#68 - The Top of Funnel Drought in Higher Ed
w/ John Azoni
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John Azoni is the founder of the Higher Ed Storytelling Podcast and Unveild, a video branding agency that helps colleges and universities tell compelling institutional stories.
In this solo episode, John addresses the challenge of top-of-funnel content drought in higher education marketing. He discusses the importance of top-of-funnel content in higher education marketing and strategies for creating engaging video content that resonates with prospective students before they're ready to be sold to.
Key Takeaways:
Many colleges lack top-of-funnel content that engages audiences without directly selling
Leadership often struggles to approve budget for content that doesn't have a direct sales component
Top-of-funnel content helps warm up prospective students before they're ready to consider specific schools
Marketing drives familiarity, and familiarity drives preference
Two recommended approaches for short-form videos:
"Man on the street" videos asking engaging questions to students
Thought leadership content featuring faculty lectures and discussions
Repurposing existing events and lectures into video content can be an efficient strategy
Balancing content across different stages of the marketing funnel is crucial
Examples Mentioned:
Central Michigan University's successful TikTok asking "Where does up north start?"
Boston University's Valentine's Day video of students calling their partners
Strategies for Limited Resources:
Create "man on the street" videos with engaging questions using just a smartphone
Film interesting lectures or discussions and break them into shareable snippets
Look for opportunities to repurpose existing campus events into video content
Takeaway: Investing in top-of-funnel content is crucial for higher ed marketing success, even if it doesn't directly sell the institution. These strategies can help engage potential students earlier in their college search process and build familiarity with your school.
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 - 00:00:27:02
John Azoni
Well, hey, everybody, I want to talk briefly in this short episode about the top of funnel droughts in higher ed and also what I would do if I had limited resources to influence the top of the funnel right away. So one thing a lot of colleges and universities lack when it comes to their videos is this, you know, top of funnel content, top of funnel being we're not actively trying to sell the school right now.
00:00:27:07 - 00:00:45:17
John Azoni
We're just trying to get you interested in the content. We're trying to get you engaged in the content. So that stuff like remarkable research, new tech, you know, novel stories like newsworthy remark, like something remarkable happened that happened to maybe involve your school. But the point is the story, not the start, not the actual here's all the benefits of the school.
00:00:45:17 - 00:01:09:18
John Azoni
So like novel stories, newsworthy stories, topical education, you know, man on the street videos, you know, asking, you know, intriguing questions of like, you know, students. So you see a lot of that being successful on like reels and tiktoks and shorts, funny stuff, entertaining stuff, basically anything that's designed to engage but not directly sell. So that's a lot of the stuff that higher ed tends to be missing.
00:01:09:18 - 00:01:31:01
John Azoni
And the reason the barrier is often buy in from leadership. We did a video strategy workshop recently with a with a university and they echoed the sentiment, too, that we've seen as kind of a pattern across the board that getting buy in on content that talks about the school directly is relatively easy for, you know, getting buy in from leadership on that.
00:01:31:01 - 00:01:55:04
John Azoni
It's like of course that's the function of marketing is to talk about the school. At least that's the belief about what the function of marketing is. But it's deeper than that. Marketing isn't just talking about the school. It's really generating interest in the school, generating demand. And that comes by both talking about the school and also getting people ready to be talked to about the school.
00:01:55:11 - 00:02:14:12
John Azoni
It's a tougher sell to get approval to spend money on content that warms prospective students up to be sold to and has no direct sales component. And yet if you don't invest budget in the top of the funnel, you're limiting content to primarily being affected with people who are familiar with your school and are already considering you on their short lists.
00:02:15:08 - 00:02:36:04
John Azoni
So like a sophomore in high school might not be ready for a campus tour video, but they are possibly actively searching for videos on topics that interest them. So maybe that's environmental sustainability or food science or entrepreneurship or like how a suspension bridge works. You know, it's just that type of stuff they're searching stuff that they're interested in.
00:02:36:04 - 00:03:01:03
John Azoni
They're not necessarily searching programs at colleges that meet their interests. Or maybe they are. I'm sure there probably are some people, but those people would be a little further down your funnel, like the people that maybe aren't like aren't quite ready to hear a pitch from your school yet. They're searching different stuff. They're searching to be entertained, to be informed on topics that interest them, to be inspired about, topics that interest them.
00:03:01:15 - 00:03:24:13
John Azoni
And so if you can develop video content that engages them on the level of their interests, you're more likely to stand out when they're thinking seriously about applying to colleges. It's really no different than the business case for like Take Your Child to Work day. So back when I was probably eight or nine, my mom worked at GM pretty much her whole career, almost ever since I can remember.
00:03:24:19 - 00:03:49:21
John Azoni
She had worked at GM. She's retired now, but I still remember vividly the experience that GM put on for me and other kids my age. The day that my mom took me to work with her. There's like a whole dedicated Take Your Kid to work day events. And it wasn't just like, Oh, like you're allowed to bring your kid to work and they can sit in your cubicle with you and draw pictures on the whiteboard while you do your work, which we did.
00:03:50:01 - 00:04:10:23
John Azoni
But this was a dedicated like this was an event for the kids that was planned out and it was really cool. And I remember learning how designing a car works and I got to design my own vehicle down to picking out the interior fabric for the seats and like a bunch of other stuff. I remember being, know, being sort of schlepped from one station to the other.
00:04:11:07 - 00:04:24:17
John Azoni
And I remember sitting in my mom's office that day like, I don't know, we were ready to go home or something. I was like drawing pictures of cars and stuff. And I remember declaring that day that I wanted to be a car designer when I grew up, and the closest I got to it was going to art school.
00:04:24:23 - 00:04:47:14
John Azoni
I went to one of the top art schools in the country for industrial design. So a lot of my friends design cars, a lot of my art school friends. I was over in the artsy fartsy fine arts department making abstract paintings and portrait paintings and stuff like that. So I got, you know, adjacent to designing a car but never fully committed.
00:04:48:20 - 00:05:05:09
John Azoni
But GM, you know, definitely got in my head that day. I mean, I still remember that. So you know, had they shown us car commercials and said, here's all the reasons you should buy a GM car instead of a Chrysler, there would have been a major disconnect there because I'm like, I don't care. Like, I don't care what this tech does.
00:05:05:18 - 00:05:31:06
John Azoni
You know, that makes driving easier. I'm nine years old. I care about like Ninja Turtles and stuff. And so that's really how top of funnel content is designed to work. It's designed to prepare people to be sold to, but it's not doing the selling. And leadership tends to have a big problem with anything that's not actively selling. If it's preparing, it's like that's not the real marketing stuff.
00:05:31:14 - 00:05:57:06
John Azoni
That's not like the real marketing. So Ryan Morabito, I'm pulling up this post right now that he posted recently. Ryan Morabito, brand strategist over at Five Degrees Branding posted on LinkedIn. He's got his famous I'm going to tell you another truth about Higher Ed marketing series that he does on LinkedIn, but he has this to say. He says most students aren't ready to enroll at a college or university, and most donors aren't ready to give.
00:05:57:14 - 00:06:31:15
John Azoni
We invest in marketing, so when they are, they think of our school as a preferred choice. Marketing drives familiarity and familiarity drives preference. And then he always ends these with This is the way, end of story, you know, fist bump emoji. I love that marketing drives familiarity and familiarity drives preference. So if your content, your video content is not driving familiarity in the first place, then you don't have as much stuff going on in the category of familiarity driving preference.
00:06:31:15 - 00:06:58:19
John Azoni
So that's why we really advocate for top of funnel strategies in the mix of doing the other stuff. So here's kind of the difference. The top of funnel is like, as I mentioned earlier, engaging stuff, entertainment, eye candy, thought leadership, new discoveries, new research, topical education. That's not brand focus. Maybe it's like, Oh, here's a new discovery in food science or something like that and stuff that has broader emotional appeal.
00:06:58:19 - 00:07:15:20
John Azoni
That's where the remarkable views, comments, likes and shares are. You know, that stuff that people can relate with and it's relevant enough to other people to share it with them and stuff like that because people aren't just going to share a commercial for your college, you know, unless like their friend is also thinking about going to college, it just narrows the audience pool.
00:07:16:03 - 00:07:40:20
John Azoni
But as you get down mid funnel and bottom funnel, now we start talking. Now we start bringing the brand personal stories and testimonials like what Unveiled does is really cut out for like mid and bottom funnel stuff like student, you know, an alumni testimonials that have a direct, you know, sort of like persuasive appeal or like we're trying to move people from like, here's a story that you can relate to and here's why you should come to the school.
00:07:41:06 - 00:07:59:11
John Azoni
So that's where that kind of stuff starts to come in. You know, as you get further down the funnel, more specific things like that, people that are really like ready to decide on a college would care about like campus tours and, you know, what's the food court like there? Or like, you know, what kind of clubs and organizations are there, that kind of stuff.
00:07:59:11 - 00:08:24:03
John Azoni
So that's kind of the difference. The challenge is how can we get stuff at the top of the funnel? Well, number one, when we work with colleges at Unveiled, we really try to have all stages of the funnel in mind. So when we're sitting with a student, we're going to do a really in-depth interview. We're going to ask them not just stuff that's like, Well, why blank you?
00:08:24:03 - 00:08:43:16
John Azoni
So he worked with Miami University recently, so we asked a lot of questions in the category of like why Miami? Why should someone come to Miami? But we also asked, you know, the person whose story we were telling was in their nutrition department. We asked Steph about her personal story, which, you know, she struggled with health issues on and off, you know, through middle school and high school.
00:08:43:16 - 00:09:02:21
John Azoni
And and that's kind of how she stumbled into nutrition and in a passion for food as medicine and and that kind of thing. But then we also asked some like really top of funnel stuff that's like, tell me about food as medicine or like what is a platform that you stand on, like stand on your soapbox right now and tell me something like what is it that you believe?
00:09:03:05 - 00:09:25:09
John Azoni
And she went on to talk about food as medicine, how like doctors don't learn this stuff in medical school. They don't learn as much nutrition stuff as they should. And so, you know, they're prescribing a lot of medications when these things could be addressed with nutrition, yada, yada. So that's one way that we kind of help addresses, like when we are doing a testimonial that has like a mid bottom funnel kind of sales component to it.
00:09:25:14 - 00:09:43:23
John Azoni
We're also thinking what can we do at the top of the funnel with this student that we can, you know, break off and do some, you know, some snippets of that can maybe go on TikTok or shorts or whatever else or that can be repurposed at the top of the funnel. But there's a couple of things in the short form video category that are working well at the top of the funnel.
00:09:44:07 - 00:10:03:17
John Azoni
And I wanted to point out two of those things and if I were really limited on resources, but I wanted to get into doing some short form videos, let's just say we're going to focus on, you know, tik-tok, tac shorts, that kind of thing. You know, that's a really great place to engage people at the top of the funnel.
00:10:04:01 - 00:10:25:14
John Azoni
I would do two types of videos. Number one would be man on the street videos. Man on the street videos are like when you have someone has a microphone, they're going around asking, they're picking off random students on campus and asking them a funny question or whatever. Just some engaging question that's really easy to execute. You just need to on camera.
00:10:25:17 - 00:10:51:05
John Azoni
You know, face that's going to be on camera asking the questions and then come up with an engaging question that's really easy. And I've mentioned this in other places before, but you know, Central Michigan University had really successful I think it was tik-tok to real that was asking students where does up north start? And so in Michigan, we have downstate and then we have up north, which is where most people go to vacation, but no one really knows where up north starts.
00:10:51:06 - 00:11:08:23
John Azoni
You just kind of feel it. It's just kind of a vibe. So it got everyone debating in the comments about where up North starts. Boston University did one I've mentioned before on the podcast where the girl asking the questions would go up to random people go, Do you have a boyfriend? And then if they said yes, it's like, Do you want to call him and tell him you love him?
00:11:08:23 - 00:11:42:04
John Azoni
And it's for Valentine's Day. So they put the phone call on speaker and it was like just this funny, kind of awkward, cute moments with people just randomly calling their significant others and just saying, I love you. So, like, those are things you could play in that sandbox in a lot of different ways, lots of variety, really. Your job comes down to come up with a bunch of fun questions that we can ask that are going to get people talking not only on camera but in the comments and then just go film a bunch of those and you can do those with an iPhone.
00:11:42:11 - 00:12:10:12
John Azoni
The other thing is thought leadership. I think thought leadership is some of your lowest hanging fruit in higher ed. Presumably you have world class faculty because every college seems to say they have world class faculty and giving lectures on important stuff. I mean, obviously people are learning stuff. So just take the camera to an interesting class and, you know, probably with permission, but film and interesting lecture and then maybe break that up into little snippets that are interesting.
00:12:10:12 - 00:12:35:00
John Azoni
I know Harvard Business School went massively viral with that approach. They Raphe There's Simonian from R.I. and his team. They're partnered with Harvard Business School and their internal production team there. And they filmed the classroom of this one teacher, you know, leading a debate on this one business situation. It was like a crisis moment. And what should you do?
00:12:35:00 - 00:12:53:09
John Azoni
As you know, the founder of the company or like the CEO or something like that. And it was really sort of debatable situation. It was like the room was really divided. So this got like millions and millions of millions of views. And really it was very simply produced. It was just filming a lecture that was already going to happen anyway.
00:12:53:09 - 00:13:17:07
John Azoni
And so we also see this like, you know, some of the most dry content can get a lot of interest in organic reach, like, you know, University of Chicago did one where it's like three, you know, three politicians on a stage just talking about Ukraine, Russia and the future of the liberal order. I don't quite I didn't listen to the whole thing.
00:13:17:07 - 00:13:38:17
John Azoni
But, you know, it's kind of just here's a certain group of people is going to really, you know, engage with this comment and got 175,000 views over a thousand comments, 1.8 thousand likes. And it really is just like pointing at three guys just talking politics on a stage. This might have been something that they invited these people on to campus to talk about.
00:13:39:02 - 00:14:06:05
John Azoni
And it's like this event was going to happen anyway. So film it and sort of make a piece of content about it. So I really think there's a lot of opportunity in taking what's already going to happen anyway and just filming it and then finding the parts of that that have broad emotional appeal and either breaking it up into smaller pieces or just letting the whole thing ride, you know, because people that are interested in see how a suspension bridge works, that's a really I mean, if you're an engineer, that's a really rudimentary example.
00:14:06:05 - 00:14:41:17
John Azoni
But like, you know, people that are interested in physics and robotics and stuff like that, like they're going to want to see a lecture about physics, you know, from a really great world class professor. So those are two things that I would do to at least get your foot in the door at the top of the funnel. It's important to warm people up to be sold to because no one goes online to scroll commercials, like nobody goes online to hear, you know, somebody is testimonial about a college that's usually like for people that are further along in the process.
00:14:42:14 - 00:15:05:09
John Azoni
So we need to create that content that for people that are further along in the process. But we also need to create content for people that are just out there not quite ready yet to be sold to how can we engage them in entertaining stuff. Those would be two things that I think you could do quite simply without necessarily needing to hire a whole video crew, outside video crew or staff, you know, in-house video team.
00:15:05:09 - 00:15:14:22
John Azoni
So that's all I got for you today. I hope you got something out of this and we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening.
