Podcast Episode #11 - "We Need a Billboard Because Our Competitors Have One" - How To Combat This and Other Frustrating Truths About Higher Ed Marketing In 2023
If you're in higher ed marketing or communications, you can probably think of a handful of things right now that frustrate you about the status quo of how marketing gets done at your institution. If that’s the case, sit back, relax and let my guest ryan morabito validate those feelings, and show us a better way forward.
Ryan is the Senior VP at 5 Degrees Branding - a branding agency working with higher ed institutions. He is an active influencer on Linkedin and brings a lot of glaring truths and proposed solutions to the show that I think you'll get a lot of value from.
Links:
-More info on storytelling subscriptions on our website: unveild.tv
-Download "3 Absolutely Crucial Components Every Compelling College Student/Alumni Testimonial Needs"
Connect with Ryan Morabito:
Follow Ryan on Linkedin
Check Out 5 Degrees Branding
Email: ryan@5degreesbranding.com
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00;00;00;22 - 00;00;27;11
John Azoni
If you're in higher ed marketing or communications, you can probably think of a handful of things right now that frustrate you about the status quo of how marketing gets done at your institution. If that's the case, sit back, relax. Let my guest, Ryan Morabito, validate all those feelings and show us a better way forward or if you're in your car, maybe don't sit back and relax straight 10 and 2.
00;00;28;09 - 00;00;51;04
John Azoni
Hey, welcome to the Higher Ed Storytelling University Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping higher ed marketers tell better stories and roll more students. My name is John Azoni. I'm the founder at UNVEILD, a video production company working specifically with college marketing teams on automating their video storytelling content through a subscription approach. Learn more at unveild.tv that’s U-N-V-E-I-L-D dot tv.
00;00;51;17 - 00;01;13;09
John Azoni
If you're listening to this podcast for the first time, go ahead and subscribe. And if you've been listening for a while and haven't left a review, I'd love for you to do that. It helps me to continue to produce this content by helping others to find it in the first place. My guest today is none other than Ryan Morabito, senior vice president at Five Degrees Branding, a creative agency devoted to building strong brands in higher education.
00;01;13;17 - 00;01;35;14
John Azoni
Ryan is very active on LinkedIn, someone I've followed for a while now. He's super passionate about branding and marketing and challenging the status quo about how things are done at institutions. And if you follow him on LinkedIn, you'll recognize his series. Well, I guess I'll call it a series of posts that I always start with. Quote, I'm going to tell you another truth about higher ed marketing, unquote.
00;01;35;14 - 00;01;52;13
John Azoni
So I'll give you an example, because in this episode, when we talk about his posts or these truths, this is what we're referring to, this series of content that he posts. So what for example, one of these is I'm going to tell you the truth about higher ed marketing. There's a lot of pressure to appease senior leaders and cater to their marketing preferences.
00;01;52;13 - 00;02;06;22
John Azoni
I get it. But let's always remember whose opinion matters most students now and forever. End of story. Okay. So that's one of those. All right. So Ryan Morabito five degrees branding. Let's go. Ryan Morabito, thanks for joining us on podcast today.
00;02;06;29 - 00;02;07;27
Ryan Morabito
Excited to be here.
00;02;07;28 - 00;02;12;10
John Azoni
Tell us your background, who you are, how you got to where you are today.
00;02;12;21 - 00;02;38;06
Ryan Morabito
I've spent probably close to 27 years now in higher education marketing. That means I started when I was really young. John I didn't know what I was doing and I had some great mentors who gave me some responsibility to kind of grow into that. So I've served institutions I've worked with over probably now 150 different colleges and universities really helping in terms of marketing strategy.
00;02;38;16 - 00;02;52;09
Ryan Morabito
How do schools really measure their brand and I think as you and I engage and connect on LinkedIn, we know there's an opportunity to think differently, maybe better about how schools approach their marketing.
00;02;52;15 - 00;02;58;23
John Azoni
Absolutely. So you're pretty active on LinkedIn. Why LinkedIn versus Tik-tok? Why aren't you doing dances and stuff?
00;03;00;05 - 00;03;40;24
Ryan Morabito
Well, I am a believer that the difference between a laser and a flashlight is focus. And I've been really focused over the last year and a half on LinkedIn. I think a lot of our our market, these enrollment marketing leaders, college presidents, they're on LinkedIn, they're visible. And I try to practice what I preach. John So instead of spreading myself on different platforms, I really wanted to see how effective we could be engaging these leaders on LinkedIn and now, as you ask, I'm very interested thinking about what other platform can we continue to to shatter the status quo of college and university marketing?
00;03;40;28 - 00;03;56;27
John Azoni
I'm kind of the same way like I probably did in the last year. I just said, I'm just going to like define the groove that I want to be in and LinkedIn was it for me. And I keep getting like, you know, with the podcast and stuff, people are like, Well, you know, you should put it on YouTube.
00;03;56;27 - 00;04;10;11
John Azoni
And like you said, you know, go on this. I'm like, I could, but like, that's going to distract me. Like, I want to, like, get really good, you know, in a rhythm with LinkedIn. Then add something, you know, yeah.
00;04;10;17 - 00;04;37;16
Ryan Morabito
It makes sense. And you and I know the most successful brands are built on consistency. And if people who listen to the podcast today, I love empowering new creators. You know our world. John Marketing branding takes time. And so when you think about kind of that evolution and watching, I feel a lot more pressure these days. When I started, I had very little traction and and was able to really work on my craft.
00;04;37;27 - 00;05;01;22
Ryan Morabito
And so I want to give new creators that excitement and, and the realization that it's not going to be a month, it's probably not going to be a few months. It's going to be developing credibility and trust in this space and know that that takes time. So you and I will stay connected and think about at the right time how might other platform share our message.
00;05;01;26 - 00;05;22;25
John Azoni
So you posts a lot about, you know, truths about higher end marketing. I love the series because it's a it's a quick win, you know, gets people talking and, you know, it's kind of just like I like to see those come up in my feed because I'm just like, Oh, yeah, that's that's true. That is it's something, you know, challenging the status quo and it's it's not a huge long article to read, you know.
00;05;22;27 - 00;05;29;01
John Azoni
So I just thought we would go through some of those and just kind of vamp on them and see where that takes us.
00;05;29;04 - 00;05;56;14
Ryan Morabito
Yeah. Awesome. John And you know, a post I'm getting ready to post on LinkedIn is going to talk about this gap of understanding as I continue to do a lot of internal assessments. People just aren't reading from the same songbook and there's a huge opportunity for our marketing leaders to really be proactive and engage our campus partners. You know, who are our target audience is what is the preferred messaging.
00;05;56;25 - 00;06;19;16
Ryan Morabito
And then also, John, how are we going to measure the impact of our marketing and brand work? And so when we think about what marketing leaders were asked to do ten, even five years ago, there's a very fierce competition for students and financial support. And we all benefit from coming up with some common language and definitions around marketing.
00;06;19;16 - 00;06;43;21
Ryan Morabito
And kind of, you know, what I'm very passionate about is moving away from what most people think about in the promotional marketing. P What are we putting on the billboard? What is our external tagline? And we know John Marketing is much more complex. It's the programs and services we're offering our delivery modality, what is our price in comparison with our competitors?
00;06;43;21 - 00;07;09;01
Ryan Morabito
So as we move the conversation around promotion and what marketing truly is, we can get buy in from our partners and also align our marketing to those things that are most important. And for many campuses as we know that's tied to revenue streams, how are we enrolling more students? How are we getting more philanthropic support? And those are really important measurement points.
00;07;09;13 - 00;07;31;26
Ryan Morabito
And now I think it's also important to think what else do we measure as a part of our marketing and branding success? And I think one of those things is perception options. What do people think outside our campus borders and know that marketers need to know what those associations are? So that we can influence those associations over time.
00;07;32;10 - 00;07;48;12
Ryan Morabito
So I think there's a great opportunity as schools kind of relaunch their brand and get more intentional about their strategy to really start internally in thinking about having common metrics and common definitions of what success looks like.
00;07;48;12 - 00;08;00;25
John Azoni
Yeah, and that's one that you posted recently was that everyone focuses more on the promotional P, but we need to focus more on the, the, the product that programs and services tell. Tell me more about that.
00;08;01;27 - 00;08;28;19
Ryan Morabito
Yeah. And I think so you know as we look at the thriving institutions the program mix is vitally important and the last thing we want our marketing team doing is promoting programs that are no longer market savvy. And so when we think about the conversation, I always encourage schools that if you haven't gone through the really difficult process of academic program review, you know, now's the time.
00;08;28;28 - 00;08;51;19
Ryan Morabito
We need to understand that for our marketers to go out and promote programs that used to have 100 students and then 20 students and now just a handful. So that changes the conversation. Schools are really great at adding things and not so great at getting rid of them. So we need a process in terms of how we are able to do that.
00;08;51;19 - 00;09;19;22
Ryan Morabito
So, you know, a couple of years ago it would be, Hey, marketing, we have a new program that we'd like you to go and, you know, share. And now the conversation is well, before we would get to that, our marketing team is brought on board. We're in the conversations doing the research to inform our new programing offerings. And that's a really tangible example of schools institution, not only doing things different but doing them better.
00;09;20;02 - 00;09;51;09
Ryan Morabito
And so to to, to think about where that conversation would have been several years ago and now having marketing leaders very much a part of getting new programs out and communicated so that John is another example to be able to to have a common understanding and then understand who our target audiences are. You know, a lot of schools there's, you know, not agreement in terms of who are most important students.
00;09;51;19 - 00;10;17;25
Ryan Morabito
And you might have seen the other day that most of our schools are still geared to serve 17 and 18 year old traditional students and adults are the new majority, and thriving institutions have done that and are meeting these adults where they are in still being true to their mission, but also recognizing the need to innovate and bring these programs into a much more market savvy context.
00;10;18;04 - 00;10;30;13
John Azoni
Exactly. And, you know, and the clients that I work with on the video production side, I find that to be very true. I probably tell more stories about adults than I do, you know, people fresh out of high school.
00;10;31;03 - 00;10;57;02
Ryan Morabito
Absolutely. And for those schools that serve adult learners, their website is usually a really important gap in the communication. You know, do we have a pathway for an adult learner in terms of the type of information and they care most about when selecting a college and university And the user experience research that I do oftentimes unveils gaps in terms of those pathways.
00;10;57;12 - 00;11;26;11
Ryan Morabito
These adults, these traditional students have a lot of options. You and I know that, John. So we want to remove those barriers and make it as easy as possible for them to find the education that they're looking for. And that's another, you know, issue that I have is watching schools that invest millions of dollars in online advertising. And we're driving these students to web pages that are not optimized, that aren't accessible, and can't meet the needs of the students.
00;11;26;11 - 00;11;44;29
Ryan Morabito
So you think about, you know, just how those resources could be used much better. You know, And my suggestion would be your website is your face to the outside world. Let's make that a priority before we drive these different audiences and ask them to make a call to action.
00;11;45;06 - 00;11;52;12
John Azoni
Yeah, give me an example of like what what optimization might look like for some schools that don't have optimized, you know, websites.
00;11;52;23 - 00;12;21;20
Ryan Morabito
Yeah, I think optimization under content, you know, are we providing the right type of content that adult learners are looking for? Interestingly enough, they care about two things like traditional students. Do you have my program and can I afford it? So when I think about optimization around content, a lot of our content is kind of geared towards, you know, what is important to our institution and maybe not what is important in terms of the end user, which is our student.
00;12;22;13 - 00;12;55;14
Ryan Morabito
When I think about accessibility, John, there's so many gaps in terms of where schools need to spend time in making sure their information is accessible to anyone who might be able to pursue that. So that goes into the optimization and then the information architecture. If we put our our mindset about being an adult learner or perspect of student and think about how we're navigating from the home page again to that content that we most desire, in a lot of cases, it's very difficult.
00;12;55;14 - 00;13;28;01
Ryan Morabito
Adult learners tell me all the time it's confusing pathway to find the information we need. And again, we've got a lot of competition for the student arts and thriving colleges and universities are making their website, you know, much more easy to navigate and you know, a resource, you know, for the students. And John, you talked about just kind of talking and the power of these testimonials in four years.
00;13;28;01 - 00;13;52;17
Ryan Morabito
It kind of boggles my mind that schools don't tell the outcomes of their students and graduates. It's the most important marketing tool that we have and the authenticity through their words and through their lens of why this institution has made a transformational impact. And again, make sure that those stories are representative of the students that you're institution serves.
00;13;53;00 - 00;14;14;06
John Azoni
Yeah, I think it's I think it's so important. There's a lot of I mean, I do a lot of talking about, you know, the stories the stories are more powerful than the features and benefits and, you know, letting the stories just be what they are rather than trying to force a story into just an excuse to talk about to list all your program, you know, features and stuff, you know, absolutely.
00;14;14;06 - 00;14;34;13
Ryan Morabito
And then I know you're a big fan, as most marketers are, of Simon Sinek and you know, the why part. John I spend every day saying why? Why would a student enroll? Why would a donor want to give knowing they've got a lot of options of where to give their resources. So that strategic narrative is another passion of mine.
00;14;35;01 - 00;15;08;04
John Azoni
Real quick break here. To reiterate, as Ryan said, the importance of telling student and alumni outcomes success stories. And if that is something that you want to do at your institution, we make that really easy. At UNVEILD with our video storytelling subscriptions. Each month, you're going to have a new compelling student or alumni success story drop in your inbox, plus a 30 second cut down, a 15 second cut down of that that you can use in various social channels, and then eight topical videos that have been repurposed from the interviews that no good piece of marketing content that didn't make the full video gets left collecting dust on a hard drive.
00;15;08;10 - 00;15;25;03
John Azoni
And if that sounds like a lot of projects to manage across the year, guess what? All the nitty gritty herding cats that goes into making a video shoot happen is stuff we take care of. As part of your subscription, head to our Web site unveild.tv that’s U-N-V-E-I-L-D dot tv and book a call with this. All right, Back to Ryan Morabito.
00;15;25;21 - 00;15;51;12
Ryan Morabito
You know, branding comes down to two principles differentiation and integration. And many schools still struggle with the differentiation aspect. And so when I really work with leadership and use data to help drive a branding platform, I really push schools to be able to say that singular focus What is the North Star that will guide all of our marketing and communication?
00;15;51;23 - 00;16;17;22
Ryan Morabito
And then, John, give our marketing team permission to say, No, I appreciate that great idea, but it has nothing to do with how we're trying to position ourselves in schools. Really benefit from having that grounding and that consistency in all of their marketing. And so schools, I love when I talk with presidents and board members who are really excited about two or three things that they might want to be known for.
00;16;18;01 - 00;16;55;03
Ryan Morabito
And again, we want to be as focused as possible. There's a lot of noise out there, John, even outside of education. I think oftentimes we just think of our college and university competitors, but we're competing for the attention of these traditional students and these adult learners. So absolutely, with the power of a website and kind of that hero image in top of the page, let's use that as a tremendous opportunity to say, here's why we do what we do and here's how we can help you get to your vision for success.
00;16;55;28 - 00;17;11;18
John Azoni
Exactly. So when for you, when when a lot of schools are saying the same things about themselves, how do you go about helping a school figure out what differentiates them when there's only so many words that you can use to describe the higher education ecosystem?
00;17;11;18 - 00;17;33;11
Ryan Morabito
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, one of our clients recently talked about the balance in branding, the Fidelity to mission, and also the need to be innovative. And the answer to your question, John, is we don't have to look any farther than programs. Some schools have developed their point of differentiation based on the programs that they offer.
00;17;33;22 - 00;17;51;05
Ryan Morabito
And then we might say, well, you might not be interested in this, but let us tell us about the other programs we might have. And that's been a point of difference for decades now. I told you about how long I've been in higher ed, and many years ago I would work with the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
00;17;51;05 - 00;18;15;15
Ryan Morabito
They lifted up pharmacy as one of their signature programs. And what they were able to do is to say, If you're not interested in pharmacy, let us tell you about the all these other great health science programs that we do have. So I've watched schools very intentionally engage in programmatic marketing. And again, it's very difficult given all else to kind of rise above that.
00;18;15;24 - 00;18;45;27
Ryan Morabito
But it's better to be known for one program than it is not to be known at all. And I think you're going to see as we talk about this enrollment cliff, schools being more and more intentional about the signature program and also, John, as we look about the opportunity to engage these undergraduate students and watch them move into other graduate, maybe doctoral programs based on a significant amount of trust that they built on the undergraduate level.
00;18;45;27 - 00;19;18;03
Ryan Morabito
So when I think about these four PS of marketing and I get people to move away from promotion, the two other things I want them to focus on are partnerships and priorities. Most institutions don't have the budget to market everything that they're doing, so we need to be very intentional about the most important priorities relating. And John, that goes back to aligning our dashboard, our marketing dashboard on those things that are most important for our institution.
00;19;18;13 - 00;19;53;20
Ryan Morabito
And then the partnership ships, thriving institutions are developing great partnerships beyond their campus borders. You know, now probably about 15 years ago, I worked with Marquette University and they saw a need based on some research they were doing to develop onsite training for their local employers and one of those was Harley-Davidson. So they brought classes to this employer and really met them where they are still very consistent with their mission, very consistent with a very strong program.
00;19;53;29 - 00;20;26;25
Ryan Morabito
But imagine the revenue opportunity where now they would develop cohorts of 30 or 35 students and engage them and address the convenience factor that all adults feel. So those men and women were able to go and take classes after they finished their shift. They didn't have to go into a separate location. And so I really encourage schools to think creatively about partnerships that would allow them to expand their mission again in some nontraditional ways.
00;20;27;05 - 00;20;56;29
John Azoni
Absolutely. I work with a business school here in Michigan that that has a partnership with the Detroit Police Department. And so they they they have classes in, you know, at the headquarters or whatever at the police station. And it really allows people working kind of all hours of the day different all kinds of crazy shifts to get this education in and, you know, and do something more than you know, and without having to sacrifice, you know, time with their kids and all this other stuff.
00;20;56;29 - 00;20;58;02
John Azoni
So, yeah, it's that's a real.
00;20;58;02 - 00;21;19;02
Ryan Morabito
Important, great example. And, you know, recruiting one student is hard work. You and I know that our colleagues on campuses know that. So if we're able to make a revenue and a mission impact and serve our local community, let's move our conversation more towards that then it is trying to be all things to all different audiences.
00;21;19;12 - 00;21;34;12
John Azoni
Absolutely. So one of the other things you said, you said one of your higher ed truths was we need to spend more time studying our students than our competition. So tell me, what are some things that leaders focus too much on with their competition? Give me some examples.
00;21;34;12 - 00;21;56;15
Ryan Morabito
Yeah. John And that's, you know, something that's really, I think, important in terms of where schools spend resources. And I work with so many leaders where what a competitive analysis does is it collects dust in a binder. Now it's going to sit in a digital. But if we're looking to our competitors for innovation for great, that's the wrong answer.
00;21;56;28 - 00;22;17;25
Ryan Morabito
What we really need to do is spend much more time with our students and our other audiences. But schools years ago would sit in rooms and talk and spend a lot of time and energy and say, What are our competitors doing? And the reality of it is if they're doing something that's great, they already have that pioneering advantage.
00;22;18;03 - 00;22;39;05
Ryan Morabito
So for us to play catch up and do that is not the right answer. So for me, there's much more focus in studying the user experience with our audiences than it is with our competitors. And I can see that movement as schools approach me and say, Ryan, I'd like a competitive analysis. The first thing I'll say is, What are you going to do with it?
00;22;39;28 - 00;23;02;16
Ryan Morabito
When I come back with this type of information, what are we going to do? Are we going to copy it? Are we going to follow? Well, no. And so the answer is, when we listen to our students and understand what they care about, we can absolutely use that information, John, to really drive our enrollment and marketing strategy and based on some really helpful inputs.
00;23;03;14 - 00;23;14;05
Ryan Morabito
And I'm got a post that I will share in the next two weeks that great marketing ideas come from our students, not our competitors. Let's focus our time and our resources accordingly.
00;23;14;23 - 00;23;27;25
John Azoni
I think one of my posts we talked about the sort of rampant quality of like a university president seeing another university billboard on their way to work and being like, We need a billboard.
00;23;29;02 - 00;23;58;24
Ryan Morabito
It's crazy. John And we see that all the time. And that's where, again, we need to engage our leaders in conversations about what strategic marketing is. And and so, yeah, I see that all the time. I see some really well intentioned board members pointing out what our competitors are doing. And but there's an opportunity to use those conversations and that goes back again to this dashboard.
00;23;59;03 - 00;24;20;05
Ryan Morabito
So you think in terms of a dashboard where we've got the board and the president agreeing what we want to look at, John, is factors other than enrollment and marketing. So to get a student to enroll takes a lot of time and effort. Our marketplace knows that what we want to measure along the way is these transitional calls to action.
00;24;20;13 - 00;24;44;25
Ryan Morabito
Where are deposits? Another big ask for students so that we can look and say, How are we going to get more students to deposit? Well, we're going to need more applications. We're going to need more inquiries. And again, having that comparative data over time that we can look at and recognize students take a long time to make their decision whether they're traditional or adult students.
00;24;45;06 - 00;25;06;17
Ryan Morabito
And we market so that when they are ready, our school is top of mind. A lot of schools want to be the preferred choice, John. And the reality is many people aren't even aware of their brand, given their current investment. So you've got to make sure that they're aware of who we are before we can become that preferred choice.
00;25;06;26 - 00;25;26;25
John Azoni
Interesting. No, that's super good. Ooh. Another one he posted was people always obsessive obsess about tick tock. Let's prioritize developing our own community and distribution channels. What kind of what kind of worry or preoccupation is, you know, is is that piece of advice borne out of.
00;25;27;09 - 00;25;52;21
Ryan Morabito
Yeah, I think so much under that shiny object. You know here we are and you know Facebook John, if we talked a couple of years ago, people would be putting a lot of their money and time into that platform. So it really recognizes those things are going to change people's preferences, change social preferences, change in the less reliant we are on these third party platforms, the better.
00;25;52;21 - 00;26;12;16
Ryan Morabito
So it was interesting, got a lot of good feedback on that post. So an example would be that here I am in my school has a really incredible STEM program. So what we're going to do is we're going to invite middle school students to come and get a taste of our campus and what this STEM major might look like.
00;26;12;16 - 00;26;46;21
Ryan Morabito
And we're going to engage in terms of members of this community where using this marketing lingo, John, they're going to opt in because they see value you in what we're doing. So they share their preferred here's my cell phone number, here's where you can text me. And these people are opting into a community that we all know. It's that wonderful first party data as opposed to, again, looking at and being reliant, whether it's Tik-tok, whether it's Facebook, whether it's another outside platform.
00;26;46;21 - 00;27;14;13
Ryan Morabito
So I'm watching schools developing some of these relationships with these middle school students. They're kind of that spark where, you know, students are starting to find out those things that they're really passionate about. And I would much rather have them put energy and resources into building those one on one relationships. And it doesn't excuse away that we're not going to need some of these other social channels to help get our word out.
00;27;14;20 - 00;27;24;09
Ryan Morabito
But the more that we can do and build our own affinity and people who really want to hear, you know, those things that we're doing. Absolutely.
00;27;24;21 - 00;27;52;19
John Azoni
Yeah. I do think the social media is really kind of a complement to or condiment to meaningful relationships directly with your audience. That's that's one thing I found, you know, in business and just over my whole career of, you know, marketing and video production and trying to get people to care, you know, is that like you post something on social media and it's like people people are just wired to be like, Oh, cool.
00;27;52;19 - 00;28;16;20
John Azoni
And then move on, you know? But when you actually have an email exchange with someone or in person exchange or, you know, if you actually start building a relationship with someone that spreads so much faster and is so much more influential to your outcomes, then just constantly peppering people with with social media at the same time, it's like get to know somebody and then also kind of remind them that you're there on social media, you know?
00;28;17;05 - 00;28;43;20
Ryan Morabito
Absolutely. And you know, our schools are now going through this yield season. I think we can come up with another name for that, John. But eventually we hope these students will deposit and continuing that relationship is so important all through the time that they show up on campus, these traditional students in the fall. And so that's where the thriving institutions don't just use one or two touch points.
00;28;44;03 - 00;29;13;28
Ryan Morabito
Parents, John, is another kind of underutilized market for those schools that serve traditional students. Parents of our current students want to be engaged. We know how influential they are. And so our ability to not just put them in a sequence where they're getting the same information, but our ability to engage them in thoughtful conversations, well before their student might consider leaving or another choice.
00;29;15;00 - 00;29;36;24
Ryan Morabito
But again, schools, when you look at that often times will put parents in. Yeah, we send them these same things. What you and I are talking about is building relationships and it takes time and social media can be a great way to your point to complement those things that we're doing with our one on one, you know, conversations.
00;29;36;24 - 00;29;42;06
Ryan Morabito
And also to reinforce those things that we want people to know about our school.
00;29;42;14 - 00;30;09;20
John Azoni
And that for me was influential in me picking college. I went to art school and I remember someone from Maryland Institute College of Art came to my high school art class, and she just built a relationship with me. And then I happened to run into her again at another sort of like Meet the College's kind of events. And then she she sought out my parents and and was like, We really want John to come to our school.
00;30;09;20 - 00;30;17;03
John Azoni
And back then I thought, well, wow, I'm famous, you know? But little did I know that was her job. You know?
00;30;18;22 - 00;30;40;14
Ryan Morabito
So yeah. And there'd be so many of those stories with all else being equal, you know, same classes, same. It is those relationships. So that's a great example that what we want marketing to do is stay out of the way and be able to give our enrollment and fundraising leaders the opportunity to have those one on one relationships.
00;30;40;21 - 00;31;08;29
Ryan Morabito
At the end of the day, that's going to be the thing that usually is the deciding factor for students to enroll in donors to give. And that's where, John, every opportunity we have to create the expectation that marketing doesn't happen in one campaign or two. It happens over time and having a strategy, then each one of these interactions is going to move us closer to our vision for success.
00;31;09;11 - 00;31;28;21
John Azoni
Love it. Speaking of strategy, one of your other truth is college presidents distracting their marketing team. We need presidents to focus more on the other marketing PS product, place and price. So tell me, tell me about that. How colleges can have a strategy, but leaders can come often kind of throw wrenches in that.
00;31;28;26 - 00;32;03;08
Ryan Morabito
Yeah, and that would be maybe similar around that shiny object and some of the presidents with the best of intentions. I have one John, that was enamored by having a bobblehead interpreting something. And if I told you the amount of hours this marketing team spent and the distraction to get a bobblehead, that had nothing to do with how they were trying to position themselves, probably a really good example and so again, when we have really honest conversations with our campus leadership, what is marketing?
00;32;03;14 - 00;32;38;11
Ryan Morabito
Where are we spending our time? The less distractions we have, the better. But I could give you maybe even more examples that when you think about going back to tactics, we want our leaders to really focus on strategy. And part of that, I think, is giving our marketing team permission to say no. One of the clients I worked with recently said one of the biggest gifts we gave them was a framework so that now when people had some really neat creative ideas that had nothing to do, now they had permission to say no.
00;32;38;20 - 00;33;14;10
Ryan Morabito
And I think it's vitally important. Again, most of our schools aren't allocating the right resources to marketing, so their current resources really need to be used as effective as possible. But any chance, I have to tell presidents that they're distracting their marketing team, they obviously care deeply in passionately about this. And maybe more importantly, John, I want you to know that the best compliments I've gotten on LinkedIn are that my work not only resonates with marketing people, but it's really important for non marketing people to hear.
00;33;14;20 - 00;33;42;17
Ryan Morabito
And that's where I think when we have some common language and can get rid of some of the gap around what marketing really is. Western Carolina University, they just launched their brand. Travis is their CMO, really smart guy and he's engaging their campus in workshops so that we think of branding not as a one time event but an ongoing process and engaging these campus partners in meaningful conversations.
00;33;42;29 - 00;34;10;21
Ryan Morabito
And, you know, faculty is a great example. They are the gatekeeper. There are a large reason why students come to campus and they are the ones that are going to be connected with students and graduates, yet oftentimes on these campuses, there's a large gap in terms of where faculty are and their understanding of marketing and where marketing is, in terms of their understanding of how important faculty are in the promotion of the institution.
00;34;11;00 - 00;34;45;11
Ryan Morabito
And that's another one where it's just a great opportunity to knock down silos and engage our faculty partners in the right conversations. And they are the content experts. We need their help to tell their story. But oftentimes when I do internal assessments, you'll see that the faculty are really frustrated with their current marketing reality and our marketing team saying we don't have enough resources to tell all their stories and we need to figure out with great urgency, John, how we're able to narrow that gap.
00;34;45;20 - 00;35;04;14
John Azoni
Yeah, that's a that's a good that's a good point because I think that I sent I sent out an email recently to my my list that was kind of about that. It was like you've got this amazing content right under your nose with all these faculty. And if these are world class professors and stuff, let's get these guys on camera.
00;35;04;15 - 00;35;06;10
John Azoni
Let's do an article, you know.
00;35;06;11 - 00;35;29;21
Ryan Morabito
Let's get them on camera. John Let's get them on LinkedIn. And oh, by the way, let's go to their program page and make sure it doesn't feel like a catalog. You know, I laugh when I go in and say, like, gosh, do we have that home page that screams our what The reality of it is when you and I and you asked me about optimizations, things fall through as we move to different sections.
00;35;29;21 - 00;35;58;07
Ryan Morabito
So oftentimes when you go on to these departmental pages as they're not nearly what they could be, you could have great video, you could talk about how students are using these majors and making a difference in their communities and their nation around the world. But yet we just choose to show information that every other college can. So that's another area that our success as marketers depends on having that intel.
00;35;58;07 - 00;36;04;00
Ryan Morabito
And we need to be much more proactive about breaking down those silos.
00;36;04;12 - 00;36;22;20
John Azoni
And I think people, you know, schools, websites can can really be focused on a lot of like what what are the relationships that you're going to get to build here as a student? I find that yeah, the the the most meaningful thing I took away from college was the relationships that I built with my professors and my peers.
00;36;22;20 - 00;36;46;13
John Azoni
And yes, I learned a lot of things, but but really, like, that's what the college experience was about for me was being mentored by specific people. And I carry that with me today. And I think that, yeah, a lot of institutions can do a better job of leading with leading with that saying this is a this is a world class professor that you will get to stand in front of and talk to and build a relationship with.
00;36;46;22 - 00;36;52;12
John Azoni
And look how smart she is. And and, you know, you know, this could be your mentor, you know.
00;36;52;17 - 00;37;12;24
Ryan Morabito
And imagine that authenticity, John. You know, we can say that as marketers till we turn blue in the face. But to hear that through a student, through a faculty member and again, we live in a digital age where we can reuse, recycle, repackage. So now John has an awesome video of a rock star faculty member and you know where else that's going?
00;37;12;24 - 00;37;35;11
Ryan Morabito
It's going on LinkedIn. So an adult student can say, Oh my gosh, I could go and study under that economics or that smart science faculty member. Absolutely. And again, let's put that under the low hanging fruit. These faculty want to be involved. They're extremely passionate about their program. There's a content experts, and let's use that in terms of our competitive advantage.
00;37;35;14 - 00;37;44;03
John Azoni
Love it. Last one I got here for you is everyone's a marketing expert. What is everyone being a marketing expert results in? How do you know who to listen to?
00;37;44;04 - 00;38;11;17
Ryan Morabito
Yeah. So if I take a step back and you think about like how our traditional cabinets are structured, you have an enrollment leader, you have a finance leader, you have a h.r. Leader, and now you have a marketing leader. So the absurdity, john, that we would not say like, yeah, let's question our cfo on how they're using our accounting tools and how we're categorizing our expenses.
00;38;11;26 - 00;38;35;13
Ryan Morabito
I think of it as equally absurd. If someone says to our marketing leader, here's what we need to promote on that billboard, or as part of our recruitment materials. So there's an understanding that we respect other people's expertise and we should do the same with our marketing leaders. And so that's where, again, ten years ago we didn't have a marketing leader sitting at the cabinet.
00;38;35;20 - 00;39;01;06
Ryan Morabito
The vice president for advancement or enrollment would say, Here's what we're doing. And now, John, let me just kind of flex and say we've got a seat at the table and we need to recognize and understand the expertise that these proven leaders bring to the table. And I'm a huge sports guy and it's the quarterback analogy, John. If you get the right marketing leader, it changes the game.
00;39;01;07 - 00;39;30;23
Ryan Morabito
It makes everything contextually easier. But I watch when we don't have that proven marketing leader, it does make it easier for people to kind of poke holes and look at a lack of credibility and expertise. But I'm in a place too, that we've got to understand that we've got to respect the voice of our marketing leaders. And if we don't, John, we've got to find a new marketing leader with great urgency.
00;39;31;03 - 00;39;44;20
Ryan Morabito
So that I think, is really important for us to say, I'm not asking for any more than we would give the rest of our leadership colleagues in respect and expertise.
00;39;45;06 - 00;39;52;12
John Azoni
I love that. I think that's I think that's great. I can hear the marketing folks on LinkedIn just championing that little soundbite.
00;39;53;16 - 00;40;16;28
Ryan Morabito
And I just laugh at the absurdity. I'm not telling the h.r. Leader what our policy should be in terms of, you know, orienting new employees or new. I could give you a list, john. We can come up, so we we protect that level of expertise. And part of that is just the newness that, again, we didn't have, you know, marketing experts.
00;40;16;28 - 00;40;39;03
Ryan Morabito
A lot of that was channeled through and don't get me started in our last few minutes, John, but anyone who follows me on LinkedIn knows we can be responsible for marketing and pick a word. You can't be the VP for marketing and enrollment, You can't be the VP for marketing and fundraising. And if you are, something's got to give.
00;40;39;11 - 00;41;04;25
Ryan Morabito
So I say and I scream to people, John we have to have our leaders going to bed every night and waking up every morning with a singular focus in thriving colleges and universities. Don't have a VP for marketing and some other huge responsibility. They recognize it as a full time gig and then some. And the demands on this position are not going away.
00;41;04;25 - 00;41;12;07
Ryan Morabito
They're growing and so that's where for me, it's yes, hire a CMO, hire a VP of marketing, full stop.
00;41;12;16 - 00;41;17;16
John Azoni
Yeah. This has been this has been great. Anything else, Anything else that people need to hear?
00;41;17;28 - 00;41;40;12
Ryan Morabito
Yeah, it's great. I enjoy the opportunity. And, you know, for me, as I watch, you know, people leaving higher ed, there's no better time to be in higher ed marketing. I feel that in every ounce of my being and, and I want to get the right leaders on these campuses because I know it is the absolute game changer.
00;41;40;14 - 00;41;54;16
Ryan Morabito
So, yeah, for me, the optimism grounded in our current reality of gaps and challenges, there's no better time and I can't wait to continue to empower this next generation of marketing leaders.
00;41;55;02 - 00;41;59;05
John Azoni
Love it So where can people where can people find you that want to connect with you?
00;41;59;06 - 00;42;11;18
Ryan Morabito
They can definitely find me on LinkedIn, Ryan Morabito and then my email address. If someone wanted to email something there, John would be Ryan at the number five degrees branding dotcom.
00;42;11;28 - 00;42;35;00
John Azoni
Awesome. We'll put that stuff in the show notes. Really appreciate you coming on the show. I was looking forward to this. I'm excited to get this this episode out to the world. Thanks so much for listening. Three things I want to give you before you go. Number one, if having a lot of student and alumni stories at your disposal is something that you would love to have, if you could just snap your fingers and have what you want, let's talk.
00;42;35;06 - 00;42;59;10
John Azoni
I've got something great for you with our student testimonials. Subscriptions. Imagine having one new student or alumni story drop in your inbox every month, plus ten other supplemental videos stemming from that story. 11 videos per month. That's 132 pieces of video content per year for a flat monthly fee. And all of that footage to use as you wish, forever.
00;42;59;10 - 00;43;19;12
John Azoni
No extra charge like a lot of production companies would charge you for. Head over to our website at Unveild.tv that’s U-N-V-E-I-L-D dot TV and book a call with this. Number two, if you want to take the storytelling you're already doing to the next level, I have a free resource for you. It's a three part framework for creating compelling student and alumni testimonials.
00;43;19;20 - 00;43;37;06
John Azoni
You can get it at unveild.tv/studenttestimonials. doesn't even have to be for video. It works for written content as well, or even telling stories on stage or in a presentation. Your next Ted talk. So go pick that up. Number three, leave a review for this podcast. It helps us out a ton. Thanks so much for listening.
00;43;37;07 - 00;43;49;24
John Azoni
My name is John Azoni. Go and connect with me on LinkedIn. In the meantime, I will catch you on the next episode of the Higher Ed Marketing Storytelling. What's this thing called? Higher Ed Storytelling University Podcast. Thanks.
