COVID has hit higher education recruiting hard. People have spent so much time on Zoom calls that colleges and universities are having to get far more creative than just hosting a Zoom webinar in place of a college tour.
Pair that with the reduced travel for recruitment, ACT and SAT cancellations, and hesitancy to travel to institutions, it’s made building that admissions funnel incredibly difficult.
Which is why our conversation on this episode of The Higher Ed Marketer was so much fun. Collin Palmer is the Direct of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Toledo, and our conversation centered all around:
- How they’ve gotten creative around campus tours, instituting nighttime and dog-specific tours
- How they’ve kept the community involved in the admissions process
- Why they’re relying to behavioral data from more than traditional freshmen
- The different ways they’ve had to think outside of the box to maintain that admissions funnel
Know of a higher education marketing change agent you’d like to hear on the show? Does your university have an interesting story to be featured?
Connect with Bart Caylor or Troy Singer. If you’re not on LinkedIn, check out Caylor Solutions or Think Patented.
To hear more interviews like this one, subscribe to The Higher Ed Marketer on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.
The Higher Ed Marketer podcast is brought to you by Caylor Solutions, an Education Marketing, and Branding Agency.
Transcript
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You are listening to the Higher Ed
Marketer, a podcast geared towards marketing professionals
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in higher education. This show will
tackle all sorts of questions related to student
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recruitment, dontor relations, marketing trends, new technologies and so much more.
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If you are looking for conversations centered
around where the industry is going, this
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podcast is for you. Let's get
into the show. Welcome to the High
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Ed Marketer Podcast, where we highlight
higher ed leaders that we admire and hopefully
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then sharing their ideas, best practices
and something inspiring that's actionable that others can
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benefit from. I'm troy singer and, as usual, with my cohost Bart
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Taylor, and together we're interviewing Colin
Palmer today from the University of Toledo.
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I'm excited to welcome Colin Palmer,
director of undergraduate and mission at the University
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of Toledo, to the show.
Welcome Colin. Thank you, troy.
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Thank you, Bar Colin Palmer,
director of undergraduate admission at the University of
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Toledo, where I'm responsible for the
domestic recruitment of all undergraduate students, those
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in high school, transfer students,
adults online and military. Very cool.
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Thanks thanks so much, Colin.
It's great to have you here. I
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know that when we talked to kind
of in our pre interview, you were
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doing. You're telling us about some
of the very unique things that you University
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of Toledo and we want to make
sure we kind of highlight a couple of
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those things that because I think it'd
be really beneficial for all the audience that
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listens. Tell me a little bit
more about the story you shared with us
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about the twilight tours that you're conducting. Yeah, absolutely. So next week
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we're kicking off our first of three
twilight tours twilight meeting that they're held from
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thirty to eight pm on our campus. What we're really hoping to do and
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what the idea spawned from was a
conversation that we had had with some local
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school counselors about how to encourage their
students to visit the University of Toledo's campus,
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because many of those students think they
know what they need to know about
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the institution. I think many of
us in higher education run into that same
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problem with students in our own backyard. So we thought, well, how
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do we make it different? How
do we keep them engaged? How do
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we peek their interest and so we
thought, well, you know, a
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lot of students are interested and taking
the best photo that they can at the
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perfect time of day, whether it's
for their snapchat and then want to say
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it to friends on snap chat,
whether it's a tick tock video, whatever
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it might be. So we thought, oh well, golden hour, twilight
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hours. So we're doing that and
we're really just going behind the scenes.
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So rather than a typical admissions presentation
and a campus tour led by one of
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our current students, we decided to
actually meet and begin the program at the
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parking lot right in front of our
football stadium. We're going to have some
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food trucks. We're going to take
students into a glass bowl, which is
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the football stadium at the University of
Toledo, up to the roof of the
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press box actually, which were very
excited about, to the fifth floor at
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the library, to the hallways of
our university hall and just spaces around campus
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that we're definitely not hitting on a
on a typical tour, but also not
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spaces on campus where their parents,
older siblings, cousins and friends might have
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checked out on their time on campus. That's really cool. I A couple
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things that I really like about what
you're doing, Colin, is the idea
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that one you're kind of meeting the
students needs where they are. Certainly,
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I think with covid and everything else, I mean people are tired of being
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on zoom. A lot of students
haven't been in school necessarily, but you're
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kind of changing things up a little
bit to make it more interesting and and
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really, like you said, I
think that twilight time of the instagram perfect
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photo or whatever those might be taking
advantage of that and I'm sure too,
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making it a little bit more like
a Destination Party as opposed to just I'm
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going to go do my college tour
today. I think that's I think that's
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a great idea and I love the
fact that you guys are taking them kind
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of behind the scenes. I mean, I'm sure some of them that I'm
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wondering. I mean, have you
had anybody that's said, well, I've
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already done the regular tour, but
can I come back for the twilight tour?
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We have actually yes, and and
we have school counselors and interested in
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attending the visits as well, because
we really wanted to use their ability to
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connect with students to help advertise the
events, and so they're very interested and
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I think an added benefit of this
too is it's been something different and unique
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for the staff at our office and
it's really re energize them and the work
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that they're doing to just kind of
express their creativity, think outside of the
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box and, like you said earlier, not just another zoom Webinar that's,
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you know, a quick overview of
the University of Toledo. So we're we're
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very energized. My colleague who's actually
kind of spearheading all of this, even
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referred to next week as our party
week. That's really kind of how we're
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how we're viewing it in the office. That's great and I'm guessing that you've
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probably marketed a little bit differently than
you would from your typical calm flow on
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hey, virtual tour com or,
you know, sign up for the tour.
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Absolutely, absolutely, we've been far
more active on social media and advertising.
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These tours. Were very fortunate at
the University of Toledo to be right
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across the street from a residential neighborhood, and so we've really urged the community
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to visit our campus and kind of
see the behind the scenes as well,
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because we know that how how the
community feels about the institution directly affects our
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ability to engage and recruit perspective students, and so we want them to be
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involved in the process and learn about
Toledo and be a abassadors for the university.
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So the way that we've thought about
who we want to attend and how
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we're going to encourage attendance is much
different than a typical admissions of it it's
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great try, I think another question. Yes, that wasn't the only unique
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event that you're having. I think
we also talked about a dog tour.
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So could you share with us a
little bit more about that? Yes,
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absolutely so, if you check out
the University of Toledo's undergraduate admissions facebook or
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instagram account, about an hour before
the recording we posted our first dog in
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front of our university hall and one
of the Bandanas that we purchased it says
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honorary admissions ambassador. And so what
we're doing is inviting perspective students and,
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again, members of the community to
bring their dogs to campus to do a
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lawn tour of the University of Toledo. So we'll stop outside of the Student
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Union, University Hall, the Glass
Ball, as I mentioned earlier, the
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admissions building in Libby Hall, and
we're going to have cookies for humans and
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cookies for dogs. So we're very
excited about that and again, just a
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fun and unique way to do something
a little bit different, but also bring
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people on campus and see the University
of Toledo in a different way than what
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they probably experienced in the past.
And because we're it's a lawn tour,
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you know, also very covid safe
because we aren't going to need to enter
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any of the campus buildings or anything
like that. So we're very side.
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I think it's interesting. I mean
you're the you're the second guest on our
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on our podcast, that has talked
about utilizing dogs. Butler University. I
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mean they have a they have a
pet com flow. But I think what's
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interesting, and we talked about this
when we talked to to Christia Butler,
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that students and families are pets are
certainly a big part of their family,
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and the fact that you guys are
recognizing that and including those members of the
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family and in participating in this decision
to attend college, I think it strikes
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and strikes the chord that people understand
that you guys get them, and I
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don't know if you've. I don't
know even even as you guys start to
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promote the dog tour. And I
mean, what kind of feedback are you
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getting from these perspective students? My
my colleague who's really spearheading that effort is
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a passionate dog mom and a lot
of the credit for, really all of
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the credit for everything that we've done
around this idea goes to her and she
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also supervises our admission ambassador's right.
So we're always talking to them about ways
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to stay uniquely engaged with prospective students
and think outside of the box and we're
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very empowered at Toledo and encouraged to
to not just stick with the status quo.
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We're do things that we've all always
been doing and if I were to
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take a proposal to my boss or
to the president and say hey, you
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know, we think we're just going
to do the same thing that we did
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last year, that would not be
acceptable. That would not go over well,
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and so we have to think about
what's new, what's unique and what's
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different and how is that going to
Pique the interest of a perspective student.
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As I mentioned earlier. You know, the University of Toledo is a regional
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institution with a national, you know, recognition, but a lot of our
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students come from Ohio and Michigan.
But again they think, many of them,
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that they know a little bit more
about Toledo than what they think.
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That with them what they really do, and so we've thought about how do
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we prove otherwise? Well, also
empowering them and teaching them about the institution.
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I love the fact that you guys
are recognizing that there's a there's an
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issue. You know couple things I
don't. I think a lot of time
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schools might recognize it and we got
a problem with that, but oh well,
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that's that's that's our lot in life, type of thing. But I
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like the fact that you guys are
saying, well, we have a problem
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with that. What can we do
about it to make it different? And
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you guys are being creative about that, and I probably helps a lot that
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you have a administration that is not
risk adverse, because I mean, I'm
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sure a lot of a lot of
our listeners would be like man, I
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would love to be able to have
the administrators say, you know, no,
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we don't want you to do the
same thing it did last year because
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a lot of administrator, I think, would say, well, that's what
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I'm comfortable with and that's what I
know and so so that's great. I'm
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really glad that that's working out and
it's glad that you guys are taking advantage
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of that. So another question I
have for you is tell us a little
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bit about this behavioral data that we
talked a little about but earlier. You
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know, the idea of really being
able to to kind of look at data
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and look and see how people are
behaving and then, you know what be
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some of the idea of what your
opinions and experiences and really being able to
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utilize that for your outreach for your
admissions, especially the Undergrad admissions. Absolutely
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absolutely, and you know, I
think when, from an admissions director perspective,
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we're concerned about the ability to generate
inquiries, for example for our upcoming
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classes, because we're we've been severely
inhibited in our recruitment travel over the past
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fifteen months. There have our challenges
created with building the top of your funnel
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due to the act and sat cancelations. So we're like, well, we
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can still find names we can still
go out and search for names and you
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know, I think many of us
are are probably partnering with more, I'll
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say partners, vendors, use your
word, interchangeably, than what we ever
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have before. But it's also very
easy, from our perspective, to be
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overwhelmed and not know who's really doing
what or what's different. And so what
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we're trying to do is build our
funnel but also use our resources very strategically
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as we think about, you know, retargeting, paper, Click advertising,
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direct mail advertising, gifts to admitted
students, which is something that this year
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that we've not typically done before,
and we're using behavioral engagement data to inform
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the students that should receive those.
I think we all recognize are we all
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probably know on the Higher Ed side
that and even on the school counseling side,
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that encouraging a response is futile at
times. You know, receiving a
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response has is seems to be less
and less common, and so what we
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what we really want to do and
what the goal is is to provide relevant
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and timely information to a student when
they need it. That's really what we
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want to do. That that's the
goal, and so we're using behavioral engagement
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data to do that. We partner
with capture at the University of Toledo.
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We've been long term capture partners.
It's been a great opportunity for us to
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learn from them and vice versa,
and really build some pretty advanced models to
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show who are the students that benefit
most from our information sharing. How do
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we encourage students to invest in a
visit to the University of Toledo? You
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know, we have an a beautiful
campus. There are thousands of beautiful campuses
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out there. I would put the
University of Toledo's up to any of those.
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But we need to get students here
right where, uniquely positioned an hour
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South at Detroit, but two hours
from Cleveland, Columbus, three hours from
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Cincinnati, and so it's it's kind
of a convergence in northwest Ohio that we
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need to to occur and we're using
behavioral engagement data to really align our resources
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to encourage that great and is that
something that you are looking to expand,
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because, I mean, one of
the questions I would have is that you
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know certainly some of the behavioral data
on on the students. I mean,
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if you have behavioral data on the
families, on the parents. I'm I
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mean certainly we all know the mom's
kind of the biggest influencer and decisions like
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this. Is that something you guys
are looking at? How to expand that
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behavioral data, because it seems like
they're so much could be really gleaned from
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really understanding how students and family are
behaving around your brand? Yeah, I
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think one way we're looking to expand
is just tracking and reviewing and utilizing behavioral
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data for populations outside of the traditional
freshman. Traditional Freshman are a little bit
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easier, you know, they're more
predictable. But what we're interested in learning
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more about our online students. You
know, we're seeing a lot of peaked
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interest in one hundred percent online degree
programs at Toledo, which is probably not
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too surprising. But we're also thinking
about transfer students and we've invested heavily in
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the last year and a half and
in a regional enrollment model. So we
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have five regional enrollment managers as opposed
to zero eighteen months ago. And how
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do we engage more meaningfully with community
college students or others in those communities to
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make the University of Toledo and a
viable option for them. Parents are are
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interesting, you know. I think
all of us would love to know the
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secret formula to collecting and utilizing parent
data and what parents want to hear.
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I hear sometimes parents don't want to
hear the sales pitch. They just want
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to know about the next steps.
But then my gut sometimes tell me to
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the opposite right. You know,
you need to get the parent on board
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early on in order to see or
other important influencers. So we're always thinking
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critically about that and what those communication
means are. That's great. That's great.
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We'll try now. You've got our
our typical question for Colin. That's
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we like to finalize and follow up
with. Yes, Colin, although you've
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been so generous giving us the information
that you have, we do ask one
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thing that either something that's very intriguing
that you've done or heard about that you
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think is worth sharing that others my
benefit from. If there is something that
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fits that category, if you could
share it now. Sure. I'm trying
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to think of something outside of the
twilight tours and the and the dog tour,
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because for us that's been one of
the more out of the box initiatives
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that we've had. I have an
idea. So one of the things when
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we were thinking about what our spring
yield plan was going to be, you
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know, we weren't going to go
with the traditional hotel ball room. You
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know, we didn't think that a
dave and buster's kind of thing was really
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going to be an opportunity because it
was indoors. So what we did is
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we actually partnered with the University of
Toledo Athletic Department and wrapped a tour of
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us. So we took a big
charter bus, we put an awesome wrap
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on it and we actually went to
Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland and
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here locally and Toledo, and we
took a staff of people from admissions,
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current students, residence life and student
involvement. We showed up at high schools
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solely for the fact of celebrating their
students. You know, we encourage their
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counselors to really ow an opportunity for
us to engage with our admitted and confirmed
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students. But we wanted to talk
to juniors. We wanted to say hey,
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you've done an amazing job. You
know, we would park in their
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parking lot for thirty minutes and we
played Cornhole, we had giant Jenga,
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just to take a casual approach and
a celebratory approach rather than a transactional approach,
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which is such an easy thing to
fall into during yield, because you're
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really looking for students to take a
series of next steps. And so that
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bus was was great. It was
very popular. We have we also hosted
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evening programming at some outdoor shopping centers. So in Ohio, if you're familiar
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with Crocker Park and Wess Lake or
Austin landing and Middletown Plaire shopping center in
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Columbus, that's really where we were. We're hoping to be and go to
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the communities, but also to communities
to us in a way that was safe
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and meaningful for students and there and
their influencers. I love that and it
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reminds me of a quote that I'm
a big fan of, Jay Bear,
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and he wrote a book a couple
of years ago called utility, and he
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really talks about being a resource for
your your audience, rather than, you
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know, something else. And so
one of the quotes in there is it's
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the people who have success are the
ones who inform people or engage with them
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rather than those who promote and I
love the fact that what you just described
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was you weren't on a bus tour
to Promote University of Toledo necessarily. You
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were out there to engage with your
community, to, you know, celebrate
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the success of the students, to
be present and be be in the communities,
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in the shopping malls, and I
think that's a little bit at the
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heart of maybe some of the ideas
that you're talking about there. And whether
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whether it's a tour bus. I
mean some schools might say, well,
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I can't afford to rabbit tour of
us. Well, it's not about rapping
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a tour of us. It's about
being there and being present with your audience
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and in your communities. You know, I don't care if it's tour bus,
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if you're, you know, utilizing
an RV and you're just out there,
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you know, helping out. I
think it's being engaged and being involved.
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So Kudos to University of Toledo for
for what you guys are doing and
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it's been really exciting to have you. Thank you very much. I appreciate
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it great thanks again. Calling is
someone had a question of wanted contact you.
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What would be the best way for
them to do so. Sure I
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try to remain active and interested in
Linkedin, so you can find me on
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linkedin and email or phone is as
perfectly fine as well. So all of
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that can be found on the University
of Tweedo Office of undergraduate admissions website.
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Thank you calling. You are definitely
doing amazing things at the University of Toledo.
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Bart are there any less thoughts before
we wrap this up? I think
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the only thing that I would kind
of you know, sometimes I like to
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point out some of the the obvious, which is probably not helpful, but
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you know, it is what it
is. I really think that a lot
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of what Colin has talked about today
is is kind of being willing to think
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outside the box, being willing to
really focus on your audience and engage with
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them the way that they want to
be engaged. You know, I from
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the twilight tours to thinking the fact
that, you know, students like to
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have twilight time, of being able
to take those selfies, those instagram posts,
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those really cool pictures. They are
interested in what's behind the scenes kind
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of what what else can I get
that maybe I can't get in a normal
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way? Really try and then the
whole idea of the dog tours and and
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and understanding the behavior of people,
in adapting yourself to them for the behavior,
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and then even this idea of of
being able to go on these tours
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with these with with this rapped bus. It's about the student. It's not
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about your school, and I think
that the university Toledo's really kind of demonstrating
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that and and living that out,
and I think that's where success comes and
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that's where their success is coming from, is that, you know, it's
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not about drumming the beat of you
know, beating the drum about your own
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school and, you know, making
the case and trying to make the argument
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of why you should go to university, of to leader rather than x y
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Z. it's about being who you
are and being present with them and building
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those relationships that you're drawing people to
you. So again, applaud everything you
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guys are doing, Colin, and
I think that, you know, if
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I were to summarize the entire conversation
that we've had up, it's being selfless
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and really being able to focus on
the others. I think is where success
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is going to be Ed Bart.
Thank you. The hired marketer podcast is
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00:20:18.069 --> 00:20:25.099
sponsored by Taylor solutions and education marketing
and branding agency and by think patented,
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00:20:25.460 --> 00:20:29.819
a marketing, execution, printing and
mailing provider of higher red solutions. On
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00:20:29.980 --> 00:20:33.500
behalf of my cohost Bark Taylor,
I'm troy singer. Thank you for joining
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00:20:33.579 --> 00:20:40.410
us. You've been listening to the
Higher Ed Marketer. To ensure that you
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