It’s budget-building season and questions abound. Three RHB team members, Dr. Amanda Sale, senior enrollment management consultant, Ken Anselment, vice president for enrollment management, and Dr. Rob Zinkan, vice president for marketing leadership, draw on their extensive higher education experience to provide some helpful tips as you make the difficult decisions that will set the course for your organization in the coming year.

·  ·  ·

Dr. Amanda Sale, senior enrollment management consultant 

“If I had a million dollars, well I’d buy you a green dress.”

As we are in the height of budget season, I’m reminded of an experience I had as a new leader during my time on campus. We were approached with a potential funding opportunity from the President’s Office to host a new initiative, but there were several caveats: the runway to create a proposal and plan was short (four weeks), the funding wasn’t finalized (it could be up to $100,000 but also as low as $25,000 ), and because it wasn’t official, the planning had to be confidential. 

We were so excited about the potential for this new project that my team began singing “If I had a million dollars,” a line from a Barenaked Ladies song of the same name. We began to refer to our secretive planning as The Green Dress Initiative. We hummed a great 90s pop song and got to work.

Purpose, outcomes and measuring success

The first, and arguably most important, step for our team was to clearly identify our purpose, our desired outcomes and how we would measure success. As basic as this sounds, it was important for us to begin here so that our ideas for this new initiative would stay grounded in institutional goals and priorities and we would know how to measure its success as we debriefed with university leadership. This particular project focused on yielding high-ability students from outside of our local footprint and was directly connected to institutional goals of increasing both the geographic diversity and academic credentials of our incoming class.

Start with Rainbows and Unicorns, be prepared for Glitter in the Grass

Once we set this foundational framework in place, we could get to brainstorming. We intentionally broke our brainstorms down into three categories: Rainbows and Unicorns, Sunshine and Flowers, and Glitter in the Grass. 

We started with Rainbows and Unicorns, imagining an unlimited budget, welcoming wild ideas and removing “no” from our conversation. This was an essential part of the brainstorming process because it gave our team the opportunity to get creative without having to justify it within the budget parameters. Once we identified our Rainbows and Unicorns and were inspired and excited, we started to pare it back.  

The next level was Sunshine and Flowers, building out the initiative with the continued air of a fairytale, but more rooted in reality: the budget isn’t endless in this stage and “no,” “can’t” or “shouldn’t” start to pop up a little more. 

The third level of our brainstorm, Glitter in the Grass (environmentally friendly glitter, of course), enabled us to get into difficult conversations about creating meaningful change without investing as much financially. This is where the hard work happened: we asked questions about efficiencies, using systems differently or better and thoughtfully considered paring back based on necessity.

Once we identified our initiatives, we built their respective proposals and submitted them. At the high end, we proposed fully funding the cost to bring Admitted Students to campus, including flights and accommodations. On the low end, we budgeted for a catered meal. We were thrilled when we received approval. 

While we didn’t get the Green Dress (or million dollars), we landed somewhere between Rainbows and Unicorns and Sunshine and Flowers, receiving enough funding to create a meaningful program for prospective students and their families that included accommodations and catered meals, but didn’t include airfare. We got to planning, creating and hosting a great event and were pleased with the result.

Debrief, evaluate and improve

The event was wildly successful and we were prepared to tell that story. Because we started the initiative by identifying the purpose, desired outcomes and how we would measure success, we had a plan when we met to debrief. The team thoughtfully came together immediately after the event to talk about what worked, what didn’t work and what we would do differently if it were to receive funding again. After the dust settled and there was data to illustrate how the initiative impacted prospective students, we connected asynchronously to finalize a report for the President’s Office.

Our intentions from the initial rumblings of “a million dollars,” our Rainbows and Unicorns brainstorming and our ability to tell the story after our debriefing meeting created an opportunity to justify the investment. This resulted in long-term support and an allocation of funding to duplicate our new event annually. Ultimately, the Green Dress Initiative evolved into a signature program for the institution that was different from anything that had been offered before.

Ken Anselment, vice president for enrollment management 

The Monopoly lesson

When I first started playing Monopoly as a kid, I was a saver. I would get those stacks of $500s and $100s and $50s, and guard them carefully as I held my breath on every dice roll around the board until I would pass Go, collecting my next $200. 

While I was saving, my opponents were buying up properties, their money stacks depleting while mine remained a proud towering testament to my fiscal prudence.

That condition would hold for the first several trips around the board, but then my sturdy money stacks would begin to disappear slowly as more of my opponents’ tiny houses started popping up, and then rapidly as those houses gave way to hotels, sending me to the sidelines while my friends continued to play.

It wasn’t until I changed my strategy from saver to investor that I started staying in the game longer and eventually winning.

The same is true for your budget: saving isn’t a winning strategy. If you want to reach your institutional goals, you’re going to need to make some investments. A penny saved is not always a penny earned.

Beware the DIY trap

This is a symptom of the so-called “prudence” behind my initial approach to Monopoly, and I see it happen at a lot of institutions that may not be flush with cash, but are flush with creative energy: “Why would we invest in outside help when we have all the talent and horsepower on our own team?”

This line of thinking works well when your own team has plenty of capacity (and time) to advance your cause … but the last time I checked, there weren’t too many higher ed teams that would describe themselves as “looking for more to do.”

You may, indeed, have a team loaded with talented people who can do wonderful work for your institution, but those talented people often have many other things competing for their time, attention and energy—especially in a resource-constrained environment. What you might be saving by not investing in outside resources you may often lose in time to completion. Furthermore, you might miss a new perspective or a different approach that an outside expert could provide.

I have a colleague who used to work at a small liberal arts college that was long overdue for a virtual campus tour. The institution solicited proposals from some established players in the marketplace who could bring a product to market for them quickly, if rather expensively. However, because that institution happened to be loaded with talent in web development, videography and writing, they opted instead to do the job in-house because they thought it would be interesting, innovative and inexpensive.

Eight months later, they had a clever and functional campus tour mounted on their website. Meanwhile, for eight months, other more important projects that required the attention of those talented team members fell by the wayside, overrun by the shiny and fun project. Furthermore, while the college had a nifty new campus tour they could proudly display, they didn’t build in plans for updating the tour in future years and found themselves in the position of doing what they should have done in the first place: hire outside expertise to develop a new virtual campus tour.

In an increasingly unforgiving marketplace, consider the big strategic levers you need to pull to make a difference in your institution’s prospects for success, such as market positioning, academic program enhancement and market development. Are there strategic and technological advances that would enhance your ability to deliver timely and relevant communications to your prospective students, moving them toward desired behaviors? (Hint: it’s probably not a virtual campus tour.)

Then evaluate whether you have the in-house horsepower to pull these levers not only effectively but quickly. Would an investment in outside expertise get you there more quickly or perhaps in a direction you haven’t considered? Would that investment free up your team to do the things they truly do best, such as delivering high-touch care for your prospective students and their families? 

Short-term investments in outside resources can be the booster rockets that accelerate your progress to your goals, launching you more quickly into a stronger competitive position.

Rob Zinkan, vice president for marketing leadership 

Choice making: The heart of strategy

When colleges and universities come to RHB to help evolve or transform their marketing organization for greater capability and deeper engagement in institutional priorities, we use a process called The RHB 3-5 Design. Three forms of analysis address critical questions across five organizational areas: strategy, structure, staffing, systems and spend level. The fifth “S” (spend) is often a point of frustration for VPs and CMOs because the marketing investment is not to the level they would like.  

To appropriately answer the spend question—how marketing and communications should be resourced for the work that the first “S” (your strategy) requires—your strategy must be clear. Senior leadership must be aligned on the change that marketing will affect and the institutional priorities in the strategic plan that marketing’s work will advance.

As you just read the words “strategic plan,” I wonder if you rolled your eyes or nodded affirmatively. Does the strategic plan merely document your institution’s wish list or items it should already be doing, or does it reflect choices the institution has made with an understanding of its market position, the position it occupies on the landscape of competing institutions? If the former—a common formula for higher ed strategic planning—commence eye rolling.

In our most recent RHB study of higher education strategic plans, we analyzed new plans that launched in 2022 and 2023, and we noted an uptick in reputation- and brand-related overarching priorities. Still, these priorities or pillars, such as “leverage the brand,” do not reflect choice making. What fits and doesn’t fit under “leverage the brand?” Shouldn’t the institution be leveraging its brand already? Was the other choice to not leverage the brand? (Please note we’re not picking on strategic plans for the sake of pointing out deficiencies, but rather highlighting the significant opportunity after reviewing thousands of pages of plans across our studies. The lack of strategy across the sector is apparent while the need for strategy has never been greater with the headwinds facing higher education.)

In another newly launched plan, one overarching priority for an institution is to “distinguish the university regionally, nationally and internationally.” This lack of choice making will lead to unfocused budget planning. In our organizational design and development work, we reviewed a marketing and communications budget that had 44% of its total operating budget (excluding personnel) allocated to the university’s magazine. These examples all point to the gap between strategic planning and marketing budget planning, which should be critically linked.

As you develop your 2024-25 fiscal year budget proposal, seek alignment. Does your institutional strategic plan reflect strategy choices? Is your marketing and communications work aligned to those choices and priorities? Then, is your marketing budget aligned to resource that work?

The post Build a More Strategic Higher Ed Budget: Advice From Three RHB Experts appeared first on RHB.

Fall is officially underway and many admissions professionals have been on the road since August visiting high schools, attending college fairs and, notably, this month, heading to Baltimore to attend one of my favorite conferences of the year, NACAC.

I love NACAC for a variety of reasons: the opportunity to get inspired by speakers like Jay Shetty; to hear national discourse around admissions and enrollment hot topics through educational sessions like the ones my colleagues, Ken Anselment and Rosa Arroyo Driggers, are hosting; and the chance to connect with friends and peers from throughout the United States for a quick coffee, meal or cocktail.

As you’re getting ready to head to Baltlimore, we offer a handful of recommendations for things to see, eat and drink during your time in the city.

To See:

If you venture outside the Baltimore Convention Center area, we encourage you to take a 15-minute ride to the Baltimore Museum of Art to spend time with their impressive collection–including works by Matisse and Picasso–as well as their array of African and Asian art. If you get hungry while exploring, Gertrude’s Chesapeake Kitchen overlooks the sculpture garden and serves locally sourced farm-fresh food that preserves Chesapeake culinary traditions.

To Eat:

Baltimore has a variety of exquisite restaurants to choose from, featuring Beard-nominated chefs, Best of Baltimore winners, and establishments that serve the community not only through food. While not exhaustive, here are a few of our favorites:

• Cindy Lou’s Fish House: You may find me here one night while I’m in Baltimore, enjoying seafood, views of the harbor and southern-inspired dishes that are as beautiful as they are delicious.
• Ekiben: For a more casual experience with a focus on Asian-style comfort food, I’d recommend Beard-nominated Ekiben. Here you’ll find pork buns, rice bowls and a variety of Asian-fusion sides that are mouthwatering.
• Mera Kitchen Collective: The concept of this restaurant gets me excited. As a worker-owned cooperative, Mera Kitchen Collective started off as a series of pop-ups and now has a brick-and-mortar that empowers refugees to tap into their culinary heritage through cooking.

To Drink:

If you’re in the mood to enjoy a quick happy hour with colleagues, we have a few options for you, too.

• Topside: If the weather is nice, we highly recommend Topside, the rooftop bar at Hotel Revival. It’s a quick walk or ride from the convention center and offers guests great cocktails and beautiful views of the city.
• The Brewer’s Art: If you prefer a brewpub offering a wide selection of beer (and craft cocktails, too), add The Brewer’s Art to your list. It’s a Baltimore favorite with a great atmosphere serving outstanding food and drinks.
• The Bluebird Cocktail Room and Pub: A 15-minute ride will take you to the Bluebird Cocktail Room, a funky bar that focuses on craft cocktails. While you’re there, head downstairs to the pub, a place they describe as “a cozy, candlelit, underground gathering space for lovers of American whiskey, cured meats and classic literature.”

This should get you started, but if you need help—or want some company—please reach out! We’d love to have a conversation with you, catch up and share some of the exciting things that are happening at RHB.

The post A Guide to NACAC 2023: Things to See, Eat and Drink in Baltimore appeared first on RHB.

It is officially spooky season, y’all. As we continue our series about bringing search in-house, let’s take a moment to talk about the elephant (or ghost) in the room: the fear of bringing search in-house … and how it might actually look on the other side.

As a senior consultant at RHB, one of my favorite engagements to start, facilitate and complete with clients is bringing search in-house. It is beautiful to see a monumental project that can feel overwhelming at the beginning evolve and transform into something meaningful to students and bespoke to specific institutional needs and goals.

The irony of this being one of my favorite engagements is that I was absolutely terrified of bringing search in-house when I was an RHB client. In fact, I remember having several conversations in my past role with RHB’s president, Sam Waterson, about the opportunity. I had a visceral reaction: “NO, we absolutely cannot do that—it is too big, too much and too complex. We are underwater and can’t take that on now or ever. There is a reason we outsource it!”

These feelings are 100% valid, but should also be unpacked a bit. To do this, I chatted with Chris Gray, Dean of Enrollment at Lasell University, a client and friend who recently worked with RHB to bring search in-house. We talked about the associated fear and surprises (both good and bad) and a little bit about the advice he’d offer now that he’s on the other side. 

The Fear of Bringing Search In-House

To begin, because search is often the strategy that informs other strategies, it is a huge responsibility to take it apart and put it back together. This responsibility, coupled with the lift of building and deploying search, can be a non-starter for admissions leaders.

In our conversation, Chris shared, “I think my biggest fear, even though I have full faith in our team’s ability and vision, would be that the performance of in-house senior search would somehow not be as strong as a partnership with an application generation company.”

This concern is fair, and that is scary. Outsourcing search to a third party mitigates some of that responsibility, but with that diffused responsibility you may lose your flexibility to create a campaign that evolves with your pool and is nimble enough to change quickly and easily if you need it.

We experienced the benefits of this flexibility in real time as Chris and his team pivoted their messages quickly after search was deployed to capitalize on their tuition reset announcement. Because Lasell deployed search in-house, they had the ability to shift the cadence and messages to cater to this big news and tailor it in such a way that it seemed like it was a part of their search strategy from the beginning.

Surprises 

Coupled with the anxiety of shouldering the responsibility of search is a fear of the surprises that  you can’t entirely plan for and anticipate. And, while your surprises may be different, Chris offered some perspective from having just lived it.

To begin, bringing search in-house gives you the opportunity to do ANYTHING you want. I know you understand the massiveness of this statement and it’s in that massiveness that admissions leaders and their teams can become frozen. Where do you start, how do you go forward and what does this look like?  

“We have weekly brainstorming sessions on what ‘arms’ of search we want to grow,” Chris said. “Unfortunately, we always come up with more ideas than time allows us to implement. If I could fast forward three years, I know our search campaigns will be in a completely different space than our starting point today. Being patient and allowing development processes to play out is one of the toughest parts.” 

As you navigate the juxtaposition of big ideas and small steps to get there, I’d remind you that you don’t need to tackle everything at once. Take the approach of building the foundation first, then, much like renovating individual rooms in a house, work on your segmentation room-by-room. 

The More the Merrier 

To offer a different perspective related to this surprise, bringing search in-house gives you an opportunity to bring more of your team into the process. Oftentimes when you outsource search, the responsibility and knowledge of the intricate details falls on one or two people who maintain the relationship with your provider. However, when you bring search in-house, there is more opportunity to share knowledge and collaborate on the process.

As Chris and I talked, he pointed out that this allows staff to be part of the discussion, brainstorming  ideas, themes and even specific tone in messaging to broad and narrow populations that they are invested in. While all their ideas may not be implemented, the inclusion in the conversation creates a culture of buy-in and exposes more members of your team to new, celebrated professional experiences to add to their resume.

Advice

As we wrapped our conversation, I felt more excited and inspired about search than I had when we began. I also appreciated Chris’s intentionality of involving his team in the process–a framework that, candidly, I had not thought about before. When we talk about the potential of bringing search in-house with clients, we often focus so much on the features and how that translates to their day-to-day tactics that we forget about the strategic benefits–both from an enrollment perspective and a leadership perspective. Keeping these benefits in mind, Chris wraps our conversation with a poignant piece of advice for those grappling with this fear of bringing search in-house:

“My piece of advice to any institution or leader thinking of bringing search in-house is to not only strategize around responsibilities, time and workforce changes, but also to completely demolish areas you’ve wanted to change or have been thinking about for some time. This is an opportunity to restructure teams, give new responsibilities to staff and rethink how you’ll grade and evaluate search performance. In a micro-example, say a message didn’t perform as great as you’d like; under traditional search partnerships you may go back to the drawing board or rehash the message with your account representative. But if a junior team member played a role in that message, how does this turn into an experience that not only helps that individual grow but also the team as a whole? Use search as a vehicle to progress your team’s ability and connection to the institution.”

Conclusion

The fear of search has merit—after all it is the strategy that informs your other strategies. If you break it in the process of bringing search in-house, the ripple effect can be terrifying. However, if you have a plan, the support, and the ability to empower your staff to get involved, the benefits notably outweigh the risk.

The post Overcoming the Fear of Search appeared first on RHB.

As I begin my work at RHB and transition from an institutional role into one of enrollment management consultant, I’m struck by the magnitude of the shift. I have spent many years elbow-deep in the daily activities of admissions and enrollment management, much like working in a flower garden (ironically my only gift in gardening is how much I freely invest in plants that will surely not make it past a couple of weeks). Regardless, I was in the weeds enough that, when asked to share my experiences with The Major Key (TMK) and its implications for enrollment management I paused in panic and stared at what could have been described as dirt under my nails. Sure, I have worked with TMK, a student-centric, academic major exploration system, for the last six years, and I believe in what it does for students and institutions. But how do I articulate that from a higher-level perspective? How could I thoughtfully step away from the garden and describe it from the street?

 I took a deep breath, texted a mentor, laughed at the irony that someone as chatty as myself was stuck without words, and then I got to reflecting (and writing). As a professional, TMK was a game changer for me and my institution because it is a powerful tool for brand awareness, for recruitment and ultimately for student success, and that is an easy story to tell.

TMK as a tool to increase brand awareness

In many cases if you search for a list of majors and their details on a university website you’ll be directed to the bulletin or academic catalog and, while this is a helpful and meaningful tool for students and advisors alike, its utilitarian nature doesn’t do an incredible job of telling an institutional story. Candidly, the academic catalog or bulletin would be the last place I would want to send a prospective student and their family for information because it’s clunky, hard to navigate and so full of academic jargon that even I have a hard time navigating it.

This is where TMK comes into play. It offered a solution that gave us an opportunity to share information about majors, concentrations and areas of study in an easy-to-navigate, beautifully branded format. It removed the academic jargon (well, as much as we were able to commit to rewriting) and provided a place where prospective students and their families could explore without necessarily being bombarded with academic speak and the barriers that institutionally we may not realize exist.

Beyond the ability to make majors and concentrations more beautiful, I appreciated the opportunity to use TMK to tell student stories, to connect majors to outcomes and potential job opportunities and visually represent the university beyond words on a paper. What I loved about TMK goes hand-in-hand with its versatility as a tool for recruitment.

TMK as a tool for recruitment

Fundamentally I think a key part of recruiting prospective students and their families is the ability for an institution to tell their story authentically and in a format that is accessible–TMK gave us the ability to do that.

First, TMK gave us the ability to make our majors accessible and searchable in a way for students to explore on their own using their own language. With the ability to add slang search words to majors, students could search for CSI, Beyoncé, or cybersecurity without the stigma or concern of sounding silly or uninformed. And, because I know that as administrators it’s been a bit since we were considered hip with the kids, TMK also offers a snapshot of commonly searched words that don’t appear to be connected to a major. 

Beyond the ability to break down institutional jargon, TMK gave us a level of data collection that was insightful and fascinating. I’ll touch on the long-term and strategic potential in a bit, but for immediate and tangible impacts on student recruitment, the ability to track student traffic and gather student data through TMK allowed us to segment and target messaging to specific students based on how they searched and their specific major interests. And the seamless integration with our CRM system gave us the ability to set up the communication and automate it.

TMK as a tool for student success

TMK as a tool for external audiences is great, but I also think there is significant appeal to using it as a tool for institutional planning, cross-functional conversations and as a roadmap for transition for both new and current students.

During my time using TMK as a client, it was the most-trafficked website for the Office of Admissions. Because of this, the minable data is pretty incredible. We could use search statistics and page visits as a metric to begin conversations about majors and interest from prospective students. For example, we didn’t offer nursing as a major, but like clockwork, our metrics on TMK offered insight to making a strong argument to support student enrollment in nursing if the university ever decided to pursue it. It also offered a snapshot into the viability of new majors (although one could argue the snapshot was anectdotal at best). 

Another component of TMK that we observed was the organic use of it as a way for new and current students to confirm their major and/or find new majors when they wanted a change. The platform’s accessibility, ease of use and student-focused language provided a safe space for current students and advisors to explore majors with ease. Then, coupled with student stories and outcome information, students had the information they needed to make an informed decision or have a jumping-off point for a conversation with their academic advisor.

Last, TMK offered an opportunity or baseline to begin cross-functional or cross-departmental conversations. With a collaborative approach, it is easy to pull in campus partners to tell a comprehensive story of the experience in a major. You can collaborate with academic advising, the office of the registrar and career services to create an experience for students that breaks down silos, affirms their decisions to pursue their major and provides the student success bumpers that promote retention and on-time graduation.

Let’s talk about weeds

From this narrative you can tell I’m a fan–there is a reason that I was part of the team of early adopters of TMK. As a tool in my strategic toolbox, the opportunities were tremendous. However, let’s take a minute to talk a little bit about the maintenance, time commitment and initial lift.

Bear with me, I’m going to go back and talk about gardening for a minute (even though I’ve told you it’s not my gift!). If TMK is a section of your enrollment management garden, it’s not going to be without some weeds and some maintenance to keep it pristine. Ultimately TMK as a tool in your enrollment strategy is only as good as the time you commit to it. There is the initial lift and buy-in stage from campus partners to get good data and student stories–and you all know there is an element of herding cats to make that happen. With limited resources and many ideas, it’s important to quantify the outcomes and potential and, if you can get colleagues on board with the commitment, the return is worth it.

Then, after that initial lift, it’s important to remember that TMK is a living, evolving solution and platform. Whether it’s annually or quarterly it’s important to do a check of majors, outcomes and student stories. Then, even more important, have a team member familiar with current student language, terms and jargon go in and add search terms that are relevant.

Final thoughts

As I wrap up my thoughts, I have to say this has been a great exercise in reflection. I have spent so much time deep in the garden with TMK, weeding and watering, that I never took a step away and looked at it from the street and wow, it really is a beautiful site (both figuratively and literally)! In a time where institutions are testing the capacity of their enrollment management leaders and asking many to do more with less, it is important to be thoughtful about tools, strategies and solutions that not only focus on efficiencies and institutional needs, but also on prospective students and their families. TMK offers the best of both by taking a student-focused approach while capturing data and providing the opportunity to drill down and use that data to make informed decisions. If you would like to learn more, I would encourage reaching out–you know how gardeners love to talk about their flowers, or in this case, our solutions.

For more information about TMK, visit themajorkey.com or contact us with any questions.

The post Tending the Student Success Garden with The Major Key: Bloom Better with Smarter Methods appeared first on RHB.