Upcoming Events at NAFSA 2018

Tuesday, May 29th - Friday, June 1st
NAFSA 2018 Marketing + Communications Events

We made it easier on you and listed all #NAFSA17 sessions related to marketing, recruitment, outreach, and communications in a nifty Google Doc. It's editable - so if we missed any sessions, feel free to add them in. We want this to be as comprehensive a resource as possible.

Thursday, May 31st - 1:00 - 2:00 pm Eastern
Marketing & Communications MIG Open Meeting

At NAFSA's annual conference open MIG meeting we get together and chat about the latest trends in the field, share best practices and resources, and connect and network. Everyone is welcome.

Past Event Summaries:

SlackChat Summary: Tactics for a Data-driven Approach in Your Organization
Common Pain Points:
  • “Defining Key Performance Indicators is challenging — in other words, what's the most important metric to define success for this particular project. You can easily go overboard on KPIs and get distracted.”
  • “I struggle with using the right technology/tools to help us measure our efforts.”
 
Useful Tools:
  • “I personally like Google Analytics for basic website management.”
  • “If you don’t have access to your institution’s Google Analytics account, the web team should be able to set you up with weekly/daily reports to be sent directly to you automatically.”
  • “I utilize SimilarWeb to look at our web performance and competitors’ performance.”
  • “Edurank is useful as it measures social performance compared to competitors.”
  • “FunnelBack is a search engine optimization service used often within higher education.”
 
How to Inspire Your Team to Take a Data-Driven Approach:
  • “It’s down to setting clear objectives for the activity, and then giving the team the tools they need to fully track it. Lack of transparency into success and outcomes is always demotivating.”
  • “The tools are out there you just need to figure out what your goal is and then speak to the right people be that web teams, external agencies, or free services to figure out the closest you can get to fully tracking outcome.”
  • “We encourage each other to learn about specific tools and then teach the team. We don't have time to be an expert in all these great resources, but if we can learn from each other for the pragmatic day to day things we're trying to accomplish — that's a big win.”
SlackChat Summary: Budgets: How to do more with less
Marketing strategies on a tight budget:
  • "Regular market segmentation vs micro-segmentation. Micro allows you to target communications 1 on 1, instead of e.g., 1 to 100 students. Tailoring one's message is not a new concept but how companies and org. tailor it within new technological constructs such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence, is what is going to change and affect how we do our work."
  • "Mico-segmentation can allow you to set up auto-communications through funnel based behaviors. Be careful of email saturation, though! Everyone receives too many emails so make sure to optimize for timing, subject line, etc."
  • Email methods - Many use Hobsons, but would like to move to Mailchimp. Folks seemed to agree that paid Mailchimp is ideal (here's a resource for Mailchimp!).
  • Another effective email marketing tactic: "Speak to the student's pain point and provide a resource that is purely educational and build trust."
  • Measure, measure, measure your impact!
Common Pain Points:
  • "Working with vendors. It's a problem when I'm ready to make changes to the communications but I don't have the funds/tools available to make those changes in the most effective way possible."
  • "It took a lot of advocating on my part made administration realize how important these resources are."
  • "Advocating and making a data driven case is important - if you do the prep work, the research, and have data to present, that can help you make a better case."
  • "In my case, the biggest challenge has been to move everyone to that data-driven mindset. Because no matter how hard or differently I or our leadership explains how beneficial research and testing can be, some people still find it hard to adopt that way of thinking."
  • Tracking print marketing (which is so costly!) - one solution is to use bitly links. "Our compromise is trying to make print that might be used for practical purposes. (Bookmarks, postcards, etc.)"
  • Social media algorithms: "I read recently about the 80/20 rule of thumb: 80% social, 20% business (university) updates"
Advice for marketing buy in:
  • "The best thing I could have ever done was meet with the director of marketing of the university. A 10-min informal chat made us realize we could work together and help each other. They could help me with a new brochure that fits UK's branded domestic admissions materials and at the same time, I could staff her with international students when they do photo shoots, etc. It's a highly-beneficial partnership"
  • "Sharing content, pooling budgets, fostering collaboration are all great examples of using what you have to work with and not costing anything additional."
SlackChat Summary: Measuring Marketing Results: How to Impress your Boss
Marketing professionals in international education teamed up on July 26th, 2016 to discuss effective tools and practices to maximize their impact in the field. The conversation began with budget expansion. When putting together the annual budget, there are ways to argue for the need for a bigger budget.

  • Making comparisons with marketing results: we need to be able to show how our efforts have increased engagement with our target groups.
  • Key performance indicator (KPI), which is a metric used to evaluate factors necessary for the success of organizations, is limited but effective.
 
They continued by discussing the types of Content Relationship Management (CRM) systems used in the office. Salesforce was one of the programs mentioned; it is customizable, powerful and supports third party integration. Hobson’s Radius, MailChimp, Ellucian Recruiter with Exact Target, and GoAbroadHQ are among the other common ones. Sam Bethel from the University of Oregon implemented a CRM, Agile CRM, last year and his interview is a great source.
 
Many are undergoing transitions from one system to another, all in hopes of further integration in tracking students. Many have experienced merging several offices under one umbrella, so streamlining communication and establishing a unified set of tools has been challenging. However, there is a consensus that “almost everything works.” Students are able to find out about programs in many ways, which is what makes cross-channel marketing hard.
 
Another challenge that was brought up was how to increase responses from survey emails. The rate of follow-up is usually low. However, there has been more success for those who have sent personal emails–though it is much more time-consuming. Another idea is to contact academic advisors to prompt a response.
 
The overarching topic of this SlackChat was prospecting and CRMs, which prompted a lot of discussion about challenges and prior experiences.