Emphasizing Collaboration and Community in Higher Ed Marketing
In this episode of Higher Ed Demand Gen, Shane Baglini, Senior Director of Marketing at Muhlenberg College, shares his insights on the significance of community within higher education, particularly in marketing. He appreciates the unique connection among higher ed professionals, pointing to board meetings and exchanges with colleagues that underscore the tight-knit nature of this community. This camaraderie plays a crucial role in facilitating effective collaborations and fostering a supportive network for marketing leaders.
Breaking Down Silos Without Centralizing
Shane delves into the concept of breaking down silos across campuses, emphasizing that it doesn’t necessarily mean centralization. He discusses how large institutions often operate in silos by necessity due to their size. The focus should be on fostering collaboration without centralizing all operations. Shane describes his podcast, Breaking Silos, which brings together different campus departments to discuss partnerships and collaborative initiatives, highlighting successes like Kent State’s student affairs and marketing collaboration on a mental health initiative.
Leveraging Technology to Address Enrollment Bottlenecks
At Muhlenberg College, Shane tackled a persistent enrollment challenge: the mid-funnel bottleneck in application completions. By implementing technology, they were able to pinpoint exactly where potential students stalled in the application process. This data-driven approach enabled them to justify the need for additional resources, like hiring an enrollment management expert, to improve conversion rates from applications to enrollments. The emphasis here is on using data to inform strategic decisions and enhance the student journey.
Strategic Marketing Aligned with Institutional Pillars
Shane underscores the importance of aligning marketing efforts with institutional strategic pillars, such as enrollment, reputation, and advancement. By focusing on these key areas, marketing teams can effectively prioritize resources and projects that align with the institution’s overarching goals. Establishing a strong relationship between marketing and other departments, including IT, is crucial to these efforts.
Insights from Breaking Silos Podcast
Through his Breaking Silos podcast, Shane has observed that the most successful collaborations stem from authentic relationships among cabinet-level leaders. He stresses the need for marketing to be a cabinet-level position to align more strategically with institutional goals. Additionally, he highlights successful partnerships, like the collaboration between CU Boulder’s advancement and social media teams, which led to substantial increases in first-time donors.
Read the transcription
Shiro [00:00:15]:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen Podcast hosted by Concept three d. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us on your podcast platforms. As always, I’m Shiro Hattori, your host today, and I’m very excited to talk about increasing applications and breaking silos across campus partnerships. For the conversation, I’m very thrilled to speak with the senior director of marketing at Muhlenberg College, Sheng Bagdolini. Welcome to the show.
Shane Baglini [00:00:44]:
Hey, Shiro. Thanks for having me.
Shiro [00:00:47]:
Awesome. And I do ask all of my guests this to start, as an icebreaker. Tell us what you love about higher ed, Shane.
Shane Baglini [00:00:53]:
Yeah. It’s a great question. It depends on the day, to be honest with you. Today, I think I’m most appreciative of the community of higher ed, especially higher ed marketing. And I’m saying that because I’ve had two, this morning, I had two board meetings with with a bunch of higher ed colleagues from around the industry. It’s good to connect with with people and, you know, in the new year and kind of regroup and and, you know, commiserate a little bit. And now I’m I’m happy to be on with you and another great colleague. So I would say I’m hap what the thing I value most in the current present moment is the community of higher ed.
Shiro [00:01:31]:
Yeah. Likewise. I’m I feel the same way. I’m trying to find some guests for a future presentation, and I just messaged a ton of people that have been on the podcast, yesterday, and everyone got back to me with their opinion. So I feel very grateful to, like, have this network. So I I completely agree. Well, you know what? Let’s let’s jump in, Shane. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your current role as well as a separate project that you’re working on, which is the breaking silos podcast?
Shane Baglini [00:02:00]:
Sure. Yeah. I’d love to. You you know, interestingly, I I probably have a a background like most. It’s not a straight line to higher ed. I started my career working in the sports industry. So I worked in college athletics, professional sports, Olympic sports, business development for sports properties. And, you know, it was, at one point, probably the the thing I thought I was gonna do forever.
Shane Baglini [00:02:22]:
I I loved it. But as those nights and weekends and eight eighty hour work weeks of that come with sports sports and sporting events wore on, I started to get run down pretty quickly. And so, I I was lucky enough to find my way into higher ed. I’ve been in higher ed for going on nine years now. It’ll be nine years this month, this January. And I’ve I’ve loved it. It’s it’s been it’s been so rewarding to see, you know, the impact that we could have on students, the literal, like, life changing impact that some of these students experience when they come to our institutions. And just being being able to connect students to to the possibilities of education has been has been really the the joy of a lifetime.
Shane Baglini [00:03:08]:
It’s really I wouldn’t trade it for anything and and meeting so many great colleagues. And so now at Muhlenberg, I am the senior director of marketing, as you said, and I’m overseeing a lot. I’m overseeing our our social and digital presence. I’m overseeing graduate and continuing ed marketing, so adult degree completion. I’m overseeing digital marketing, enrollment marketing, working closely with our undergrad colleagues on enrollment
Shiro [00:03:35]:
Mhmm.
Shane Baglini [00:03:35]:
And and, you know, other duties as a sign. And so, you know, like most, it’s a we’re a small private liberal arts institution, and we we’re, you know, we’re lean and outputting a lot of work. And so, you know, I work with a a great team doing great work, and and really, really enjoying kind of the full scale marketing approach that that we’ve implemented over the past couple of years.
Shiro [00:04:00]:
That’s amazing. And and can you tell us a little bit about the breaking silos podcast as well?
Shane Baglini [00:04:05]:
Yeah. So breaking silos, honestly, is something I never thought I would be doing. I never thought somebody would even reach out to me to host a podcast until one day I got a call from my my good friend Mallory over at Enrollify asking me just that, do you wanna host a podcast? And my my initial response was, I don’t know. Maybe. And so we we went back and forth on ideas, and and I just felt there was a real you know, one of the most one of the biggest pain points, I think, for higher ed in general, not just marketers, is the siloing that we experience on campus for for whatever reason. A lot of times, it’s a product of our own doing where we get in our own way. But I I just felt I wanted to have something to address that. And and so I wanted something that was a little bit of a different format.
Shane Baglini [00:04:50]:
We we started off having two guests from different parts of campus, one marketer, one non marketer to just talk about these different partnerships and and the common threads that go along with breaking silos. And so that was where the inspiration from the the podcast came. And, honestly, it was a session at AMA two years ago that that really spurred that idea about, it was at from from Kent State that a partnership between student affairs and marketing to to really launch a huge mental health awareness initiative. And that kind of was the light bulb moment that said, there’s more stories like this out there, and I I’d like to tell them.
Shane Baglini [00:05:24]:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. I I think it’s it’s very common for marketing in general in any industry to feel siloed off a little bit, especially when the the industry is led by a sales organization. But I think the siloing of marketing departments across its own company, across different marketing functions is a very unique one to higher ed just because the the sheer the sheer size of how big these organizations are. I mean, even at a smaller school like yours or other, regional schools, like, it’s still when you look at any other industry, it would be an enterprise size company. And so, yeah, I think it’s a very unique problem with the opportunity to solve in in higher ed.
Shane Baglini [00:06:07]:
Yeah. Definitely. And it you’re you’re right. It’s I mean, some schools, larger schools are siloed by necessity. They just can’t be centralized.
Shiro [00:06:14]:
Mhmm.
Shane Baglini [00:06:14]:
So it’s really that that’s what I mean by kind of it’s our own doing. Like, we have to work really hard to break those silos, and and we can’t fall back on the the the excuse of siloization because it’s it’s just a necessity. These, especially the, you know, these large land grant type universities. You can’t possibly centralize everybody, so you have to really be working together very closely, and that kind of starts from the top down.
Shiro [00:06:39]:
Yep. Yeah. I like that point. I think in in our conversation, I came to realization breaking silos doesn’t equal centralization. We wanna make that very clear because if you’re really, really large organization, some centralization is not probably the right answer. And so we wanna make that very firm statement that that does not equal centralization. I like that point, but we’ll get more into that later. Well, let’s talk about a little bit about, how you’ve been able to really work on the application rate and then increasing that and pinpointing in the funnel where people were, getting stuck.
Shiro [00:07:14]:
So, I’ll pass things over to you.
Shane Baglini [00:07:16]:
Yeah. So couple years ago, two years ago now, when I was solely overseeing graduate and continuing ed at Muhlenberg, we we essentially didn’t have an enrollment management function. We were, we were kind of a mini college within the college. We had a vice president. We had deans. We had financial aid. We had student accounts and billing and all that kind of stuff, all those student service aspects, but we didn’t have a full time only focused on enrollment management function. It was our advisers were doing it.
Shane Baglini [00:07:47]:
Our deans were doing it. So to that end, we were looking at tools and platforms that would help us kind of make up for that, and and we were doing a lot with automation. We ended up implementing element four fifty one as a as a CRM after a pretty lengthy RFP process. And the reason we did that is because at the time, they they were just kind of starting out on the AI track. And so they offered us a a really nice balance of all the admissions functions that we needed coupled with all the marketing functions that I needed to be effective in what we were trying to do. We were very digital marketing lead gen focused operation, and really kind of building out robust complex digital marketing strategies. And so I needed a way to move people through the funnel that didn’t require a ton of manpower, for lack of a better term. And so with that, you can only do so much with automation.
Shane Baglini [00:08:45]:
We were talking just before before the we we hit record here that there still has to be a human element of of enrolling students and moving them through the funnel. Mhmm. And and we were finding that our bread and butter was once students got connected to an adviser or a dean or or a representative from Muhlenberg’s graduate and continuing ed area, the likelihood of them enrolling went up significantly. And that that’s really our calling card. The per like, this the personalized touch that we give the students is is the differentiator for us. So I needed a way to to make that happen easier and to make that happen sooner. And so that’s where the CRM came in. One of the reasons we chose the CRM is because out of the box, I suddenly had, with a couple of clicks of a button, full funnel view of of the enrollment funnel, whereas we did not we didn’t have that before.
Shane Baglini [00:09:41]:
We would have had to build it or or partner with somebody to build it. And so I was able to start tracking where the holes were, and the hole for us was in the kind of the mid funnel. So we were doing really well on generating prospects, suspects, you know, kind of top of the funnel. And then we were doing really well at once somebody started an application, getting them to submit, getting them to deposit, and then enroll and eventually, you know, matriculate into an alum. The the whole was app starts. So we we were really struggling through no fault of our own. It’s just it’s what it’s the area where we most needed the human element. And so we, you know, we did things like AI chatbots and the like, and and sort of made up some ground.
Shane Baglini [00:10:26]:
Enrollment was steadying, but we knew that we needed the human the human touch. And so what we did with the data was identify that gap and really strategically sit down and say, it you know, create having somebody in this position would make the most impact, not only for us, but it would allow our advisers to have higher impact conversations.
Shiro [00:10:50]:
Mhmm. It
Shane Baglini [00:10:51]:
would allow students to get get their questions answered more easily. And to be fair, it would also give us an enrollment management expert because I’m not. I I I’m a marketer by trade who was, you know, kind of having to do enrollment management because that that was just the the way we were set up. And so last summer, as of last summer, we we’ve got that enrollment management person on board, and and we saw some really good results in the fall and hoping to see in fall of twenty four and hoping to see some really good results as we as we move forward and we have kind of that that person on the front lines that can respond to students, especially adult students and graduate students whose needs are are a lot different than undergraduate students on the traditional side of things and often a lot more complex and and complicated to handle. And so having that that person that they can go to and ask a question and get the question answered is is really paramount for that that population.
Shiro [00:11:51]:
Yeah. That’s great. And I remember to our prior conversation, you mentioned that you always kinda knew about this bottleneck, but having the technology implemented helped provide the actual data you needed to go back to your team, to your, your senior team and be like, hey. Here’s the data on our bottleneck. We could get we could do x amount better if we had another headcount in this role a specified role. And I think that technology helped, helped you foster that conversation with data, and then also probably do some of the outreach at more at scale as well. Right?
Shane Baglini [00:12:30]:
Definitely. It it did, and and it you’re right. The having the number on paper made all the difference. Because, right, we knew it was there, but we didn’t know, like, to the extent. Because we like I said, enrollment was was doing okay. We we were we were doing okay from an enrollment standpoint. But once we saw kind of the breakdown of where people were falling out of comms flows, where they were stopping in the funnel, it it really concretely drove it home that to say that we we have to have this discussion about how do we how do we fill this gap in the mid funnel that we’re experiencing, and and how do we do it quickly? Because, you know, enrollment is the name of the game at at almost every school I could think of.
Shiro [00:13:09]:
Mhmm.
Shane Baglini [00:13:10]:
And so, you know, maximizing enrollment requires nimble resources. And and to Muellenberg’s credit and and the leadership of the college, they were they were willing to hear that story.
Shiro [00:13:22]:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. I think my dig takeaway from this is, like, from your story is, like, really trying to figure out and pinpoint the bottlenecks of the student journey first and then figure out what action you need to take next. Maybe you are having issues with top of funnel, So, maybe you need that’s there. You need to figure out more. Maybe you do need to increase conversion rates. What other advice would you give to others in regarding student journey?
Shane Baglini [00:13:49]:
Yeah. You know, I think that’s great advice. The the advice I would would say would be to to if whatever data you have, don’t make any conclusions without looking at that data. Because, you know, we could have looked at the funnel and saw that people weren’t finishing applications, and and that would’ve that would’ve meant, okay. We’ve gotta pair down our application or do something differently.
Shiro [00:14:12]:
Mhmm.
Shane Baglini [00:14:12]:
We could’ve seen that people weren’t depositing, and it would cause us to look at our deposit. You know, how much we were asking for a deposit or in the case of, like, continuing Ed, is a deposit necessary? Can people swing it, you know, in in in this economy? But the assumption that we had was correct in this in this case. That might not always be the case for everybody. So that’s why, you know, it’s that’s why the full funnel view, if you’re lucky enough to have it or if you have the resources to create it, is so vital because it you can really pinpoint throughout that student journey where the hole is and how you can how you can fill it. So it might be easier than others. You know? You you might not be able to get the staffing. You may not be able to get the position approved. But there are other things that you can do in terms of, you know, more emails at that stage or or, you know, having other people assigned to make phone calls and things like that if you’re if you’re kinda short staffed.
Shane Baglini [00:15:08]:
So my advice would be to to get that full picture, and don’t make any any decisions based on your assumptions until you’ve kind of in-depth reviewed that that full funnel picture.
Shiro [00:15:20]:
That’s fantastic. Thank you. I know, regarding, you know, this even this whole project or campaign about optimizing the student journey and, figuring out how to get more people to finish the application process, was all tied to your strategic plan at a higher level. Right? So can you tell us a little bit more about what those pillars are and how that actually translates into campaigns like you worked on before or what you’re working on today?
Shane Baglini [00:15:49]:
Yeah. So so this has been this has been something I’ve implemented or been a part of implementing at three institutions now. Every every institution I worked at is how do we focus our work on the things that will impact the institution the most? Because, you know, marketing gets a lot of requests, and we can’t not every request is created equally. And so for me, having policies and procedures in place that indicate what marketing will place higher importance on is really important. But not just having it in writing, making sure that we’re kinda socializing it to our colleagues, going around and having the conversations that say, here’s the work that will make the most impact for the institution. That doesn’t mean we can’t help you in a in this specific instance. It just means we might be have to help you in a different way. So having resources for them to kind of self-service do their own work.
Shane Baglini [00:16:49]:
But, you know, at at each school, it’s been different pillars, usually enrollment, usually advancement, usually reputation. Those are kind of the three key pillars that I’ve encountered in my career. And, you know, we we’ve gone as far as to say when we get a project that comes in, we ask ourselves in a meeting, which of those pillars does it impact and who is the audience that we’re we’re targeting? And that really determines the the kind of level of urgency that we’ll put on on the project. At my previous institution, we we worked we totally revamped the way we did work with the president’s office and said, we have limited resources. And if these if project requests are not related to at that institution, it was enrollment, reputation, and advancement, then we we’ve gotta come up with an alternative because we had, you know, we had one graphic designer and one social person and one web person. So we were stretched in and getting a lot of requests. And so for me, I get this question pretty often actually when just talking to colleagues. Like, how do we focus our work? Usually, the easiest answer is tie it right to your strategic plan.
Shane Baglini [00:17:57]:
Whatever the business initiatives are of the institution, that’s the easiest way to focus your work, and that’s the way that will make the most sense for your colleagues when you’re trying to change up
Shiro [00:18:06]:
Mhmm.
Shane Baglini [00:18:07]:
The way that they’ve been working. But also not then, like, leaving them hanging out dry. You’ve gotta have a solution for them in the event that you can’t help. So boilerplates, templates, you know, lockdown word documents if they need it, that they can customize a a brochure or pamphlet or something like that. But it’s really important, and this is where the breaking silos thing kinda comes into play. It’s really important to, as marketers, to be building goodwill before making these kind of decisions, whether it’s a a rebrand, a website redesign, or changing up the way that, you know, your team and department is working. If you haven’t done the work to create relationships and the first time that people are hearing from you is you telling them no. We I can’t work on your project because we’re doing something different now.
Shane Baglini [00:19:00]:
It’s it’s gonna be a struggle, and people are not gonna take that well. So so you really need to, as a marketer, kind of build those relationships early and often, and then don’t stop building those relationships because people leave, there’s turnover, and you’ve gotta build that relationship over again with the next person. And so part of being a marketer is being a politician. You you’ve gotta go around campus and have coffee and have lunch because we’re probably the department that gets the most requests from internal colleagues. You know? No no other no other department is is getting work requests. Maybe IT. I I should say IT is probably up there. But, it’s really important for us to have those relationships and build that goodwill so that when stuff like this comes about, we’ve we’ve built trust, and people believe in what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.
Shiro [00:19:55]:
No. That’s great. That’s a I I thought of a thirty, sixty, ninety for a marketing leader in higher ed or any marketer in in any industry is like, yeah, becoming a politician in your first thirty, sixty days is is big.
Shane Baglini [00:20:08]:
Yeah. I mean, you should, you should be honestly, you should be in your office less than you are, like, having coffee with other people that you’re gonna be working with. It’s just so important to to build those relationships.
Shiro [00:20:20]:
That couldn’t create anymore. That’s that’s fantastic. Well, I know you mentioned a little bit about breaking the silos, breaking making these connections, becoming a politician. Can you tell us a little bit more about the journey of hosting, breaking silos, and, maybe some key takeaways you’ve learned throughout the year, with with your guests or with with speaking with your guests?
Shane Baglini [00:20:42]:
Yeah. It’s been a great journey. It’s I I just launched, we just dropped episode 22 a couple this week. So, you know, we’re up we’re up in the twenties for episodes. It’s it’s been great. I mean, it’s I’ve talked to so many people that I, you know, considered friends before, new colleagues that I now consider friends and and have close relationships with. So for me, it’s been it’s been really cool to build those those relationships and, you know, you run into people at conferences or or what whatever it might be and you, you know, you have common ground right away to to to build a deeper connection with them. So it’s been great.
Shane Baglini [00:21:21]:
It’s been a lot of fun. It’s for me, it’s it’s maybe you feel the same. It’s like free professional development sometimes because Mhmm. Like, I’ll get, you know, forty five minutes with one on one with Terry Flannery or Jamie Hunter, somebody like that. And it’s like, yeah. Tell me everything that you know so I can so I can be smarter about my job. So that’s been a a really nice benefit for me too. The honestly, the bit there’s two biggest takeaways that I’ve that I’ve over the past year seen.
Shane Baglini [00:21:50]:
Takeaway number one, and this is probably gonna be preaching to the choir for a lot of your listeners, that marketing has to be a cabinet level position. The the schools that collaborate the best and function the most effectively from a marketing standpoint have a cabinet level representation of their marketing team. The schools that don’t are functioning significantly less efficiently. So that’s number one. And, you know, the person that’s probably articulated that the best on an episode of breaking silos is Terry Flannery, as you might imagine. The importance of marketing strategic kind of leadership in more places than just promoting the school and the brand of the institution. Mhmm.
Shiro [00:22:35]:
But
Shane Baglini [00:22:36]:
it things like setting price points and and and being involved in those conversations, facilities, you know, how we’re offering programs, are we offering them online, asynchronous? Marketing has insights into all of these different things, and if they’re not involved from the strategic level of those conversations and we’re just kind of, you know, down the pike getting told, okay. Here’s how we’re offering these programs now. Go out and go out and sell it without any input. You’re setting yourself up for failures. That’s number one. Number two is that those cabinet level relationships, the best examples I’ve seen are the examples of colleagues that are legitimate for like, friends. Like, you can tell from the first time you talk to them, these people get along well. They work well together.
Shane Baglini [00:23:25]:
They go out for lunch. They go out for drinks or coffee or whatever it might be. Those are the those are the schools that I see in practice even after our conversation performing the best. Because if if the collaboration at the cabinet level is strained or not effective, it will ultimately trickle down to the departments that those individuals operate. You know, the the probably the two most key partnerships I’ve I’ve come across hosting the show is obviously marketing and enrollment. That’s gonna be an obvious one. And then marketing and IT. You know, IT is probably the most underrated partner on any campus.
Shane Baglini [00:24:09]:
None of us could do what we do without IT. Like, we if there’s no Wi Fi that day, nobody’s getting any work done. So, you know, from the website to CRMs to data management, I think I think marketing, you know, VP of marketing and CIO relationship is super important. But it’s a it’s been it’s been the people that get along well and are legitimately good close colleagues. That trickles down to their department. So those those are two of the kind of themes that I’ve seen come about.
Shane Baglini [00:24:38]:
No. That’s me. I mean, I’ve I’ve talked about it on this podcast with many guests about getting someone at the cabinet or executive level many, many times. I I completely believe in this too because I think marketers have an increasing expectation and responsibility for really having more ownership in in enrollment marketing and enrollment brand reputation, all these things that really impact the revenue of the institution. And and, therefore, like, they need a voice because if the ones that are being accounted for more for things that they used to not be, they should have more representation as well. So
Shane Baglini [00:25:18]:
Agreed. And and, you know, Terry said it said it best. Our our importance as marketers and communicators was never more obvious than during COVID. And so maintaining that momentum as an industry is really important, and I think, you know, for campus leaders to to see that importance and remember it because we try to block COVID out of our brains, but remembering the importance that marketing communications had during that time will will serve institutions really well.
Shane Baglini [00:25:47]:
Yeah. I I like this example with the IT and and marketing collab too. Like, I know that some marketing teams have a webmaster in the marketing seat that is, like, adjacent with the IT team. So they’re, like, often responsible for managing just the front end website, but anything back end is, like, controlled by IT. But, we’d love to dig a little deeper on this one. My assumption is that, like, I think someone on the podcast said your website, your higher ed institutional website is the most visited building on campus by far, and therefore, it’s the most important asset to the entire brand, to the institution Yeah. Because, like, the physical buildings that get a lot of attraction and and eyeballs, like, it’s very clear, like, that’s very important. But if you were to imagine your website, a digital asset like that is actually the most important building on campus, like, there’s a lot of value that comes with that.
Shiro [00:26:46]:
Right? But I don’t know. What’s your take on it?
Shane Baglini [00:26:49]:
Yeah. No. I think you’re exactly right. I it it is you know, we I we we we know our websites are important, but we don’t act that way, if that makes sense. We know our websites are important, but we don’t allocate the budget to make them where what they need to be. And they end up, in a lot of cases at different schools, they end up just being the catchall. We’re we’re trying to serve everybody at all times, internal, external. All stakeholders have a representation on the website.
Shane Baglini [00:27:22]:
In reality, it’s the biggest admissions driver we have. And it you know, I am very hard line stance about higher ed websites. They are for prospective students and families, and then current students and donors. And if you’re if you’re redesigning a website or trying to revamp your website, if you’re not willing to kind of be all in on that that concept, then you’re setting yourself up for failure again. You you you just simply cannot answer every question for every audience on the website. So you so again, I mean, this goes back to, again, your business priorities. If your number one priority as an institution is enrollment and retention, then you need to build your website as such. If your number one priority is is alumni and giving, then that should be the focus of your website.
Shane Baglini [00:28:14]:
Most of the time, it’s it’s it’s it’s the biggest admissions tool that we have. We don’t treat it that way. We we think that when when students come to our website, they’re more interested in our brand than they are. We we assume that they care about our brand. What they care about is do you offer the program that I have? And then they’ll continue to interact with us, and that’s where we can serve them brand content and what it feels like to be at the school. Right. If we don’t have their program, they’re gonna move on. So if we’re not answering that question first and foremost for prospective students on our website, then we’ve got work to do.
Shane Baglini [00:28:50]:
But it it really takes a cultural mindset at your institution to say, we are going to be an admissions focused operation. And and to that end, our website is gonna be that as well. Because like you said, it’s it’s it’s the number one tool that we have as it’s it’s more important than brand, it’s more important than athletics, it’s more important than anything. It’s the way that students are interacting with us, but we don’t treat it as such. And so I hope I hope in the coming years, higher ed kinda leans into this idea that these especially with the enrollment cliff happening, these tools need to be optimized to maximize enrollment, or or we’re missing out, and we’re we’re kinda putting ourselves behind the eight ball.
Shiro [00:29:34]:
Yeah. %. I I have so many comments on this one, but I think the one I the one thing I’ll say is, like, think about your institutional goals and how they align with the the digital channel that you’re spending them. Like, in I think in most cases, your website is not the best channel for reputation, and therefore, if reputation is even in your pillars, like, think of what the better channel for that would be. Yeah. Unless you’re, like, in MIT or somewhere. Right?
Shane Baglini [00:29:57]:
Right. But
Shiro [00:29:58]:
yeah. Okay. Well, moving on, let’s talk about some examples. You you mentioned a little bit about your podcast and couple of guests and forming some what would maybe could be considered unusual partnerships across campus. I think we’re talking about my alma mater, CU Boulder a little bit here, but, yeah, can you tell us a little bit about their story?
Shane Baglini [00:30:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. They’re they really stick out, and, I think a a former guest on your podcast, Maria Kuntz, was a guest on mine along with Noel Siebert, who’s the director of social at CU Boulder for for the flagship accounts, Maria’s in advancement. And and the topic of the episode was a giving day. It was it was, Buff’s all in giving day at at CU Boulder. And the story we were wanted to tell was year over year progress that happened really purely because of closer collaboration between Maria and Noel. The first year of this initiative, they were it was you know, it was a collaborative approach to an extent, but there was there was definitely improvement to be had. So Maria and Noel partnered really closely together with with campus communicators and made this more of an integrated effort.
Shane Baglini [00:31:07]:
And, the the results were were crazy, like like, 75 plus percent increase in first time donors. That’s the that’s, like, the biggest stat that’s come out of the show for me. That’s the most, like, mind blowing stat that I’ve heard. And and you’re right. It is you know, you you probably you mentioned it at the start here. Breaking silos is not about centralization. Breaking silos is about collaborating across departments. And so in this case, advancement and, you know, kind of central Marcom social media partnering together on a on a giving day in which, you know, they utilize more of the flagship channels.
Speaker D [00:31:46]:
They got athletics more involved. They did a lot of things that increase the profile of this event, and their their results were pretty were pretty astounding. The other one that jumps to mind off off the top of my head is University of Rochester in terms of, like, unique partnerships. This episode was about an AI task force at University of Rochester led by Brian Piper, who’s their director of content strategy and, Megan Crawford, who’s the who leads marketing for University of Rochester Medicine. And so that’s a that’s an interesting partnership to lead an AI task force. But I recommend people if you if you’re if you’re looking to kinda get AI off the ground at your institution, recommend listening to that episode because the way Brian and Megan and University of Rochester specifically were addressing AI was just so thoughtful and so deliberate, you know, things like ethical considerations and having IT involved put closely, having different offices around campus, but also showcasing the importance of university leadership buy in to this type of effort. They had buy in from the heads of both of their areas, cabinet, president, you know, all of the things that you would think of that would lead to a good process, and it’s not a surprise with with knowing what I know about Brian. But if you’re if you’re somebody out there listening and saying, how do I you know, I I’m using AI myself.
Shane Baglini [00:33:13]:
How do I get this off the ground at an institutional level? Would recommend listening to that episode.
Shiro [00:33:20]:
Oh, that’s great. And I I just looked it up. It’s episode 11. For anyone looking, just search episode 11, breaking silos, and you’ll find this episode. My big two two from our conversation, Shane, is that I need to grab a coffee with a department at at Concept three d that I don’t usually talk to. Just Yeah. Just to have a little chitchat, just to see, you know, what’s there because I think that’s where a lot of these opportunities come from. So I just Yeah.
Shane Baglini [00:33:42]:
And, you know, it’s a great idea. You’d be surprised. Like, we we are we’re embarking on a website redesign at at Muhlberg. And over the summer, my colleague and I did a bunch of listening sessions around campus, and we ended up going to people’s staff meetings. But this the college life, student life, staff meeting encompass everything. The religious life, athletics, you know, advising student life, residence life. The relationships that came out of that one meeting have been exponentially helpful for us in terms of, you know, putting faces to names and knowing where to go to people to collaborate on certain messages, going out on social or going out on the website and make sure that, you know, our language is correct and we’re, you know, we’re being inclusive and and communicating thoughtfully and empathetically. It’s just been so helpful for for so many reasons other than just the website redesign.
Shane Baglini [00:34:33]:
So so, yeah, I I can’t recommend it enough to just go out and and have those conversations with people around campus.
Shiro [00:34:40]:
Well, I think that’s a great spot for a wrap up here. Thank you so much, Shane, for all your insights. I’m wondering where our guests can connect with you afterwards.
Shane Baglini [00:34:48]:
Yeah. You can you can find me on LinkedIn at, Shane Baglini. You can find me on Blue Sky. That’s that’s kinda new. Blue Sky, it’s kind of replaced higher ed marketing Twitter, so that’s been fun. But those are the two places. And you could you could email shoot me an email, shanebaglini@muhleberg.edu. I would love to connect.
Shiro [00:35:06]:
And don’t forget to check out the breaking silos podcast as well.
Shane Baglini [00:35:10]:
Yes. Please do.
Shiro [00:35:10]:
Shane’s Thanks for
Shane Baglini [00:35:11]:
the plug.
Shiro [00:35:12]:
Well, thank you, Shane, so much. It’s been awesome. Really enjoyed our conversation. I look forward to networking with you in the future.
Shane Baglini [00:35:19]:
Yeah. Likewise, Cheryl. Thanks for having me.
