Hot Solutions

If you missed any of Kathi's presentations at any of the conferences and would like a copy, please click the title below.

2008

AACC Conference in Philadelphia, PA: 

Marketing's Changing Role In Today's Community College: What Presidents Need To Expect From Marketing Today!

As technology impacts the ways community colleges market to today’s students, what do the leaders of your college need to expect from marketing? This session provided college leaders with the questions they should be asking their marketing staff to make sure that they are “making it happen!”

Keep Those New Recruits: Applying Proven Retention Techniques To Targeted Populations!

How can today’s community colleges maintain enrollments while facing declining demographics? By doing a better job of retaining their current students. This session focused on proven retention techniques for various demographic groups and provided a case study of a highly successful program that has retained male Hispanic students successfully.

Positioning Today’s Community Colleges For Tomorrow’s State Economic Development Incentives – Can It Be Done?

Today’s community colleges are major partners in supporting their state’s economic development plans by developing academic programs to support industries targeted for growth. Participants learned how community colleges can develop a fast “response team” to define employer needs by industry and then develop programming to meet those needs – quickly and with state support.  

 

Chair Academy Conference in Denver, CO: 

An Enrollment High: Marketing To Today’s Working Adults (Understanding Generation X) Over the last few years, working adult enrollments at community colleges have seen double digit declines. In this session, participants met Generation X – today’s working adult – and learned how to market their academic programs to this cynical group!

• Learned the characteristics that make Generation X unique (born between 1961 and 1981) – what makes them tick!

• Explored the marketing messages that resonate (and those that do not)!

• Identified new market methods for Generation X – mobile marketing, podcasting, online video streaming, Google advertising, blogs, and the college web site

• Heard best practices in marketing to Generation X!

• Envisioned their outcome – increased adult enrollments!

NCMPR Conference in Savannah, GA: 

eMarketing: Hype or the Reality of Marketing for the Future? 

Today’s community college students are getting younger and more computer savvy than ever before – many, in fact, do not remember the world without computers and Internet access. However, most two-year colleges’ marketing endeavors are still rooted in typical media more likely to attract Baby Boomers. This session focused on the new trends in electronic communication that will effectively reach Gen Y and Gen X and provide increases in college enrollments.

 

Using MySpace as a Tool in Your Marketing Mix for the pre-conference intensive for the NCMPR Conference. MySpace, a controversial social networking phenomenon, can be a powerful marketing tool to connect with the high school market. This presentation familiarized marketing directors with MySpace as a marketing tool and showed how some colleges are using it to reach the 16- to 24-year old demographic. It also showed how to set up tracking mechanisms to measure the return on dollars spent on MySpace advertising and activities. (Note: To obtain this handout, please contact CLARUS directly at info@claruscorporation.com or call us at 800.896.7431 Ext. 14.)

 

ACCCA Conference in Costa Mesa, CA: 

Stay On The Wave: What Chancellors And Presidents Need To Expect From Marketing Today  

As the key leader in your organization, your staff looks to you to provide direction to stay on the “top of the wave” – especially when marketing your institution. But with the ever-changing technology needed to reach your markets, how do you provide direction for staff? This session provided college leaders with the questions they should be asking their marketing staff to make sure that they are “riding the marketing wave!”

 

GIS mapping, as referenced in the presentation: 

http://www.esri.com/data/community_data/community-tapestry/index.html

 

 

2007

Please note: For presentations prior to the current year, please e-mail us at info@claruscorporation.com to request handouts from the presentation.

AACC Conference in Tampa, FL:

Boosting Enrollment By Increasing Student Retention: Practical Ways To Keep New Recruits and Reaching Untapped Markets Through Electronic Communications

NCMPR Conference in San Diego, CA:

The Politics Of Branding: Navigating Political Waters Or How To Win Friends And Influence People 

What do getting a bill enacted into law and implementing a branding campaign have in common? Both involve knowing how to navigate the tricky political waters of getting the buy-in of all stakeholders and reaching consensus. This presentation demonstrated that the most difficult part of branding is not plan development or implementation, but getting this critical institutional buy-in from the board to the custodians. Without the agreement and approval of all stakeholders, even your best branding plan, containing the most detailed research, will likely never see the light of day. Almost all marketing departments in the educational arena start out with two strikes against them – “marketing” and “branding” are nebulous terms with numerous definitions, thereby causing everyone to think they know how to do your job. Secondly, marketing is not a revenue producing department, but an overhead – one that needs funding to promote the institution, which further attracts the attention and involvement of stakeholders. This presentation outlined the successful branding process for you – from the onset of your campaign which begins long before any consultants are hired or research is conducted. This session took the participants through the branding process, using the recent success of the Community College of Philadelphia, from the initial planning to the research conducted to the final creative to the additional funding approved. This session showed participants that the secret to success is allowing stakeholders to have ownership of the campaign or plan (or convincing them to think that they have ownership) and making them part of the process.

Create A Climate For Change: The College Catalog - Options Other Than Print Or Online

Community colleges nationally are struggling with whether to continue to print the catalog or go completely online with the publication. For many colleges it appears this is an either/ or question – print OR not print and go online. But there are other options for a college rather than only going online. Explore excellent examples from community colleges of other options – see a unique CD-Rom, a new direct mail piece and a program booklet to name a few. The participants explored when and how to take the catalog online and what other options exist for sharing the information in the current catalog – like updated Student Handbooks.

ACCCA Conference in San Francisco, CA:

Reaching Untapped Markets Through Innovative Electronic Communications 

Today’s community college students are getting younger and more computer savvy than ever before — many of our students do not remember the world without computers and Internet access. However, our colleges’ marketing endeavors are still rooted in typical media more likely to attract Baby Boomers. Participants learned how to effectively market to Gen Y and Gen X and continue enrollment increases. This session focused on the new trends in electronic communication which will provide increases in college enrollments.