The Unique Audience of UA Little Rock
Meghan Milliorn shares her passion for higher education rooted in her experience at UA Little Rock, a university with a notably diverse student body. With an average student age of 24 and many students being parents, working adults, and even grandparents, the campus dynamic is vibrant and unique. Seeing these non-traditional students succeed and transform their lives through education is her ultimate reward.
A Peek into the Role of a Digital Strategist
Meghan has climbed the ranks at UA Little Rock over the last 15 years, eventually becoming the Director of Digital Strategy. She now leads a six-person web team that includes developers, content specialists, and a new social media manager. Meghan stresses the importance of a website as the digital front door of the university, driving home the idea that the site is the most visited ‘building’ on campus.
A Key Takeaway from AMA: Parent Partnership
One significant insight from the recent AMA conference was the evolving dynamic between parents and their Gen Alpha children, especially in decision-making for college. Unlike previous generations, parents are now partners in their children’s educational journey. This shift, possibly accelerated by the pandemic, emphasizes the need for higher ed marketers to tailor content and events more inclusively toward parents.
Aligning the Strategic Plan with the Website Redesign
To align UA Little Rock’s strategic plan with its website redesign, Meghan advocated for high-level buy-in by making a compelling proposal to the university’s chancellor. Involvement in the strategic planning committee gave her firsthand insight into the university’s priorities, such as student success and support systems. Armed with this knowledge, Meghan could ensure the new website accurately represents these priorities.
Mistakes to Avoid in Digital Strategy
Meghan highlights the importance of linking digital marketing campaigns to relevant, up-to-date landing pages. Poorly executed CTAs can lose prospective students quickly. Ensuring mobile-friendly and accessible content right from the start is another crucial aspect Meghan’s team has focused on in their redesign process.
The Anticipation of UA Little Rock’s New Website
Set to launch in February, UA Little Rock’s new website promises enhanced functionality, mobile responsiveness, and robust accessibility. Meghan is optimistic about the iterative nature of maintaining a living website, continually refining it based on user feedback and performance data.
Read the transcription
Shiro [00:00:14]:
Hello, everyone. 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. As always, I’m Shiro La Torre, your host. And today, I’m very excited to talk about aligning your strategic plan to your website redesign. And for that conversation, I’m thrilled to have Megan Millorin join us. She’s the director of digital strategy at UA Little Rock. Megan, welcome to the show.
Meghan Milliorn [00:00:44]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Shiro [00:00:47]:
I do like to ask all my guests this as well, which is please tell us what you love about higher ed.
Meghan Milliorn [00:00:52]:
Okay. So at our university, we serve a really diverse audience. You know, our our average student age is about 24. So my favorite thing is seeing our students go through their time here and then graduate because a lot of our students are parents, they are working adults, we have grandparents that are graduating that finally got their degree, so it’s just kind of seeing those special unique unique cases of people that worked really hard to get their degree and just see how it’s really gonna change their life and change their family’s lives.
Shiro [00:01:25]:
I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting. Yeah. I thought it was a primarily undergrad, like, at a high school program, so that’s that’s really unique.
Meghan Milliorn [00:01:32]:
Yeah.
Shiro [00:01:34]:
Well, great. I know we got a chance to meet at AMA last week, which was really good. We got to meet in person. I really enjoyed that. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background and your role as well?
Meghan Milliorn [00:01:47]:
Yeah. So I’ve been at the university working for a little over 15 years. I I got my undergrad here actually. I did come fresh out of high school like a traditional student, and then later after graduation came back and started working in the communications and marketing office. And I have literally worked my way up, and now I am managing our web team. We’ve got 6 full time people, and it’s a great team. We’re in central communications, so the whole office is about 12 people. And we just we serve all kinds of, you know, all the departments, organizations, different colleges, and our university, and, it’s a really great team to be a part of.
Shiro [00:02:29]:
That’s amazing. Can you can you tell me a little bit more about your role? Like, you said you have 6 FTE roles, like, kind of what each person owns. This is something that’s new to me as well.
Meghan Milliorn [00:02:38]:
Yeah. So we’ve got 2 developers. We’ve got a a front end developer and a back end developer. So right now, they are really busy building our website, because we’re in the final stages of our redesign, and we have a full time content person, a, you know, web content specialist, and she helps me a lot. So she was instrumental in our content audits that we did, over the past couple years. She edits, updates, so she’s just super valuable for what I’m doing. And we have a web analyst, so she oversees our Google Analytics, and she also works, kind of monitors the, you know, the she monitors the ads, our ad campaigns, so she works with digital marketing a lot. And then we have a social media person.
Meghan Milliorn [00:03:26]:
So she’s part of our web team. We just were able to hire that new position this year. So we have a full time person that oversees the university’s social media channels.
Shiro [00:03:36]:
I like that the the website is kinda like the fundamental north star, and everything trickles down into that. I really like that, the layout. I think it’s very unique. So and, I mean, I’m a big proponent that your website is the most active building on campus. I know it’s a digital building, but it’s the most visited building in on campus by far. So Yeah. I think everything should be structured around it. That’s great.
Shiro [00:04:02]:
Yeah. Well, speaking of AMA, I know we got to meet in person. I wanted to ask you, what is one key takeaway you you found or learned about, at AMA last week?
Meghan Milliorn [00:04:13]:
You know, there were several sessions that all talked about how important parent communication is, and they really talked about how the relationship between parents and this next generation, this Gen Alpha. That relationship is really more of a partnership. Parents are really valuing their kids’ opinions and they want their kids’ input and it’s a shift. It’s not it’s a it’s different from probably the real relationship we had with our parents. And so because of that, as marketers, we have to think about what are we saying to parents. Are we even talking to parents? Because maybe we haven’t been, but we need to, and we need to have, like, custom messaging that’s focused on what parents wanna know, because they’re really trying to help their kids make decisions about college. They’re not just leaving it up to the kids, which may have been how it was for my experience or your experience, but now that relationship is much more of kind of a 5050 relationship. So I thought that was really interesting because I heard that in probably 3 sessions at least.
Shiro [00:05:19]:
Yeah. That’s really fascinating. I I remember I didn’t just ask you this. I asked several people, like, you know, what was your biggest takeaway from day 1, day 2? And I heard this several times, so it’s definitely not just you, you know, taking this away. So this is very interesting. Did any of the sessions explain, like, why do you think the shift has happened at all?
Meghan Milliorn [00:05:38]:
Yeah. There was one session that said, you know, if you think back to COVID 2020, which for next fall when this when this generation is starting college, that will be 5 years ago. And if you think back during that time, these kids were at their kitchen tables and their teacher was their mother or father in the kitchen, And it just kind of changed the relationship in families because parents were the teachers, they were the coach, they were the classmates, they were, you know, coworkers with each other, and it just kind of changed that relationship because we were all we are physically so much closer, but it just kind of made the emotional connection probably a little bit stronger. And I I thought that was really interesting that they brought up that perhaps the pandemic is part of the contributing factors of this shift. Now I think personally maybe some of it is also that, you know, parents now are maybe wanting to have a little bit more of a connection and close bond with their kids which maybe they didn’t have with their own parents. So it’s kind of a a chance to do things a little bit differently.
Shiro [00:06:42]:
Yeah. That’s that’s super fascinating. And I know you just, you know, walked away with this last week, but what are, like, some of the ways that you think are better or easier or more efficient at communicating to parents? Like, I think maybe, like, Facebook is a better channel for it, but I’m just curious if you have any ideas.
Meghan Milliorn [00:07:00]:
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that that, you know, social media is still important for parents, but also getting parents to come to in person events on your campus so it’s not just something that maybe the student needs to come like with their school, which is so valuable, but it’s really important to think about getting the parents here too so that they can see your campus, they can feel that it’s safe for their child to come there, you know, they can think, yeah. I can picture my son or daughter here. So that was one of the ways of talking about in person messaging and then or in person events and then for, like, social media content, thinking about changing the language a little bit, like, making it more focused on the parent, like, here are some things that your your student or your child should know as they’re getting ready for college. This is what they need to know for move in day and kind of making sure the messaging is for the parent, and that makes them feel really involved and, like, they know what’s going to happen because parents really wanna know what can they expect out of this experience for their child.
Shiro [00:08:04]:
Yeah. This is super fascinating. I wonder how this is gonna evolve. I know I’ve had a few guests talk about marketing to parents a lot more, but, I I definitely haven’t seen it or heard it at this scale. So I’m very excited to see what comes next for sure. Well, switching gears a little bit on our, our topic here today, which is around website redesigning. Right? And I believe that your next redesign is actually, had a partnership at the strategic planning level. So can you tell me a little bit more about that, how that happened, and, the genesis of that?
Meghan Milliorn [00:08:38]:
Yeah. So we officially kicked off our redesign back in in 2020 during COVID, and it was something we wanted to do. We wanted to do the redesign, but we knew that it had to get buy in from the top. Like, that was the only way it was really gonna be successful. So, I put together a proposal of of why this needed to happen. You know? I showed examples of what our website looks like right now and what redesigned websites at other universities look like to kind of contrast, like, this is where we are, but this is where we could be. And I I had a presentation, with our chancellor to our chancellor and her cabinet, and I think that was really helpful for them to to see why this is so important. And our chancellor was all on board for it.
Meghan Milliorn [00:09:29]:
She gave us the green light. She supported the project, and we have been able to to provide updates to her periodically so that she can kind of see what the progress is. I think if you’re not a web person and you’re telling somebody what’s going on, it may have less of an impact if you can show them what’s going on. So I use lots of screenshots and would send, emails to her or my boss may give her a presentation to kind of show this is what we’re working on right now and this is how it’s gonna look on your phone so that she could really visualize the impact that this these new web designs will have and this new functionality on the website. And as far as the strategic plan, you know, she it was time for a new strategic plan and our chance to put together a committee of people to help put it together And I was asked to be on that committee, as the representative from communications and marketing, and then later my my boss was able to join. And it was really great to be in that room with some of these university key players and to get to hear what was so important to our chancellor for the university, like, where she saw things going. And I think having a seat at the table was just super important and I I’m very very appreciative of that because as I would hear things during these, you know, planning meetings, I was able to take it back to my web team and be like, hey, this is where things are going, you know, the chancellor is placing a very strong emphasis on student success and the student experience and research and so we were very intentional and we’re able to think about the content on a university home page and make sure it all ties back to the strategic plan.
Shiro [00:11:20]:
That I mean, this is amazing. I we talk about getting marketing at the seat at the executive table often, but, like, this is, like, the next step of that. Right? It’s, like, even talking about a website, which going back to the start of our conversation is the most important building or most visited asset on your in your entire campus, both digitally and physically. So it it I mean, it makes so much sense. I’m I’m curious. What parts of the strategic plan are being distilled into parts of your website? I’d love to learn more. And I know we’re not at launch yet, but what are you trying to do?
Meghan Milliorn [00:11:52]:
So we have a big focus on, you know, student success and student support. So we’re using designs and imagery and text that’s talking about to come to school here, you’re gonna have access to all these internship connections because we’re in the capital city and we have such great relationships with a lot of, you know, businesses and industries here thanks to our faculty, so you’re gonna have really great internships, you’re gonna have hands on experiences, and we’re we’re using some storytelling on our homepage, so student spotlight of real students who have done these things and here you can kind of read about it, you can explore some of the research that our undergrads and graduate students are doing, and we’re kind of calling out some of the student support resources that we have on campus, you know, things like we have an incredible tutoring and learning center over in our library that’s open to all students. They can just come and get help with all kinds of, you know, subjects any time of year. It’s not just during, like, finals. We have really good support for students who are parents, so we have, like, funding through child care connections. We have, support from mental health counseling that students can get. We just wanna be sure that we show students that we’re gonna support all parts of you, you know, not just, you know, going to books and and getting a laptop and going to class. You know, your mental health is really important to us.
Meghan Milliorn [00:13:16]:
You know, highlighting student organizations that focus on diverse students, So no matter who you are, you’re gonna have a place here. You know, we have all kinds of resources and support for no matter who you are as a student.
Shiro [00:13:29]:
Got it. And I I believe in our previous call, you you, mentioned that serving the primary audience, which is AKA the your prospective students, is part of that strategic plan. So all of that content you just shared is, like, in the lens of, like, making students also really interested because they see students and their work the good work they’re doing and students support that, that UA Little Rock offers. Is it is that right?
Meghan Milliorn [00:13:56]:
Yes. You know, when we first started our redesign project, we started with stakeholder interviews and some surveys, and we were able to talk to a lot of our, you know, deans and vice chancellors and people that are over these areas. And we we asked them, who do you think is our website’s primary audience? And, thankfully, they all they all understood that incoming prospective student is our primary audience. We have secondary audiences that are very important. We know current students, faculty, staff, alumni, community. But when it comes to, like, our home page and some of those landing pages, the prospective student is the primary audience. And I think if anybody down the road maybe asks why we made this decision or why we made that decision, we’ll be able to point back to that, the fact that, unanimously, we are serving our incoming students, and that that ties back to that strategic plan. You know? That’s this is why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Meghan Milliorn [00:14:56]:
And like you said, you know, the website’s the most important building. We’ve we’ve told everybody, the website is the most important marketing tool. You know? So you want all parts of it to make sure you are sharing who the what the university is, their brand, what how we are different from other universities.
Shiro [00:15:14]:
Oh, this is great. I’m excited to see what happens, when it goes live. It Yeah. Kind of the flip side of all this, you’ve been doing a ton of work with this redesign. Right? It’s a multiyear project. You’ve probably learned a lot over the last couple years as you’ve worked with maybe your your data person, right, especially on figuring out what was working, what wasn’t. Did you do you have any recommendations for common mistakes that you’ve seen throughout the the few years you’ve been trying to work on this redesign?
Meghan Milliorn [00:15:39]:
I think making sure that, you know, if you’re running digital marketing ads and you’ve got a CTA on them, we’re making sure that it’s going to the right place. Sometimes it’s really easy to say, hey. We’re gonna have a a a cam a marketing campaign for these majors, and then the ad looks beautiful and everybody likes it and sometimes it’s an afterthought of where’s the ad gonna go and then you find out it’s linking to some page that is old and outdated and not mobile friendly and that that can be a huge detriment to that student or that parent that clicks on the ad and they end up going to your website and they’re like, you know, and they leave. So you’ve lost somebody. So I think a mistake that people make is just not thinking through their whole marketing campaign. And then when you look at where ads are linking, is it providing updated information and content, and then can that person do anything on that page? Like, are you wanting them to fill out a form? Are you wanting them to watch, like, a 32nd video and learn more about your program? Are you wanting them to sign up for a campus tour? So making that action really easy for them, you know, making sure if you have a a grab a form that it’s not super long because they’re not gonna wanna fill out something with, like, 32 fields on it. You know, just get that key information that you need, then they can fill it out and go on the rest of their rest of their day. So that’s something that we are really excited about with the new site as that is we’ve made our primary CTAs.
Meghan Milliorn [00:17:13]:
They’re in our global footer, and so no matter what page you’re gonna be on, you’ll see those things. And and that was something that our enrollment management people were really excited about, so we’re making it very easy to request more information or schedule a tour or, even apply.
Shiro [00:17:30]:
Yeah. That’s amazing. And I know next steps. Right? Next steps is a huge key component. The data side of this, I’d imagine you can even if you’re, you know, wondering where to get started, if you feel like you’re getting a lot of exits, you could probably look at this report and look at your most track traffic pages and look at what your exit rate on that page is and start there too. Right?
Meghan Milliorn [00:17:52]:
Yeah. Analytics are you you have to be able to look at those, and they just tell a whole story that you may not be aware of.
Shiro [00:18:00]:
Do and I know you mentioned campus tours. Is that a big part of your, like, overall student journey and, funnel in in terms of marketing?
Meghan Milliorn [00:18:08]:
It is. Yeah. You know, we’ve just found that if we can get somebody to campus, they are much more likely to apply for admission and enroll. We’ve started recently even offering tours in Spanish, so our Spanish speaking community can come and get a tour that is just for them because we we serve a large audience of Spanish speaking students, and so we wanna make sure that they feel just as welcome. So we’re trying to, you know, do things like that that are maybe setting us up setting us apart from other universities nearby.
Shiro [00:18:42]:
Yeah. And I I went to a multicultural marketing session, AMA, and and, like, their thing was, like, don’t just invite the Spanish speaking students, but invite their parents and their Yes. And their grandparents and and and everything. So that kind of messaging brings the whole crew together, which is, like I think one of the things I learned.
Meghan Milliorn [00:18:59]:
Yeah. We did a a video recently on social media just talking about the tour, and it was all in Spanish, and part of the language was about you and your family. Come come check out our campus because we know that that’s such an important support system, so we want everybody to come and check it out together.
Shiro [00:19:19]:
Oh, that’s great. That’s great. And just kinda super high level, I know there’s a ton of work that goes into a redesign. Is there, like, 1 or 2 things that you’re personally really excited about with the website?
Meghan Milliorn [00:19:31]:
I’m just I’m excited about all of it. It looks so much better. I’m excited about the functionality. One thing that’s been really important for us is to make sure it is mobile friendly on every device size. We’ve had a limitation in that currently. So, yes, you can use our website on your phone currently, but you may not be able to fill out a form as well or things are just crowded. So having that ability to access all the pages that you need on your phone is really important. And, also, we’ve had a really, really big focus on web accessibility.
Meghan Milliorn [00:20:05]:
So we’re making sure that there have been things on our current site that we haven’t been able to fix for accessibility reasons that it’s just baked into the theme. And with the new site, we’re building everything to make sure it is accessible from the very beginning. So that’s that’s just kind of a huge, like, personal thing that I think our team is really proud of.
Shiro [00:20:27]:
That’s amazing. Yeah. I I I love the mention of accessibility. I know, you know, at Concept 3 d, we’re really passionate about accessibility as well. And given I think there’s a new DOJ ruling on accessibility, depending on your institutional size Mhmm. It won’t come into effect till maybe 2020, end of 2025 or 2026. But I know there’s there’s definitely a need for websites and web tools to be more digitally accessible. So I love that you really emphasized and focused on that.
Shiro [00:20:53]:
And, of course, mobile first. Right? All all of our own data says mobile is always the majority now. It wasn’t always the case, but it definitely is now.
Meghan Milliorn [00:21:02]:
Yes.
Shiro [00:21:05]:
Well, great. Thank you so much for joining today. I think we’re just at about time. I’m wondering where our listeners could connect with you or, you know, your website so when they can see the re relaunch. Yeah.
Meghan Milliorn [00:21:16]:
Yeah. I mean, you can definitely find me on LinkedIn. I’m there. We’re our goal is to launch in February, so we’re on track right now. It’s crazy that we’re already in the end of November. But, yeah, our website is ualr.edu. So come check us out early next spring and and let me know what you think. One thing we keep in mind is that the website is a living, tool, and so I’m sure that there’ll be things that we kind of tweak and adjust over the next year.
Meghan Milliorn [00:21:48]:
But that’s exciting because we get to do that. You know? We get to see what’s working and what maybe we need to, make a little update on, but it’s gonna be great. I mean, we’re really looking forward to it.
Shiro [00:21:59]:
It’s amazing. I am looking forward to it as well. Well, thank you so much for joining. It was a pleasure to have you.
Meghan Milliorn [00:22:04]:
Thank you so much for having me.
