Episode 83: Building A Sense of Belonging for Prospective Students with Kate Coffman

logo of higher ed demand gen podcast

Kate’s LinkedIn

Read the transcription

Shiro Hatori
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the higher ed demand gen podcast hosted by concept 3d. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple, Google wherever you listen to us. And if you’re listening on Apple specifically, please drop us a comment. We’d love to hear what you think about the show. My name is Shiro Tory, and I will be your host today. And I’m really looking forward to talking about facet frustrations and the responses for it, as well as building a sense of belonging for students. And for the conversation. I’m very excited to have Kate Kauffman join us today. She is the Associate Vice President for University Marketing and enrollment strategy at the University of Indianapolis. Welcome to the show, Kate.

Kate Coffman
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Shiro Hatori
It’s great to have you. And I do ask all my guests this question. Please tell me what you love about higher ed.

Kate Coffman
For me, it’s the people and I fell in love with higher ed as a student. And knew immediately I was going to change my major and go to grad school in it and then have worked in it and for 25 years. So I love the students. I love my colleagues. And I think it just takes a really unique person to work in higher ed and I enjoy spending my time with them.

Shiro Hatori
That’s fantastic. Thanks for sharing that and you know about your role a little bit. Can you tell us by telling? Can you start by telling us a little bit about what you do?

Kate Coffman
Sure. Sure. You’re breaking up on my screen. Are you clear on yours?

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, um, can you hear me? All right, still? I

Kate Coffman
can hear you all right. Yeah. So I just want to I know you have to write that down. I’m sorry.

Shiro Hatori
Oh, no, you’re all good. Yeah, sometimes I’m I’m honestly having struggles with this platform recording platform. It’s been a bit laggy. But is as long as the audio is going through, it’s getting recorded regardless. So if the audio starts cutting out, please let me know. But if my screen freezes a little bit, it should be fine. Okay, cool. All right, I’ll get started with awesome. Thank you so much for telling us about you know, what you love about higher ed, can you tell us a little bit more about what you are doing at your role right now?

Kate Coffman
Sure. So I am responsible for basically building the funnel as it relates to enrollment. So making outreach to prospective students, freshmen, sophomore, juniors, and then kind of converting those to applicants and eventually deposits. And then in addition to that, I oversee the team that handles all University Marketing. So everything from kind of brand awareness, advancement, alumni work, to even just campus events that are happening. Oh,

Shiro Hatori
wow. Okay, how big is your team? By the way, that’s a different hat.

Kate Coffman
So the marketing and communications team is about 11 people. I don’t oversee the day to day admissions operation. So counselors and all that don’t report to me.

Shiro Hatori
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much. So you know a little bit about enrollment in the current climate, right. There’s a lot of discussions and frustrations going around with the FAFSA delays. So can you tell us a little bit about what’s going on and how you’re adjusting and what you’re hearing back from your students or staff or faculty? Sure.

Kate Coffman
So for us, in Indiana, we would normally be doing packaging, probably around December, our, our state has very generous state financial aid. So once they kind of release information to us, we can start packaging. So we’re definitely several months behind where we would normally be. And I think it’s impacting deposits, because students just don’t know yet. You know, higher ed is such an investment. And we want to make sure it’s a manageable investment. So if they don’t have the information to make that decision, then they shouldn’t, because we also don’t want a bunch of melt. So for those of us who are not hired experts melt is when someone pays a deposit and then withdraws that deposit and decides to go elsewhere or not go to school. So for us, we’re trying to find ways to kind of help connect with families and help them make their decision about the institution. So is continuing with admitted student days and pushing visits, so that once that financial information is available, they’re kind of ready to commit. Here in Indiana, we have half the number of FAFSA is filed that we did this time last year, which is really concerning, because we actually have a new state law that our high school seniors have to file a FAFSA or a waiver. So the fact that we’re seeing numbers so far behind really worries me about students being able to meet that high school graduation requirement, but also get the information they need to make college affordable. And our college going numbers have been down since the pandemic so it’s really critical. Well, not all of our students come from Indiana, you know, I really want to see our state succeed. So we really want to get those students filing their FAFSA is.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, that makes sense. I read an article from university business that I believe as a whole it’s like 58% less than So, as we’re submitted, but I know there’s going to be probably some catch up as more people are, you know, because the deadline has been extended at least till March. For now, this is recorded on February 21. And so I’m hoping you know, there’s going to be some catch up on that. 50%. But yeah, definitely hearing that. What does it mean? Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Kate Coffman
I didn’t say I’m actually a parent of a college student. And it was okay. It was actually easier to file the FAFSA, like, once I got it to work, you know, took a while to get in and the platform to be stable. But I think once the government works out these bugs, it’s actually going to be a better tool for families. Right. But so many people are just struggling with the fact that they didn’t answer something correctly. So they couldn’t put in the parent income, or there’s just errors that are causing, like no student aid index to be calculated, the student aid index is replacing that what was formerly the estimated family contribution. So I think there’s just a ton of people in limbo to that their form is just incorrect, and they can’t fix it.

Shiro Hatori
Got it? Well, that’s good to hear. I, you know, as a parent, that the filing process was easier, because I think, ultimately, that’s what they’re trying to achieve. Yes, you know, minus the two ladies that a

Kate Coffman
technical tsunami.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, hopefully next year, they have, you know, you know, or next year, two years from now they have all the bugs figured out, but that’s good, is a marketing professional and leader who supports and works closely in hand in hand with enrollment team, like what sorts of things are you doing to help communicate all these adjustments in you know, these timelines that keep changing and information that keeps changing.

Kate Coffman
So we’ve we’ve tried to communicate to both our internal and our external audiences to make sure because you know, this impacts current students as well as prospective students. So we’ve done some campus messages to faculty, staff, and students about the delays, what they should expect when packages will come out. And then we’ve been doing an email communication to parents and students about the delays. And we’re even in the process of filming a video of like, once your package is ready, here’s what you should be looking for. So that’ll be coming out shortly to our prospective students, but just trying to help them navigate the process know that they can call us for help. We also have a pretty robust college goal Sunday program in our state still, which are, it was last weekend, but it’s location, or I’m sorry, it’s actually the 25th this this weekend. It’s 40 spots around the state where students can get help from financial aid professionals filling out their FAFSA. So we’ve been trying to drive people to that event as well to get help.

Shiro Hatori
Gotcha. And is there anything you’re doing in terms of like surveying students prospective or current or families around like, you know, where they’re struggling or having issues with at all,

Kate Coffman
we haven’t know, mostly only more a small enough school that typically they call and our financial aid, people just kind of walk them through and help, whatever they’re struggling with?

Shiro Hatori
That’s great. So it sounds like just increased communication. Empathy.

Kate Coffman
Communication is key through all of this. I did see the federal government released an email now to anyone who had filed with sort of next steps, which is seem to be a new thing the federal government had done that came out just recently.

Shiro Hatori
That’s awesome. Okay. Are you shifting any events on campus going on? Are you increasing events? Are you just anything going on on campus due to this?

Kate Coffman
Yeah, we are, we’re so we’re really focused on our orientation events, you know, because students might be deciding later than typical, we have added some orientation dates later in the summer. And we’re going to release those as needed kind of based on when we can start packaging and kind of how that impacts the deposit deadline. We also were one of the first schools in the state to move our deposit deadline, we moved it to June 1, just to be just to give families more time, depending on when we’ll finally be able to get financial aid packages out we’re hearing late March, early April. But it’s just such a moving target that we you know, we want to be cognizant of, of giving families, the resources and the time they need. And then our Admitted Student day, we did not move that. But we are we’re trying to make our Saturdays and things more available for more visits as people kind of get their financial aid packages.

Shiro Hatori
Gotcha. And this is for in campus, in person visits in person

Kate Coffman
visits. Yeah, we still do some virtual visits. And last night, we had our first virtual event on another platform I can talk about in a minute, but that went really well. So we’re trying to just trying to do some things like that to help engage students.

Shiro Hatori
Oh, that’s really cool. Yeah, let’s let’s jump in. What’s What’s this virtual event that you just launched?

Kate Coffman
So we use the platform Zimi, which is we joined to really build belonging among our prospective students. So it’s, it’s kind of like a Slack or a, you know, an online platform for students to connect. And so last night, we had a trivia night we had 90 Students attend, which for our first event was really great and We did University of Indianapolis and then Indianapolis, the city trivia and they could win prizes. But it’s really a chance for the students just to start to get to know each other and get to know our current students. For us, it’s really important that we want students to develop a sense of belonging during the admission process. And I think belonging is kind of a new buzzword, but an old concept like we, you know, we used to always talk about finding your fit or finding your community well, belonging is the same thing. But, you know, how do we help students realize this is the right place for them, that there’s going to be people here to support them that they’re going to feel part of the community, and if we can make those connections during the admissions process, that are authentic, you know, and that are going to continue once they’re really here, I think it helps makes that transition. You know, for many of the students right now, they went virtual, when they were in like middle school, their first year of high school might have been online hybrid. So they got really accustomed to the virtual world. But they also have indicated that they really want in person things that that it’s important to them to be able to sort of make that choice, they don’t want to be forced one way or the other. So having virtual events gives them that opportunity. But also, they know that these are people that they can meet in person. So I’ve seen things like they’ll ask each other who’s going to Admitted Student day. And then last year, after Admitted Student day, they were all kind of staying connected virtually, but they had met in person. And so it was cool to see these virtual friendships, get enhanced by an in person event, and then continue virtually. And then when they were here, welcome week, they already had this kind of like group that they knew and could hang out with and had similar interests. So we’re in and you don’t necessarily have to use a platform like Xenium, and Instagram works. They’re not Facebook, so Facebook’s not going to work. But you know, finding, like where they are, that you can, you know, help them plug in. So that’s, that’s where we’re spending a lot of our time and really trying to use our current students and other students just to influence each other in a really natural organic way. Like we’re not forcing it there. Because if we force it, it won’t be real, and they won’t be happy here and they won’t retain. So we’re trying to help them find their people. And hopefully, yeah, that’s a good fit.

Shiro Hatori
That’s awesome. It sounds like events in the maybe increased events and type of events is one of your strategies you’re using in order to build that sense of belonging.

Kate Coffman
And it’s funny because we actually we, we reduced our number of in person events, because we wanted to have more people at them, like we felt it was better to have kind of a stronger presence than a lot of options. Because when you have a lot of events with smaller attendance, they’re not necessarily getting that enthusiasm. So I think overall, we actually have less in person events, but we’re increasing our virtual.

Shiro Hatori
That’s awesome. That’s great. Are there any other types of maybe you just started this up, but types of events that you said trivia that you’ve seen, that gets a lot of good engagement with students?

Kate Coffman
So our Admitted Student day, we try to incorporate academic things and the things they want to know in the tour, but we also try to just give them a lot of time to connect with each other and do some silly things. So this year, we have a live mascot, Grady. And so this year, our theme is kind of a take off of Taylor Swift error tour, but it’s about Grady and so there’s you know, they’re gonna do silly things like make friendship bracelets, and you know, some things that will be more interesting to males, but it’s a chance for them just to connect with each other and spend some time you not formally in programming so that they can see like are these people I want to spend the next four years of my life with and we find that that’s while they want to know about their major and they want you to know about financial aid and their parents have specific questions. Those chance to connect with each other really helps sell the institution.

Shiro Hatori
I have a bit of a cough here. Give me one second.

Oh, man. Oh, it just comes in waves. Give me one second.

Cool, where were we? So we just talked about events and just kind of Yep. Awesome. Great. So let’s move on to the next topic around returning to pass brand new routes and how that’s improved your messaging. Okay. Cool. I’ll ask the question. Give me one second. Sure. All right. Okay. So I know in our previous conversation, on our intro call, we talked about, you know, what’s really working today at your university. And one interesting thing I learned was, you don’t always have to recreate the wheel. And I know that you actually looked at past branding, routes and campaigns you’ve ran at the university and how you’ve implemented that same messaging to target your ideal students. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure.

Kate Coffman
So we held some focus groups last year after I took this role and moved from a different role at the university into the a VP of marketing. And we, when we were talking to my students, they, they started talking about how important the relationships they had on our campus were. And, you know, oftentimes, when we try to sell a small, small school, we focus on small classes, or things that just don’t really resonate with the students. And hearing these, you know, these really powerful stories of faculty who connected them to an alumni who got them an internship, or, you know, having a conversation with a faculty member, and they recommended a specific class. And that led to a major change really resonated with me, and one of my staff members who had been here a while was like, you know, we actually used to focus on that we had this thing we called molecules, where we kind of had like, a drawing of an atom with, you know, student in the center, and like, who they were all connected to. And so we decided we didn’t want to go back to that look necessarily, like that felt a little dated, but the concept of the sort of people and connecting them, and we, you know, we saw this almost like army behind the student, helping them be successful here. And, and so we’re really trying to focus on who, who are the relationships here on campus? What, what differentiates us because of those relationships? What are the outcomes that result because of those relationships, and helping families going through the prospective student process? See, you know, the benefit of a small school, which, you know, we’re a midsize university, but I think we function, especially at the undergrad level, like a small school. You know, what are the benefits of that? Because our big competitors are our state schools, right, like Indiana has incredibly affordable state schools. So, but you’re going to be in a freshman math class with 300 people, you know, it’s, you’re not always going to have the same professor, because you might have a graduate student. And so, you know, when you have someone two or three times during your college career, the relationship you can build with that, as a professor leads to research opportunity leads to mentoring leads to internship. So really trying to help paint that picture, because I don’t, you know, families don’t know what they don’t know, I went to a college, where I had a 300 person math class, and I had no idea that was going to happen, and I mean, shame on me. But they were like, your average class size is 17 people. So you know, and I didn’t see a 300 person lecture hall on the tour. So I remember walking into that thinking, Oh, my goodness, I’m, you know, my high school class maybe had 30 people in a class, I’ve never been this big. So just trying to help families understand how to find what’s right for them. There’s lots of people who do great and big lecture halls. Like, I’m not saying that’s not an option for people it is. But if that’s not how you learn best, then you need to find the place where you’re going to have those relationships with people looking out for you and caring that maybe you missed class and what’s going on in your life, to help you navigate so that ultimately you are retained and graduate. You know, because it’s such a disservice to bring students in. And then they don’t get their degree. You know, and I mean, we’ve completely failed at our mission, if that’s what’s happening.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, that makes sense in terms of executing on this, you know, bringing this old messaging back in with the new like, what does the execution of that look like? Like what? Maybe it’s your creative or the actual tagline you’re using? How’s that changed?

Kate Coffman
So we haven’t we don’t officially have a tagline right now, but for me, it’s it’s definitely photography. Like we want to have pictures of students interacting with faculty in class, like that really demonstrating that relationship is going to be important. So we’re doing some photo upcoming photo shoots, and that’s going to be a lot of direction that I want to see come out of that. I think, copy that tells that story, whether it’s social media posts, or we recently were on an episode of the college tour, the Amazon series, and the stories the students told really pulled in Those key faculty members and those key people who made a difference the offices that they go to that are that are relational and build that, that success for them. So trying to make sure we’re highlighting those things in, whether it’s a social media post a postcard to a prospective student, but trying and trying to connect, and help them visualize the relationships they’re gonna have here.

Shiro Hatori
That’s great. I have a question around the college tour on and on Amazon, like, how is like, does Amazon provide you with metrics with like, how much it’s been seen? Or like, how does this all like? Fun? Oh, yeah.

Kate Coffman
So it does air on Amazon, but it’s actually a separate company called the college tour. And initially, you launch on their website and put it on yours. So primarily, you’re trying to drive people to your website. And when you market it, you’re you’re really marketing your episode on your website. And then for us, it was about six months later that it actually this month will appear on Amazon, but our our episode initially released on our website and the college tour. In I forgot now in July, oh, no, in October, sorry, in October, I will tell the college if you have the opportunity to work with the college tour people, I would do it. They they were the most phenomenal partner, like, you know, it’s so easy to do. They they provide you everything you need to do, you just have to find the students. And they were just a great team. And we’ve been able to use that whole episode and segments of that episode so many different ways. But I think that was a great investment for us and just phenomenal partner.

Shiro Hatori
Got it, I can’t wait to watch it. So hopefully by the time this episode is posted, it’ll be live. So yeah, that’s really

Kate Coffman
interesting. And I’ve watched other episodes with my kids as well, as you know, my I have two boys that are in high school, one in college, one in high school, but I mean, we we, you know, a school would come up and my son would say, you know, I want to go see x, and I’d be like, it’s kind of far for visit, like, let’s see. And we’d watch the college tour. And if he seems still interested, then we would possibly go take a trip there. But it was a great way to see some stories. And they they really focus on students. So it really aligned with our brand nicely, because we’re trying to tell these personal stories. And that’s the whole purpose of this show. Gotcha.

Shiro Hatori
So I’ve never watched an episode, I don’t really know too much about it. But it’s really targeted at like, an audience of like, in high score prospective students was alright.

Kate Coffman
It is yeah, so the founder, Alex, his niece couldn’t visit all the colleges she wanted. So he was like, Wouldn’t it be great if college just had like an episode. And he had a reality TV background. And so it profiles 10 Different students and their stories at the college. And I mean, it’s a commercial. But it it was an authentic commercial, because we got to showcase the students and and when they they wrote their script and write their story. It was all about people, you know. And so it really aligned nicely with what we were hearing in our focus groups, what we were seeing, yeah, authentically happen on our campus. So I was I was just really pleased with how it turned out.

Shiro Hatori
That’s really cool that Amazon also picked it up to I feel like that’s just gives it so much more reach. Yeah. That’s impressive. Because they I wonder if Yeah, I wonder if they’re gonna share numbers with you. Yeah, I’m curious to hear that.

Kate Coffman
I am sure that there are all those available. You know, sometimes I think we do things and then don’t take the time to measure them as effectively. I mean, that’s probably my biggest weakness as a marketer, like going back and really evaluating what works.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, no, I mean, I’m, I’m at fault for that, too. It’s, we live in a world now today, where there’s data on everything. And so being able to pick out the things that you want to know the data on is, is half the battle, right. And then like creating some sort of consistency or cadence around, like, how often you’re supposed to look at it or, or in such, so I

Kate Coffman
worked for definitely, many moons ago, Bill, standard cabbage, a government call out on this, we had a coordinate with measureable outcomes where we would go through all the programs and the data related programs. He was the most data driven boss I’ve ever had. But we left every measurable outcome meeting with a stop doing list. And we would stop doing things that weren’t working for us and reinvest those resources. And so, you know, I just have a lot of respect, like that’s hard to do as a leader to say to people, Hey, we’re not going to do this anymore. It’s not working. But we had proof because every quarter, we had very specific data we were looking at and measuring against previous quarters and could say, yeah, not worth the investment anymore.

Shiro Hatori
That’s super smart. Shout out to Bill. I like do not are a no list. I would call that a no list. Creating a no list is half the battle of creating the yes list.

Kate Coffman
None of us are getting more money. Right, so we have to figure out how to use what we’ve got.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, I know you mentioned in our previous call about, like, you know, using the money that you got, like you work with vendors, all right? Or do you have any tips around? You know, how you found a good relationship? Obviously, like, you know, working with bigger companies, probably step one, but like, Are there tricks to the trade from your seat of the house, right? In terms of like managing time or relationships, creating some kind of workflow that you’ve come to

Kate Coffman
think first, you have to know what you want from a vendor. And I think I’ve made that mistake many years, like, you just don’t really know what you’re looking for to end up in a relationship. And then you’re not necessarily happy because you’re not getting what you want. So you have to do a little stealth research ahead of time talk to some peers at other schools start to figure out kind of what’s out there, and what what, who’s going to be the right person for you. I actually, when we were looking for an enrollment partner, put up a big sheet of like butcher paper on my wall with like, post it note categories, because everybody kind of offered something different. And then I had like, checkmarks, that, like who had what, so that we could kind of say, Okay, for this price, and this price, this is exactly what we’re getting. And then we were able to kind of pick the vendor that worked best for us. I tried to be super transparent with my vendors, like, this is my pain point. This is what I’m trying to accomplish. When they’re not, you know, if we’re not getting what we need, say it sooner than later so that they can pivot and shift if that if the right rep is not assigned to us, you know, maybe we need someone with a little more experience, or someone who’s worked at smaller schools more. But I really, I really rely on my higher ed colleague network, I think it’s important to go to conferences and to be involved in your state organizations. Because then you can pick up the phone and say, like, Hey, I hear you’re working with XYZ, because it is probably a three letter acronym. And, you know, how’s it going, and those referrals are so critical. I do think vendors, I just get inundated with vendor solicitations, though as a AVP. Like, if I put a question on LinkedIn about something, I’m gonna get, like, 40 vendor messages. Yeah. And that’s really hard to like, get through all that clutter. And so I think, you know, I do encourage vendors to, you know, to, to find conferences and things to to connect with us more naturally and authentically, because it’s just so hard. And it often sometimes feels like you’re being stalked, when you know, and I know they have a job to do, but there’s just so many vendors, you know, and so little time, so

Shiro Hatori
yeah, no, I mean, I get it, I get bombarded with my LinkedIn, like every day, right. And so it’s just trying to shuffle through and say no, to most so that is part of my day. Now. I get it. Yeah,

Kate Coffman
but I don’t I mean, I wouldn’t be able to get my job done without so many of our vendors, from our rolling partners, digital marketing partners, to you guys, as are you help with our campus map, there’s just so much like that we have to outsource because we don’t have the team bandwidth to do.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s funny, I like this, like how to work with vendors, like, understand what you want to do. And the pain point you have. Because I just had a case study call and this person was hired on new so like, they didn’t know any of these things. But it was very apparent, like it was, you know, they hadn’t like had they hadn’t written this down somewhere. Right. Like, like, this is why we’re working with them. And so the call kind of went, you know, like, I need to check back in with them. Because there wasn’t a clear understanding of like, you know, what pain point that was trying to be solved? You know, that in the what, what looks good. You know what that will, it looks bad. None of this was addressed there written down anywhere. So I think this practice is really good that you’ve adopted, I

Kate Coffman
think it’s important to bring your team members in to the vendor conversation. So you because your webmaster is going to know things that you don’t know your creative director, depending on who’s on your team. But I’ve learned so much just from the questions they’ve asked because of their roles. And I think we get so much further with the vendor, when right from the beginning, we can have all the right people in the room. And I think the projects that have started off, not as successfully. We didn’t, you know, we didn’t ask the right questions from day one. And so then we kind of got a product that did some of what we needed, but wasn’t exactly what we expected, you know, where you get to, like contract on a scope of work, and you’re like, Oh, that’s weird. That’s not really what we talked. So you know, try and have just everyone on the same plate together and the right people who are going to help move the project forward.

Shiro Hatori
That’s great. And also if they if they pitch you like a new feature or software, you can be like, hey, like, you know, this is unrelated to the original problem you’re trying to solve. You can can because it’s a you know, maybe your colleagues or people on your team can get shiny object syndrome. I mean, I often have it re like, like, Oh, this is so cool. And then I look back, like, Is this really going to help drive our bottom line? Or is this just like, a fancy cool thing for me. And so having that all written down somewhere, I think helps provide clear and focused direction.

Kate Coffman
I also think it’s great to include your team because it helps their growth. You know, we all shouldn’t be replaceable. If I left tomorrow, this place should be able to run and if you don’t have people plugged in, and I mean, not everyone needs to be in every lane, you know, but having people understand the bigger picture and what’s happening is, is important, and I do you know, I hate when like, I invest in someone, and then they’re able to leave and go take that to another school or right, but I do really want the team to develop and grow and learn all that’s out there. And I’ve learned so much from vendors, you know, they they often have technology and things that we just don’t have in house. So, right. You know that it can be such a great opportunity if you have the right vendor.

Shiro Hatori
That’s great. Yep. And it reduces risk to which we know that in higher ed, although it’s not as bad as it was two years ago, right. Like employee churn is a big risk factor. And if one person knows everything, yes, and they they dip out. It’s your it’s it’s a fire hose for a while so and

Kate Coffman
the great resignation was real in higher ed is just ever like it was everywhere else for a while.

Shiro Hatori
Yeah, yeah, I just spoke with someone who went from a four person marketing team to just himself until he could hire four people. And I was like, Oh, wow, that is that is incredible. So yeah, it’s it’s real. Well, you know, we’re just at about time today. And I’m wondering, hey, where can our listeners reach out to you to understand more of what you’re doing? The good work that you’re doing? Well, they’re

Kate Coffman
welcome to contact me the University of Indianapolis, my emails, my last name Kaufman, and then ks and Kate D as in diamond@und.edu, or find me on LinkedIn. Hopefully, you’re not trying to sell me something that happy to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Shiro Hatori
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining. And thanks to our audience for listening in today. Please check us on the next episode.

Kate Coffman
Thanks so much here. This was fun.

Shiro Hatori
It was so fun. All right. Thanks, everyone. I’m gonna hit stop

We saw the potential of Concept3D’s platform right away, and it was amazing to see our space come to life in a fully interactive 3D map. We know the platform will improve the overall guest and attendee experience, and we’re excited for all the ways that we can use it for both internal and external needs moving forward.
We want Rice to be a welcoming destination for art, music, lectures, food, athletic events, lectures – a great place to visit just to enjoy the beauty of our campus. [The Concept3D] mapping system will help people find those amenities and explore those opportunities.
Our residents are getting more savvy with technology and they will certainly appreciate a tool that guides them from location to location on our campus. Concept3D’s wayfinding capability was the immediate draw for us, but the map and interactive media have been valuable for depicting a bird’s eye view in print materials, or when scheduling an onsite visit. Residents, visitors and even staff find a lot of utility and functionality in Concept3d, and we often hear compliments about our beautiful map.
Vantage is committed to exceptional customer service, and the technology developed by Concept3D helps us work closely with potential clients, give them an incredible preview of the data center and offer a compelling way for them to explore the critical details of our facilities.
The CMS makes integrating our data feeds a simple, easy process. We can update our content feed once and it updates within the CMS and our map simultaneously.
The new virtual campus map is particularly helpful to showcase our campus to prospective students and families who are not quite ready or able to physically visit campus. International students are a great example of a group who typically do not visit our campus before enrolling, but really value getting a birds-eye view of the place they’re considering calling home.
The biggest challenge for [Claremont Graduate University] was lack of a centralized map system entirely. Roughly 30 different maps existed on our website pre-[Concept3D], created by various departments to meet their own needs.
Concept3D’s photospheres really allow us to show rather than tell what separates our studios from others.

Case Studies