at Purdue Global: How Purdue University Repositioned its Online University for Working Adults
Kati Pratt, Executive Director of Brand and Marketing Strategy, Purdue University
Bill Faust, Managing Partner, Ologie
Learn how Purdue University tapped its brand essence, respected reputation and land grant roots to completely rethink, reimagine and relaunch Purdue Global - its online university for working adults. Hear about the year-long journey taken by a multidisciplinary team to understand working adults in a deep and meaningful way and create a story and message that responds to their emotional and rational needs. And then learn how that story is being shared through a multi-channel campaign that recognizes working adults as real people with real challenges versus leads to be generated. The presenters will speak to how Purdue Global is turning those challenges into real opportunities for people who simply want to come back to something bigger and better - for themselves and their families.
Matt Bennett
Track Presentations & Roundtables - 2:15 - 3:15 pm
Marketing, Branding & Communications:
Launching a Brand Remotely and Making it Stick
Matt Bennett - Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, American University
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A brand campaign is a very hands-on engagement. Audiences need to experience the brand in all aspects of their engagement with a brand (or a university in this case). But how to introduce a new brand when the community is not on campus? American University launched Challenge Accepted in April 2021 when the students, faculty, and staff were still predominately remote. Can a brand campaign start digital-only and then transition to an in-person experience when the community returns? Yes! And can it resonate multiple years later?
Kelly Kautz
Web & Digital Experience:
Does Your Website Work for First-Generation College Students?
Kelly Kautz - Lead UX Strategist, Paskill
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First-generation college students are important to higher education. But are college websites meeting their needs? Or making it harder for them to succeed?UX strategist Kelly Kautz sought the answers. She used an agency grant to fund primary research into the digital habits of first-gen students. The results surprised her: College websites not only affect college marketing outcomes. They can also make or break student outcomes.Does your website guide first-gen students through application and enrollment? Or does it bar access through complicated user paths and unintuitive navigation? You’ll discover the answer, along with practical, evidence-based ways to improve your site’s user experience.
Christina Craig
Enrollment Marketing:
Thinking Differently: How to Market to Spanish-Speaking Audiences
Cristina Craig - Director of Marketing, NJIT
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It’s no secret the nation is experiencing a decline in college enrollment. But is that true for every demographic? Now, more than ever, we need to tap into diverse groups, like Hispanic students, who by 2025 will constitute one-fifth of all college students (National Center for Education Statistics). To serve this growing and vital population, higher ed needs to do things differently — both to recruit and retain students.
Join this interactive presentation on marketing to Spanish-speaking audiences in higher education. Discover effective strategies and best practices for connecting with the rapidly growing Hispanic market. Learn to understand the cultural nuances, preferences, and aspirations of Spanish-speaking students and their families. Get actionable advice on crafting compelling, culturally relevant, inclusive campaigns to improve outreach, access, and enrollment success.
Tony Proudfoot
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Leadership & Innovation:
Breaking the Leadership Mold
Tony Proudfoot - Vice President Marketing and Strategic Communications, Western Michigan University
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Western Michigan University is differentiating itself in the second-most competitive state in the nation. It’s built a brand on human centered design—tested through rigorous research and fueled by a $550 million gift—and has inspired or shaped a new college, a high-touch concierge student success program, a paid internship program, 24/7 – 365 counseling, and a DEI-focused living learning community paired with a housing scholarship. WMU’s CMO has been charged with leading the development of a differentiated, felt brand experience that improves student outcomes, strengthens competitive advantage, and closes equity gaps in student success. Is it time CMOs to push beyond the Promotion P and lead value creation for students?
Lyndsey Hicks
Analytics:
Let Data Lead the Way - Simple Strategies for Combatting Opinions with Confidence
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When it comes to website design, everyone has an opinion. While feedback can be valuable, relying solely on subjective input can lead to a design that misses the mark (and your goals) for the intended audience. We'll explore simple strategies for using data such as heat maps, scroll maps, screen recordings, A/B testing, and more to create user-centric websites and help combat opinions when you need to. We'll also discuss practical tips that make it easy to reference that data quickly. By the end of this session, you'll have the tools and knowledge to let the data lead the way to more successful website builds and happier users.
Jaime Oleksik
Track Presentations & Roundtables - 3:45 - 4:45 pm
Marketing, Branding & Communications:
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Benchmarking Digital Marketing in Higher Ed 2023
Jaime Oleksik, VP of Business Development, Carnegie
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In 2020, we conducted a survey to improve higher education’s understanding of digital marketing services and goals at colleges and universities. Now, over two years later, we want to know what’s changed. What channels do institutions use to reach key audiences? How much money are they spending on social media? Who’s responsible for strategy and execution? The findings from our latest survey will be reviewed and presented in this session
Learnings will include:
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How much institutions spend on digital marketing.
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Institutional advertising goals for social media and paid search.
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Where institutions advertise on social media.
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Other interesting insights: influencer marketing, SEO, buyer personas, and email strategy
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Abby Zimmerman
Web & Digital Experience:
Why College Websites Aren't Working for Gen Z
Abby Zimmerman, Digital Strategist, Ologie
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It’s harder and harder to attract students to 4-year colleges. This makes the experience of a college’s website even more important – it’s got to make a compelling first impression. But often, higher education websites fall short in their approach, user experience, and what content is prioritized. This session will share the findings from a research study that asked high school students about how they use a website, what they expect to see, and how they want that information presented. Attendees will leave with exclusive access to insights that will help drive decisions on how to optimize their web experience for this critically important audience.
Cam Ferguson
Enrollment Marketing:
Reaching the Next Generation of Students on the World's Hottest Platform
Cam Ferguson, Brand Partnerships Manager, and Anastasia Jones, Brand Development Manager, TikTok
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Hear from the TikTok higher education team as they dive into the fascinating world of TikTok and explain how students are using the app to make critical decisions about their education. We will walk step-by-step through everything you need to launch your first enrollment marketing campaign on TikTok, from creative best practices to lead generation recommendations and case studies. With #LearnOnTikTok drawing over 561 billion views and countless other #Edutok communities thriving on the platform, now is the time to tap into a brand new audience of adult learners on TikTok!
Anastasia Jones
Alonda Thomas
Leadership & Innovation:
How to Become the Leader You Want to Follow
Alonda Thomas - Associate Vice President for University Communications, Jackson State University
It happens all the time. The ambitious, driven hard worker is promoted to lead a team without any formal training. Fortunately, fight or fight instincts kick in and most natural leaders will survive and figure it out. However, what if you could learn vicariously through someone else’s growing pains instead? And, in this era of “the great resignation” and “quiet quitting,” it is important that all leaders develop genuine connections with their team to demonstrate that they are seen, valued, and appreciated.
This session will help leaders:
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• Understand your work personality and the characteristics of your team
• Build rapport when you acquire a new team
• Cultivate teams that work well together
• Help team members find their voice
• Groom future leaders that you’d be happy to work for one day
Brian Lahey
Analytics:
Programmatic Advertising Analytics and The Impact on Student Recruitment
Brian Lahey, Vice President of Clients Solutions, Genius Monkey
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Programmatic Advertising is a critical component of a successful student recruitment campaign. In this session, you will learn how to leverage programmatic advertising's analytics to your benefit, see how your campaigns measure up to industry averages, what data is available to make your campaigns more efficient than ever, and much more. Key topics to be discussed:
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Student Journey - from the First Touch to Enrollment
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Student Conversion Cycle - understanding what it takes for Students to Take Notice
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Going Beyond the Click - measuring the Value of View-Through Conversion
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Balancing Media Budget - properly Allocating Spend across Unique Media Types
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CRM Integration - go beyond RFI and Measure True Return on Ad Spend