Program*

Knowing the difference between what we say we value, and what we actually value, goes a long way. A lot of our decision-making is influenced by non-conscious beliefs, which in turn affects how we hire, invest, and negotiate. In her gripping, absorbing talks, Tsay lifts the veil to show us how we can overcome preconceived notions, make decisions based on real value, and develop mindfulness when it comes to building our organizations.

Chia-Jung Tsay, Ph.D.
Expert in the Psychology of Negotiations | Associate Professor, UCL School of Management

Personalize, Document, Track: Three Action Ready Tactics to Thrive in Digital Marketing
Marketing
Opportunities and best practices in digital marketing are seemingly endless. It can be difficult to know where to even start. This session distills three tangible and actionable tactics to elevate any marketing team’s digital presence. Attendees will learn how to customize landing page experiences, document ad creative and visualize campaign performance.

• Joel Gustafson, Oregon State University Ecampus

Compete and Win Online: How Higher Education Can Leverage SEO to Gain Visibility and Attract the Right Students
Marketing
Launching the nation’s first fully interactive online JD program, Syracuse University College of Law needed a comprehensive strategy to gain visibility online. Partnering with Blackboard Student Services, Syracuse executed a multi-channel marketing campaign that positioned them on Google’s first page, driving record traffic, lead volume, and ROI. Learn about the key strategies to their success and how they developed a feedback loop that drove continuous improvement between their marketing and enrollment management strategies for quality results.

• Denitsa Rakitska, Blackboard Student Services
• Rob Conrad, Syracuse University
• Martin Walls, Syracuse University

If You Build It, Will They Come? How to Design & Market an In-House Online Program
Marketing
Hear action-driving insights from a university that has launched 6 new online programs in the last 3 years. We’ll detail lessons learned from a successful and unsuccessful launch and share the process for determining the program, including what data you need and what to consider. You’ll get a panoramic view from deciding if you should go for it, marketing it, and evaluating success - and even making the tough decision to wind down a program.

• Christa Payne, Tulane University
• Ariel Tusa, Search Influence

A Story of Innovation Through Strategic Partnerships: How Northwestern’s MSL Program Stands Out From the Crowd
Enrollment Management
Designing authentic, effective marketing & enrollment strategies in a competitive marketplace is no simple task. Since launching the Master of Science in Law in 2017, Northwestern has worked with two external partners to do just that. Join Leslie Oster, Director of Northwestern’s MSL program, in conversation with InsideTrack and Circa Interactive as she shares their story of designing and executing a strategy that sets a prospective student up for success starting from the point of inquiry.

• Leslie Oster, Northwestern University
• Sarah Eustis, InsideTrack
• Clayton Dean, Circa Interactive

Lights! Camera! Pandemic? Adapting Content That Connects to Prospective Students
Marketing
Storytelling can be a powerful tool for grabbing the media’s attention, increasing awareness of your institution, and recruiting students. Now is the time to leverage, repurpose and reuse content for maximum impact. Attendees will receive practical tips that are applicable to any medium: a testimonial, blog, email campaign, video interview or social media post. Case studies include a news release video, relaunching a social media campaign and repurposing content for microcasts.

• Sarah Whorton, University of Missouri

Marketing
With reality disrupted by Covid-19, our content marketing strategy no longer fit. We'll show you how we shifted gears and were able to capitalize on the opportunity to showcase our knowledge and expertise in this new environment. You'll learn how to create a multi-channel content strategy that provides timely assistance and engages audiences. We'll also share some of the key insights and lessons learned.

• Shannon Helton-Amos, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Kelsey Harris, Georgia Institute of Technology

Pre-Enrollment: Improving Yield and Conversion Through Readiness Pathways
Enrollment Management
What happens to university applicants who wind up in the pool of students who are not admitted? Every institution has a percentage of students they don’t admit for various reasons: not meeting minimum requirements, not prepared, have stopped-out, or melted through the enrollment funnel. For institutions focused on initiatives around increasing yield and conversion, this session presents three pre-enrollment case studies that have positively impacted the enrollment funnel through guided course pathways.

• Amy Smith, StraighterLine
• Mark Mashaw, StraighterLine
• Laurel Hogue, University of Central Missouri

The B.S. Without the B.S.*
Marketing
Curious how a university develops a marketing campaign for a new online degree that gets to the point—PDQ? In this session, you’ll get an inside peek at how UNC Greensboro developed and launched an unexpectedly bold (B.S. really?) marketing campaign. You’ll learn how they developed and tested their key messages and creative, and the steps they took to generate buy-in within the university community. *Big Sacrifice, Big Spending, Being Stuck, Being Scared, Brutal Schedule

• Kelly Paul, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Attracting & Serving Adult Learners: Leveraging Labor Market & Skills Data to Provide Transparent and Personalized Learning Recommendations to Growing Market of Students
Marketing
In this session you will learn more about how Purdue Global utilizes labor market data, mapped to their academic offerings, to both attract new students and retain their current students via their academic program pages on their website.  Additionally, we’ll review the cutting edge ways Purdue Global is utilizing labor market skills to attract and serve adult learners by helping them to see the clear connection between their goals, PG courses, and real jobs.

• Luke Jankovic, Emsi
• Jennifer Lasater, Purdue University Global

Content Marketing Made Simple
Marketing
Most teams will find that it's not IF but WHEN they'll embrace content marketing. It can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Using a simple set of interactive spreadsheets, Oregon State Ecampus has found a way to make content easy to manage, atomize and analyze. A large team can make things easy, but the OSU Ecampus method means even a team of one can hit the ground running.

• Carly Johansen, Oregon State University Ecampus
• Tiffany Cochran, Oregon State University Ecampus
• Tyler Hansen, Oregon State University Ecampus

From Concept to Implementation: Certificate Development to Enhance Retention and Support Workforce Development
Enrollment Management
Certificates can quickly lead to licensure and workforce development opportunities. In 2018, University of Maine started a popular online surveying engineering bachelor’s degree but had no quick path for students who did not need the degree to meet a state's licensure requirement In partnership with multiple departments, new procedures were created that aided in the successful launch of the University’s first undergraduate certificate. This session follows the development from concept to implementation.

• Tiffany Peterson, University of Maine, Orono
• Dagmar Moravec, University of Maine, Orono
• Ashlie Crabtree, University of Maine, Orono
• A. Richard Vannozzi, University of Maine, Orono

What is Your Digital Readiness? Reflections from a New UPCEA Tool for Assessing Marketing Presence
Marketing
As we move into a new economic and societal era with various audiences valuing products and services differently, the question needs to be asked “What is the Digital Readiness of UPCEA Members?” Based on a number of requests over the year, UPCEA has developed a marketing tool to help assess digital and social media readiness. This session will show the features of the tool and what it measures, plus share how The Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University responded to the assessment and what it plans to do in the future.

• Marilou Cruz, Ryerson University
• Jim Fong, UPCEA
• Bruce Etter, UPCEA

Use our Speed Meeting session and connect in a randomized, short (5-minutes) connection with another attendee at the conference. Get your webcam ready and come make connections with other. Be ready to share a little information about yourself. Be careful, once the five minutes is up the system will move on to connect you with someone else, so make sure you connect and share contact information with those people you may want to follow up with!

Not immediately connecting to someone? Be patient, because it is one-on-one networking, one individual may need to wait a few moments before connecting with someone else!

• Tatum Thomas, DePaul University 
• Suzana Diaz Rosencrans, University of Texas at San Antonio 
• Stephanie Platteter, University of Minnesota

Promises to Keep: Aligning Your Brand Promises With Adult Learner Experiences
Marketing
Do your brand promises align with the student experience at your institution? In this session, we’ll discuss the brand touchpoints we control as marketers and strategies to ensure fidelity between what we promise and what we deliver. Using original research, Victoria will share insights from adult learners attending online programs. Learn how these students interpret institutional branding, ways they access information, expectations they have entering online programs, and factors that contribute to achieving satisfaction.

• Victoria O'Malley, University of Denver

Growing Awareness With Next Generation Digital Platforms
Marketing
As more people “cut the cord” and move to new media platforms, the future of digital marketing provides schools with the opportunity to reach prospective students on Over the Top (OTT) platforms. OTT marketing is an accessible and cost-effective way to reach new prospects. We’ll be joined by platform and industry experts to discuss how OTT marketing has helped Brandman University grow enrollments. Discover what OTT marketing is, the future trends, opportunities and benefits of OTT marketing.

• Diana Santos, Brandman University
• Morgan Gonzalez, EducationDynamics

How Small Teams Can Do Big Things With Student Stories
Marketing
When you’re a small marketing team, you need all the help you can get in telling your program’s story - especially if you’re promoting a new, non-credit program. With the right approach, students can be valuable contributors to your engagement strategy. This session will outline the steps that Harvard Medical School’s HMX online certificate program took to develop and distribute student stories, and dig into the data to assess their impact on enrollment growth.

• Ben Rubenstein, Harvard University

Small Budget Marketing: How to Utilize Free or Inexpensive Resources in Your Higher Education Marketing Plan
Marketing
In this session, we will discuss various resources for small marketing budgets that are adaptable to a variety of audiences and programs. Do not underestimate the power of a press release or a quick testimonial recorded with a cellphone camera!

• Julia Duvall, Western Carolina University

ROI-Focused Content Marketing for CE Programs
Marketing
In the wake of COVID-19, slashed budgets and hiring freezes are causing institutions to rely on revenue generation now more than ever. Rutgers Division of Continuing Studies will share how they used low-budget, data-driven, common-sense content marketing and social media campaigns to drive continuing education registrations. The session will focus on two specific programs—an executive education Leadership Coaching certificate program, and a Gifted Ed conference for educators.

• Mike Raynes, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Jennifer Valera, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Cherish Fong, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Jim Morris, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Kylie Corda, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Enhance Organizational Alignment With Agile Project Management: How NC State Online Empowers Marketing Teams to Self-Organize, Increase Production and Quality
Marketing
Accelerate, Innovate, Reach, Respond and Adapt. These words are vital to the success of higher education institutions in the rapidly changing marketplace. Agile, a mindset and collection of practices, enables teams to accelerate delivery, focus on innovation, reach new targets, while responding and adapting to shifting customer and organizational needs. Hear how NC State Online’s marketing and production teams bring courses online faster and produce marketing collateral with fewer revisions all while increasing team morale.

• Katie Bean, North Carolina State University
• Laurie Gyalog, North Carolina State University

Maximizing Automated Email Messaging to Influence Enrollment
Marketing
Small marketing teams carry a heavy load in the competitive space of online education. Learn how Northern Michigan University’s Global has leveraged their CRM and email marketing automation to aid in increasing new online undergraduate enrollments by 12% in the Fall 2019 semester. You’ll see examples of emails, learn how to use historical prospect behavior to inform the development of email automation strategies and how this has contributed to department efficiency.

• Dan Freeborn, Northern Michigan University

The Enrollment Playbook
Enrollment Management
Marketing, recruitment, admissions, matriculation, and metrics are all different and essential elements of new student enrollment. From prospect generation to prospect engagement strategies, enrollment operations, data intelligence, CRM pipeline management, talent development and more, discover the essential elements of any new student enrollment playbook. This session covers awareness, consideration, and decision stage strategies and how to ensure your playbook covers each stage effectively.

• Cate Clark, Regis University

The Challenge of Choosing or Switching Your Marketing Partner
Marketing
Designed to help higher education marketing professionals figure out if they need an agency to help reach their target markets. This session will also walk schools through how to move away from the agency they are working with, or move from an internal team or person to an outsourced solution, and what to look for as they make the move.

• Lynda Holt, Excelsior College
• Tina Vasquez, Excelsior College
• Nicole Foerschler Horn, Education Dynamics

Use our Speed Meeting session and connect in a randomized, short (5-minutes) connection with another attendee at the conference. Get your webcam ready and come make connections with other. Be ready to share a little information about yourself. Be careful, once the five minutes is up the system will move on to connect you with someone else, so make sure you connect and share contact information with those people you may want to follow up with!

Not immediately connecting to someone? Be patient, because it is one-on-one networking, one individual may need to wait a few moments before connecting with someone else!

Get on Board - Virtually! Lessons Learned in Training Staff Remotely
Enrollment Management
If you’ve hired anyone since March, you know the challenges that come with virtual onboarding. In this session, Andrea Gross and Victoria O’Malley walk participants through lessons learned in onboarding new enrollment and marketing staff in a virtual environment. Hear the challenges faced, tools and technology leveraged, and real feedback given by the staff who went through the process. You’ll leave with tips for creating community and connection with your new employees!

• Andrea Gross, University of Denver, University College
• Victoria O'Malley, University of Denver, University College

How to Listen to Your Students When Building Your Strategy
Marketing
Why do higher education marketing teams so often build campaigns for student audiences without ever talking to them? Is it because we think we already know their answers? Or is it because we don't have the money or time? In this interactive session, learn how a small marketing team with a small budget can conduct smart persona research to develop meaningful messages and strategy that generates real results.

• Catherine Sullivan Seraphin, Havard University
• Kate Kozak, 5HD
• Bill Greider, 5HD

Innovating in the Face of Crisis
Marketing
As institutions throughout the country have faced adversity in determining how to address the fiscal and curricular uncertainty resulting from COVID-19, a cross-disciplinary team at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education worked together to develop, market, and launch a new online program that is set to exceed our enrollment goals. Learn strategies to use at your institution to leverage your resources and work across teams to succeed in this very challenging environment.

• Cassandre Cruz, Harvard University
• Bill Greider, 5HD

Preparing Students for Emerging Markets - a Case Study on Launching a Graduate Certificate in Cannabis Control
Enrollment Management
Designed to help higher education professionals identify opportunities to build and market degree programs for emerging industries. This session will walk schools through how to identify new program opportunities and what to look for as they identify target audiences and develop a marketing plan.  This session will use a new program case study that examines the opportunities and challenges associated with new program development and how to map out a plan for a successful program launch.

• Gretchen Schmidt, Excelsior College
• Scott Dolan, Excelsior College
• Tina Vasquez, Excelsior College

The Art of Atomization: How a Shift in Mindset (& Strategy) Can Create Tangible Change in the Amount of Content You’re Producing
Marketing
Content – you need more of it and it’s what your prospects crave. But, do you have the time? Bandwidth? Resources? Through a practical approach of adopting an “atomization mindset,” you’ll become equipped to produce more content at rapid pace. Learn how to atomize your content, increase your ROI and produce the content that is needed to drive your prospects to action.

• Ali Duerfeldt, Oregon State University Ecampus

Belonging Begins at Application: Building Community in Student Onboarding
Enrollment Management
To increase enrollment rates of students, WGU implemented a pre-enrollment community. This community provides applicants opportunities to engage with each other, alumni, and faculty to learn what to expect as a student. A randomized experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this community experience on enrollment rates and student outcomes. Session participants will get a first look at preliminary data and learn how a user-centered approach was used to create virtual community engagement.

• Jason Levin, Western Governors University
• Adam Shiflett, Western Governors University

How to Identify Your Niche Markets and Why You Should Use Integrated Campaigns to Reach Them
Marketing
If you’re speaking to everyone, you aren’t speaking to anyone. This session is designed to help higher education marketing professionals identify their niche target markets and how to reach these unique populations through tailored messaging/content and through traditional and non-traditional marketing channels. This session will discuss the effectiveness of an integrated marketing approach and how research and testing can help you reach your audience and resonate with them. Session highlight: veterans’ student population case study

• Tina Vasquez, Excelsior College

Freezing First-Year Summer Melt: A New Enrollment and Marketing Strategy for Engaging Incoming Students Through Summer University
Enrollment Management
Learn how Summer University and Enrollment Management partnered with faculty across the University of Maine to deliver a brand new Summer Start program aimed at improving retention of first-year students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing existing resources, the program was built without an allocated budget to improve student commitment, aid in academic readiness and continuity, and establish relationships with students, turning a time of turmoil into a time of opportunity.

• Patricia Libby, University of Maine
• Christopher Richards, University of Maine
• Elisabeth Maberry, University of Maine
• Tiffany Peterson, University of Maine

Product Differentiation in a Crowded Online Marketplace: Taking a Consumer Approach to Marketing, Enrollment, and Course Design
Enrollment Management
There are over 29,000 fully online degrees in the U.S., making program differentiation a challenge for institutions. How are you attracting, enrolling and retaining students to set your institution apart? This presentation will discuss how Wiley Education Services helps its strategic partners think differently and continue to drive enrollment growth.

• Cory Berntson, Wiley Education Services
• Corey Miller, Wiley Education Services

Sense of Belonging in Online Students: Does It Matter and How Do We Foster It?
Enrollment Management
Sense of belonging has been identified as a critical component to the retention of traditional campus-based students, however little has been explored regarding belongingness of those at a distance. This session will share results from a recent study conducted at Oregon State University on sense of belonging in online students, as well as implications for practice and recommendations for the use of belonging as a retention tool.

• Marleigh Perez, Oregon State University Ecampus

Marketers and enrollment managers need to be prepared for a post-pandemic world. In addition to the losses our society experienced, the pandemic accelerated many higher education ailments that were at best irritable yet manageable, but also exposed larger problems that had previously lay dormant. This session will show the acceleration to a new economy, address generational change and engagement, and illustrate how marketing online degrees and emerging alternative credentials could be essential for a healthier and new-normal future.

• Jim Fong, UPCEA
• Mike Raynes, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Amy Rossi, Northwestern University

The Bumpy Road to Day 1 of Classes: Leveraging Partnerships to Create New Ways of Engaging Prospective Students
Enrollment Management
This session will contextualize marketing and enrollment innovations in a unique channel - working adult learners who receive education benefits from their employers. SNHU and Guild Education have partnered to ease obstacles to generating and converting leads from working adults. We will ground the session in case studies demonstrating how to leap from data insights to long term strategy.

• Kevin Rockmael, Guild Education
• Katelyn Forgue, Southern New Hampshire University
• Kevin Chanashing, Guild Education
• Mark Rudnick, Guild Education
• Sue Nathan, Southern New Hampshire University

Data Analysis When Every Dollar Counts: Merging Marketing and Enrollment Data to Make Advertising Spending Decisions
Marketing
In a time of tight budgets, marketers need to prove their return on investment. UMASS Amherst worked with analysts at VisionPoint Marketing to go beyond the usual marketing KPIs, building models based on marketing and enrollment data to inform which programs would see the biggest enrollment boost from increased marketing spending. The result is a data-informed approach to marketing that boosts enrollments and makes a clear business case for further marketing investments.

• Josh Dodson, VisionPoint Marketing
• Ryan Merclean, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Dana Cruikshank, Vision Point

Level up Marketing Value With a Small Budget
Marketing
Demonstrating marketing value starts by defining the terms under which that value should be measured. In this workshop we explore how James Madison University Professional & Continuing Education shifted their approach to marketing from highly discretionary to value-based. In doing so, JMU PCE moved from marketing budgets being determined anecdotally by finance personnel and spent on an as-needed basis, to an outcomes driven approach with marketing plans that demonstrate specific outcomes for marketing dollars spent allowing a greater understanding of the function and value of marketing across the entire unit.

• Shonta Sellers, James Madison University
• Guy Felder, Spur Consulting Group

Lessons Learned in Digital Accessibility: Key Knowledge, Strategic Tips and Ethical Considerations
Marketing
Attendees will gain a better understanding of digital accessibility issues and how to manage them by applying lessons learned to their institution’s practices. Key knowledge and strategic tips will help you cut through the legal and technical details to focus on evaluating your institution’s websites, as well as other digital content (videos, social media, etc.). Use a custom accessibility audit tool to evaluate & manage your compliance, and create a goal-oriented action plan.

• Dova Wilson, George Washington University

Open for Learning in the Time of COVID-19
Marketing
With record-high unemployment, employees need education to remain in or re-enter the workforce, and employers need skilled and knowledgeable employees for their current and future workforce needs. During this time, how do we convey we are open for learning? PaCE created COVID-19 Courses for Causes, a statewide program offering select free courses to support essential workers and working adults, to give back to the community and promote a greater sense of well-being.

• Sheila Thomas, California State University
• Amanda Olivas, California State University

Enrollment Management
Building the ideal student experience is an initiative that UCR Extension undertook in 2019 to reduce student drop off from inquiry to enrollment and increase retention. We combined Marketing Communications and Student Services to establish the Student Experience Team; led by the Chief Experience Office, a newly created position. This combined team ensures that the student is nurtured through every stage of the student journey, resulting in a positive and seamless experience.

• Antonio Pagano, University of California Riverside
• Sandra Navarro, University of California Riverside
• Cristina Sanford, University of California Riverside