Blog Recap:
Hey there, Higher Ed enthusiasts! Have you ever found yourself scratching your head, wondering how in the world to get the most bang for your buck with your digital marketing agency? Well, you’re not alone. Lucky for us, Jess Lanning, the ace Director of Digital Strategy at Liaison, stopped by the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast to spill all the tea on this very topic.
Meet Jess Lanning
First off, let’s talk about Jess. This isn’t her first rodeo; she started as a tour guide and worked her way up in enrollment marketing at a private institution. She’s seen it all, from campus tours to the tricky world of digital media. Now, she focuses on helping higher ed institutions boost their digital game. Who better to give us the lowdown on effective strategies, right?
Collaboration is Key
Jess emphasized that collaboration and feedback loops are the magic sauce in working with a digital agency. Simply hiring an agency and expecting them to do all the heavy lifting without your input is like expecting someone else to study for your finals. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work. Institutions need to roll up their sleeves and be in it to win it.
Red Flags and Unicorns
Jess also threw some shade at agencies that propose to “do everything” without understanding your institution’s unique needs. According to her, that’s a red flag waving in your face. The agency should be tailoring their approach based on your resources, goals, and capabilities. It’s not a one-size-fits-all deal!
The Balancing Act: Organic vs. Paid Media
Ah, the age-old debate—organic vs. paid media. Jess shared a super insightful story about a client that finally invested in SEO and saw a massive spike in organic traffic within six months. This just goes to show that sometimes, the low-hanging fruit can yield the juiciest results.
On the flip side, understanding where to put your dollars in paid media is crucial. Jess and Shiro dissected how different channels—like display advertising, paid social, and organic search—vary in lead quality and user behavior. It’s essential to dive into historical data and let stats guide your investment decisions.
Pitfalls to Dodge
They didn’t shy away from talking about common pitfalls either. Some higher ed institutions fall into the trap of listing every possible marketing channel in their RFPs without a strategy. Jess warned that this is a rookie mistake. Instead, start by identifying the problem you need to solve. Then, map out the best tactics to get there. Easy, right?
Not everyone wins in the paid media game; only a small percentage come out on top. That’s why understanding and being involved in your campaigns can make all the difference.
Make the Jargon Work for You
Lastly, no one wants to be that person who “knows enough to be dangerous.” Jess advised that having a basic understanding of digital advertising terms is key. It helps you communicate better with your agency and, let’s be honest, not get duped by flashy talk.
So, next time you’re working with your digital marketing agency, keep Jess’s tips in mind. Be involved, be strategic, and don’t get caught up in jargon. You’ve got this!
Feel free to connect with Jess and the Liaison team for even more insights. They’re a wealth of knowledge and always up for a good chat about how to revamp your digital marketing strategy. Catch you in the next episode! 🚀
Read the transcription
Shiro:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Trend Podcast hosted by Concept 3 d. If you like our content, you know what? You gotta make sure to please follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple, and Google. My name is Shiro, and I will be your host today. And, I’m really excited to talk about something that I deal with in my day to day. So, we’re gonna be talking about how to get the most out of your digital marketing agency. And for the topic, I have Jess Lanning joining us today. She is the director of digital strategy at Liaison.
Shiro:
Jess, welcome to the show.
Jess Lanning:
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Shiro:
Okay. And I do ask all my guests this as an icebreaker. Jess, please tell me what you love about higher ed.
Jess Lanning:
I think, I have a tale as old as time. So I feel like if anyone ever officially polled people in higher ed, that at least 75 to 80% of us like to share tour guide stories. We’re like, oh, yes. I remember when we when I was a tour guide, and that’s how I started in higher ed. So I think, honestly, my love for higher ed started in student experience. I had a great student experience. I’ve worked in higher ed since I was a tour guide in admissions. So Mhmm.
Jess Lanning:
Really, everything just comes back to enjoying the student experience and knowing we’re contributing to something that impacts people’s lives. So
Shiro:
Got it. Thanks for sharing that. I I totally missed that in our pre call that you were once a a you worked at the visitor center on campus.
Jess Lanning:
Everybody wants I mean, a campus tour guide. I seriously, somebody should do that poll because I think the numbers would blow all of our minds.
Shiro:
Oh, that’s fantastic. Yep. Okay. Great. And then we also just found out we’re both a frame buddies. We’re both working in the loft of an a frame right now, so that was good. Awesome. Well, let’s let’s jump in.
Shiro:
Can you tell us I know you were previously a a campus tour guide, but can you tell us a little bit more about your role and what you’ve been up to recently?
Jess Lanning:
Sure. I was the campus tour guide a long time ago, so we won’t count that one on the resume. But since then, started my career at a private institution and did all of the kinda stair steps there and left as the director of enrollment marketing. So the thing I really like about this topic is I have been a client of many agencies. And then within the last probably 8 years, I’ve shifted to agency work specifically. So I’ve been at 3 higher ed specific agencies now, focused primarily in digital media. So like you said, director of digital strategy at Liaison now, and my team runs paid inorganic media strategies for our clients.
Shiro:
That’s amazing. And and do you cater specifically for higher ed now as well?
Jess Lanning:
Mhmm. Yep. 100% higher ed.
Shiro:
That’s fantastic. And I know, I I talked with one of your colleagues before in the past on the show as well, Kurt. So shout out to Kurt. I’ve I’ve another member from your team. That’s great. Awesome. Well, it’s great that you’ve had experience working with vendors and agencies in house at a higher ed institution. Now that you’re on the other side, you know, can you tell us a little bit more about how higher ed institutions can get the most out of an agency, specifically, like, a digital marketing agency? Because I know higher ed institutions really struggle with working with partners sometimes.
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. Definitely. And, digital media is one of the places where I found there’s a greater need for client education. And maybe it’s not the client that we’re working with directly, but it’s that that client representative’s ability to communicate digital value to their stakeholders, their president, their board of trustees, or whoever the case may be. So I think it’s all that to say particularly important to have a really good agency and get everything you can out of your digital agency because it is such a niche channel and a lot of institutions marketing mix where people don’t feel as equipped, to understand exactly what they’re getting and exactly what they’re doing. So I think the biggest thing that I see with successful partners who we get really good results with, and enjoy working together, which is also important, is that the digital agency needs to be an extension of your in house team. So everything that I offer in every setting I’ve been in as an agency representative, I focus really heavily on collaboration and feedback loops. So just making sure that the client feels like they have a voice in what’s going on, and that they understand the takeaways, and it’s a really comfortable place to ask questions and optimize on things together.
Jess Lanning:
And really just the biggest thing in working with a digital agency is making sure that you are getting that client education while you’re in partnership with them. It’s not just about the deliverables, which are fantastic, but it’s are you learning to be confident in understanding those results and whether they’re good or bad? Are you comfortable and confident in presenting those results to the people you’re accountable to, which is a big part of what most enrollment folks do. So I would say collaboration is the biggest thing. Find an agency that you feel really comfortable with the back and forth for sure.
Shiro:
Got it. And I know that’s like a double edged sword. Right? Because as a higher ed institution, you can’t just come in and hire a a digital agency partner and just be like, hey. Go do Facebook ads
Jess Lanning:
and then just,
Shiro:
you know, meet once a week. Like, it has to be more than that. Right? So on the institutional side, there has to be a certain level of commitment that you’re also willing to do because, again, like, if I told you, Jess, go do my Facebook ads. Like, it doesn’t work like that. Right?
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. And we even see in one of the things I’ve noticed recently because ’tis the season the season for RFPs right now, one of the things I’ve noticed a lot, a lot of institutions are shopping for digital agency partners is it’s kind of like, let’s ask for all of that and the kitchen sink and just see what catches. And I think a red flag for institutions is if you get a proposal of services or something that’s like, yes, we can do everything and more. Everything applies everywhere, that it’s a red flag because one of the most important things I think an agency can do is meet an institution where they are in the process. So understanding, like, is this your first attempt in a paid media spend to generate leads for your programs? Or do you already spend $50,000 a month and you’re looking to launch a new program, those are completely different strategies with completely different partnership needs. So having somebody who’s gonna be realistic with you, meet you where you are, understand your internal resources for things as simple as, like, I could tell you we’ll generate a 100 leads a month, but if you have a one person recruiting team and you can’t work those leads, you have to have confidence that your partner is gonna be able to say a 100 leads is a lot for you instead of going full bore into a 100 a month. Let’s have a goal of 50 a month for your single recruiter and then help you come up with some calm strategies after. So, really looking at you as an institution holistically is what an agency should prioritize in that regard, for sure.
Shiro:
Gotcha. Yeah. That that helps a lot. And I’m also thinking, like, I I work in CPC and paid media space, so I I know a lot of the terms, very, very well. I’ve been using them for a long time. But I could imagine if someone’s just, you know, trying to outsource digital marketing, like, the vernacular can be extremely it’s it could be a bit pretty big gap in fancy words. Right? And so, like, trying to understand, like, if an agency is legit or not just because they use a bunch of fancy words. Like, maybe, like, it it’s hard to understand or it’s hard to gauge.
Shiro:
It it sounds like they know what they’re doing, but, they may not because they’re not translating that information over correctly.
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. I think that’s, a large part of that is agencies as a whole. It’s our fault. Because I find that a lot of times to try to differentiate ourselves and market, I mean, the tendency is to be like, we have something proprietary. We have something brand new. And, like, try to marketize everything so that it appears like it is just something fresh, new, exciting, when really, it’s a tactic that you can use in a lot of different ways and it fits in your mix. But for folks who, like you’re saying, don’t have necessarily the same working understanding, it can be really easy to just get sucked into something that sounds new, creative, and different. And there are definitely lots of emerging trends in this space, but I find that a lot of it can be boiled down into lowest common denominators.
Jess Lanning:
Right? Like, strategies within paid search change, but right now, paid search is paid search is paid search. Right? Like, there are some principles that are never gonna change. You’re bidding on keywords Mhmm. And making sure that clients have, like, basic understanding. The example I use all the time is you’ll hear folks say paid SEM, PPC, paid search, Google search, and a lot of clients don’t even realize that all of those are pretty much the same thing, that there’s not a whole lot of distinguishing between each of those. So that’s what I’ve tried to do in every position in every agency across the board is the terms need to be accessible. The definitions need to be accessible. One of my most heard and probably least favorite phrases from our clients is, I know enough to be dangerous.
Jess Lanning:
And I’m like, I get what you’re saying. That’s your way of saying, I’m not super confident in this, but I’m showing up. And I just wanna flip that so that you don’t know enough to be dangerous, you know enough to be really confident. Because the more you know and the more you understand what kind of info to pass back to me to make your campaign successful, like, the better we’re gonna do. So I forgot where this question even started, but that’s my answer.
Shiro:
No. This is great. And I agree. One of my pet peeves is I know enough to be dangerous. It’s like, do you? Because that means you know how to do something, and I don’t think you do. Like, would you tell someone who’s let’s say, on a plane, a flight, the pilots are somehow incapacitated and they say, hey. Like, I know enough to be dangerous. Like, that doesn’t make me feel good.
Shiro:
That’s true. I couldn’t agree more.
Jess Lanning:
I know enough to be dangerous coupled with something like why when I Google this, is it in position 1, and you’re saying it’s typically in position 3. To me, that doesn’t say anything other than I, as a partner, need to do a better job of educating. Right? Like, we need to lay better foundation so that we’re all speaking the same language and moving in the same direction.
Shiro:
Yeah. No. And it this made me think of another, phrase that I heard that I really like is is there’s a lot of players in the paid media space. Right? Just because everyone’s paying doesn’t mean everyone’s winning. There’s losers within people who are advertising. And so if you’re just doing advertising, it doesn’t mean you’re winning. There’s a small percentage of people winning and the rest are losing, and so you have to be in that winning side of of the paid media advertising space.
Jess Lanning:
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Showing up is, like, 50% of the game. Mhmm. But showing up effectively is really the recipe that you are paying an agency to help you support in. Right? So even when we have preliminary conversations with clients and they’re like, we wanna rank for MBA programs just in general. Anytime, anywhere someone searches MBA program, I need to rank for that. And being able to add context to that and walk them back into understanding, like, we probably need to start with higher volume, low competition.
Jess Lanning:
There’s a lot of strategies to get us to that place. But, just making the strategy piece more accessible and more realistic, I think, keeps everybody moving. So that, like you were saying, you’re not just participating, but you’re participating in a way that is effective for your institution.
Shiro:
Got it. Yeah. This is great. And I know we’ve kind of already talked about this already in terms of, like, common mistakes you see higher ed institutions making from the agency perspective. You said strategy is one of them, I think, trying to rank for every keywords one. But are there some other things that are that really boil up to the top as common denominators?
Jess Lanning:
I think a big one that I see and this is a collaborative probably issue between institutions and agencies, and they kind of feed off each other. In the same vein of saying, you know, you look at an RFP and it’s it lists every possible channel that everyone in that institution could brainstorm and saying, I wanna know what you’re gonna do with this kind of thing. And then as agencies, sometimes we answer that because we feel like that’s what we have to do. Like, if the client’s saying, I wanna be on TikTok, then we’re like, okay. They need to be on TikTok. And I think the biggest common denominator issue in that approach is that it’s tactics over strategy. And so just having a healthy perspective where you can say, I see that you have interest in that. And this is goes for agency or institution.
Jess Lanning:
Right? Like, we acknowledge that we have interest in that. Maybe we have really good content for that space. Let’s figure out what problem we’re trying to solve first and make sure that the tactics we’re deploying make the most sense for that problem. I think that’s one of the biggest issues I see rolling up to the top, across the board is just because digital changes so quickly, paid media changes so quickly, and there’s so many new trends to adopt, we all gravitate towards tactics instead of gravitating towards what’s the problem and then mapping out approaches to get there.
Shiro:
Got it. Okay. So, like, an example for this would be, like, let’s say I’m a a marketing director for a business graduate program. Instead of me coming to you and being like, hey. Like, I wanna run TikTok ads for our business degree. It’d be like, hey. Like, I’m gonna come to you and, like, hey. I wanna use digital to influence more website visits around our graduate program.
Shiro:
I don’t know what channel’s gonna work best. Like, that’s up to you guys. You figure that out.
Jess Lanning:
Sure. Yeah. Or even, like, I want a greater presence on emerging platforms. That can even be a goal. If it’s like, I wanna create awareness around emerging platforms because I understand that certain age demographics are there or certain interest demographics are there, even that being a problem to solve makes more sense than honing in on platform specifics, etcetera, just because that’s, like, where we feel pressure to be. Because then the question could be, okay, who are the age demographics you’re after? What kind of conversion are we hoping to generate? Is this strictly awareness? And we’re gonna say we’re fine with an outcome of x impressions in CTR or engagement on the video? Is this lead gen? Because there are certain channels that are better for conversions than others. And then, like, what are your internal resources? If you check all the boxes and we’re on the path to TikTok, but the only video content you have available is professional b roll, it’s like, is that gonna return the highest on a platform that’s made on authentic content, and user generated content? Do you have realistic expectations about placing your commercial on TikTok versus having a full content strategy around what’s trending? So it just leads down the path of of so many more substantial conversations that solve the problem, and maybe they lead us to the tactic where we wanna be or maybe we test the tactic where we wanna be, but we’ve done a lot of valuable work in between.
Shiro:
That’s great. Yeah. And if if your strategic planning even involves anything that you can tie, like, those digital marketing points to, like, that’s that’s even better proof that, like, your your tactics are actually aligned with strategic initiatives for the institution. And I and I know I know as a marketer myself who’s, more of an IC role, individual contributor role, like, I always, like, feel like I always get drawn to the tactics and, really, I need to focus more on the strategy and how it’s driving the top line. So that’s great. In terms of working with a bunch of customers right now, right, you were you have a bunch of higher ed customers. What do you see something that’s working in your space at the moment?
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. We’ve seen a really big uptick in interest, which is fantastic, because the data has been telling us for a long time we need to be more interested. But in efforts around organic strategy, we’ve seen lots of folks coming on board to run some sort of concerted organic strategy when they haven’t before. I would say 90% of our clients that are investing in SEO, this is probably their first time doing so in an official capacity, which there’s tons of, you know, industry
Speaker D:
released reports out at the moment that talk about this huge
Shiro:
proportion of students that
Speaker D:
find you for the first time through an organic search and how organic leads convert so much at
Jess Lanning:
a so much higher rate down how organic leads convert so much at a so much higher rate down funnel just because of the intent and, the accessibility of your information when they’re looking for it. And I think it’s just indicative of a shift in consumer behavior that’s been happening for a long time, and it’s gonna keep happening where it’s less about let me find who I want and send them what they need to know, which still has a place, of course, so all my colleagues don’t send me hate mail after this. But, make sure it’s a postcard, if you would. But, it’s more like, are you present, and is your content relevant when people are looking for something that you offer? And that’s across the board, not just in higher ed. It’s more of a consumer focused buying experience as opposed to an agency influenced buying experience. Think mad men. Right? Obviously, not the same thing now. So, yeah, we have tons of clients who are interested in organic strategy, thankfully, and we’re seeing some pretty significant gains on those.
Jess Lanning:
So it’s, it’s a great place to start investing if institutions aren’t yet.
Shiro:
Got it. And do you have any, like, stories around success stories around organic and how that is played? You don’t have to name the institution, obviously.
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. It’s a good time of year to ask, honestly, because we are doing a lot of year end reporting. The first one that comes to mind is we did have an institution that we partnered with on kind of, like, a 6 month trial basis. And, basically, this is another piece of kind of agency education. Right? A lot of people say SEO. And then if you say, could you tell me what you mean? Like, what what are the actual deliverables? What are you hoping to gain? There’s there’s usually a pretty big learning gap because it feels like a black box to a lot of people. Right? Like, I don’t know. It means something related to my website.
Jess Lanning:
Right? So when I’m talking about we’re engaging in organic strategy together, it’s about, like, technical side audit. It’s about title tags, meta description, best practices, crawlability, and indexing. But then ongoing, it’s also about content strategy. So identifying keyword gaps, meeting best practices, and iterating on that over time, and then also building authoritative backlinks. All of those things are part of the recipe. So all of that to say, with this client that we did a 6 month kinda trial run with, we deployed a lot of that. And they saw the highest month of organic traffic in the history of their site collecting data, within that 6 months, which is a huge testament to the fact that it’s not that we, you know, had this magic bullet. It was that it hadn’t been paid attention to before.
Jess Lanning:
Right? So there were some pretty big gains
Speaker D:
we could make immediately. A lot of folks say, yeah.
Jess Lanning:
I know. SEO is a long game, and it is. Right? That doesn’t mean it always takes forever to see impacts. It means that you should invest in it in the long term and expect big trend gains over time. But there are a lot of things that can improve in shorter periods of time if it’s something that has been neglected, for a long time. So
Shiro:
That’s fantastic. Yeah. I mean, your mileage may vary for sure. 6 months is is pretty quick.
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. Well, they we’re just 6 months after that. We do we’re doing more now. So
Shiro:
Right. Do you think there’s you said there’s a lot of your customers now investing in in SEO. Do you think there’s been a shift in the market around, like, hey. Like, we want leads now, like, now. And, like, I think that was always the argument between, like, paid versus organic. Right? Like, well, we can’t wait 1 year. So, like, we’re gonna we’re gonna pay 10 times more for a lead today. You we know it’s inefficient, but we can drive leads today and not in a year.
Shiro:
Like, is that the argument you see a lot? And, also, like, do you think there’s a shift in the narrative that is helping higher ed double down a little bit more into SEO?
Jess Lanning:
I personally would like to see the shift happen quicker. I do think that there’s a place for paid media and a place for organic, and they work hand in hand. And there’s lots of schools of thought and debate about how and what you should focus on and and what varying degrees. But, yes, we still I still hear that all the time. Heard it just this week. Right? Where it’s like, yeah. Organic sounds fine. And, also, what lead like, how much is it gonna cost us to get the lead volume we need to matriculate this class? And so one of the exercises I did recently for a client was, okay, let’s do let’s do some calculations and figure out what that inquiry volume is.
Jess Lanning:
But then also, I wanna take a look at your historical yield and your lead sources. And it was just and we this isn’t just for one client. This is something that we should be doing across the board as we’re deciding where to put our investment from year to year. But the story was you have this exorbitant amount of people who are coming through Firstsource on your website through an organic form submission, and you have whatever the percentages of folks who are coming in on paid media, 15, 25%, whatever. And so it it doesn’t make sense to base your paid media projections on getting a 100% of your leads through paid media. Right? You have to take a look and say, what goal do we wanna hit for percent of matriculants that come from paid media? But also, what percent of our matriculants are coming from our website? And how do we, number 1, maintain that? Because the Internet is not a static environment. Right? Like, there could be a Google algorithm update, and you could tank tomorrow and not even know. Right? So what do I do to maintain this quality of lead flow that I have that is converting so well for me, and what do I do to improve it? And that doesn’t that’s a little bit longer line for folks to draw sometimes.
Jess Lanning:
But quantifying it in a way to say, like, we are already getting this much. So what are we willing to sacrifice to maybe lose that or not on it? So
Shiro:
Got it. And that plays kinda, like, into the next question I had, which is around, like, the the decade long question or 2 decade long question of organic versus paid. Like, where do you double down or where do you invest more? What are the questions you should be asking yourself? And one thing I heard from your response just now is, like, look at your data. If you’re already getting a lot of, inquiries or applications through organic, maybe paid isn’t the way to go because you know organic’s already working. That’s essentially what you were saying. Right?
Jess Lanning:
I will say not exactly, but that’s just because I’m nonconvolving that level of finite conclusion.
Shiro:
Yeah. No. It’s okay.
Jess Lanning:
But I do understand what you’re saying, and I would say, yeah, look, it’s a consideration. Right? So it’s the same thing you do across any marketing medium where you say, like, where’s my low hanging fruit? What do I do that I know works? And what do I do to maintain the health of that? And then you always wanna be testing some level of expansion. Right? Like, for Mhmm. An admissions office, that level of expansion is where our growth markets this year. We wanna expand in this metro and get more students from there. Same thing is true for a channel strategy. Like, you you don’t wanna remain static. You wanna say, okay.
Jess Lanning:
Here’s my growth plan for this year, my test plan for this year. Here are these areas that deliver for me every year. What can I do to make sure we’re pacing at the same level we have been historically or doing better? So I think if somebody asked me how do you decide 1 or the other, I would say you try to figure out how to do both. But I know that’s not always realistic. I think it falls into several categories. Right? So you have, like, environmental considerations, kinda what we talked about earlier. Like, what are your internal resources to work leads? What is your internal capacity to nurture, or are you do you also have an agency presence that helps you qualify leads? Because, for example, if you looked in a vacuum and you said, hey, school, on average and paid social on Instagram, the leads are $50 or $60. And they could back that on and be like, wow.
Jess Lanning:
Well, based on our conversion rates, we only need to get that much. But then you’re talking about this incredibly high volume of low intent passive leads, which have a place in your mix. But do you have the internal capacity for your counselors to call 100 of people a day? If you don’t, wrong choice for that environment. So there’s environmental characteristics to consider when you’re deciding where to put your investment. For institutions like that, I may say you want the highest intent. Right? You want leads that you’re gonna have to do the least amount to convert because when they get to you, they’re already further in the buying process. And so kind of map out this hierarchy for folks, like, obviously, programmatic. You don’t see a ton of conversions, direct attribution conversions, more awareness.
Jess Lanning:
Paid social, you’re gonna have more passive conversions. Paid search, you’re gonna have higher intent paid conversions. And then organic is kind of like your mecca of quality, typically down funnel, but also the longest and often least measured way to get leads. So it really just all depends on your situation, which is what a good agency will do for you is help you create these scenarios and figure out where you wanna double down, where you wanna test.
Shiro:
Gotcha. So if I wanted to work with the agency, I don’t want the straightforward answer. You should do organic because it means they have Let’s qual Yeah.
Jess Lanning:
An agency that gives you your media plan before they know who you are, they’re lying. They’re lying to you. There are some things that remain I’m just kidding to all my fellow agency people. I don’t think you’re lying. But I will say there are certain things that could remain constant among certain institution types. Like, there are efficiencies for sure. Not everybody is a unique instance necessarily. But your channel strategy is gonna be dependent on your data.
Jess Lanning:
Right? So if you if you’re partnering with someone and they’re able to give you immediate enrollment projections and immediate channel strategy without having reviewed any of your data or had these types of conversations, it’s not gonna be as accurate as if they did.
Shiro:
Got it. Oh, this is great. And I know I’m talking to an expert when you don’t ever say so so black and white. This is it. You know? So this is great. It shows your expertise. I wanna dig a little bit deeper on, you know, what you mentioned around, lead follow-up having capacity as well as just, like, quality of lead. Like, can you walk us through like, imagine I’m not a PPC marketer.
Shiro:
Right? And I don’t know the channels very well. Like, why why is it that programmatic doesn’t convert? You you mentioned, right, it’s it’s badly quality versus, like, organic is higher lead quality. Like, can we just go through those each and explain each one just in detail a little bit?
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. And I think plenty of folks can obviously make, like, exceptions and buts and what ifs to these. So I would say
Speaker D:
Right.
Jess Lanning:
These are some general rule of thumb. But when we’re talking about, like, display advertising or, some, like, streaming advertising or native, components like those all have a hierarchy within themselves of what you typically see as average click throughs, but they’re not gonna be your lead volume generators. Right? Like, they exist to be awareness drivers and reinforcers. So your higher performing display campaign is not gonna be just your bidding on characteristics. It’s gonna be your retargeting off of your application page. Right? So these are these are coupling tools typically in in a media strategy. And then paid social, the thing that I always say to clients and to internal folks when we’re talking about this when they’re like, but why is it lower lead quality? And I I don’t even really like to use lower lead quality. It’s just they’re at a different point in the buying process.
Jess Lanning:
And the example I always say is because your institution is sandwiched between a cat video and a baby announcement. Right? When you’re scrolling through your, you’re not actively shopping for your next degree. However, what you’re trying to do is be present and capitalize on a micro moment. Right? Which is why those passive leads require greater nurturing and require a specific type of com flow. And no matter what you do, are not gonna convert as I as a paid search lead, which is quite literally googling business degree programs in my city. Right? So that’s kind of the difference in walking folks through user experience to figure out kind of this hierarchy when you’re talking about it in terms of lead gen, but also just that age old, like, you don’t use a hammer to brush your teeth kinda thing. And that’s why strategy and the problem you’re trying to solve is so much more important in the onset than tactics.
Shiro:
Amazing. That’s great. Thanks for all the definitions there. I’m wondering just just out of curiosity in organic search space. Right? Are you seeing effects of AI, like, or generative AI searching in organic search results right now? And what do you think how do you think that’s gonna affect higher ed searching in terms of, like, applications and enrollment?
Jess Lanning:
I will tell you the biggest thing I have seen recently was related to I think it was March, the algorithm update that came out related to basically, like, penalizing content that was perceived to have been heavily generated by AI. So you may be asking about those, like, Gemini generative AI search results. I haven’t I have not seen a huge impact there yet, and I feel like we’re all still trying to kinda figure out where we land in our ability to capitalize on that piece of real estate. But when it comes to institutions who, are like, hey. Listen. We understand we need more content. We need to target these particular keywords, and the first thought is, like, we can’t just chat JPT yet. Like, do we need a partner to help us develop this? And that’s the biggest place I’ve seen it so far is sites being penalized for this perceived, like, AI content or bulk uploads of content, that kind of thing.
Shiro:
Got it. Alright. Well, thank you so much. This has been super insightful. I’m wondering where our listeners can connect with you and Liaison as well.
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. Sure. I am it’s liaisonedu.com, and you’re welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn or find me online. Yeah.
Shiro:
Well, thank you so much. This has been awesome. I love talking about paid media and and diving into the details because that’s what I do. But, it’s been great having you, and thanks so much for joining.
Jess Lanning:
Yeah. This was fun. Thanks.
