Yesterday I had a fascinating conversation with Rob Zinkan about the future of enrollment marketing.
Rob has worked in higher ed marketing for over two decades, at institutions large and small, and is now a VP at RHB (a higher education consultancy). He also regularly writes on all things strategic marketing for Inside Higher Ed.
For years, marketing teams at colleges and universities have been output focused.
Their primary goal has been to serve enrollment management, advancement, student services, etc., by taking work orders and producing deliverables like videos, email templates, and billboards with little-to-no accountability surrounding the ROI of their efforts.
Rob predicts that this era is over. He believes that today's marketing and communications teams must become outcome focused in order to retain any semblance of budget.
He argues that schools will either "break-the-silos or bust" and that marketing departments who determine work priority based on measurable impact (like number of enrolled students or an increase in alumni giving) will win, and those who continue to operate as "a factory taking orders and cranking out deliverables" will look more and more like an expense worth cutting to university leadership.
Our entire conversation will be available on next week's episode of The Enrollify Podcast, but my conversation with Rob inspired this week's episode of FRIdeas, which is why I wanted to share a bit of it with you this morning.