Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 1, Monday, March 28

12:30-1:00 PM
Welcome and Introductions

1:00-2:15
What is Strategic Enrollment Management?
This session will provide the fundamentals of SEM. What is it? Why do we need it? How does it work? This is a comprehensive review of the components of a good SEM plan and discussion of how and where brand marketing, recruitment marketing and retention activities fit into the overall plan.

2:15-3:30
Marketing Applied to Higher Education—Real Fast!
This session will take the principles of marketing and show how they apply to marketing universities and colleges in a whirlwind, hold on to your hat, highly energetic and interactive fashion. The session is guaranteed to be a great introduction to marketing higher education to the newer attendees and a refresher to even the most seasoned of practitioners.

3:45-5:00
Demographic Trends and Tuition-dependency: The Case for Enrollment-driven Integrated Communication in Higher Education
In the past decade, an increasing number of colleges have integrated marketing and communication into the work of the chief enrollment officer, signaling a shift into recruitment-driven integrated marketing efforts. The evolution, rationale and consequences of this important move within higher education is outlined and discussed during this session.

5:00-6:00
Networking Reception

6:00
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own

[Back to top]

Day 2, Tuesday, March 29

8:00-8:30 AM
Breakfast

8:30-9:45
Branding: More Than a New Logo
"I prefer that you not use that word." Ten years ago, that was a typical response when one mentioned marketing or branding within a post-secondary education setting. My, how times have changed. Branding and marketing are not only integral to the development and execution of our institutions' strategic plans, increasing the number of active alumni, donors, partners and more, they are fundamental to planning and achieving strategic enrollment management goals. Learn about what branding is, and how it is developed and communicated through an integrated marketing approach.

10:00-11:15
Using Social Media in Recruitment and Retention: Bridging Theory to Practice
This session will look at the rise and application of social media techniques in university enrollment efforts, from recruitment and retention practices to the multitude of other engagement efforts undertaken by communications and media professionals on behalf of their institutions' goals. The multi-award winning "Road to Xavier" will be highlighted as a winning case study as the journey from theory to practice engages all divisions of a successful university in meaningful social networking and communication.

11:15 AM-12:30 PM
Communicating Value and Affordability: Where Does it Fit in to SEM?
The need to communicate value and affordability is more important than ever before and is central to effective SEM. In addition to providing examples of effective techniques to communicate value and affordability, this session will describe the emerging context for discussing value and affordability in a brave new world that demands transparency about college costs.

12:30-1:30
Lunch on your own

1:30-2:45
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• How to Develop a Marketing Plan
  Developing a marketing plan isn't rocket science, but it does take a disciplined approach to help ensure its success. Participants will learn the components of a marketing plan and how to use the template to develop marketing plans to help achieve enrollment objectives.
• Ten Marketing Mistakes You Will Want to Avoid
  This session looks at some of the most common marketing mistakes made on university campuses today. All the examples are based on real mistakes made by real schools (the names of the schools have been changed to protect the speaker!) The session is presented in a fast-paced, humorous style that will make you laugh or cry depending on how many of the mistakes you have made yourself.
• Planning for Continued Student Enrollment Success in the New Economy: Embracing Elasticity of Demand Concepts in Higher Education
  Enrollment management research indicates that price sensitivity is one of the top three factors guiding students' choice of attendance and reasons for leaving a college or university. The current economic and student demographic downturns—coupled with the past decade of rapid cost-of-attendance increases—appears to have created an elastic student demand for higher education. The new student enrollment trends appear to be largely driven by price sensitivity. This session will cover current practices for developing a data-driven student service culture that improves enrollment, operational efficiencies and student success rates. It will provide fundamental planning tools for key internal and external messaging, estimating the institutional service capacities, assessing brand equity and building stronger projection models

3:00-4:15
Elective Sessions (choose one)

• Marketing to Retain Students: The Art of Backwards Thinking
  This session will focus on how you can put to work basic marketing and client service principles to help retain your students. Marketing is a discipline with specific methodologies-from research to measurement-that can help achieve institutional goals. This strategic way of thinking about product, promotion and several other P's, combined with client service principles (an oxymoron in higher education), can be put to use throughout the student life cycle with success. Work conducted at the University of New Brunswick in this area will provide examples; however, participants are asked to bring their successes and challenges to share and discuss with the group.
• The Best Ways to Communicate a College-going Culture for the Emerging Student Markets
  The 2020 goals for increasing student access and college completion rates present many challenges for most colleges and universities. Learn to look at pre-college programs, community college transfer partnerships and nontraditional student populations in a new way. Many institutions do not recognize the existing resources and institutional competencies that can help these students populations grow and thrive. This best practice and case study-driven session will demonstrate how appropriate enrollment management assessment, alignment, outreach and communication tools can help meet the new access and degree completion goals.
• Marketing Colleges and Universities from a Services Perspective
  Most people look at marketing colleges and universities in the same way they would market Apple iPods or Nike shoes. However, marketing higher education is much different. In this highly interactive session the differences of marketing a service from a product will be explored as well as its implications of marketing higher education. One of the most important take-a-ways you will receive in this session is why the integration of the marketing effort is vital to institutional success.

4:15-5:30
Gettysburg College: A Successful Case Study of Merging Enrollment and Communications
Barbara Fritze, vice president of enrollment and education services, and Patricia Lawson, associate vice president for communications and marketing, worked at Gettysburg College for several years in different divisions before communications merged into the EES Division, which Barbara oversees and includes admissions, financial aid, institutional analysis, communications and marketing, web communications and athletics. Barbara and Patti bring experience from their different reporting structures from their previous institutions, prior to Gettysburg. This session will be interactive with an outline of each of the learning curves that these two storied professionals have had over the years including the best practices developed to shape the best team at Gettysburg College.

5:30
Conference Adjourns for the Day
Dinner on your own

[Back to top]

Day 3, Wednesday, March 30

8:00-8:30 AM
Breakfast

8:30-9:45
Keynote Session
The Real U: Bringing Your Brand to Life
Based on the process framework described in The Real U: Building Brands that Resonate with Students, Faculty, Staff, and Donors (CASE, March 2010), this presentation will emphasize the why and how of effective higher ed branding-complete with case studies. Branding is both science and art, and the presentation will explain the foundations of authentic higher ed brands, showcase proven methods for getting key internal constituencies on board with the branding process, and highlight both the energy and excitement of the creative process and the results that great branding campaigns can generate. Case studies will include institution-wide and school-specific examples, including Northern Arizona University, Kettering University, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, University of Texas at Arlington, and University of Cincinnati. The presentation will be structured to leave ample time for Q&A.
Speaker: Robert Moore

10:00-11:15
Silos No More: The Metamorphosis of Marketing and Enrollment Management Professionals
A panel discussion of the evolving roles of marketing and enrollment professionals in a new era of integration and shared outcomes.

11:15 AM-NOON
Faculty Firing Line

NOON
Conference Adjourns

Back to top]