****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

Megan Scollay-Casillas 0:00

Hi, this is Megan Scollay-Casillas and you're listening to A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)

Kenneth Kinney 0:21

Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I'm Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me Shark. I am a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show, and your Chief Shark Officer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:33

Marketing and driving enrollments in higher education is a challenge for all in the industry. There are well over 4000 universities in the US alone. And that's a lot of options for students. And then think about the value and perception of degreed programs and how that's continued to change in the minds of students, employers, parents, etc. So how do you go about marketing that in this ever changing world, where a philosophy degree for example, is a harder sell than a Google certificate? Everyone needs critical thinking but also something that helps them find meaningful employment.

Kenneth Kinney 1:06

I was blessed to present in a different type of lunchtime keynote, where we recorded this episode live on the mainstage in San Diego, at the 2023 Lead Generation World Conference. You'll hear some of the noise from the great audience in the background, and it made a really enjoyable experience.

Kenneth Kinney 1:22

Megan Scollay-Casillas is the Executive Director of Marketing at San Diego State University's Global Campus.

Kenneth Kinney 1:28

And on this episode, we will discuss marketing and lead gen in the higher education space, trends, degrees versus certificates, the long tail of attribution in education, the student journey, creating the right kind of content, social media and student stories, getting agencies to play well together, high quality leads. CX as a part of growth, being in the classroom and online, the ambiance of a live show, favorite seafood tacos, Electric Boogaloo, and a lot, lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:55

So let's tune into a higher ed executive director with a lower water executive shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

[music]

Kenneth Kinney 2:07

So Megan, if you will tell us a little bit, as I talk into this prop mic, tell us a little bit about your background and your career to date.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 2:16

Sure. Well, I've been in the marketing space for just about 12 years. Sorry. I was hired on at the YMCA, to oversee their membership and marketing and fitness departments. And I was hired because I had team leadership and organizational experience. And marketing was really something that I just had no experience in. It kind of followed me throughout my career. And it was one of those things where I just, and I think a lot of market marketers can relate to this, but I had to figure it out. I was a team of one at the time and just kind of got pushed into the deep end of the pool and and then it was a skill that followed me throughout my career. And I have worked as a marketing and communications person and nonprofit for profit small businesses, large businesses and have kind of landed in the higher education space.

Kenneth Kinney 3:13

Yeah. So this will probably bring back a bad memory. But whenever you hear the village people in that song, does it bring back bad memories of your early career?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 3:23

Um, it brings back memories. I wouldn't say it brings back bad ones. But it certainly brings back memories. I was part of the national rebrand efforts for the YMCA rebranded to have their their branches here in San Diego. And that was quite an endeavor. So

Kenneth Kinney 3:41

sure. So let's, they've got a lot of good good people here in the higher ed space here at the event as well. But first off, let's talk about what are the trends that you're seeing as to how higher education as a whole is continuing to change and evolve?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 3:55

Sure. So I, for a very long time, the expectation has been that high school students move into getting their bachelor's degree. And what we're seeing now because of the pandemic, impending recession, is that high school students, high school graduates are not translating to new college enrollments. In fact, more high school students are moving into working right out of high school versus going straight to college, because they have better salary outcomes, then, you know, what those of us did in 2008 or earlier 2001. And they're so their goals are shifting and the employment space is shifting to you know, with Google coming out with their professional certificates. I think it gives a lot of universities a run for their money, because it speaks to what it speaks to what employers are looking for. They're looking for skills versus theoretical knowledge. space in a lot of cases. So the offerings that colleges are providing are shifting and the needs of students and employers are also shifting. It's been pretty incredible over the last three years. So

Kenneth Kinney 5:13

in that post pandemic world, how does how does your marketing change, to reflect that to change to stay ahead? Because what are there 33,000 Students alone at San Diego State? And I know this is across the industry, everybody's been struggling with this I worked in higher ed, it was a problem, then it's a problem. Now it's a it's it's a constant churn. Because how do you go semester? Or do you have San Diego State is on a semester, so you're, you constantly got to keep that funnel going. So post COVID, how did this change for you,

Megan Scollay-Casillas 5:45

we really had to understand the nuances and the shifts and the needs in the industry from both a employer perspective and a student perspective. Because as I said, needs are changing. In a pandemic, world post pandemic world, the entire landscape has shifted, which meant that all of our offerings needed to shift as well. But really understanding the student journey, why students are coming to seek out higher education learning opportunities was has been really important. But also the demographic that we're targeting is changing too. A lot of adult learners are coming back to the education space because they need to. They need to validate their experience, or they want to pivot their careers. They've been in, you know, working for a long time, and they want to shift careers, or they want to stay relevant or competitive in their workspace. So the reason why people are coming into the higher education space is different than it was even five.

Kenneth Kinney 6:51

It doesn't necessarily about San Diego State but all industry wide. Yeah. Do you think they're doing a good job with keeping up with the speed of the market acceleration that I mean, Google put out a certificate in two days, and it doesn't have to go through the same hesitation editing that, you know, changing a brochure at a large university can take six months. So how do you sort of stay nimble with that with your marketing to kind of keep pace where you can, it's

Megan Scollay-Casillas 7:21

not easy. With a large university like San Diego State, or UCSD, which is where I was before I was at San Diego State, there are a lot of different steps that it takes to adjust offerings to ensure that there are maintaining the educational rigor that those two institutions really pride themselves on. I think ultimately, what it has required of us is twofold. One is creating educational opportunities that aren't as

Megan Scollay-Casillas 7:55

aren't as mainstream as you might think. So, you know, working with third party partners has been an opportunity for us offering proficient professional certificates versus what we would call advanced, which is like higher degree credit bearing certificates has been an option for us. But in terms of positioning, we've really had to understand what those personal factors are for the potential student, and lean into that in our positioning, make the process as easy as possible for our potential students so that they can see education as part of their everyday life and their, you know, their daily habits that they're creating and achieving these goals. And that has required us to really work very closely with our recruitment and our programs team to understand what those nuances are, because we're working on top and middle funnel efforts. When we pass those prospective students to our recruitment team, we need to understand what they're hearing, what are the challenges, what are their barriers for entry, so that we can adjust to those and speak to them in the awareness and consideration phase versus waiting until they get down to speak to someone and realizing that, you know, maybe our offering is not the right fit for them or that we could have done something different that would have allowed that prospective student to become a student.

Kenneth Kinney 9:21

One of the we were talking about this briefly earlier, but one of the unique challenges that higher ed has is that it is a multi year tale. Often it's very rare that somebody sees a LEED converts within a week and signs up to be in class next weekend. That doesn't happen. But so you've got to figure out how to measure that but you know, for you and how you look at it in the industry. How do you sort of think through where you pay attention to attribution?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 9:54

Well, what we do know is that it typically takes between 18 and 24 months For a prospective student to really commit to applying to a program, right, and that doesn't even really take into consideration their application if their contingency approval or if they're approved or denied to the program. So we just like you said, we're looking at a very long tail. And attribution modeling is an area where we struggle, frankly, well, every every heart read does Sure, and a lot of times, we lean on things like last click attribution, because it's what's available to us. And, exactly. And so, you know, what we really have worked to focus on is creating content that doesn't just serve someone who we know is highly likely to come to San Diego State and convert and become a student, we're working on focusing our efforts in creating content that will serve their student journey, regardless of where they go, shining light into things that might make their online education journey easier, or their application process easier, really providing them with tools that add value and support to their process, regardless if they come to San Diego State or not. So that when they think of something that they need, they think of coming to us versus okay, I, you know, I might be ready to apply for this program, they've already interacted with our content. And we're at top of mind, because we're serving as a resource, not just an educational opportunity.

Kenneth Kinney 11:35

One of the things by the way, you did a great job. Very easily distracted by squirrels and everything. I loved. The fact that we're in a live broadcast, we almost had part of the food crew, because there's lunch going on, walk right through, and it's, it's kind of adds to the ambiance of the show. So how are you seeing social media play a as big of a part of this as well, especially when you start thinking of all the channels that come keep coming up? I mean, there's, you know, Instagram and Tiktok are old now, compared to be real in Snapchats, making a little bit of a comeback, and all all kinds of things. So how do you sort of think through that process and evolution because it plays so much more of a part of students at every age level,

Megan Scollay-Casillas 12:18

we're really working on leveraging social media as more of a affinity and current student engagement tool. Yes, we use social media platforms to help with the awareness part. But it's really not where our focus is. At the university, we have a small but mighty team. In fact, I don't have someone who's dedicated to social media, it's kind of parceled out across student workers and my content team, but there's no social media expert on my team, for example. And so it's really important that social media is part of a larger content and communication strategy. So that we can easily deploy and disseminate information that we are that we are creating on a larger level down through those channels. The other thing I will say is that leveraging our academic partners, and our program managers, to use platforms, to their advantage to help build to help build awareness for prospective students, by using our current students has been something that is helpful. Everybody likes to be highlighted on social media platform. And so making sure that we're leveraging and highlighting our current students really does help tangentially spread the word about us via social media, the one thing that I will say is that the recommendation that I'm constantly making is to pick a platform that you can be consistent with and then stick with it. You know, be real is great. But from a strategic standpoint, it's very difficult to plan for something like that, because you just don't know when your notification is going to come in. And so if that's something that's really popular with our students, we leverage student workers a lot on my team, having them be sort of the spokesperson, during that time, if it makes sense if they're not at school, or they're not engaging in a scholastic way or in a way that would be on brand for San Diego State and that's, you know, something that we wouldn't necessarily leverage in

Kenneth Kinney 14:31

your life. You also were a dancer, you did belly and breakdancing. So you have a big tick tock following.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 14:36

Now, that was a past life.

Kenneth Kinney 14:39

You, I'm sure somebody find it somewhere. But when you think of influencer marketing, where does that come up at all? Does? Is it something you necessarily think through or do you just think about the abundance of students who are all basically influencers on their own? Were their own user generated content content, or are you really tired? Getting specific influencers to help help you in that space,

Megan Scollay-Casillas 15:05

we're not targeting specific influencers

Kenneth Kinney 15:07

education's weird because they're all influencers to some degree

Megan Scollay-Casillas 15:11

they are. And, you know, if we were to target someone, it would have to be, we'd have to have a really clear connection between the program and the person.

Kenneth Kinney 15:22

You're not worried about whether or not a Kardashians getting a philosophy degree right from SDSU.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 15:28

Right makes sense. But I think you know that we have an opportunity to leverage our student base a lot more than we do, certainly a Global Campus, that's an area that we have an opportunity to develop, we just haven't had a chance yet. But I think there is a place for social media really, in that there's an opportunity to engage current students, the students who are so passionate about what you do. And then it makes its way to their, you know, their circle of influence. And so we don't leverage social media for prospective students so much, but really to engage our current students and to build brand, brand affinity and brand spokes people when they're out of our program as well.

Kenneth Kinney 16:26

So from a higher education standpoint, we were talking about this before on the hall, about how your career like mine, I've worked in a lot of dove deep and a lot of them, but I've worked at a lot of different verticals and industries. How do you think that's helped you now, in your performance marketing, specifically in higher ed?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 16:49

Well, like I said, higher ed teams are small, but mighty a lot of times, and I think, because I've had a chance to be a team of one. And then on a small team, marketing data analyst, I've kind of grown throughout, you know, the different areas, I've had to learn a lot of different. Become a tactical expert in a lot of different areas. One thing I will say is that I think higher education and marketers are really resilient and resourceful, because the other thing that higher education marketers have to navigate is the systems of a much larger institution, while also functioning as a very small bootstrapped team. And so we've had to find creative ways to provide solid marketing strategy and asset development and deploy them in creative ways that might not be as well supported. In a for profit, sure company or something of that nature.

Kenneth Kinney 18:00

No, yeah, no, I agree with that. So let's talk about unique challenges. And I think you and I have talked about this. But having worked in higher ed, nonprofit and for profit, one of the things that I think is consistent at every university I've ever worked with, or four is you're in a unique role on its own, in that you run the marketing communications for your group. But everybody at a university who's employed in university seems like they believe they can do two jobs better than everybody else, they feel like they can be a better president, better marketing director. And if they got a good sports team that's having a bad year, they sometimes feel like they can be a better coach. But what are the sort of the unique challenges that you see day to day with trying to build everything within the marketing role at a university?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 18:56

Well, I think the main focus that I've come to realize that's just a requirement of my role is to understand where my key stakeholders and I align in terms of the goals that we're trying to achieve. Because typically, if we can find where we're aligned, how we achieve those goals can be more collaborative, where people were, where conversations get sticky is when you really hold on to the the way you reach that goal versus what the goal is. So there's, of course, a lot of education about what my team is doing, and how things are performing and figuring out how we get that information to the folks who need it. What I found in higher education is that there's a lot of building the plane while you fly it. And so figuring out how to communicate what's happening, why these things are beneficial or offering other solutions to offer. problem. It's a nuanced conversation, right. And particularly with academics, they spend their whole lives, studying and poking holes in things, and figuring out, you know, why something is successful and why something's not. And sometimes with marketing, it's not that clear cut. And so being able to really remind everyone who's at the table, the goal that we're working towards, and that there are lots of different ways that we can get there. And where expertise lie, and where there's opportunity to learn more. Has has been helpful.

Kenneth Kinney 20:36

Yeah, it's so funny, though, one of the that's a, it's a problem, but also an opportunity, because although they do think they can do a lot of people think they can do that job role. Well, it's the fact that they're vested in the brand, and a lot of companies don't have people in the billing department or customer service, who are just, you know, have brand affinity for where they work. There's, that's one of the places where you have a lot of engagement in general. Yes.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 21:06

And we've got some of our we've got some of our best and most creative ideas from folks. Oh, absolutely. So, you know, it's sometimes it can be difficult to take that it would be better if you did it this way conversation with a grain of salt. But I will say that, you know, if we can keep that goal in mind, a lot of really great conversations and collaborations and ideas come from that kind of dialog. If someone feels comfortable enough to say, this did not hit the mark, I don't agree with what you're doing, to come together and be able to find a solution can be really quite a beautiful thing, in my opinion.

Kenneth Kinney 21:44

Well, we talked a little bit about challenges earlier with especially where certificates like Google and everything, but we sort of leaned into just now, opportunities at least as far as what you see in the higher education space as a whole. What are the biggest opportunities that you see that maybe you can pivot to going forward?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 22:06

I think some of the longest standing institutions really have an opportunity to figure out how to be more flexible with their, with their offerings, you know, when when you compare institutions that have been around for 125 years, versus like, private institutions like ASU, or our national and things of that nature, are institutions of that nature. There's a stark difference in the way that one group of business really pivots based on needs and the way that the other one kind of navigates through shifting education. Landscapes are shifting professional, and work landscapes. And so I think we're the largest opportunity really lies is taking note from the institutions that are that can pivot very easily, and figuring out how we might be able to do the same. You know, are there opportunities for certificate stacking? Are there opportunities for micro credentialing? Are there opportunities, you know, for educational recognition that's not necessarily accreditation or, or a cert or a score and Advanced Certificate degree bearing? So I think there are a lot of opportunities in diversifying portfolios and finding ways to make that journey as easy and seamless for students as possible. If someone can, if someone finishes the certificate, can we make it so that it feeds into a larger master's degree or helps them finish their bachelor's degree, more than ever, adult learners are coming back to the education space to finish what they started. And there's a huge opportunity, in fact, more adult professionals have started their degrees and not completed them, then we have high school students graduating from school. So that's a huge opportunity, a huge audience to tap into in terms of

Kenneth Kinney 24:11

it's so interesting, because you know, Beth, in the old days, like a few years ago, it was, you know, a little while back, but before so much of online education evolved, it was always you sell them a undergrad degree. And then you go for selling them a master's, and then maybe a doctorate. Now, your upsell might be you get them in the door with a certificate, and maybe they go complete the degree or vice versa. I mean, it's keeping that customer buying down a different path. It's it's very interesting to watch

Megan Scollay-Casillas 24:45

about that, too, is one. One interesting thing that we've found throughout this almost seven years that I've been in higher education is that the adult learner sometimes they don't know what they're looking for you So to assume that they need to finish their bachelor's degree or master's degree, versus exploring a certificate opportunity is a poor assumption to make. And so sometimes, and what we've really leaned on is having both programs specific content and ads out there, but then also areas of interest, you know, where might you find that next spark or that next education opportunity and not making the assumption for them? Sure.

Kenneth Kinney 25:31

So I want to pivot a little bit, you talked about having a mighty, a small but mighty, powerful team. You know, there are a lot of vendors and exhibitors here, in this space, there's a ton of people that have some sort of, you know, some sort of way of trying to help you solve a problem, as indicated by all the messages we get on the brand side, with, with people offering help solve those problems? How do you sort of look at assembling the right kind of teams, because there's so many different agencies, there's so many different vendors, so many different technologies, in the higher ed space, trying to pull it all together, goes way beyond just a conversation about Moodle, or one of those types of platforms just for the students to use. But for you to go after, you know, again, we were talking about a longer tail looking at attribution differently. It goes way beyond just conversations about PPC and posting something on Instagram.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 26:36

It does. Yeah. So the way that we're navigating that global campus, but also, kind of the way that we navigated it at UCSD was that we had tactical experts in their area. And there's a limit to how much you can scale in a tactical expert area, if you have a team of one, you know, I have a single media buyer on my team. And so there's only so much that he can do and manage. And that is impossible to scale. And so I lean on my tactical experts to a Help me understand when we've hit our max, but also to help navigate the conversations with potential agencies that we work with, to ensure that our needs are being met, that the agencies that we're working on actually do help us solve a problem. And they really, it's an opportunity for those staff members to to step into a leadership role, which is great. And to help identify where those needs are. I don't I, I run the department and I'm the executive director of the department. But it's been a long time since I was a tactical expert. And so I really lean on those folks in their areas to help me understand how we can do better and what those needs are. And so often what they'll what I charged them with is identifying three agencies that we might work with. And then they come back to the table and we all meet to figure out what the best way to move forward. But certainly having someone on the team who can help manage and interface with the agencies has been important for us. Because we just, we could never hire a team big enough to really be able to scale in the way that we need to.

Kenneth Kinney 28:27

So let's talk about leads, especially since we're at lead generation world, talking about the impact of what a high quality lead is, versus maybe a low quality leads, because there's there's obviously they come from a lot of different channels, a lot of different sources, people that are, you know, selling leads in the higher education space, which happens with every university across the globe. But the quality of leads can have a dramatically different impact as it does in every industry. But especially in in the edu space. How do you look at lead quality?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 29:02

Well, my team is not the only team that's small but mighty. Our recruiter teams are also small but mighty when I was working at UCSD, the program managers, the folks who are in charge of making sure that the programs ran and that they were developed. We're also responsible for interfacing with potential students. And so you know, recruitment teams, at least from a public university standpoint, they're they're just as mighty but their resources are also need to be really delicately managed. And so sending a poor lead to a recruitment team can be a huge waste of time and a waste of money. And oftentimes what happens after a poor lead goes to a recruitment team is that there then, you know, discarded and what we've found is that the difference between a poor lead and a good lead besides them actually being a human for Since a bot, is that they just need more time, they need more time to make their decisions. And so maybe they're the at the beginning of that 18 to 24 month process versus at the tail end of it. And so what we've really been working on is at threshold scoring so that the leads that we bring through, are engaged, and that the recruiters are engaging with leads who are ready to be engaged with the ones who want more information, the ones who just need to understand how to better how to better leverage their application to get seen. And so we're working on really refining that process that requires a very connected communication process between marketing and our recruiters, who often served very much as like a sales team. And so we've been working on that a lot, but it can be, it's also really difficult on the marketing team to because we are putting resources, both financial and human resources towards generating those leads. And if we don't know if they're bad or good. It's throwing a dart blindfolded, you know, it really can impact everything that you do in it in a negative way, if you don't understand what the difference is between a strong lead and an a weak one, and also where they are in their journey.

Kenneth Kinney 31:31

So how do you in particular, think about the handoff, especially with, with these leads, and I was thinking about as you were talking about this, the first. You know, it's also not the warm transfers, necessarily, but handing off a lead so that you can engage with them early and not in figure out if they're a bot or not. But really, it's the difference, catching them early, so that you can hook them, if you will, to stay with you through that 18 to 24 month journey before they actually enroll. But getting that over to your call center or your recruiters is really crucial. It's crucial in every industry, but especially and higher ed, how do you sort of think through that,

Megan Scollay-Casillas 32:15

but we're still working through all of that. I think that process is one that's ever evolving, you will be until the end of time. Yeah. Yeah, ever evolving. But one thing that we've really embraced is the overlap, right. And so if it's taking someone between 18 and 24 months to submit their application, you know, they should be speaking to our recruiters when they have questions and getting the information that they need and the support that they need to submit that application. But they're also getting other communications from us. So making sure that they just stay within the content flow. And that they're receiving information and content that is appropriate to where they are, in that student journey is really important. And the thing about that is it's it is always changing.

Kenneth Kinney 33:05

People did that slow down after, I mean, when, when COVID first started, and people were still getting enrolled, if they did fill out an interest, you could get through the Zoom qualification, or conversations start within they fill something out, let's set up a meeting. Conceivably you can do it within 10 minutes. Not everybody filling out anything always goes to recruiting to meet with them. On the same day, they may fill it out there may be a week or two months for them an appointment that time should shorten I would imagine a little bit when you throw in zoom. Okay, we will set up a quick meeting go is that did that slow down for you now that things have gotten away from COVID?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 33:47

Well, the thing about Global Campus is all of our offerings are online, and so on. While I wasn't at San Diego State during the the initial pandemic, I suspect that the pandemic actually helped global campus because it required our main campus to also put their offerings online. And that because we work so closely with main campus, I suspect that that really just helped them. But all of our offerings online, prospective students can schedule a call with a recruiter, anytime their office hours every week, they you know, we include Calendly links and things like that and communication. So we try to be as accessible as possible for the human touch. And we also try to be cognizant of that and the communications that we're sending out as well.

Kenneth Kinney 34:46

So what if you can tell people that reach out to you all the time that are trying to sell something? What's the most important thing when you're looking back at a vendor or partner? What's the most important way that they can To help support you in your marketing role,

Megan Scollay-Casillas 35:02

I think that depends on the channel. Frankly,

Kenneth Kinney 35:07

well, you said something earlier, I thought was interesting as you'd like to pull, like three of them together. And a lot of agencies to this day, most of them don't. And I hate to be too negative about it, but a lot of them just don't want to work together. It's hard to be able to assemble the right kind of agency partners who, who say that they know how to work with others, but not everybody plays well. Well, and let me clarify, and I've been on the agency side. So I will gladly admit to that

Megan Scollay-Casillas 35:37

as well. Yeah. And let me clarify, I usually ask my team to compile three agencies that they think are beneficial, and then we evaluate. So it's not that I'm asking all three to work together?

Kenneth Kinney 35:47

Well, but conceivably, they do, because one might be working on Pay Per Click, one might be managing your social content, but not the managing your social paid leads, one may be doing your SEO only. I mean, there's so many flavors that go into the marketing mix, just like with an internal team, but especially on small and mighty teams who have to outsource a lot, which is a lot of good sized companies and universities, getting into play together, well is not always the easiest, and then throw in how do you manage leads through that funnel? Yep. So I

Megan Scollay-Casillas 36:24

think that honest of that really lands on my internal team, you know, and being able to communicate, how we're interfacing with other agencies that might be supporting us. And those needs. Also being able to evaluate performance and understanding how I like to think of marketing as like a baby mobile, you know, that the thing that's over the crib and you spin it, or if you hit one of those plush toys, it just throws a whole other thing, it has an impact on all of the other plush toys on the baby mobile. And I think, I think that's also how our cross functional team work. If marketing does something, it impacts all of the other teams that impacts finance, it impacts recruitment and impacts students success. And so I think ensuring that there's cohesive communication across all areas is really important. But the marketing team, the expectation is that our house is clean before we invite others over. So we really are very intentional and making sure that we understand how, what one you know how my content team, how their content might impact our web, or our paid ads. Now, we're all working together so we can proactively have those conversations.

Kenneth Kinney 37:45

Would you think of your media mix in general, just in the higher ed space? Are you still a proponent of direct mail and TV advertising? It's so much of it lives in the digital world? I'm still a big proponent of direct mail. And so having worked heavily and addressable TV, and where things have gone in advance, really all it's done, is it gone, it's gone from, you know, your TV box, like you might have thought about to this or on a phone, that still has a really important role in it. But it can be hard to measure when you're starting to look at Gen Z and beyond. So when you start thinking about that mix of digital, not digital, traditional media. What are the how do you sort of think through that now, because that's continuing to evolve rapidly?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 38:35

I think they serve different purposes, you know, and so like the mailer that go that goes home, or, you know, buying a a bus raft or a billboard, you know, that serves a very different purpose than an email that we're sending to someone who's engaged with a recruiter. And so when we're evaluating how to add to or diversify our marketing mix, I'm looking at what part of this student or potential student journey does this speak to? How is it reaching those folks? And how am I going to be able to evaluate performance? And I think, particularly because we have a, you know, we have a fixed budget, there are certain things that we have to forego if we're not able to really make the case that they're prudent to use of our resources.

Kenneth Kinney 39:28

So one of the things that happened for me, especially in performance marketing, role, over my career has evolved. And this is one of my favorite subjects to talk about. Think about now is customer experience. Where does customer experience really play a role beyond just filling out a lead for you now at a university?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 39:52

Well, I think marketing has an interesting perspective on In the customer experience, because obviously we're taking that into account in our channels on our website and, and our emails and our social media, and when they engage with us on one of the channels that we manage, how are we engaging with them, but we also have to understand the customer experience after they leave us. So when they get moved to the recruiters or when they become students, and I don't think that's unique to to my current team, I think marketers in general have a really interesting vantage point about how businesses engage with their customers, whether their perspective, or new and returning customers. And I and that gives us a interesting responsibility, right, because when you see something that is not working, or isn't providing the results that you're looking for, there's a responsibility to speak to that. But it's also often not the area that you work within or your area of responsibility. And so I think that also speaks to the importance of having really strong working relationships with the recruiters, the sales team, you know, the folks who are interfacing with them, when when with students when they become students, so you can have conversations like that. And ultimately, it requires holding each other accountable for providing a good, a good customer, good student experience. And being able to hold folks accountable really only comes with building strong working relationships.

Kenneth Kinney 41:34

Well, with great making this up. And it probably makes sense. But with great marketing, sizzle comes great responsibility. And I may have told you this before, but I work for a global brand and was driving helping drive part of their lead generation efforts and had strong growth when we were there, worked on a great team. I was responsible for chunk of the business as well, I fired them as a customer. And I started really thinking through a lot of where customer experience had a true impact within lead generation, not just within overall marketing, but really thinking about as well, because customer acquisition is generally tough for everybody. But you know, this market, especially with students, is more vocal than a lot of other markets. And they will let you let you know. So if you had to, I'm gonna put you on the spot with this crystal ball question. What channel do you think? Let's say five years from now, or 10? You pick? Just let me know, because I'll forget after which one do you think will have a bigger impact in higher education marketing, say 510 years from now? And which one do you think will have less of an impact? If you just were speculating? And then we're gonna hold you accountable and play this back in a few

Megan Scollay-Casillas 42:54

in five years? Yeah, exactly. I think it's going to become more and more important to focus in on the channels that you can own and take full responsibility over. You know, I think with some of the security challenges and privacy laws, security challenges that are happening with like, tick tock, for example, the privacy laws that are coming down, and you know, really being adhered to focusing in on channels that you own, is going to be more and more important. Because you just you never know, you never know where your audience is gonna go. I do agree with you, though, that students are becoming more and more vocal, it's really easy to call a business out on social media, you know, and so

Kenneth Kinney 43:50

well, especially ones too, that have their own following of 10 50,000. And you're in SoCal. I mean, everybody's dancing on the streets, they're building up a big following. They've grown up now, in this culture. I mean, even Millennials are spending a lot more time post pandemic on on these channels as well. They're a lot more vocal than just going to Yelp and writing a one star review.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 44:16

Right. Yeah. And I, you know, I think you also just have to be really prepared to take accountability for any missteps, because folks are much more likely to communicate their, you know, what they're disgruntled about than if they've had a good experience. And so, being prepared to take accountability for our part, and finding a solution and helping the prospective student or you know, whoever is upset about whatever it is that they're upset about, helping them find a solution being proactive in that is going to be the best way to navigate sort of those one star reviews, if

Kenneth Kinney 44:57

you will, there's a very politically correct but very good answer. So I'll let you let you have on that. So I love coming to San Diego. And in an event enough about this, but this whole weather thing that's going on, it's got me upset because I didn't get my diving trip in yesterday. But I wanted to see my six skills out out in the cove. You don't normally see him this time of the year anyway, or the leopard sharks. But I asked this of everybody that's been on my show. What is your favorite kind of shark? And why?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 45:29

Oh, that's a great question.

Kenneth Kinney 45:32

I would say children, so you can use the I

Megan Scollay-Casillas 45:36

do like, to be honest, I'm Mormon octopus. Oh, sorry. I, you know, we spend a lot of time at the aquarium. And my oldest daughter and I are much more of the octopus viewer. But if I had to pick a shark, I would probably say the leopard shark.

Kenneth Kinney 45:52

Yeah, they're gorgeous. All right. So Megan, this is a special time of show. Are you ready for the five most interesting, important questions that you're gonna be asked today? Bring it on. All right, number one, better experience for the student online degree or on campus degree. And take out the rah rah, I'm talking about the learning experience.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 46:20

I think that depends on the degree. Because some degrees like I wouldn't want a pre med student learning everything online. You know. So I, you know, I think it really depends on the degree.

Kenneth Kinney 46:37

I wouldn't gonna let you out of that until you till you brought up that example. That's great. All right. Number two, fish tacos or shrimp tacos? Oh, because when we get done with this, I'm gonna go destroy some fish tacos out there. I don't think they have shrimp. But in general, a lot of them both.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 46:58

I probably have to go shrimp tacos.

Kenneth Kinney 46:59

Okay, fair enough. All right, number three important channels for you as a marketer? In higher education, Instagram, or Tiktok?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 47:14

Instagram. Why, sir? Well, we have a longer standing following there. We are engaged there and have active conversations there. And we haven't started using Tiktok yet. Because we just again, remember what I said in the beginning, you have to pick the platforms that you can be consistent with. And with a small but mighty team. That's a

Kenneth Kinney 47:43

great point, because so many people, the students would say tick tock.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 47:47

Oh, I know. Yeah. And that's where one of the challenges of being a higher education marketer but also a market team professional on a small team is that you can't always chase the next golden nugget, you have to just continue to be consistent. And we don't have the bandwidth right now to add different, more platforms. It's something that we recognized as an area for opportunity, but right now we're sticking with what we've already started.

Kenneth Kinney 48:17

Alright, number four, you're a former dancer. So we're going to ask you this. And you did both of these ballet or break dancing. Ballet. Okay, why so? I can understand why

Megan Scollay-Casillas 48:32

but not as flashy. But you know, I just

Kenneth Kinney 48:36

growing up did you see the movie breakdancing?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 48:38

Did I see the movie breakdancing? No, like they don't

Kenneth Kinney 48:42

they were making a lot of good like hip hop. Yeah. And there was breakdancing to Electric Boogaloo, which had one of the greatest names of volta movie, but okay.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 48:53

Yeah, I it's just so it's so beautiful when it's done well, and breakdancing is exciting, and it holds a special place in my heart, but I just love ballet.

Kenneth Kinney 49:09

Fair enough. All right, number five. And the most important question that you're going to be asked today is biscuits or cornbread.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 49:15

Biscuits. Why? So? You know, my sister lives in Texas. And so she learned from her husband, her husband's mom how to make these incredible biscuits and they just, they go with everything. You can have them for breakfast, you can have them for dinner. It's like they just are if they're done, right. They're amazing.

Kenneth Kinney 49:39

It's a good question for a philosophy major. So alright, so Megan, where do people find out more about you get in contact with you. Where do you want them to?

Megan Scollay-Casillas 49:46

They can always find me on LinkedIn. Yeah. Awesome. Always on LinkedIn.

Kenneth Kinney 49:50

Awesome. Megan, thank you so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Megan Scollay-Casillas 49:54

Thank you!

[music]

Kenneth Kinney 50:00

So there was my conversation with Megan Scollay-Casillas, the Executive Director of Marketing at San Diego State University's Global Campus. This episode was recorded live in San Diego at the 2023 Lead Generation World Conference. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from a conversation with her.

Kenneth Kinney 50:17

First, never discount the power of customer experience integral strategy, it plays a big part of lead gen as well, especially with the collegiate audience, the word gets out, and it should, once you are able to also look at CX through the lens of an acquisition strategy. It helps everyone on the team understand why it is so important.

Kenneth Kinney 50:37

Second, it is imperative that all of your agency partners work together. Why the brand is the referee, the coach and one of the players put all of them together, and it's really up to them to put all of the agency partners together in order to focus properly on the fans in the seats. Those consumers who will soon be customers, agencies have to remember as well that it is the customer of the customer that they should commonly support. You don't need to just make the brand manager happy. That helps everyone aligned much better with a much more important focus.

Kenneth Kinney 51:10

Third, doing this episode live on a stage was a lot of fun. Megan was great. I highly encourage you as well to check out Lead Generation World in your future.

Kenneth Kinney 51:18

Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 51:23

Thank you again for the privilege of your time, and I'm so thankful to everyone who listens.

Kenneth Kinney 51:27

It's always a good time for some higher learning. So join us on the next episode of a sharks perspective.

(Music - shark theme)