Episode 111: Creating Demand for Professional School Programs with Erin Keane Scott

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From Radio Waves to Data-Driven Policies

Before diving into higher ed marketing, Erin had an interesting stint in public radio, serving as the Director of Marketing and Communications for Pittsburgh’s WESA and WYEP radio stations. The focus there was on shifting traditional radio audiences to digital platforms, an experience that Erin found highly relevant when she returned to higher education marketing. Specifically, she points to her initial lessons in demand generation, learning how to create demand for content beyond traditional mediums.

Policy Innovation and Real-World Application

One of the standout initiatives Erin has worked on at Harris School of Public Policy is the Harris Policy Innovation Challenge. This Shark Tank-style competition encourages students to engage with pressing local issues such as Chicago’s underfunded pension crisis. By proposing solutions like introducing tolls on Lake Shore Drive, students were not only learning about public finance but also gaining hands-on experience, making this initiative a dual win for both students and the community.

Leveraging Newsletters for Demand Generation

A key takeaway from Erin’s marketing strategy is the innovative use of newsletters to drive demand and engagement. At Harris, they’ve successfully transitioned one of their topic-based newsletters into LinkedIn’s newsletter function, which saw a significant increase in subscribers compared to their traditional email campaigns. This shows the potential of leveraging platform-specific features for greater reach and engagement.

Widening the Entry Point for Graduate Programs

Erin is also focused on expanding the entry points into professional school programs. By targeting undergraduates in relevant fields like finance and education and introducing them early to the opportunities available at Harris, the school aims to create a wider funnel of interested candidates. This proactive approach ensures that students consider Harris not just during their final year of undergraduate study, but much earlier in their academic journey.

The Role of Rankings in Recruitment Strategy

Despite the contentious nature of school rankings among faculty, Erin acknowledges their importance in shaping public perception and aiding recruitment. Harris uses these rankings as part of a broader content strategy to build thought leadership and enhance their reputation, thus creating a virtuous cycle that feeds back into their demand generation efforts.

Wrapping Up

Erin Keane Scott’s approach combines traditional marketing wisdom with innovative new platforms and proactive outreach strategies. From leveraging LinkedIn for newsletters to creating real-world policy challenges, Harris School of Public Policy is at the forefront of modern higher ed marketing. As Erin says, it’s all about building the widest, most engaging top of the funnel to attract the best minds to public policy.


Read the transcription

Shiro:
Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast hosted by Concept 3 d. If you like our content, 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 thrilled to talk about something that this show is actually named after, which is creating demand, and specifically, we’re gonna be talking about creating demand for professional school programs. And for that, I’m very thrilled to have Erin Keane Scott join us today. She is the senior director of marketing at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Erin, welcome to the show. And can you also tell us a little bit about what you love about higher ed?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yes. Thanks, Shiro. I’m so happy to be here. What I love about working in higher ed is that you get to learn, and you’re learning from the best of the best. I’m a super curious person, and have loved being able to dive deep into many different subject matters and have access to lots of great minds. Love the life of the mind. It’s wonderful to be a a higher ed marketer.

Shiro:
That’s fantastic. Yeah. Always be learning. Right?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yes.

Shiro:
Okay. Can you also tell us a little bit about your your background and your current role really briefly?

Erin Keane Scott:
Sure. So I started my career off as a journalist and transitioned into working in higher ed marketing when I started at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in 2014. Did a brief stint in public radio and then returned to higher ed to work at the Harris School of Public Policy. And my role at Harris as senior director of marketing is much to do with brand stewardship as well as demand generation. So thinking about how we can attract students and build awareness among students starting as early as their early undergrad years to start considering some of the degree programs as an opportunity for them, to continue their career in public policy.

Shiro:
That’s fantastic. I I didn’t know about the radio. What were you doing when you were working in radio for a little bit?

Erin Keane Scott:
I was the director of marketing and communications, and strategic branding. I had a a pretty, intense title for 2 public radio stations in Pittsburgh, WESA and WYEP, Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting. So it was an interesting challenge to take on particularly, as I started there in 2019, and 2020 was such an intense news year. And the place where people listen to the radio most was a place where people weren’t spending a lot of time. That is the car. So interesting challenges around building audience and brand strategy during that time, but fascinating. I learned a lot.

Shiro:
Yeah. I’ve never heard of so was we don’t have to go too deep into this, but was your goal as a marketer to get more listeners listening to the radio?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yes. And engaging with the station, both of the stations. So it was tricky. It was a tricky pivot, and, bringing along a medium that is so deeply rooted in history into more digital listening and build into building more digital listening habits and digital engagement, was an interesting challenge both internally and working with our listeners.

Shiro:
Got it. And I’m throwing you a bit of a curveball, but is there anything you learned from that role that you translated back into higher ed in terms of, like, marketing tactics or strategies?

Erin Keane Scott:
Absolutely. I mean, I think that’s where I kind of got started in the idea of demand generation, which was creating demand for content outside of that. I’m in my car, and my habit is to turn to 913 every morning and listen to the, and listen to the radio to, how do we make appointment viewing for YouTube shows with our DJs? How do we find different programming and engaging ways to get people to to meet up with us online? How do we get folks to use their smart speakers as radios? All of these were kind of the kind of demand generation questions I was thinking about and building towards while I was working there, particularly in that context of a pandemic lockdown.

Shiro:
Yeah. That’s fascinating. I I love it when people bring principles from other facets of marketing and, you know, bring them into higher ed because I think you you can learn from a lot of other industries, and so that’s fantastic.

Erin Keane Scott:
Absolutely.

Shiro:
Can you also tell me a little bit about, Harris School of Public Policy? I know prior to our client, I didn’t know anything about this professional school. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Erin Keane Scott:
Sure. So Harris Public Policy offers a slate of professional degrees for folks who are interested in a deeper examination of the policies that undergird our daily life and interested in being the policy leaders who create, solid principles, data informed principles for how we move around in the world. So it can be from everything from public finance to education policy, to environmental policy, to technology and society.

Shiro:
Thank you.

Erin Keane Scott:
Of course.

Shiro:
Yeah. That that was a new one for me. It’s for sure. I’m wondering and and you’ve you just bought joined this professional school, somewhat recently in terms of higher ed. Can you tell me something interesting you’ve learned as an example, from being in this role about public policy?

Erin Keane Scott:
Sure. So I think the level of, granularity in public policy is really, really interesting. It’s so multidisciplinary. One thing that has been really exciting for me over the last 2 years is getting opportunity to launch the Harris Policy Innovation Challenge, which, is like a shark tank style competition for students at Harris Public Policy to engage with a pressing local issue. So last year, we had students tackle the problem of Chicago’s underfunded pension crisis. There’s, like, a $30,000,000,000 deficit on public pensions. So how can we address that, through various other revenue generating mechanisms? And it was so interesting to learn the different ideas that the students brought to the table, including one of the most popular, or I guess maybe not popular. One of the newsiest solutions was the idea of putting a toll on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

Erin Keane Scott:
It got the city all abuzz, so it was fun to watch, the media move around that and fun to see students engaging in a local policy issue, and I learned a lot more about public finance than I ever knew before.

Shiro:
Wow. That’s amazing. Did so did students or did you have, like, a board who voted on what policy they like the most? Like, how did that work?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. It was fantastic. We brought in a panel of experts from around the city and country in order to, evaluate 3 of the finalist proposals. They all pitched, and then the experts judge went back to decide who they felt the winner was. And the winner actually won $10,000 and had an opportunity to pitch their plan to a bunch of, city of Chicago officials and stakeholders at a follow on event. It was pretty cool.

Shiro:
Oh, that sounds really, like, both fun and actually very helpful for for the local community, which is amazing.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. It’s fascinating.

Shiro:
What’s the marketing lens on that? So, like, you got a lot of publicity locally for the Harris School Public Policy. Were able to capture, like, content with that too? Like, tell me your marketing strategy behind this.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. Absolutely. So, last year was the inaugural year, so it was a lot of explaining this to the students. But one of Harris’ most valuable aspects is that we’re a school who’s known for and really fulfills the promise for applied learning opportunities. So this is a huge tool in our toolkit for unpacking what exactly does applied learning look like at Harris. So, you know, it’s a recruitment tool. It’s a demand generation tool and then a city wide and community engagement tool. And the media strategy around it was really exciting to see too, like, the pickup around town.

Erin Keane Scott:
All of the finalists got to publish their pitches in Crane’s Chicago Business, which is a pretty major local publication, and then it got a lot of pickup across local media too. So some reputation building in there, some earned media opportunities, and really then capitalizing on that as a content opportunity. So we did video. We, you know, used all of those earned media hits as much as we could, and those have all come in really handy as we look to market this year’s challenge, which is all about creating a thriving downtown Chicago for the next 20 years.

Shiro:
That’s amazing. Are you gonna shift the the topic or the theme every year to keep it themes fresh? Okay.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. Exactly. That’s the idea is that, hopefully, we bring enough really viable solutions to bear for the city so that experts and members of the local government keep coming back for more.

Shiro:
Now this is such a good idea. I think I’ve I’ve talked to a few business schools, who have and haven’t been on the podcast, but I know as a professional school, like, MBA programming is enrollment’s been down a lot. Mhmm. And, you know, one thing that a lot of these schools I’ve talked to, one thing they preach is that, you know, this this program, this degree is gonna help you get you know, you’re it’s gonna help you move up a step in society. But, like, they’d something like this put together with that program would be so good because it would actually practice what you preach in terms of, you know, giving you a real life example of what you could be doing, after you graduate. And so, you know, I really like this, and I love that the same kind of concept could be applied to other, professional schools and programs.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. I think so. It’s an exciting it’s been an exciting evolution to watch it go from an idea to a real successful initiative.

Shiro:
Well, congratulations. I’m excited for the next year’s version. Thanks. You did mention demand a few times, just now. And I know on our previous call, you you said you consider yourself a demand gen and a brand marketer. Mhmm. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. Sure. So I think my, role at the Harris School of Public Policy and the role of my team is really to think about how we build the biggest, widest top of a funnel that we possibly can. So how do we build interest in the school and be stewards for the school’s reputation? So we might think about less obvious KPIs. We’re really looking at the engagement piece of things because we want people engaging with the Harris brand in order that they might, you know, 1 to 5 years from now, consider a degree from Harris. But even if they’re not a person who is in the typical demographic to matriculate at Harris, we want to be a resource for folks who are in the policy making industry, such that they come to rely on our brand enough to refer young potential graduate students to our programs, people who are interested in getting a part time degree to our programs. Yeah. That’s sort of that’s sort of the gist of it.

Erin Keane Scott:
It’s, like, really building brand, eminence, reputation, and looking for ways to bring folks into the fold.

Shiro:
Got it. Are there specific channels or tactics that have been working well from you for you in the last 2 years?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yes. Absolutely. We, are really excited about a slate of policy topic based newsletters that we’ve launched over the last year. We have 3 that we’ve launched and, those are growing. So it’s sort of a content marketing play, but something that’s really tactical that I’m excited about from this demand generation standpoint, but might be practical for other higher ed marketers is we actually ported one of our topic based newsletters, public money policy, from our email client into the LinkedIn newsletter function, and the number of subscribers we got in the 1st week blew our email, subscription campaign, like, out of the water. So with No way. Just organically. It was really impressive to see.

Erin Keane Scott:
So that’s something I’m looking forward to experimenting more with in terms of building visibility and creating demand.

Shiro:
And how does that work? I’ve actually I’ve I’ve pondered the idea of of starting the newsletter in LinkedIn. Like, do you just start the newsletter and, like, how do you, like, promote it outside of promoting it to your own emails?

Erin Keane Scott:
Sure. So that’s sort of the beautiful thing is that it promote LinkedIn automatically sends this newsletter, the promotion for this newsletter to the emails of everyone in your following. Top ten. So whereas we might not have the email of all 20,000 of our LinkedIn followers, LinkedIn certainly has their emails. So that distribution channel was huge in reaching a bunch of people in their inboxes and then in their social media feeds as well.

Shiro:
Yeah. I you’re getting me excited because I wanna try this channel a little bit more now. I know I’ve heard, like, mixed results, but it’s it’s good to hear. Like, obviously, like, not everything works for everyone, and so strong part of marketing is testing everything once or twice to see if it works for you.

Erin Keane Scott:
Exactly. I love the experimenting, side of things and kind of, that curiosity piece, like staying up on what’s new and what’s available in our various distribution channels. Particularly for those of us, you know, working in higher ed, we don’t always have huge budgets. So this is a really low barrier way to reach a bunch of people. TBD on the engagement side of things, with that newsletter, but I’m very curious to see how it progresses. This is just like a a this week win for us, but it’s been fun to see.

Shiro:
Oh, wow. Okay.

Erin Keane Scott:
So Yeah. The audience demographics and, just watch how people are engaging and subscribing to the newsletter.

Shiro:
Got it. Link LinkedIn newsletter. Okay. And in terms of the actual concept of your 3 newsletters that you have, do you write about, you know, at the at the national level, content that relates to this. Like, you have a team of writers, you work with your content team, and you get subscribers based on your your pieces that you write?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yes. Exactly. So we do sort of a twofold approach to building the audience base there. So the newsletters aggregate scholarship and earned media mentions from our faculty members, our research centers and labs over the course of, in the intervals between editions. So we publish 2 of our newsletters biweekly and one every week. And they cover topics spanning from really, really local based in Chicago to national. And the beautiful thing about being situated in a big city like Chicago is that often the things that we’re experiencing have lessons in them for folks across the country and world.

Shiro:
I’m I’m glad we’re talking about this because I think, you know, I was trying to I I don’t talk about email newsletters a lot, especially when I talk to undergraduate marketers or central comms marketers because I don’t think it’s it’s it’s as strong as a play. But when you reach that graduate level, like, I think this is actually a really strong content play, and I’m glad we’re talking about this because people are looking for that next step in education and, you know, they probably care a little bit less about brand and campus life and these things. Right? They’re they’re trying to look at outcomes of which they might get, and what better way to display that than research or studies coming out of the school program itself. Right?

Erin Keane Scott:
Exactly. That’s really it. And then, I mean, the opportunity to run, look alike marketing campaigns and retargeting campaigns with existing audiences, really abound to solidify that we are thought leaders in that space and that folks should come to us for good information about topics like, municipal finance. We have a great newsletter called not another politics newsletter that’s really just about the deep dive into political science. We have, like, preschool to PhD education policy experts working and teaching at University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. So it’s great to be able to push out that content that’s relevant to folks, across those career paths, Really?

Shiro:
Has Yeah. Has your, political science topic or newsletter caught like, is it getting a lot more subscribers considering this is a election year, or is it the inverse?

Erin Keane Scott:
It’s a pretty niche podcast. You have to be so wonky to be into it. Okay. So our audience numbers in that space are pretty level. I’ll be curious over the next several weeks, to see how things shift and change. But one of the hosts of that podcast, professor William Howell, is a pretty well known political scientist and oft, called upon by major news outlets. So I imagine that we’ll be starting to drum up some more eyes as things get closer and closer, but you really gotta be ready to nerd out about political science. It is totally devoid of any, like, opinions, actual party based politics, and is really about election policy, democracy, and, they talk a lot about the the number of folks in our country who are actually moderates and how we can get more moderate candidates into our electoral system.

Erin Keane Scott:
Mhmm.

Shiro:
What what is the podcast called? I just wanna give a quick shout out here.

Erin Keane Scott:
Sure. It’s not another politics podcast.

Shiro:
Not another not another politics podcast. Yep.

Erin Keane Scott:
And the newsletter is called not another politics newsletter.

Shiro:
Very cool. Yeah. Another thing we talked about previously is the the entryway into your graduate program or professional school is you’re trying to widen the gap a little bit or widen the entry point. So I know you mentioned, you know, you’re trying to, recruit more finance folks, graduate alternative for education. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Because I think that’s a really creative way to create new entry points into a graduate program.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. Exactly. Thank you for asking. I think that’s exactly it is trying to discover ways we can reach sophomore in college who’s studying education, but might be interested in more policy based, objectives that teach for that person who’s saying, I wanna go do Teach for America after school, and then next, you know, go get my MPP so that I can influence ed ed policy outcomes. Same thing, like a finance person who might be saying, like, I wanna be an analyst, but I am really interested in public policy. How do I shift gears from this MBA track to an MPP? So finding students who are not yet at the consideration phase of graduate school, period, in order to introduce this as a viable next step for them. Does that make sense?

Shiro:
And I think It really does.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. We’re thinking of tackling this in a number of different ways. It’s a pretty new strategic initiative. Certainly, these newsletters are a piece of the puzzle, but also how do we get experiences in front of these students? What, connections do our faculty members have with faculty around the country, and how can we get them to be presenting master classes virtually or in person with students in educate undergrad education classes, undergrad finance classes to not to share their expertise and talk about this possibility of a master’s in public policy degree. Does that make sense?

Shiro:
No. It completely does. And I I think I mentioned I was an environmental science major back when I was in college, and I I took a few policy classes, which helped me kinda understanding a little bit more, but, you know, not in any detail. But I’d imagine, like, if you were, like, an environmental science or policy oriented finance person and you wanted to make change versus work for, like, private equity, like, that’s a great route you could potentially go to. Right?

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah.

Shiro:
Because a lot of public policy does rely on financials. So, it kinda like it was a light bulb moment you told me, the other week about this.

Erin Keane Scott:
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I even think, to bring it really close to home. Like, my partner is a PhD material scientist and graduated from his PhD program to go work at the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Washington DC. So he immediately parlayed that expertise into policy work. And I’m sure if there had been some elements of policy analysis or or policy creation in his degree, he would have felt even more confident heading into that space. Or he might have been a person who we would catch early in his undergrad, engineering degree who had said, oh, actually, that’s a path that I would think I would like to take more than going down this research track.

Shiro:
Oh, this is fantastic. And, lastly, the last topic I wanted to cover is around school ranking. So I know, especially with, like, engineering schools, I’ve I’ve talked about this a few times, school rankings still are an old concept, but still extremely important to, the brand’s awareness as well as recruitment and enrollment? Like, what are your thoughts on that? How does that tie with the public policy space as well?

Erin Keane Scott:
I think this is an excellent question and a really ripe topic for digging into because I suspect that I’m not alone in higher ed, marketing and that, like, our faculty are so disinterested in these ratings. They don’t appreciate the methodology. They want us to ignore them. And we have audience research that shows us that this is a really important way for folks to understand who we are, what we do, and it’s an important, piece of their decision to, where to attend is based on these rankings. So it’s not something we can just ignore regardless of scientific methodology for creating the ranking system. So, Harris, the way we think about rankings is as a bonus to our additional content. The public policy school rankings get really granular into different topic areas. And I think part of our larger sort of demand generation strategy for really creating these vehicles like these email newsletters for thought leadership, it help us in those rankings and then help us be able to use where we are ranked strategically in recruitment marketing.

Shiro:
Okay. That makes sense. Now I was wondering what you meant by a contemplate for your ranking, but you’re tying in how you have all these different channels that you’ve created and how that actually influences your ranking on your perception to the market. So, no, this is really good. Well, awesome. I know we’re just at about time, Erin. I would love to learn where people our our listeners can reach you, learn more about what you’re doing, also what Harris School Public Policy is doing as well?

Erin Keane Scott:
Sure. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Erin Keene Scott. That’s Keene, k e a n e, like the band. And, I am not a super social media posting person in my private life, so you can see the interesting work that we’re doing, on Harris’ channels at Harris policy.

Shiro:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This is a new topic. I loved all the tactical, like, examples you provided us, and I think they’re gonna be really helpful for a professional school. So thank you again so much.

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