#57 - How to Improve Yield and Capitalize On Commencement Season
w/ Shiro Hatori
Director of Demand Generation, Concept3D Inc.
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SHOW NOTES
My guest today is Shiro Hatori, Director of DemandGen at Concept3D. In this episode, we discuss data from Concept3D's survey of 500 recently admitted college students that can inform your higher ed storytelling and content creation efforts.
Shiro shares insights on the communication channels students prefer, the importance of virtual tours, addressing students' enrollment fears, and leveraging commencement to capture compelling student stories. If you want to make more data-informed decisions in your higher ed marketing, this episode is for you.
Key Takeaways:
Students prefer email communication (45%) more than schools expect. Consider increasing use of SMS/text messaging, which students find helpful but schools underutilize.
52% of students said virtual tours were very important in their enrollment journey. Virtual tours help students remotely experience your campus before visiting.
Students' biggest fear is making the wrong choice about where to enroll. Create content to boost their confidence in choosing your school.
Capture video content and student stories during commencement week to highlight outcomes and plug into your summer melt campaigns.
Create interactive campus maps to help students and families navigate your campus easily, especially on commencement day. Highlight key locations like parking.
Connect with Shiro:
Higher Ed Demand Gen Podcast:
Connect with John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni
Website: https://unveild.tv
Newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00:00:00:05 - 00:00:19:12
John Azoni
My guest today is Shiro Hattori. Shiro is the director of Demand Gen at Concept 3D and he hosts the Higher Ed Demand Gen Podcast. And today we're talking about data around enrollment commitment and commencement and specifically data that you can use in your storytelling and content creation efforts. So, Shiro, welcome to the show.
00:00:20:13 - 00:00:22:20
Shiro Hatori
Thank you for having me. It's great to be here, John.
00:00:24:07 - 00:00:29:03
John Azoni
So what's something that people would be surprised to know about you? I know a lot of people in this space know you.
00:00:29:21 - 00:00:49:01
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, I guess my my pastimes are like extreme sports. I love skiing and mountain biking. And I tend to do, like, the downhill version of both of those. So that's where I get my motivation. And I get a lot of my energy rejuvenation from. So yeah.
00:00:49:20 - 00:00:58:01
John Azoni
That's cool. I went mountain biking one time in that like threw in a trail in the woods. That's scary. It's scary when you go out fast, like around trees and stuff.
00:00:58:13 - 00:01:11:20
Shiro Hatori
Mm hmm. I mean, yeah, I'd like to add to that. I'm usually bleeding or hurt, like at in during the summer, at almost any point at any point of the day, Like just because I have a wound from a fall.
00:01:12:14 - 00:01:41:21
John Azoni
Yeah. Oh, that's fun. I used to. I used to be a skateboarder like in my teen years. Yeah. So it's into all that stuff now. I mean, I'm pushing 40. I am legitimately. I'm not exaggerating getting into, like, finger boarding haze, like with the little finger size skateboards and just I just, like, play with it at my desk and I'm like, this is totally like this is like my my middle age version of my teenage years in practice and tricks.
00:01:41:22 - 00:01:49:00
John Azoni
Yeah. Okay, cool. So tell us a little bit about concept 3D. Yeah, tell us about that.
00:01:49:17 - 00:02:17:13
Shiro Hatori
Yeah. So I do work for concept 3D as the director of demand Generation and I've been with him too for close to three years now. And that concept 3D, we provide edtech solutions for higher ed and we have just around 700 really happy customers and we sell three main solutions. It's an interactive campus map, centralized events, calendar, online events, calendar and a virtual tour solution.
00:02:17:13 - 00:02:26:12
Shiro Hatori
So we have those three separate solutions. We're always coming out with more ways to to help aid higher ed. And yeah, that's what we do.
00:02:26:12 - 00:02:32:03
John Azoni
And I've seen a picture of you on LinkedIn where you wear like this map map outfit to conferences.
00:02:32:13 - 00:02:57:00
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, I thought, that's hilarious. It's like the for, for those of you listening, like when you're a kid, you have like the little, like Hot Wheels cars and then you need like a map to, like, play with your car is kind of like the skateboard thing, the finger pointing. And then so like, there's a suit with the map, the same map on, like a whole sweatshirt or a hoodie and sweatpants.
00:02:57:08 - 00:03:11:04
Shiro Hatori
And I wear them to the conference because we make interactive maps for schools. And it's funny because a lot of people will come back and say, like, that suit is so nostalgic for me because I think everyone knows the map has seen it once in their life.
00:03:12:01 - 00:03:27:20
John Azoni
Yeah, that well, that map that's like always on an every day care floor with like streets and streets and things. How effective has that been? Have you gotten any like have you generated any demand? Yeah.
00:03:28:09 - 00:03:45:15
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, it's been amazing. Honestly, I've worn it to conferences now and people will literally come up to your booth just to say like, Hey, I just wanted to say like, I love your suit or your outfit and boom, That's like, if they come say hi to you, then you have 100% the right to be like, Oh, thank you.
00:03:45:15 - 00:04:03:15
Shiro Hatori
Like, you know, where are you from? Or What school do you work for? There you go. Conversation started. I went to a bunch of sessions as well because I love learning, right? That's how I learned is I go to the band sessions and like before or after we the session, like people around me, will always say something. And again, it opens up a conversation.
00:04:03:15 - 00:04:11:10
Shiro Hatori
And so it's been fantastic. It's it's very easy to understand. It's like, yeah, it's loud and you stand out so it works.
00:04:12:04 - 00:04:18:12
John Azoni
That's awesome. Brilliant idea. It got me thinking about what should I wear to the next conference.
00:04:19:22 - 00:04:21:12
Shiro Hatori
Right? Yeah, that's.
00:04:21:15 - 00:04:23:19
John Azoni
Dress up as a big video camera or something.
00:04:24:12 - 00:04:34:21
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, you can be one of those. What is it like? You can get one of those old big VHS like personal recorders and, like, tape it to your head and it can be the old school GoPro.
00:04:35:18 - 00:04:52:23
John Azoni
There you go. Yeah. All right, So let's talk about enrollments a little bit. So concert 3D, that's research. Speaking to 500 students that were recently admitted to a college institution in the last 12 months. So tell us about the findings there.
00:04:53:19 - 00:05:18:13
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, just one step back. So as concentrated, we love to, you know, figure out what's going on in the market in terms of higher ed and publish content that's relevant and timely. Right. And I think, you know, a big hot topic right now in higher ed is around yield or commitment. Right. And then it's also even being more highlighted because of, you know, the FAFSA delay is going on.
00:05:18:13 - 00:05:36:19
Shiro Hatori
So a definitely a new issue that hasn't been around for a few years, but it's it's definitely top of mind, I think, you know, in the higher ed industry. And so we wanted to learn a little bit more about, you know, what higher end institutions are doing to increase yield, especially for again, the the Post admitted students. Right.
00:05:36:19 - 00:06:00:15
Shiro Hatori
So they've already been admitted. What are schools doing to help heal those students? And on the flip side of that, what are students thinking about the work that's institutions are doing to help retain them? And so one interesting thing that we asked was around, you know, what influenced students the most? And we asked both the faculties or sorry, not faculty, the staff side right.
00:06:00:15 - 00:06:25:22
Shiro Hatori
So enrollment marketers, admissions folks. Right. We asked them what they thought was the most important factor for communication. And we asked we also asked students. And then I think the answer on both sides was the same, right? They thought email was the highest. Students actually said they preferred email at 45%. So 45% of students of the 500 students we interviewed said they preferred email, which is massive.
00:06:25:22 - 00:07:00:12
Shiro Hatori
You know, that's that was kind of interesting to me, actually, because I was expecting like social media, some other apps to be a little bit higher, but they preferred email, which was interesting. And then institutions also, you know, said email was high. They also said website was high as well on their list of what makes an impact. But what I what I also saw as a discrepancy was that had SMS or text messaging wasn't like a huge a lot of institutions saw that it wasn't a big factor for reaching out to students, but students actually said that it was actually very helpful.
00:07:00:20 - 00:07:24:03
Shiro Hatori
So I think, you know, one learning from this is that maybe campuses can test out a little bit more text messaging in their outreach over, you know, the next few months because students said that's that's something that they preferred in terms of how they're being communicated to another discrepancy I saw that was interesting was I saw that institutions are kind of putting in a lot of work in their campus app.
00:07:24:10 - 00:07:50:07
Shiro Hatori
I think 20% of our respondents answered that. That's what they're putting a lot of money and resources, but students actually are, you know, not finding the campus app to be like their preferred source of communication. I think it was around 10%, whereas institutions answered 20. So say discrepancy there. I think maybe like, you know, it's it's hard for students to get onto a campus app or, you know, utilize it before they're a student.
00:07:50:07 - 00:08:00:06
Shiro Hatori
So there's probably a lot of reasons why, but that was interesting as well. So yeah, those are some of the initial learnings.
00:08:00:06 - 00:08:20:09
John Azoni
So what what is like going back to the SMS, what have you or have you seen any like text texts, campaigns that have been like working? Like what would you send a student in that yield process that wouldn't like, annoy them but would like give them helpful info?
00:08:21:00 - 00:08:44:13
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, I mean it just timely topic right now around FAFSA, right? I think just FAFSA Communications would be really good. I we're actually hosting a webinar on this topic next week. And so by the time this, this episode is published, it'll probably be on demand. So definitely look for it's called FAFSA Frustrations. And if you search FAFSA frustrations conceptually, it should just come up in your search.
00:08:44:13 - 00:09:05:20
Shiro Hatori
But I think one thing you can just be doing with SMS is like, you know, communicating with students. And if you have their parents and numbers as well, like, you know, saying like, hey, we're here for you. If you have any FAFSA questions, if you're struggling, you can also send a form to ask them literally to fill out like, Hey, have you filed your FAFSA yet or are you are struggling with their right and that it's very low left.
00:09:05:20 - 00:09:31:22
Shiro Hatori
Those who answer they're struggling an admissions counselor can reach out to them. So that would be a great touchpoint that's really relevant to today I think. I mean, in general, rule stands for me for marketing is also like it's just another channel. Like I would never limit yourself to one channel of outreach. So the same person you text, you don't only text where you want to try email, want to try text, want to try social media like all these things.
00:09:31:22 - 00:09:35:14
Shiro Hatori
And so I think it's a you have to find the perfect blend in mix.
00:09:37:01 - 00:09:59:16
John Azoni
Yeah. I like when businesses or, you know, like the dentist office or something like when they text me and, and, and that's like an interactive thing. Like I don't yeah, that's kind of benign when it's like your appointments coming up, it's like, whatever. But like if I have to cancel the appointment and I can respond to that text and cancel and then have a conversation with, with the admin, I love that.
00:10:00:15 - 00:10:24:23
John Azoni
Like just makes my life so easy because I, I always have a running list of like phone calls that I need to make like that I don't want to make like I or call the bank or something like that. And, and, and that is always every six months. That's that one's the dentist is always on there. I got to schedule an appointment and so to have them stay ahead of that and like just text me and I can actually text back.
00:10:25:04 - 00:10:25:21
John Azoni
I love that.
00:10:26:14 - 00:10:51:21
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, that's a great example. I, I also get a text from my dentist like a week before the appointment. It's the best way to remind someone about an upcoming event or appointment like Texas the best way because it's like in your face, you're going to read it. And I also they also send me a calendar, invite. So like, you know, if I have like a random shower thought when I'm sitting on the couch, I'm like, Oh, I don't know when my next dentist appointment is.
00:10:51:21 - 00:10:58:17
Shiro Hatori
I can search for it in my calendar, find it there, but also be reminded through texts like, you know, it's good to have that combo.
00:10:59:06 - 00:11:05:01
John Azoni
Yeah, well, they don't send me calendar invites. I would like that.
00:11:05:01 - 00:11:07:03
Shiro Hatori
Looks like an opportunity for your dentist.
00:11:07:06 - 00:11:25:18
John Azoni
To switch to the dentist in a completely other different state. Yeah. So you said 52. There's a note here. 52% answered. Virtual tours were very important. Yeah. How would you define virtual tours? Because that's 52%. That's a lot.
00:11:26:15 - 00:11:47:22
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we were curious, right? Because we do provide a virtual tour solution for higher ed and we always want to understand, you know, how it's changing. We ask this question actually almost every year to the market. So, you know, want to see, you know, where where it stands in terms of impact for students. And yeah, so virtual tours is a little ambiguous.
00:11:47:22 - 00:12:10:09
Shiro Hatori
It could be a 360 tour, kind of like Google Street view of a campus. Some schools call their virtual tours like a video, right? Like a walk through of campus, a virtual tour some people may call like a drone shot of the campus virtual tours as well. But just having any of those solutions in place gives you the ability to remotely get a feel for what it's like to be on campus.
00:12:10:18 - 00:12:32:05
Shiro Hatori
Right? Just like I think the most common way adults will understand this is apartment finding or house finding. Like, you know, it's amazing that you can like walk through the house in a tour so imagine, you know, every student has the ability to walk through campus and kind of picture themselves boots on the ground style of what it feels like to be on campus.
00:12:32:05 - 00:13:00:00
Shiro Hatori
And, you know, this was a big boom during COVID, right, Because a lot of a lot of in campus tours were canceled. But it's great to still see that, like most people thought that they were very, very important towards a student's enrollment journey because, I mean, it makes sense, right? Like, even if I'm applying to like, I'm in Colorado, right, from a provider, even if I'm applying to like Colorado school, I'm in Colorado, even if it's an hour drive away, I'd still look at the virtual tour because it's it's right there, right?
00:13:00:00 - 00:13:31:03
Shiro Hatori
It gives me an opportunity to understand the lay of the land before I get there. So, yeah, I think it's good. I think a couple other cool findings from the research were also that so for committed or sorry, what was the most impactful thing for students that were admitted? And no surprise probably to anyone but anything related to scholarships or financials were the most important factor in that commitment process.
00:13:31:13 - 00:13:55:14
Shiro Hatori
I think students answered 26% for scholarships and 24% for financials, which can be a little bit ambiguous. Um, institutions were right about scholarships. They they guessed that that was probably the most impactful thing. But funny enough, financials as a category was fourth on the list of what they thought was going to be most impactful for their decision making.
00:13:56:01 - 00:14:20:02
Shiro Hatori
And number two was the sense of belonging or community. So I'm seeing a slight discrepancy between students actually answering much lower for how important sense of belonging is in their in their impact for making a decision on a school versus schools who think that it has a very big factor. And I think there's like maybe a couple of reasons why.
00:14:20:03 - 00:14:46:10
Shiro Hatori
Like one, like the sense of belonging community is like if you asked the 17 or 18 year old that it's kind of like a hard thing to answer, right? You know, maybe it's not the right word for it, word choice. So I think that plays a factor. I also think maybe like pre welcome week or pre like orientation week, it's like not something you think about until you're there, you know, or maybe throughout your first year.
00:14:46:18 - 00:15:06:23
Shiro Hatori
So maybe that's why there's a discrepancy there. But I thought that was really interesting because with my podcast we talk about building a sense of belonging a lot. And you know, according to our research, it was a little bit lower on the list for student. This is again an admitted student who's never been to campus in our orientation.
00:15:07:07 - 00:15:10:12
Shiro Hatori
And it was a little bit lower on their list than I was personally expecting.
00:15:11:09 - 00:15:35:03
John Azoni
Yeah, that is surprising, I guess, when you think about it. Yeah, I think you're right that, you know, if you were to ask like a 17 or 18 year old, if belonging is important, they probably they probably don't even have a concept of the fact that they belong already to their high school right. CROWD You know, like that this idea, like you don't really become aware of something until you don't belong somewhere.
00:15:36:12 - 00:15:53:10
John Azoni
So that's why I think, yeah, probably when they get to college, belonging is more important. And for me, looking back on my college experience, that belonging was was very important. And the times when I didn't feel that belonging was a big struggle. But yeah, that's interesting.
00:15:53:22 - 00:16:13:23
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, I agree as well. I think freshman year I definitely was. I lost my sense of belonging because I was so used to having my group of high school friends and community and like you lose all that your freshman year, but I didn't know that. No. That until maybe, you know, the third or fourth week of school. So I think that does play a factor.
00:16:14:07 - 00:16:36:07
Shiro Hatori
One one last thing I'll point out here about this research is, you know, we asked what the biggest fear was for students, you know, making the choice to commit to institution. And you know, actually the institutions and the students answered the same thing. And that was that, you know, the fear was that they were just making the right choice as a whole.
00:16:36:07 - 00:17:07:02
Shiro Hatori
Right. And so I think Alison Turco shout out to Alison is, you know, implementing this in her campaigns as well. And we talked about this on her on our episode with her as well. But yeah, you know, students are really worried about making the right choice and I think, you know, one learning from that is, you know, what can you do to, you know, make sure during this summer period or or spring and summer period, what can you do to make students more confident in their choice about committing to an institution or school?
00:17:07:19 - 00:17:21:18
Shiro Hatori
I think I think there's a lot of things you can do in that kind of roles. And our next topic pretty nicely too. But yeah, you know, it's really interesting, right? Just in overall, like make them feel good about making the right choice and committing to your institution was very, very important.
00:17:22:23 - 00:17:46:04
John Azoni
Yeah, that's, that's, that's interesting. Yeah. Making the right choice because I always try to put myself in those shoes and I'm like, yeah, I would, I would, I would be afraid. I remember being afraid of making the wrong choice, going, going to college. And that, you know, there's probably not necessarily a bad choice. But like, you know, when you're kind of choosing where really where to plant roots, that is a big fear.
00:17:46:04 - 00:18:06:04
John Azoni
And it is good opportunity for content that people put out storytelling to sort of address, address that. And even after they've, you know, they've been on campus, they've been they've enrolled all that stuff, like kind of reaffirming that like you you did make the right choice. You're still you're still in the right place.
00:18:07:09 - 00:18:34:10
Shiro Hatori
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's it's all tied to everything else, right? Financials was another option in this question. So, I mean, you know, it's all tied together, right? Making a huge investment in my life. I'm going to be in student debt. You know, it's I do have to make the right choice. And so I think having the resources, the content, the communications to help make a student feel supported and that is really important.
00:18:35:10 - 00:18:36:20
John Azoni
And how are you guys getting this data?
00:18:37:18 - 00:18:47:19
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, we actually used a service called Poll Fish to survey a bunch of students and a bunch of 500 students to be exact, and 500 staff about this question.
00:18:48:16 - 00:18:56:08
John Azoni
Okay, cool. All right. So let's talk about commencement. How should schools be thinking about commencement?
00:18:57:02 - 00:19:28:16
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, commencement is coming up right in May for most institutions. And, you know, I thought would be a great timely topic to talk about this. And we can kind of tie a little bit together with, you know, how building that sense of for a student that they're making the right choice. Right. So with commencement day coming up, I think there's a lot of things that marketing, comms and enrollment teams can be doing by working together and creating content around commencement days.
00:19:28:17 - 00:19:55:13
Shiro Hatori
So you know, students want to see outcomes in that and make sure that they're making the right choice, Right. So I think you should use content from the commencement day. And that week and use that content in your mail campaigns this summer. Right. So, you know, maybe during commencement, right. You can film students that have agreed to be filled to highlight their story, how they feel in that moment around graduation, interview their parents.
00:19:55:13 - 00:20:17:14
Shiro Hatori
Right. Create inventory of all this content and start plugging in, playing it into your different outreach for yield campaigns this summer. I think that's a very tactical thing you can do and this all comes back to actually this exact same poll question around, you know, what? So let me pull it up. I actually have it here on my screen.
00:20:17:22 - 00:20:48:11
Shiro Hatori
The question was around making the right choice. But, you know, they really cared about future job prospects and outcomes. Right. And so the commencement day and graduation and the feeling you have around it, you know, what you've accomplished is a great way to prove the outcome of university or your institution. Right. And so having that content as a part of this summer period I think is great because it really shows the outcome, which helps, I think, translate to making the right choice.
00:20:48:11 - 00:21:16:10
Shiro Hatori
And so, you know, there's a lot of examples of what kind of content to film, but just creating a plan around like, all right, we want, you know, these shots, these video shots, we want these quotes from students, right? We want to be at this school for this graduation time, I think will be really helpful. And in just capturing all those moments and interviewing students, parents, constituents, even faculty, is a great way to use that period as a marketing communications person to, you know, log that content and create it.
00:21:17:15 - 00:21:39:04
John Azoni
Yeah, that's awesome. It is. It is a really great opportunity for interviews and then it you know, as a videographer, I'm thinking through the logistics of of that, which would be pretty pretty hard to like pick people up. You know it's easy to like when they when they go across the stage and then and then they stop and the photographer's there to take a picture because that's just like, yeah, there's the picture.
00:21:39:09 - 00:22:03:12
John Azoni
But then a video interview is a little more involved. But like, maybe think of like back when I used to film do wedding films at my previous company I worked for, we had a11 offering that was that was a video interview. BOOTH So instead so, you know, you'll see like a photo booth at a wedding. But this was like with this video interviews.
00:22:03:12 - 00:22:43:01
John Azoni
So it was an opportunity for them to, like, send, you know, just like anyone that wants to say something like, it could be the most drunken, you know, funny thing, we're just going to send the couple the raw footage. And and I always thought that that was super fun, a super fun way for people as guests, guests and the couple to to express themselves in in the moments where they are actively experiencing that joy and and like I can imagine that being effective for like a graduation thing, like if you just set up something that's like real casual and what, you know, the student go in there with their, with their, with their parents or
00:22:43:01 - 00:23:04:16
John Azoni
whatever and just say just say whatever or tell a story of say how you're feeling and say what you're going to do next. The challenge, you know, becomes where do you do that? Where that's not going to be like super loud and and ruin all the audio. But but yeah, I don't know if that's just an idea that, that you made me think of saying that.
00:23:05:10 - 00:23:28:12
Shiro Hatori
Yeah that's great. And I think one great part about this is kind of tying to your wedding video concept is that you can send that video file to the student in their graduate in. I almost assure you that that person is going to be excited to have that. You know, that video of themselves post-graduation like for the rest of their lives.
00:23:28:12 - 00:23:48:23
Shiro Hatori
Right. It's a pretty important time in their memory. And you're going to you're going to put a nail in the stake or stake in the ground for that moment even further, which is going to create, you know, a long lasting alarm. And so I just think as so many different compounding good things coming out of it. So, yeah, I think that's that's great.
00:23:49:12 - 00:24:18:11
Shiro Hatori
It related to the actual logistics of commencement as well. You know, I think from a content perspective, there's a lot of communication that marketing teams need to do, right? This is usually what they have to do specifically with in relation to commencement day. And so, you know, one I think one struggle I had when I was graduating was like trying to explain to my parents and sister where the buildings were and stuff.
00:24:18:11 - 00:24:44:11
Shiro Hatori
So initially, like I had to actually like meet up with them because it was a bit hard to understand for them. And so, like, you know, just trying to make that campus more navigable in terms of like communications, maybe it's a map that you have. Right. I think one thing a lot of institutions always forget is parking. Like parking is a really big issue for institutions, and especially if you're visiting for commencement day, like where do you park to go to this school?
00:24:44:11 - 00:25:04:03
Shiro Hatori
Like business school graduation, the main ceremony, like those are all confusing. So really highlighting a lot of those. And I think I said at the start of this is that concept really does make interactive maps and we partner with a lot of higher ed institutions to make their interactive map for them. And we get data on the backend about what gets used the most.
00:25:04:11 - 00:25:26:06
Shiro Hatori
And funny enough, it's parking. So during commencement day and welcome week, like parking searches are super high in terms of like most search things, right? Because this is a big pain point for people. So I think, you know, just really communicating parking is really big. Another cool thing you can do is like maybe highlight some restaurants and hotels and show the proximity.
00:25:26:06 - 00:25:43:22
Shiro Hatori
It is two different campuses, right? So there's huge campuses where maybe the business school or, you know, another school of is in a different part of campus like maybe trying to highlight hotels that are closer to that that you can walk to and stuff would be really, really awesome. And just to even add to that, like restaurants, right?
00:25:43:23 - 00:26:07:01
Shiro Hatori
So maybe schools can recommend restaurants to go to. So I think there's a lot of cool communicating you can do to make that journey for not just the student but also the people visiting for a commencement day. More clear and something they can be really excited about versus like confused about. So yeah, there's just I think a lot of good things you can do in communicating when you see actual commencement day.
00:26:07:11 - 00:26:15:04
John Azoni
When you say interactive map, like take us through like what that what that looks like. How does how does, how do you interact with it?
00:26:15:16 - 00:26:36:07
Shiro Hatori
Absolutely. So I the way I think of it is if you have seen a if you've been to like a Disney or a theme park and they give you like a map printout and all the different buildings or rides or roller coasters look like they do in real life, we create that same thing, but a digital version of that.
00:26:36:07 - 00:27:01:10
Shiro Hatori
So like, think of like a Google Maps for a theme park, but now think of it as a campus. And so you're able to search for certain buildings, certain streets, certain restaurants on campus. You can create categories for bathrooms, parking, certain buildings. Right. Or athletics events, and you can categorize all those things. And it also provides like Google does, navigation, right?
00:27:01:10 - 00:27:21:13
Shiro Hatori
So if you want to get from point A to point B and get the exact directions on like where to turn, you know what way you're facing, you can use our AR map to help figure that out. So like, you know, it's also really helpful for a welcome week when students don't know where they're first classes. So those are some of the things that we do as an interactive map.
00:27:22:12 - 00:27:25:19
John Azoni
And is there like production involved in that? What how do you.
00:27:26:02 - 00:27:26:21
Shiro Hatori
Yes, you guys.
00:27:27:01 - 00:27:32:09
John Azoni
Do you guys do you guys like go to the school and map map everything out? What does that look like?
00:27:32:16 - 00:27:52:17
Shiro Hatori
Yeah. So we use a combo of you know, I'm, I'm not on the production team, but he's a combo of I think like Google Earth, any like drone footage the school might have or over campus footage. We use Street view and we literally have a team of designers that like will create like I'm going to talk about the University of Colorado again, but like our UMC, right?
00:27:52:18 - 00:28:15:21
Shiro Hatori
Like, don't get pictures of it. And they'll actually create a 3D rendering file of it that we illustrate and then we put on a map. So it's really, really cool. So when you're on the map and you a campus, campus buildings are really recognizable, right? Like, yeah, a lot of campuses have unique buildings. And to be able to be like, Oh, this is the same one, you know, on my phone is really cool.
00:28:15:21 - 00:28:16:07
Shiro Hatori
I think.
00:28:17:21 - 00:28:42:23
John Azoni
That's awesome. Yeah, I love that because I'll get lost in my own driveway. So I think I need a map and yeah, well, you mentioned like Cedar Point Art, like, you know, Disney or whatever. I'm just thinking of Cedar Point because we go there every year and I like the fact that like the map and the picture of the roller coaster matches what the actual roller coaster looks like.
00:28:42:23 - 00:28:54:04
John Azoni
That's super helpful because they're because they are like, you know, they're all like, intertwined with each other, you know, looping all around the theme park. It's hard to, like, separate them. But but yeah, that's cool.
00:28:55:19 - 00:28:56:04
Shiro Hatori
Yeah.
00:28:57:07 - 00:29:08:15
John Azoni
In terms of all kind of talked about this but student stories. So how do you think about commencement as a as an opportunity to highlight in student outcomes stories.
00:29:09:15 - 00:29:35:00
Shiro Hatori
Yeah I think you know similar to the the actual commencement moment, I think you can highlight students stories like this doesn't have to be right after they, you know, got their certificate or anything. But you know, you can pick out a few students ahead of time and, you know, interview them around their journey in higher ed and create some content for me right, that you can spread through Rachel's Instagram on your website.
00:29:35:10 - 00:30:00:05
Shiro Hatori
I think it's a great opportunity to figure out more student stories. And the reason behind this is like, I I've talked to a lot of social media marketers on my podcast, The Higher Dimension. And, you know, one resounding thing I hear is there was a point, I think five years ago, maybe ten years ago, when social media was all about like trying to show all the, you know, the flashy elements of campus and, you know, what they can get.
00:30:00:05 - 00:30:19:07
Shiro Hatori
But I think a lot of social media marketers are finding out now that they really want to hear from other students. Right? So they want to hear their story, how college was from them and again, in that real life perspective. And so using that opportunity where, you know, students are in a reflective moment in their life to capture those stories.
00:30:19:07 - 00:30:40:15
Shiro Hatori
So it's very close to what the interview thing was for. We talked about, but just highlighting the stories, finding and picking out a few students that you can cover their story and journey through Higher ed is really important. And I think capturing all that video content or quotes or photos and, you know, having that content readily available for future use is really good.
00:30:40:23 - 00:30:59:02
Shiro Hatori
And that way, like if you're a higher ed marketing team, you don't have to like hire models for shoots and like set up all these things like you can do it all organically, which is amazing, right? And so I don't know if two birds, one stone is the right analogy there, but like you're, you're making use of what you already have, right.
00:30:59:09 - 00:31:04:15
Shiro Hatori
That's already there and what's really real. And I think it's just, it just creates better ethical marketing.
00:31:05:16 - 00:31:15:08
John Azoni
Cool. I love it. So tell us a little bit about the your podcast. Like what kind of what do you guys talk about on there? Who are some notable guests you've had on?
00:31:16:01 - 00:31:55:13
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, absolutely, man, I've had a ton of guests, but podcast wise I host the Higher Demand Gen podcast and we cover any topics related to marketing in higher ed and I quickly found that a lot of departments are responsible for marketing, even though they might not be called that in their title or in their job scope. But we cover everything from top of funnel like social media, marketing, branding all the way to I talked to University Advancement alumni teams about, you know, maybe it's how can I get more people to attend my virtual event or how do I reconnect with more alums and get donations right?
00:31:55:14 - 00:32:16:10
Shiro Hatori
And so I think those are all forms of marketing and I want to talk about, you know, all those topics on one podcast show because I think they're all tied together and they're often not. And I also think that, you know, just from a thought leadership perspective, I think higher ed marketing really needs like a bigger seat at the table, right?
00:32:16:10 - 00:32:48:06
Shiro Hatori
Like we're never or usually not a part of strategic planning, but we're the most capable team of tying together a lot of the departments from a communication standpoint to start that. I think, you know, they're very undervalued, which I think is changing, but they are undervalued. And so, you know, like at the very top, I hope that the Higher demand podcast or, you know, talk about some of those things and help educate maybe even senior leadership more about marketing's worth and value.
00:32:49:17 - 00:32:59:11
John Azoni
That's awesome. It is a good show. So I do recommend people go check that out. So yeah. All right. Awesome. Well, where can people find you if they want to connect with you?
00:33:00:01 - 00:33:24:08
Shiro Hatori
Absolutely. You can find the podcast. Just search higher ed demand gen on Spotify, Apple or Google and we should come up. Got a big green logo. You can find me on LinkedIn. Just search. Shiro Hattori and I should pop up as the search first search result. It's chir0ri Shiro Hattori And yeah, those just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
00:33:24:08 - 00:33:35:13
Shiro Hatori
I'm super active as John knows. I usually respond within the day and so hit me up if you think you're going to be a good guess on the on the pod, just reach out like, Oh, I'd love to set up an intro call.
00:33:35:23 - 00:34:00:10
John Azoni
Cool. Awesome, man. This is great. Thanks. Thanks for I love I love when people bring like data on this on the show, you know, because I because I think it's just helps. It's so easy to just make marketing decisions based on assumptions and, you know, assuming what people want to hear and and all that stuff. So, yeah, I appreciate you bringing some solid data that's useful for our audience.
00:34:01:18 - 00:34:03:21
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, Thanks so much for having me. It's been awesome.
