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Shiro Hatori
Welcome to the higher ed demand gen podcast helping higher education marketing leaders share knowledge about learning strategies and tactics that are relevant today. See what you can learn today by listening to one of our episodes. Hello, everyone, welcome to the higher ed dimension podcast hosted by concept 3d. If you like our content, please subscribe and follow us on whatever platform you’re listening to us, Apple, Spotify, Google. And if you’re on Spotify, or if you’re on Apple, please leave us a comment. I love to hear what you think about us. Today. We’re really excited. We’re live at ama poziom. In Chicago, it’s day two. And today, we’re I’m personally really excited to talk about the coach prime effect on University Advancement, especially with CU Boulder. So before that I have the perfect guest here today. Maria Kuntz, Director of creative communications and services in Advancement at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Welcome to the show.
Maria Kuntz
Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here and having this conversation.
Shiro Hatori
That’s great. I do love asking icebreakers all my guests. Great. And today we’re gonna make a specific AMA. So what is your favorite thing about this group? an AMA?
Maria Kuntz
Yeah, I mean, connecting with folks from all across the country doing this work is incredible. I mean, so many ideas, the energy, and really, I think just filled up, I’m filled up to look forward to going back to my team and bring in new ideas. There’s enough ideas to keep me busy for years. So it’s exciting.
Shiro Hatori
Yep. And I know we’re just talking about this, but I’m here as a vendor for a company, and not what the university but I went to the keynote last night with Marcus Collins. And I have so many I have like four bullet points of ideas that I want to try out in the future as well. So it’s been helpful for me as well. So
Maria Kuntz
yeah, I think I actually heard this from I’m pretty sure it’s Carrie Phillips from University of Arkansas, that I saw, I read that she recommended when you go to conferences like two, two and two. So it’s like two things that are longer term and strategic two things that are kind of like medium term, and one thing that you can implement sooner, so I think there’s couldn’t leave this conference being really overwhelmed by how much you could do. And it’s yes, ranging from like, okay, strategically, how can I approach I’m leading my team, to strategically how am I going to think about creative services and production or, you know, what’s our messaging and the brand? So it’s, there’s a lot so you have to be we have to, we have the opportunity to select, like, okay, what are the things that I’m gonna really focus on? So that way, it’s easier to take some action. That’s
Shiro Hatori
fantastic. Carrie Phillips shout out on the show as well. So I saw her yesterday, too, was great meeting her in person. Speaking along the same lines, are there any sessions that really stood out to you or any key takeaways that you’d like to share?
Maria Kuntz
And I love the session that Texas State University did today. And it was I think it’s Texas State, their acronym is Tx S T, and they just re, TX S T. Next, so they’ve like, completely re envisioned a brand. And they’ve completely re envisioned it as a lifestyle brand. With amazing acronyms. Like they’re doing interesting, limited run swag drops, they’ve like brought llamas to campus completely unexpected. And they’ve like really went deep and diving into their secondary color palette, and I just am so impressed with, you know, how they’ve transformed where you know, where they were three years ago to how they look and feel today is super exciting. So that was really inspiring.
Shiro Hatori
And then were they three years ago? What, um,
Maria Kuntz
I mean, they I don’t remember the exact numbers, but they said their enrollments are brand, like when they do their brand research and like recognition, certain marks are moving up in terms of them being a leader and a preferred school. And I think, you know, Texas is growing really fast. There are a lot of universities in that state, but I watched I was like, I want to go there. Like it just has a very different feel. So I think they’re really leading edge in what they’re doing.
Shiro Hatori
That’s fantastic. Okay. I need to look at the slides because yeah,
Maria Kuntz
definitely there. Look at them. Yeah,
Shiro Hatori
that’s great. Awesome. Can we let’s get started a little bit with telling us about your role. Holder.
Maria Kuntz
Yeah. I’m the director of creative communications and services for Advancement at University of Colorado Boulder. Advancement means that we’re overseeing all alumni and donor communications. And there’s a lot of work that happens collaboratively with partners across campus as well. So, you know, even working with Student Affairs and our commencement committee to really think about how are we transition mean existing students into being part of what we call the Forever buff family, you know, so that forever buff experienced that they’re connected for a lifetime? Yeah, I have a great team of creatives and writers and donor communication strategists. And we have a lot of fun. How big is your team? I have six people on my team, and part of a larger 15 person team, we have a couple. So my team is me plus six others. And we have a couple of students, two to three right now. And we’re going to add a student video team too. So we’re growing a little bit.
Shiro Hatori
Yeah, that’s great. What is your relationship like the central marketing team?
Maria Kuntz
Oh, it’s fantastic. I know, you spoke to Jennifer earlier. And I mean, we work together really well. So collaboration is a key University value. And I think it’s a personal value of mine relationship. You know, building, in my mind, like having that strong relationship makes the work possible. Like it’s very, it’s also very strategic to invest in those partnerships. And, you know, everyone has different push and pull factors and different things that their bosses are trying to accomplish. And so when we know each other know, we’re coming from that work is, it’s easier, it’s smoother, it’s more fun with better outcomes.
Shiro Hatori
That’s great to hear. Because I know, the typical answer is like, I want to be working with them more, but you don’t. Oh, my gosh,
Maria Kuntz
we were it’s incredible. Yeah, incredible the systems we have and the ways we lean into each other, so I couldn’t ask for a better connectivity there. Gotcha. That’s
Shiro Hatori
great. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So really excited to ask this question and get into this topic. Selfishly, because CU Boulder, University of Colorado Boulder is my alma mater. So go above was just up the game on this past Saturday, quite frankly, because I talked to you and Jennifer and I was got me so excited about the campus and the energy. And so I went to the game, and it was awesome. Unfortunately, we did lose.
Maria Kuntz
But that is the prime effect. Right? That’s it, you had a conversation, you’re excited. You want to be part of the magic and the possibility. And so I don’t know what you were planning previously, but you change your plans, and you made plans, and I was just coming here. You like hundreds of 1000s of other people have been doing the same thing for the last few months.
Shiro Hatori
It’s amazing. So love to ask, What has the coach prime effect been on advancement? That’s you? Yeah,
Maria Kuntz
we have seen a lot of really cool things happening at the university. And definitely within advancement, too. I’ll share a little bit on the university context, because I think it’s good to understand that, you know, advancement is serving alumni, and well we have certain channels, we manage our alums and our donors are also really following the channels that the university is managing. So just in terms of social growth, I touch base with my colleague, Noel Siebert, she’s Dr. Noel Siebert, she’s fantastic. Follow her if you don’t our net audience growth across all of our social channels. This in the past year is a it’s 107%. So we have 107. I might have the wrong number there. But I think it’s 107,000. net new followers. So maybe my percents wrong, but that many new followers across our four main platform, so Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, our impressions are up, we had 60 point 4 million more impressions. That was our net growth.
Shiro Hatori
16 million
Maria Kuntz
60 million 60 million impressions across. That’s more so it was like 89% growth. You know, that’s over a year engagements or 3.5 million more engagements. It’s like 80%, and video views. We had 167% growth. Wow. So it’s huge. It’s really huge. It’s like, people are really, really watching. They’re engaging. They’re following. So that’s been really exciting to see. And, you know, our social channels for alumni are growing, too. We’ve had great growth there. But I think, you know, one of the big things we see is you’re an alum, you were on campus a few days ago, and that’s part of the prime effect like that is part of advancements work. engagement. Engagement is so key. So we talk about having development officers and engagement officers. So who are the people we’re really nurturing the opportunities, the relationships, the ways to stay connected to this forever bus community. We had homecoming to two weekends ago. And our numbers were up 300% over last year of unique registrants. Wow. So campus was just so crazy busy. I mean, we every event grew. So we had a we have an event every year called buffs on tap. And we literally had to expand the footprint like two to three times but it had been in previous years because we knew we were going to have all of that traffic.
Shiro Hatori
Gotcha. Can you tell me a little bit more about what it means to register for me? Um, yeah,
Maria Kuntz
we Do a fairly a couple month long campaign like we launch homecoming like homecoming is coming. So start registering. So people, they register like, Hey, I’m coming, we’re really thoughtful about which markets we go into when so we know okay, if you’re out of state and you’re gonna plan travel, we let those folks know sooner, right? So getting registrations helps us understand, Okay, how many people do we think will come? Gotcha. So, you know, even we talked about the fact that maybe not everyone shows up, but the intention to say, I’m going to this event, that’s really powerful. That means they want to be there. And I think our numbers, it’s palpable on campus, we had easily two to three times more people than the prior years. And even if you look at pre pandemic, our numbers are way, way up, even from pre pandemic. So, like all universities, I think we had a dip 2020 Most people didn’t have homecoming, or maybe very small ones. 2021 still a bit of a recovery year. Last year, we were saying, Oh, cool. 2022 We were bigger than 2019. And 2023. Just like knock the socks off of all of that.
Shiro Hatori
That’s amazing. Yeah. I’m so curious to see the difference in numbers. I wonder if more alarms out of state are coming back? Oh, yes. Or, yeah, we
Maria Kuntz
have stories. I mean, it’s alarms coming from out of state is people who don’t even have a buff affiliation. Right. So, like, so empowered, and enthused and uplifted by the prime effect by the team by what the team is doing. And the messaging that they’re just they’re coming they haven’t previously been, you know, they don’t have that alumni connection. But they are part of the Forever box movement, that excitement that yeah, prime effect for sure. Which
Shiro Hatori
makes me think about our keynote last night about, like, creating movement, and a group associated to an identity. And I feel like, that’s what he’s done is he’s created an identity. Yes, movement with a group of people.
Maria Kuntz
I mean, that’s what I one of the things I’m thinking about taking back to my team and really thinking about okay, you know, I haven’t gotten the book yet. I’m going to, but Marcus Collins book for the culture. And I think the prime effect on campus right now, we see that they’re like, What is the identity? What is like, I want to get curious with our team, what is it that is connecting people? You know, I think some of this circumstantial in a positive way. Coach prime is bringing in a lot of people new and so they might not have the long history. But I’m really curious as to what is what is the core cultural? What are the core cultural elements of a forever bus? What ties people together? And then really start to think about how can we use that to inform our marketing?
Shiro Hatori
Well, yeah, sort of being redefined right now. So absolutely. Sure. Like you need you might need to Yeah, yeah.
Maria Kuntz
I mean, just take the McDonald’s exhibit from last night. Yeah, it sounds like, Okay, what’s your happy meal? And I was like, I was thinking, I was like, Okay, what’s your perfect forever buffet? You know, or what is what is it? What’s that prompt that people really lean into that could be used for admissions marketing could be used for alumni engagement? I think there’s a lot of possibilities. So
Shiro Hatori
yeah, I need you to walk by Fairfield. Or, yeah, what’s the norm? Norlin
Maria Kuntz
nonrequired norlane library? Norlin quad? Yeah, so like my two iconic zones of campus? And where would where would you eat like you would walk by norlane? Quad. So we’re going to start it right now. So okay, barren field Norland quad and give me like a food or culture moment from maybe off campus. That’s like a must do and Boulder
Shiro Hatori
probably go to the Hill for lunch? Sandwiches? I don’t know. The restaurants have moved around a lot. Yeah. I think yeah,
Maria Kuntz
this thing I would expect the sink turned 100 this year. So people are
Shiro Hatori
stronghold. Yeah, so definitely would include that. And some a summer off it would be going to Kenyan and ya know, by the river.
Maria Kuntz
Yeah. And if you’re a winter buff, then probably hitting the slopes. Exactly.
Shiro Hatori
Yeah. No, it really got my, my brain thinking last night, you know, yeah. About like, how I can improve our marketing outreach, and build these identities and associate certain parts. Like, maybe I show the map like Are you a buck and show this map and then move on to the next school lunch, you know, and show all their branding colors and say, Hey, are you a Cornhuskers? Right?
Maria Kuntz
I think this the fandom concept like that was you know, I think about fandom coming out of more like Comic Con and sort of fringe culture, but he was saying like, every what was fringe becomes nor like the norm the dominant culture. And so I think adopting that fandom, like how do we define our fandom and I think, even in advancement, marketing, alumni Hitting communications. You know, we try to reach everyone, right? I know our division is redefining this right now we’re saying listen, it doesn’t have to be mass everyone engagement, we who, who are the people we really need to focus on, because those are the fans, those are the ones who are gonna really have the impact of lifting the boat, like the all, you know, all boats rise together. And that’s what, that’s what the example was like, okay, McDonald’s could focus on the people who don’t like them, and then the haters, or they could just choose to focus on the people who really love them, and are passionate. And I think that is something we’re actively doing and advancement that’s coming from our Vice Chancellor Katie cut logic, and I connected some dots listening lesson was like, Oh, this is why we’re focusing. So we have to focus on our fans.
Shiro Hatori
You know, that’s really cool. I was thinking of like, the different subcultures that like, you know, majority subcultures that exist, from CU grads, and like, just start some ideas of core groups within CU, regardless of whether they’re a football fan or not, like, yeah, you can vote some engagement campaigns with alums with that. It’s great. It’s awesome. So the flip side of all of this is, not every school can get a unicorn. Like, Yeah, Coach prime, may not have the budget, right? And he’s also like, a one in a million. True. What have you learned from this experience that you can kind of takeaway I know, like, you can’t get ever, not everyone can get a coach prime. But what have you learned from this experience that applies to advancement that has been impactful, or you’d like to put into place?
Maria Kuntz
You know, one of the things I think just at the highest level thinking about being part of a team, and part of it a large team and all the different university teams who are looking at this opportunity. It’s like, how will we seize the moment the opportunity? How will we act nimbly, it’s like, act nimble, try things move quickly, you’re gonna have to be willing to be responsive to new opportunities that may only exist this one year, or might maybe will exist for a couple of years. But as much as I would love to say that, you know, Deion Sanders would be at CU, for five or 10 years, like realistically, it will probably be a handful of years. And we’ll have a new future. So it’s like, how do we tap into that? So I think the creativity being willing to try new things. So we did, we had an event, and we had a tailgate, we do a spring game. And the spring game sold out, which is spring game is basically a scrimmage against ourselves, and it never sells out and it sold out and it snowed. And we took our creative team over to an event, you know, as a social gathering and tailgate before the game. And we went with signs. And we had a videographer and a photographer and was like, Okay, we gotta get there. The excitement is really palpable. And so we had signs that were like, welcome, Coach prime or Go Buffs, so we could capture that excitement and kind of feed into the community. That’s not something we’ve ever done. So we had to see it, see the opportunity and just take action. And now we’ve got this great assets. They were used at homecoming. It was fun. That’s amazing. But yeah, you were asking me about, not everyone has a coach. Right? So I’m telling you like, oh, we had so much fun. I talked about this with some colleagues. And you know, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it since we talked. I think one of the key things is don’t compare, like, don’t be dissuaded or discouraged that you don’t have coach crime, right? That he’s an influencer. And there are these subcultures and tribes and campus affiliations, like find out who are those really influential people within the network. You know, if you’re doing student facing marketing, or prospective, find out who the student is that has 4000 followers, because people are listening to them. Or find the alum like, we definitely have some really vocal alums who are super proud and they’re always posting about forever boss. It’s like, how do you tap into those. And then one that we learned this year, was how we leverage Alumni Awards, you know, rather, University has amazing alums and alum stories. And so this year, we partnered with strategic relations, our partners in our main marketing office, and we just did extra coverage of the event we worked with. Some of our recipients have pretty high profile positions. One is a news anchor. One is a president of another university. So we were working with their PR teams to really amplify the coverage amplify the story. So I think, you know, how are you reached? Finding those people finding the advocate, the ambassador, and how are you strategically planning, marketing and communications solutions that amplify their existing power?
Shiro Hatori
That’s great. Yeah. One thing one key theme I’m hearing is collaboration.
Maria Kuntz
Yes, yes. It is a great Yeah, you can’t do it on your own. That’s
Shiro Hatori
awesome. And I know I actually spoke with Kate Young from Purdue is the host of this podcast two weeks ago, launched an official university podcast. Other schools and units within a pretty system have their own podcast. Yeah. But this is like the official podcast. And I think one thing they do really well is they have a really good connection with their advancement or alumni relations team and then also their faculty on campus. Yeah. And I think they’ve hit like 3 million views Wow. on their YouTube channel just this year. And really, they’re just highlighting stories on campus. Yeah, faculty, and also with belongs to have graduate. So
Maria Kuntz
yeah, I think I, this theme about right, leveraging the people who are essential. So University of Wisconsin Business School was presenting, and they had a conversation with the business school cmo and CTO, CIO, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Diversity Officer. And they had a really, really successful brand campaign. And they tapped in to alums and they say like, how are you intentionally working with those folks who have their own followings to then amplify so? You know, partnership branding? It’s, it’s great. It works. Yeah, yeah. No,
Shiro Hatori
I’m just thinking of, it’s kind of like, from an E commerce perspective, right. Like, when I buy anything off Amazon, like, ya know, the first place I go is down to the bottom, and I read reviews. Yeah. So it’s kind of like hearing from, in a different way hearing about experience from someone who’s consumed either brand or their education. Right.
Maria Kuntz
So instead of the institution always talking about you don’t want to talk about yourself, people want to hear like a real experience. So that’s why I think, hearing from students hearing from the lungs and not that it’s authentic, that we would never want someone to overstep or over attribute their success or their affinity in disingenuously to the university, but there is some affiliation. I think many people feel pride for their alma maters, and the opportunities that they’ve they’ve had and the success they’ve had. And so it’s also finding those cases where the passion and the authenticity are, are really genuine.
Shiro Hatori
And kind of along the same lines of this. Are you connecting alums in their stories and sharing them with Jennifer and her team? Or in our
Maria Kuntz
Yeah, yeah. So my team, part of the portfolio I oversee, is the university magazine. Yeah, it’s a Coloradan alumni magazine. And, you know, many, it’s just, it’s essentially the university magazine. And so we do have the opportunity. We work again, collaboratively, I have a council that helps advise on the magazine direction and strategy and like, what, how are we positioning certain stories? So we work all the way from like, across a year vision, like what are we trying to cover? How are we aligning to the university brand, but also then getting into stories and using that network to help us find really key influential alums with great stories, our college and school communicators, we have a whole way of working with them and specific pitch sessions. And then we in turn, make sure that they have that that info and great stories will pop, you know, they’ll do well in life.
Shiro Hatori
That’s great to hear. You’re already doing all these things. That’s amazing. Just adds more value on top of your car. And that’s great. So I also, I know that you had an interview with Deion Sanders. Yeah. And I read the interview. Yeah. What was that experience? Like talking to him? Anything you learned from him?
Maria Kuntz
Well, I’ll share a little bit about the getting to the interview, because I think that’s also valuable, goes back to how do you work as a team? And how do you work when you have these opportunities? So we had to be really nimble. And it was a big ask, you know, he has a massive team, and he’s very busy. And so we, you know, we worked for a few months in advance, like, made the request and had to be patient and like, work with the schedule. He was extremely gracious, you know, when the when it all came together, and it kind of came together, like, maybe it’s gonna be this time, maybe it’s gonna be that time and then in the end, you know, they were like, Hey, can you be here in 15 minutes, and I was like, I will be there. So you know, work ahead, be prepared, have the questions ready, he’d vetted everything, and I get to his office, and I swear, that whole whole floor feels like you’re walking into like your family’s house. It was palpable. Well, like there’s so much kindness and care in the whole environment. And then, you know, I got people kind of know this now from social media. There’s no shoes in his office. And so you know, you get to the door, you take your shoes off, you go in. He was kind of having like a chill moment. And I’m sure between a million other things. And he was just like, yeah, come on in, like, make yourself comfortable. I came home to my family. And I said, Whoa, I was like, he is so grounded. I was like, he’s so like, talking to him. You just, you’ll say people feel grounded. And I always say, like, you know, people feel like they have their feet on the ground. That’s the expression like oh, so and so like really has their feet on the ground. My experience with Coach Prime was that it felt like he had roots down way deep into the ground, like, to the core of the earth. So as a leader, myself, and as someone who has a team, and is always looking for influential people, like, you know, what are they doing it, I was really struck by his humility and his just how down to earth he is, and how mission driven he is and how focused Yeah, he’s just like I said, kind of approachable. And such a wonderful human being. It was a great moment, like, I will never forget that moment in my career that afternoon.
Shiro Hatori
I can feel tingles. Yeah. And I was
Maria Kuntz
I remember, like, when I feel nervous, I took a deep breath. And he just was so easy to talk to actually. And so I was getting ready to go. And I thought, Oh, should I ask for a photo? Is that weird? And I thought, well, if I don’t ask, I’ll never get one. And I asked him, like, Can I get a photo with you? He was like, Yeah, of course. And like, puts his arm around me. I mean, just, he’s a special person. That’s
Shiro Hatori
fantastic. Yeah, I’m gonna ask you for a photo up after this.
Maria Kuntz
I know Coach Frey can be issues.
Shiro Hatori
That’s great. Well, where can people find this interview? By the way? Oh, yeah,
Maria Kuntz
definitely go to colorado.edu forward slash Coloradan. Probably, if you Google like Coach crime interview boulder that would probably come up if you prefer to do that. Yeah, and actually get it I saw the other day that it even got picked up by Yahoo Sports Night. So it’s been cool to see how something like that, like, very unexpected or new. But there have been a handful of folks who’ve referenced it. And, and I’ve been told, you know, a lot of what was written about a lot of the stories, a lot of the coverage, even Rolling Stones coverage of coach crime was very like, observatory, like we interviewed, we followed we watch we’re commenting on his life. And it was really important for me within that interview to let like, ask the questions that I believe people wanted to know more about, but let him speak from his heart with his truth, and not try to editorialize about it.
Shiro Hatori
Right. I think the first thing you said to me in our introduction call is like, I’m merely a vessel. Yeah, he literally just said, right there.
Maria Kuntz
Yeah, that’s it. Um, uh, you know, people have stories. It’s an honor, that requires a lot of trust for people to share their stories with their institutions. And so I take that really seriously. And I want to always make sure to uplift people’s authentic experiences. And that when it goes to publish, whether that’s online, whether that’s in print, that they look at that and they read it, and they’re like, Yes, that’s me. Thank you.
Shiro Hatori
Fantastic. Yeah. We’re just about at time, I’m wondering if you know, our listeners want to follow up. See what you’re up to Maria. Yeah. may go to be personal. I can be. Yeah, University of Colorado. Definitely.
Maria Kuntz
Yeah. I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. So I’d say if you want to catch up with me, um, that’s the best place to find me. It’s like, you know, LinkedIn forward slash Maria, cuz not too many people have my name. I snag that so you can find me there. And, you know, reach out if you want to talk you want to, you know, have a call or just chat. I’m really open to connecting with
Shiro Hatori
folks. Well, thank you was amazing. having you.
Maria Kuntz
Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s
Shiro Hatori
been a fun conversation. So thank you honor. Thanks
Maria Kuntz
for inviting me.
Shiro Hatori
Great. Well, thank you, everyone. Thanks for joining.
