Parent engagement gets treated like an afterthought in enrollment marketing, something to loop in once a student's already decided. Jim Eaton, Director of Admissions and Recruitment at Hudson Valley Community College, has a bigger net in mind, one built on the household instead of a single inbox. Here's what that looks like when it's done on purpose.

Higher ed marketing gets treated like it lives entirely in campaigns and promotion. Dr. Carrie Phillips, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has a bigger canvas in mind, one that starts with mapping a broken 17-office process before a single ad ever runs. Here's what that wider view looks like.

Awareness marketing gets judged like a single ad should carry the whole argument. Shane Baglini, Executive Director of Marketing and Branding at William & Mary, has a different starting point, one where an 11x traffic spike only means something once you've confirmed you're aiming at the right competitor. Here's what that proof actually took.

Awareness marketing gets treated like a campaign with a start and end date. Olivia Mann, Interim Director of Enrollment at Averett University, has a different story: a single conversation with a stranger that didn't turn into an application for 2 years. Here's what that says about how awareness works.

Higher ed marketing sounds the same everywhere: community, small classes, professors who know your name. Andy Murphy, Director of Marketing at Siena University, explains why that sameness is costing schools attention in a shrinking market, and the storytelling shift his team uses to break the pattern.

Jim Sheets has spent 30 years watching recruitment channels change completely. In this conversation, he makes the case that a good decision rarely comes from a single number or a single point of view.

Eve Markman has spent more than 30 years in community college marketing. Her argument: brand is a promise that has to survive the handoff from marketing to admissions to retention, built from signals already sitting in a satisfaction survey.

Most institutions pull awareness spend before it has time to work. Kristin Nichols breaks down the timeline, what it costs to restart from scratch, and the internal dynamic between marketing and enrollment that still holds a lot of institutions back.

By the time your enrollment data tells you something is wrong, you've already lost 2 or 3 cycles of influence. Jeff Holeman makes the case for reading behavioral signals earlier, measuring awareness differently, and building presence before a student ever raises their hand.

Patrick Stone has spent 15 years in community college marketing. His take: most of it sounds like notes from an admissions meeting. Here's what it looks like when marketing owns its lane and actually builds presence.