Welcome, everybody to the Digital Impact Summit of 2021. We're really excited that you're here, and I'm even more excited to be joined by Todd Abbott and Leslie Vossenkemper, today, to join us and talk about the changing industry. So we are happy that you're here to join us for getting real, a candid conversation about our changing industry. My name is Monisha Longacre. I'm the Chief Operating Officer here at Student Bridge, I have joined in February of 2020, which is a very exciting time to join this industry. Because Two weeks later, everything changed with COVID. So I certainly got a rude awakening and diving into the deep end in terms of onboarding remotely, but even more so really jumping in to help the industry at a really pivotable time-- pivoting time of change. And being in the space was really an interesting learning experience for sure. We would like to spend the next 45 minutes with you really kind of having an open dialogue and conversation about what has changed and what this means to the future of higher ed. And we're really excited to have Todd and Leslie both share their insights. So as we get started, I'd like to introduce-- Invite Todd and Leslie to both introduce themselves and then we'll jump right into the questions.
It's great, Monisha-- if it's okay, I'll just dive in and start, so again, Todd Abbott, really appreciate the opportunity to speak with with all of you today and talk about our insights and observations that we've seen in our time in higher ed. I've been on the higher education side since 1996. So I guess that's 24 years or so and spent the first better part of the first half of that on campus. My last role was the Dean of enrollment management at a small private institution out in the northwest, which is where I'm still based in in Olympia, Washington. And then in 2007, moved to to the vendor side to the to the for profit world, if you will, and and worked at Ruffalo Cody, now RNL, and had an opportunity to lead the sales organization at at RNL for a number of years. And then really transitioned from there, I had a unique opportunity back in 2018, that the CEO at the time, it asked if I wanted to try something entirely different in sort of begin to build out the partner ecosystem at RNL. And so I jumped at the opportunity to do that. I had a lot of fun doing it, I learned a lot, which we'll probably talk a little bit about over the next 45 minutes or so. And, but through those experiences, you know, sort of learned, for me, I suppose sort of three, three things, I guess in general one, there are a lot of really, really smart people in the industry. Two, they lead some really unique companies and whereas on the in the higher ed world, we'd like to call them thunders, that have some great technology and solutions. But three there is-- Higher Education, as we all know, is a unique industry. And it's it's hard sometimes for some of these companies to get in, you just they just don't understand sort of the intricacies of how higher ed works. And so I saw that as an opportunity to to go out on my own. So I left RNL in January and then doing some consulting work with different companies in higher ed, and fortunate enough to do some of that work with Leslie as well, and really just trying to provide our insights and expertise into the world of higher ed to these companies. And so that's a long introduction, but but that's who I am and and really excited for, like I said for the next 40-45 minutes.
Thank you, Todd. Leslie. I'm Leslie Vossenkemper and it's a pleasure to have an opportunity to be part of this event. Thank you, Monisha. Um, yes, so I have spent about 20 years working in higher education as well. Most of the time spent on the vendor side, as Todd said, I did start my career on campus working in admissions both at a community college, and then a small four year private, and then was recruited actually the Ruffalo Cody, as employee number three of what is now RNL Enrollment Management Division. And so it was a wild and crazy journey. But I think the reason RNL had the earliest and sustaining success that it has had is because it is just so focused on how to help colleges and universities in knowing who else is out there. It is definitely been interesting also to see how the industry has evolved through that period of time. Our-- my work was mostly focused on helping build products and deliver products to colleges and universities to recruit-- retain students. I left RNL at the end of 2016, and actually stepped out of higher ed for a hot second, to take an executive role in a small company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is where I'm based out of, and when I received a phone call from ACT, I jumped at the opportunity to get back in I had really missed even in six short months, my time serving colleges and universities. So I went back into ACT, where I helped build a strategy for how they were going to better serve colleges and universities. That strategy resulted in the acquisition of NRCCUA. And so after leaving the reverse integration of the ACT offerings into the NRCCUA platform. I began working on new product innovation, and I decided also like Todd to step out on my own, this year, and start helping other companies that are in this space trying to serve colleges and universities. And there's a lot of changing dynamics. And I'm really excited about this conversation here today.
So thank you both, and let's just go ahead and dive right in. Because I know we have a lot of really meaty topics to address. So let's start with kind of the current situation. You know, given all the change that happened last year, what's the biggest opportunity for higher ed institutions to rise above the current challenges?
That's a very good question. Right off the get-go, I think to me, I sort of characterize it as the modernization of engagement. I think these last, you know, 15 plus months have provided an opportunity for institutions. There's this misnomer in the industry, that higher ed sort of moves very slowly and doesn't adapt to change, as well as other industries. And maybe as a whole that that's, you know, maybe that's been the case, historically, I think the last 15 months really sort of showed other industries, how quickly higher ed can move and can adapt. But I think a lot of it is around, again, as I'm calling it sort of the modernization of engagement, I think, you know, you look at what other industries do, and you think about the student, or family sort of experience or journey that they go through as they're selecting colleges and universities. And, you know, when you think about it from from another industry perspective, you see, you know, you see, I might go on to the, you know, to the nordstrom.com website, and then all of a sudden, over the next several days or even weeks, I'm being served up digital ads, and just ways of sort of experiencing what I did previously. Those are things and there certainly have been a number of institutions that have been doing that for a while. But I think as a whole, that's really where I saw the industry begin to make a pretty sizable shift is to say, we've got to do things, we have to think differently, we have to engage with our students with our constituents differently, how are we going to do that and sort of adapt? And that's what I've seen again, as all I'll just call it the modernization of engagement.
Yeah, and I--[INAUDIBLE] go ahead, Lesie.
Yeah, I was just gonna chime in too, to piggyback on what Todd said that, you know, another dynamic that has definitely surfaced during this time is just the labor market, a lot of changes in the labor market. And that is not going to change, that's going to continue to get more and more different from what we've known forever. And the programming side of higher ed, is got that to consider. But then also at the same time, the forum of which education is being delivered has forever changed too and the expectation for choice and modality, like how am I going to receive my education? So you kind of combine those two things together, the programming and the modality, it's comes down to the higher end product. What is the product? It is that they are delivering to students and families and demonstrating that ROI. I think it's just this is really interesting timeframe where parents, families are all starting to see even adults considering going back to school, thinking about what kind of training do I want to go after? How am I going to get that training? How am I going to balance that with the rest of my life? These are all I think incredible opportunities that have just Like the fast forward button has been hidden over the last month.
That's a good way of way I'm putting it .
Todd, you just discussed this modernization of engagement, which I think is a very powerful concept. But given that, and keeping that in mind, what's the most important factor when it comes to attracting and engaging with prospective students going forward?
That's a good question. I, you know, I think the part of this and we might even dive into some of this throughout the conversation, but it's, you know, I think of it as, first of all, understanding that this is a journey that we're trying to encourage or we're asking if you will, these these prospective students, and then ultimately current students to go through. And the other word, I suppose that I would use throughout throughout this modernization of engagement is collaboration, you need to find ways, I think, as an institution and the leadership and institution to collaborate across campus, and then also, across the different companies that you might work with that are that have the expertise in digital engagement or in analytics or in data, those kinds of things. It's-- I think the collaboration around that, I think is going to be extremely important. I think, and I've seen it even from my perspective, sort of that shift began to happen. But I think that's, to me, is the area that I would, you know, for institutions to really think about, how do we-- how do we collaborate? And again, thinking about from a journey perspective, where do I want this student ultimately to end up? It's not so much that they're going to, we're just trying to move them from stage to stage, it's sort of thinking about the whole longevity of that journey?
Yeah, I think this is something we're seeing happening, too. It's not on every campus, but it's on several campuses. And [INAUDIBLE], having a chance to work with some different companies out there, right now serving colleges, like we're hearing this for hearing interest, and we're engaging more folks in planning, how are we going to utilize technology to best serve students? And how are we going to provide a better experience to the student across what is their own continuum? You know, example of that, I think is you know, where we've had our silos on campuses, and where some of those are starting to, you know, kind of come down and for good reason, it's actually that transition from deposit to enrollment, it's just, it's a great example of how, you know, from a student experience standpoint, they've been building a relationship, receiving communications, understanding and getting excited. And then at the point of decision, of course, from a campus standpoint, you're trying to prevent, melt and provide a good onboarding experience. But it represents a change sometimes, and who's managing that student relationship forward? What technologies are being used to manage that in your relationships forward, and all of the strategy that goes into it, and it's so incredibly great to see that these walls are starting to come down and plans are being made about, okay, from how do we best serve the student to get them from the point that they've made a decision and get them successfully on campus and set them up for success once they're here? But that whole student experience I think, is something we got to keep an eye on and really push ourselves to, to keep moving the needle.
It was interesting to me, I have a recent high school graduate, and at the start of his process last fall, it was interesting to me to see how not much it changed from when I had gone through that process. And it was kind of shocking that there was such a huge reliance on direct mail and email, which quite honestly does not use as email as emails and repository for junk mail. So, you know, I was really interested to see that where some of the traditional methods are really not reaching some of the kids and trying to figure out exactly what you were saying, how do you create that more connected, seamless student journey? Yes.
What do you think content wise really resonates with them? Obviously, they're shifted where they're focused, but importantly, like how do you see connecting with that-- those prospective students?
You know, to your point Monisha about email, Todd and I both have juniors in high school right now. And we talk about you know, watching it's like your focus group of one right here at home. But the use of video is just if you're not doing it you have to be it's on the rise in a way that is critical. I-- my daughter, she, you know, she's on phone scrolling. She's like, Mom, why aren't colleges and universities on tik tok? And I'm like, I don't know, I don't think they wouldn't even you know, get begin to think about Tik Tock strategy. But that's where the students are just like, but so on. So campuses, and she knows, I mean, she's paying attention. Um, but that's just a that's a channel, right? That's a channel for video. There's a lot of channel for video. But I think the whole way to really utilize the channel is being authentic. Students need to see authenticity, they want to know what it's like to be a student on that campus, what is that experience? And that has certainly been heightened to over the last 12-15 months because students couldn't visit campus, they had to make decisions based on where to go without maybe even getting a chance to walk foot on campus yet. And so for all those reasons, combined, that students, these are digital natives, they are consuming so much content in a day. And when they're scrolling, they're not scrolling through text, they're scrolling through videos. And it and they don't want to see the canned, they don't want to see the canned version of a high, you know, production quality, totally scripted video, they want to they want to see that authenticity shine through.
Absolutely. So you make bring up some really interesting points about these shifts, you know, tighten up more technology more video more, you know, so how do internal teams need to adjust their roles or their structure? Or how do they need to think differently internally about how to meet these changing needs?
Todd, you want me to start or you want to start?
Sure! Go for it. And I'll I'll chime in afterwards. I've got some thoughts as well.
Okay. Well, there's a lot of compounding dynamics, I think to consider here. You've got, you know, budget constraints, budgets aren't getting easier to secure, you've got this whole student experience concepts that we've already talked about in flight and growing, I think interaction. And then I think another factor here on campuses is data and analytics, being able to have a central repository of their student data and behavioral information that continuously can help drive decision making a hot improve going forward. And for all of those reasons, combined, and probably others. I think the CIO, the role of the CIO, CTO is really being elevated on college campuses. I think it's first showing itself from from the vendor side on the buying process. A lot of the companies are seeing the addition of a CIO or CTO being involved in the procurement, the decision making. But I think what it represents for the campus is strategy, you know, they've got a person who is considering the use of technology across the campus, figuring out ways to identify it, identify efficiencies, improve students experience, and ultimately partner with the individual departments around their individual goals and figure out how do we bring technology to the table. And, you know, the CIO, CTO didn't always sit on the cabinet. And that's another transition that we're seeing is in flight. Maybe they aren't reporting to the CFO anymore, but they do have a seat at that cabinet level table.
You know, a great point on that. And, you know, I can remember way back in the day when I was on a campus that, you know, the idea of the CTO, I think, was the title at our campus being a part of these kinds of conversations. It didn't exist. And so I think to Leslie's point, that's that's becoming an extremely important role. The piece to me that I also see that has really changed, I think it's been even exacerbated, I would say, over the last 15 to 18 months, is the role of the chief marketing officer as well, for years might you know what I would see when I would go on to campuses, and I've been fortunate enough to be on several 100 campuses, when you're talking with someone, maybe the the chief enrollment officer, they have marketing as well, or the chief advancement officer maybe had marketing as well. That's a completely separate role now. And and part of it in a large respect, I sort of think about it as it goes hand in hand with, again, another sort of term or catchphrase, if you will, that I've heard a lot in particular over the last couple of yours, which is the student life cycle, it's no longer around-- just in going to, you know, my role is the enrollment person is to just get them to enquire. Just get them to apply. Just get them to enroll. It's the role of this chief marketing officer and the CIO from a technology perspective is to think about and again, go back to the idea of a journey or an experience, is I want a life long experience or lifelong journey for the students. So it's not about just to enroll. It's, as the chief marketing officer, how do I create a journey or an experience to get through to? And maybe it's not even graduation anymore? Right? It's to, you know, what do I-- how do I create this affinity with this student with this person, through graduation into alumni into giving back to the institution years and years down the road, it's one experience again, I go back to thinking around different industries that we all engage with just in our own as a consumer. And I think of, you know, I think of my experience, when I go to nike.com, right, you know, that what Nike is trying to create, for me, based on my experience with them is they're trying to create a lifelong customer, and things that they can do to engage me as that lifelong customer, not just a customer for the next 12 months of my, you know, going through high school to go to school, or just my experience as a four year student on campus. Right. It's a lifelong, and that's where, again, going back to that role, I think, the other thing that I've seen just as as executive or cabinet level, you know, positions have expanded, that Chief Marketing Officer along with the Chief, Innovation Officer, Chief Information Technology Officer has really, really become more and more important, I think, in the overall health of an institution.
That's really interesting. I mean, you know, the last couple years, we've kind of run the in the middle of between the marketing people, the admission, people, you're right, the admission focus has very much been about hitting that enrollment number. And so it'll be interesting to see that focus shift to be more of a holistic from start to finish, not being enrollment, but finish being graduating. And looking at that differently. The other role that we've seen pop up a little bit in this past year, especially has been virtual experience directors or campus-- digital campuses, you know, with experienced people, any thoughts on how that role is going to evolve? Because I think the higher ed institutions kind of realized there was a void there in terms of who was really looking holistically at what their digital experience was like.
I think, you know, I'll chime in. Leslie, real quick. And you might have some thoughts on this as well. But I but again, I think back to what Leslie indicated a little earlier, which it is , again, we've been we talk about silos on campuses all the time, we have been, at least since I've been in higher ed, there's there's there's different buyers, right? If you are if you're a vendor that's in higher ed, you might have and Monisha, you just indicated, sometimes you're you know, do we do we talk to you know, about a solution to the marketing person? Or do we talk to a person in enrollment or in alumni relations? I think as those silos begin to, they have to, they have to go down, right? They, they, if you think about, again, that digital experience, we're seeing works I'm seeing the same thing, more roles on campus that are more unique to wait a minute, we have to think about, again, that sort of 365 experience that a student or a family member may or may not have with us, not just in 3D, when they show up on campus. What is when they are sitting on their phone at nine o'clock at night doing things? What is that experience, like? And how can that experience be extremely similar to what it is when they come on to a campus? And they are walking on a physical campus around seeing different buildings and going on a tour. It's no longer the, you know, we're just going to create sort of this digital sort of, it's just we're going to check a box, it's like, No, we have to understand that there are a number of people that may not be able to physically get to campus as an example. So how do I create that experience where it's, it's equal to or close to equal to the physical piece of this as well. So I think that, you know, again, continue to try and find ways to break down the silos. And again, I'll go back to that collaboration, right. So how do we find ways to engage these different people on campuses? When I say we, I'm even saying from a vendor perspective, how do we incorporate other people to get them on campus to think about things a little differently as well? I've got a couple of thoughts also just in terms of sort of the roles, but Leslie, anything to chime in on that, and then it might-- I might follow back up again.
I know we've talked about the student journey, and you know, the silos and some of these things, you know, more collaboration across. I think an important thing, just to note is what we're not seeing change around is admissions has hit their numbers, right. Applications don't matter, inquiries, they have deposits, enrollments, and retention, all of these metrics still matter. And there's still a leader on campus that owns those metrics, right, like those department structures aren't going away. I think it's almost like a flip of script where if you think about those goals, still being the primary drivers of a lot of the investments that are being made, it's just the way in which those investments are being delivered through the lens of the student experience first, like recognizing what is the student mindset? How do we best serve that student? How do we best get them from point A to point B? And how does that actually translate into the whole ladder? Right like that we're going to go down, I think that's what we're getting at. It's it's like not blowing up the whole university structure in silos in that regard, it's more about transitioning to think about, what is the experience you're providing for that student, and in order to to provide the best experience to help you get to where you want to go with your goals too.
You know, again, I'll just sort of you know, the other thing I was going to mention it again, this is for, you know, this is for maybe the university leaders who are watching this, and they're thinking about their experience with other with other vendors. I can, I'll touch on sort of the the vendor experience in a little bit later. But I think about, it's working with your colleagues. And again, if we want to think back to what life has been like for the last 15 to 18 months, and the differences and the changes that we've all gone through what I think is paramount, and I've seen it on on lots of college campuses is better collaboration and sort of understanding of what other people on campus are doing to leverage digital engagement strategies as an example, right? It's not just the enrollment office who has these unique ways of engaging with their prospective students and families through digital experience. There might be something that the student affairs office is doing with current students that the enrollment office didn't know about, or the Alumni Relations or advancement office, and maybe they are working and doing some different unique digital engagement experiences as an example, to reach out to their constituents that again, that maybe the Student Affairs Office didn't know about, or the marketing office didn't know about. And so I think, you know, seeing more and more of that collaboration and that communication across campus, it's only going to make the campus stronger. And in turn, I think it will, it will also make each of the the different companies that serve these institutions that will make them stronger will make them think about ways in which in the audiences in terms of who they are serving in who they're working with. It'll make them I think, you know, rethink maybe some of their purpose. You know, I think there's, I see, you know, more and more companies that want to serve higher education are starting to understand, again, the term life cycle, wait a minute, maybe on not just a point solution, maybe I'm not just the solution for new student orientation, maybe I have a solution that actually fits really, really well with someone in the front end, sort of the prospective student engagement, but also maybe on the Alumni Engagement as well. I think that's, that's the other thing that I'm seeing from from a company perspective is maybe a pivot, if you will, in terms of what they provide to colleges and universities.
It talks a lot about the collaboration internally and the importance of that, I mean, traditionally higher ed's pretty operated, pretty independently, right? They've kind of done their own thing in their groups. So given not only internal collaboration, how can these institutions evolve to take advantage of partnerships or, you know, looking outwardly to figure out how to move some of these things forward?
But I think that's a good question. I'm going to start it look Get it in from my experience of of beginning to from while I was at my previous employment and sort of building out this partner ecosystem, the same thing can be said for what we went through is we understood as a company. We can't provide everything to an institution, we might think we can, but there are there are other companies that are out there that are-- that have more domain expertise in certain areas than what we do. So let's find who they are. And let's partner and let's collaborate on you know, from a, from a vendor to vendor perspective. So that we can provide a better experience ultimately for the campuses that we're serving up. I think there's there were a couple of things that I'm hopeful that will come out of this even from from a university perspective.
First of all, at the end of the day, all of these different companies that are doing their best to serve, serve the campuses, colleges and universities. They serve the college and university. And while we know things are becoming more complicated, and we see more engagement, more outsourcing, if you will, from colleges and universities to different companies. I think it's incumbent upon the colleges and universities to maybe for lack of a better term force, the companies that they are working with to come together at a table and say you all work for me, this isn't a you know, you're not you as a company are not just in a silo doing this one thing for me, it's all completely integrated. It's all so that I can get more inquiries, get more applications, get more enrollees, or have a better retention rate, a better student persistence rate, whatever the sort of the end goal is everyone is in it together, right? And so I think there's, you know, Leslie and I have talked about this before, there's different sort of layers of of all of this, I think that's really where different-- the sort of these roles, these partnerships that you see seemingly almost weekly, sort of a new partnership here, a new partnership there. It really should be about ultimately, this partnership is so that we all collectively can better serve the college and university. Again, the second half of that, though, is up to the colleges and universities to make sure that, you know, I might be working with five or six or 15 different companies, I'm going to make them all come to the table in in sort of collaborate and talk to each other. Because they all serve me. And at the end of the day, as Leslie said, I have to in enrollment and this is that's the world that we came from. We-- it's a numbers driven game. At the end of the day, I have a goal that I have to meet and that it's on me at the end of the day, if I don't do that the role of the VP of enrollment position has become, you know, it's become as complicated as the presidency in many cases. And so there's extreme pressure on them to achieve their goals. They need all of the different components of people that are working on their behalf to work together as well. That's a long answer your question, but I, I'm somewhat passionate about that.
Well, yeah, so just getting to the heart of what makes it so complex, right, especially as if you harken back to your initial comment about, you know, a seamless user journey, not only you're gonna have to collaborate internally, but everything's got to connect outwardly. So it does seem like that, you know, complete experience, not just a just disjointed one. So I think you raise some important points. Leslie.
Yeah-- I was just gonna add that I, I think just the expertise, like Todd was getting at this too. Is-- it, I mean, to manage marketing strategy anymore, it is a plethora of experiences, you've got your marketing, automation people, your digital strategies, your content strategists, I mean, there's technical data. And you know, there's so many different roles, that it's nearly impossible to think that you can do this on your own, right? You've got to go really enlist the expertise that is available and knit together in a way that it meets the objective. But I think another piece of partnership is college to college. I mean, we're starting to see I think more and more of this. And this comes down to the way back in the beginning of our conversation is the product, right? What are we selling to students? How are we going to deliver that to students and how do we manage the school sustainability through all of that change? And you know, this is where I think you're seeing it locally. Here in my market. We've got a couple colleges that are all sharing a nursing lab. One of the college campuses has invested in a state of the art medical nursing lab facility and you've got a few different colleges that are utilizing that for their students, because there's not enough nursing program capacity at any one of those colleges to meet the demand. And so just that creative thinking around, how do we solve challenges across campuses, I think is something that's exciting. And we'll probably continue to see more of too.
Fantastic. That's a great example. So speaking of you bring up another point, and kind of switching gears a little bit, because we've been talking a lot about the digital experiences, but marketing covers a lot of different angles. And another area that's been, you know, dramatically impacted. You know, I think it was kind of almost time that this happened, but COVID really forced, it was test optional, and the complete annihilation of a named buying process, which I know a lot of institutions have relied on pretty heavily to fill their funnel at the top. So how do you see that evolving, you know, now that even post COVID, or, you know, nearing the end of COVID, a lot of schools are still continuing with their test optional approach?
Well, I can speak to this, because I just stepped foot out of one of those big companies. Testing hasn't stopped, I think that's an important thing to make sure everybody's aware of that testing hasn't stopped, and it won't. I think it is still so intrinsic to the lot of the operational processes on campus, including how to provide merit aid, how to place the student in their math and english coursework. Another thing is that there is still value that's being placed, but a barrier that's being eliminated for students, it creates that for, so it's all really good. But the volume has changed somewhat. But it's not dramatic the way that it could be interpreted, I think from from the outside in. That said, though, regardless of the change in volume of, we'll say, list data available out there through the test companies. There was a change afoot anyways, through the introduction of digital marketing, whether it's, you know, SEO, or geo fencing or retargeting, all of these organic search capabilities have started to come in, and maybe they've accelerated even further at this point. But from a from a net net, I think that there's still every opportunity for colleges and universities to be able to go out invest the budget they have, and get what they need accomplished. But it's it's didn't change the complexity at all, that's for sure, it just added more to do not really taking away anything that was happening before.
Right? That's a good point, I see the opportunity in its we're beginning to see this on campuses to become more efficient in what they do in their, in their marketing, or, you know, if we can call it recruitment of prospective students, you know, Leslie's right there, you're still going to be able to go by that list. But it's also that's a, that's a practice that we as an industry have been doing for forever.
like, check that off the list, right?
That's exactly it. I in fact, I had a I'll digress for a second, but I had a client A long time ago, that I worked with, and, and, you know, the bane of her existence was to was to every, every fall, sort of go back in and say, Okay, I, you know, I have to go by another list. And what are the majors that I'm looking for? What's the, you know, the academic criteria that I want? Okay, here's the grad year, I'm going to check in, and it was sort of like, okay, I'm done. And that was actually that was before digital engagement, and all of these digital marketing opportunities that Leslie's already talked about, as well. And so it has become more complicated in one sense. And I think and I'm hopeful that maybe these last 12 - 15 months have have helped with institution to understand is, you can be more efficient in what you're doing in your lead gen strategies. And if you want to call them organic lead gen strategies, but there are ways now for institutions to you know, potentially reallocate some of the resources that they were that they had dedicated to just this list, right? Instead of purchasing a quarter of a million names and, and in fitting all of the criteria, you're likely still as an institution may be purchasing some number of names, but maybe it's not a quarter of a million anymore. Maybe it's an opportunity because we are stronger, smarter, and more strategic and we can be more efficient in ways of engaging our prospective students and families through different digital experience. As you know, maybe at the end of the day, it's it's only 100,000 students that you may purchase, and you reallocate those resources differently. I think as institutions, and as they begin to do that, and even the-- and as Leslie indicated, the volume isn't changed dramatically, but I think there's a perception and therefore, it's actually it's allowing, I think institutions to right or wrong, rethink how they do all of this? How do they engage with these students in to say, you know, I know through data and technology, I know where students are coming from, I know what my market is. Well, I'm going to go geo fences, particular high school or set up high schools, and I'm going to serve up some really unique ad experiences for those students and not just buy in at 48 cents a name, and then just send a direct mail in an email, I'm going to do some different things. I think it all goes back to also the role then of the of this chief marketing officer and the CIO and sort of how you can leverage the technology so that the people that are making the these recruitment decisions can best understand, okay, I know exactly where my customers are coming from, or prospective students, I know how to engage them. And I don't need to, again--just rely solely on this big large list that they that they acquire once or twice or six times a year, if that makes sense.
Absolutely. So we've covered a lot of different topics, and you know, wide ranging areas of focus, just to kind of summarize the discussion, what do you guys recommend, higher ed putting at their top of the list, as they you know, enter in their next admission cycle?
That's a really good question, Monisha. I think it's, again, it's probably easy for me to say, you know, you know, find ways to break down the silos and to collaborate into to work with other folks within your campus and in the different buying centers, if you want to call it that. Learn from each other, and the higher education is very, very good at doing that. And, you know, seeing what others are doing and how they can, how they can act with different technology, different experiences that they can help create, but I think, to me, it's, it's maybe-- it's understanding that this is becoming, as I talked about, sort of the modernization and engagement, it's complicated. And, you know, maybe this is going to be my bias, because I've been on a company side of things for a number of years, but there are a lot of companies that have real domain expertise in these areas. And so I think there's an opportunity for colleges and universities, understanding budget is always going to be an issue, but to find these different companies that are out there that specialize in, in digital experiences, right? Or that specialize in SEO or specialize-- Whatever the case is, but to really find and because as Leslie indicated, it's going to be really, really difficult for colleges and universities to go hire that expert and have them on campus. So to me, you know, it again, it's probably overused. And it's an oversimplified, you know, way of thinking about it, but find ways to collaborate with others. I think if you do that, there's a lot of really, really smart people in higher ed that will, you know, will find ways ultimately to create that great experience for their students and alumni.
Right.
Leslie?
Yeah, I think that I agree with everything Todd said, I think one really specific thing that as I had more time than Todd had to think about was that, um, know your data. I just I really feel like this is important. It's a skill set, that not everybody has as domain expertise. And I would encourage campuses to invest in teaching frontline staff, mid level staff, executive staff how to utilize data. And you know, you don't want to you know, there's-- what do they say paralysis by analysis kind of thing? There's so much data that it could be 100% overwhelming. But I think when we're talking about collaboration, we're talking about managing your vendor relationships, you're talking about where to improve student experience, how to leverage. You've got to have some strategy that's data driven. And if you be able to answer the question, why, or what, did that perform well? How can we do better next time? And I think that data can tell a big story in a lot of ways. And if there's not skills, invest in the skills, if there's not tools, invest in the tools, but just keep elevating the game around strategy requires data. It requires data and analytics to be able to do that.
If I can just add real quickly to that Monisha. Sorry, sorry to interrupt there. But now that now that Leslie had more time to think about a better answer, probably the one I provided, but what I would say, and I would echo to what she said I, you know, again, I don't know why I think of things in threes. But I think to that point, I think that there's an abundance of data that institutions and people at institutions have. I think the second piece of that is there's there's close to an abundance of analytics around the data. The third component, which is what what Leslie talked about, which is the utilization or the, the now what action piece of it, that's the piece that I think is extremely difficult, and we understand. And Leslie, and I have a lot of very good close friends who are still on campuses, they're inundated with, with meeting all kinds of tasks all the time. And they have lots of great data. And they're super, super smart to understand all this. But to, to Leslie's point, I love the idea of trying to invest in people that you have on your staff that can look at it and can say, now what? You know, how do I now take this? And how do I create my own story using this data or the analytics that's provided to me? And now how do we take action? I think that's fantastic.
I totally agree with both of you. And I think that really, truly at the end of the day, you know, there are definitely advantages of digital marketing, and one is you can update it easily. And you know, it's anywhere, anytime. But I do think that unfortunately, it's underrated a lot of times as the biggest benefit is the data is the analytics that you can really make smarter decisions of-- And I'm really surprised that we have a lot of partners that don't even look at their data, leave alone, try to make sense of it, analyze it, and then make future decisions based on it. So I do think there's a big opportunity to really invest and step up in that discipline to just help with the everything that we've talked about this afternoon. So I want to thank you both for your time and for sharing your insights. I think you've opened up a lot that will give our partners something to think about as they go through the rest of the conference in the next couple of days. We will share your information in case anybody wants to reach out and connect and thank you both again.
It's been great and I appreciate the opportunity. It's been fun.
