Hello and welcome to Higher Thinking on Higher Ed. I am Charlyn Carrington of Content Strong Communications, the fractional communications and marketing leader of choice for universities, colleges and nonprofits. Today I am excited to continue diving into the trends and challenges encountered by communications and marketing leaders in higher ed. And I'm honored to welcome Simon Ring to the hot seat today. Simon is the National Director of Institutional Advancement At Rio Salado College. And he leads marketing, recruitment, advancement. 02:20 Sharlyn, Content Strong It seems like all the things, Simon, bringing over 15 years of experience and a student first approach to reimagining how learners engage with higher education. Thank you so much again for bringing your expertise to this conversation. How you doing? 02:34 Simon Ring I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. 02:36 Sharlyn, Content Strong Yes, yes. So, like I said, it seems like you're doing all the things. The first question I typically like to ask is, you know, give us a little bit of a context check. You lead marketing and, you know, communications and advancement and all the things at one of the most innovative online first colleges in the country. Tell us a little bit about your role and how it fits into the broader enrollment and institutional strategy. 03:01 Simon Ring Yeah, I mean, I. I feel like I'm in a very enviable position because I think my work really lives at the intersection of kind of brand enrollment and student experience. And I've had the fortunate honor of being able to kind of lead that charge with Rio Salado, which really is, you know, a pioneer in online education. I mean, founded in 1978, really conceived to be the college without borders. I mean, we are among the first to go online and, you know, it's been such an honor. 03:40 Sharlyn, Content Strong I didn't know that you were amongst the first to go online. That's. I mean, that's huge. I'd be interested in hearing a little bit about some of the changes or the shifts you're seeing in college marketing and student engagement really specifically now understanding that you have that lens of being that first institution that kind of, you know, started with. Started with that. That trend. It's beyond a trend now. It's how kind of, I think we're all living life, but really, particularly for online or adult learners, you know, what are some of the changes you're seeing in college marketing in stud engagement, and how are those trends kind of shaping your approach currently? 04:15 Simon Ring Oh, my God. I. I prefer to take a step back. Right. And take a more macro approach to this. Right. I feel like in the very beginning, you know, and I'll talk in the context of community colleges. Right. In the very beginning, I think community colleges really didn't have to try that hard to attract students. They had kind of an, you know, kind of embedded audience of students that would go to community colleges. Right. And as a result of that, I think a lot of the business processes, the infrastructure wasn't really was really designed around what the college needed, not necessarily what the students needed. Right. And of course, you know, as time went on, new entrants came in public and private universities started, you know, and started to cannibalize some of the students that would typically go to community college. 05:11 Simon Ring The competition really intensified and I think you really see that nationally when you look at the decline in student enrollment among community colleges. 05:22 Sharlyn, Content Strong Right, right. 05:24 Simon Ring And I think community colleges were finding that they were falling behind simply because they had all these. Develop all these legacy systems that worked for the college but weren't that friendly for in meeting the students needs. And I think what we're starting to see now as a shift, you know, as the pendulum kind of swings back is community colleges realizing that, you know, in order to be competitive, right. We really need to focus on the student experience, really trying to figure out how to remove the friction from the process and make it as easy and seamless as possible to enroll in school and to progress throughout their journey. I've been lucky. I mean, I've worked at Rio Salaro College. Now I'm going to my fourth year. Prior to that I was working at the University of Phoenix for about 11 years. 06:29 Simon Ring Both institutions are really data driven, really student centric. And so I've had the pleasure of having systems and having access to data to glean insight about student behavior to kind of help me inform kind of my strategy. But you know, I think there's an opportunity. Right. I mean, you know, during the decline, I think there was a lot of perception shifting. Right. There was, there was more, I think, and tell me if you agree. Right. I feel like there was a lot more prestige being placed on students going straight to a four year university. And somehow community colleges got left behind and it started to develop a stigma now. Right, right. Of, of being the community college being the last choice somehow. And. But the reality is we're the best kept secret, right? Right. We provide quality education at a fraction of the cost. 07:35 Simon Ring And I think there's different signs and signals that are appearing that shows us right now that we're at a juncture where community college can take the, that back and change the public perception. I mean, you know, take a look at, you know, Costco. Like I don't care where you are in the socioeconomic, you know, stratum, right. You, everyone val. Appreciates value. Right. It's the reason why Costco can sell Kirkland branded sweatshirts and they sell out. It's the reason why you have consumers, you know, really touting their dollar store buys. Fines, right? Yeah, it's there. The signs are there and I think you know, if we can just help flip the perception back of community colleges being more of a, from a fallback to first choice. 08:39 Sharlyn, Content Strong Right. 08:40 Simon Ring We have a huge opportunity. 08:43 Sharlyn, Content Strong You said so many things that I wanted to pick up on. I mean, one thing, I mean just this overall concept and I, and really I agree with you. You asked me if I agree with you. I agree with you. There is a stigma, you see that stigma around, you know, I want to go to the big Ivy League or the, you know, the big, you know, university institution versus community college. Even though there is so much value there and you can see it so instantly. 09:09 Simon Ring Yeah. 09:10 Sharlyn, Content Strong I wonder two things, I wonder. One, as we're looking at this kind of climate shift in terms of how we're all perceiving higher education as a whole. This, this Val, there's a value question now in terms of is higher education valuable? And everyone is questioning it and everybody's asking the same thing. Whether or not you're at a community college or you're know, a bigger institution and you have the money for a bigger institution. I wonder if that shift has become a bit of a, almost a benefit to you in the way you know, are really positioning yourself and positioning your value proposition in the market and propping your, you know, your university or, sorry, your institution up as. Yeah, we're a community college, but our value has always kind of been clear. 09:55 Sharlyn, Content Strong You can get this wonderful high quality education at a fraction of a cost and you can directly see the. Anyway, I like my question really is absolutely, talk a little bit about that. What do you think? 10:08 Simon Ring I mean, the value is there, right? It's in our DNA, open access and you know, I don't care if you have the resources to go to Harvard or not. I think everyone is starting to question, do I really want to spend 40,000 plus up to 100,000 a year for a degree when the job that I'm going to get coming out of college is maybe starting at 80,000 at best. Right. I don't even, I, I don't even know what the average starting salary is for a college grad. But think about how many years it would take to recoup that investment. Whether it was your money, whether it was your parents money. Right. It's hard to justify that. 10:57 Sharlyn, Content Strong Yeah. 10:58 Simon Ring Anymore. 11:00 Sharlyn, Content Strong Are you seeing. No, you go ahead. I didn't mean to cut you. 11:03 Simon Ring No, no, please, please stop. 11:05 Sharlyn, Content Strong No, I was gonna say, are you seeing that, that shift. I really do think it's a shift across the board. In, in students. Students are coming to that understanding themselves too. Like, do I want to drop this much money? Am I going to be able to recruit that or am I going to be in debt for the rest of my life? And does it actually, will I actually be able to get the kind of job that I want from going to this thing versus the kind of job that I, I want and I need to sustain me. If I had just gone to community college. Are you seeing that directly impact the way you're doing things now in terms of your strategy and your day to day and how you kind of position your university or your institution? 11:42 Simon Ring Right. I mean, I, I see that in our enrollment numbers. When you think about, you know, dual enrollment early college, that is huge. We probably serve about 10,000 dual enrollment students a year. And these are, you know, these are parents, families that could probably afford four year college from the start. Right. And yet the parents understand and the students understand the value of getting college credits while they're in high school. And you know, and having been involved in the commencements every year and seeing all these high school graduates graduate with an associate degree, sometimes more than an associate degree, you know, and when you time and time again talk to these students, they talk about, you know, how, you know, how getting that associate degree while they're in high school cuts down on the cost of their college. 12:43 Simon Ring You know, they, for them to know that they can, you know, just do two more years after at their college and get a bachelor's degree and into, right into the workforce or maybe go straight into a bachelor's, a master's degree is a huge value to them. And they understand that now, right? They understand that. And, and I talk to, you know, these are families that are well to do. Right? These are families that are well to do, but they still understand that the importance of, you know, and the value of getting that college education up front. 13:21 Sharlyn, Content Strong That's really interesting. That's a really interesting perspective. I hadn't considered. I love that you shared that. I wanted. 13:27 Simon Ring But I will say, yeah, I will say that with dual enrollment. Right. And this is something that I think we need to work harder on. The people that typically take dual enrollment classes are the people are not the people that could benefit most from dual enrollment. Right. Because. And so I think we have some work ahead of us to maybe build greater awareness for that maybe start a little earlier, you know, maybe in middle school and talking to the students who can benefit the most from that. 14:05 Sharlyn, Content Strong That's, I mean, I I could see how that would directly tie into your strategy. And I think that's a really interesting and a really good approach. It makes me think about a little bit about your. What your. Some of what your current wins are, and then once again, some of what your current challenges are. Because I think you pinpointed a little bit of a challenge there. Where are you kind of seeing real results or momentum in your campaigns or in your work right now? And what's still proving kind of difficult, especially when it comes to meeting those enrollment goals. 14:35 Simon Ring Wow, that's. That's a loaded question. Right. I mean, I think the biggest challenge coming from a community college is the limited resources. Right. You know, I don't have, you know, $100 million to play with. Right? 14:52 Sharlyn, Content Strong Yeah. 14:53 Simon Ring And, and so I have to be really smart about how I spend every marketing dollar and making sure that I can yield the greatest ROI from that. You know, when I first came on board, you know, my focus was really on the performance marketing side, Right? Yeah. Let's generate the leads, let's make sure that they convert into an enrolled student, you know, and because we have the infrastructure in place to be able to track all of that and measure all of that success, it was kind of like easy to wrap my mind around. Right. But I also understand as a marketer that brand plays a huge part in that equation. Right. But brand building is not something that can be easily measured. Right. In the same way that lead gen can be measured. Right. 15:48 Simon Ring We have to look at other dimensions of that, whether it's brand awareness, brand consideration and how, you know, or, you know, website traffic. 15:59 Sharlyn, Content Strong Right. 16:00 Simon Ring So that we can kind of measure organically what is the impact? How are we moving the needle on that? I would say, you know, it's balancing the mix between the upper funnel and the mid to lower funnel tactics is always going to be a balancing act. Right. It's not going to be the same for every college, you know, and even within my institution, it's not going to be the same sometimes month after month. Right. We really have to keep a very close eye on how we, how we're spending that. Those marketing dollars. Track the metrics on a, you know, on a weekly basis to see what kind of adjustments we need to make. Because you can't just set it and forget it. And unfortunately, yeah, you really, you know, it's such a fluid landscape and market that you have to be very hands on. 16:53 Sharlyn, Content Strong So that's interesting. So that. Would you say that's your kind of bigger challenge right now is the resource limitation and is finding that balance, I'd say, between how exactly what you said, how you're looking at your metrics overall and how you're balancing your budget, especially essentially every week to week. 17:11 Simon Ring Right, Absolutely. I mean, because at the end of the day, I'm measured on, you know, making sure that we get students through the door. Right. And so I need to understand that everything, every lever that I have at my disposal is helping to move that needle further and further along the path. 17:30 Sharlyn, Content Strong Right, Right. 17:30 Simon Ring Whether it is generating the leads that I can measure that converts into a student to increasing the total number of organic enrollments that we get from students based on, you know, just the more upper funnel work that we do. It's, it's trying to balance those two, two elements. 17:51 Sharlyn, Content Strong So you talked a little bit there about metrics and you talked about enrollment numbers. You mentioned, like website traffic. Is there anything else you're really looking at to say, yeah, we're doing it like we're doing our job? 18:02 Simon Ring Yeah. I mean, because I also oversee the recruitment aspect. Right. A team of recruiters, they're actively, you know, nurturing the leads that we generate. You know, we look at the metrics, such as, you know, how many phone outreach styles are you doing on a daily basis? Right. What is the amount of talk time that you have when you're, you know, when you're dialing or when you're actually getting a student on the phone? Because you have to look at those two separately. Right. Typically, if you have a lot of great, you know, if you're spending a lot of time on the phone talking to students, you're not going to be able to dial as much right out. But those are both kind of correlational. You know, they're related in that sense. 18:52 Simon Ring And so I'm looking at, you know, me and my team, my recruitment team, look at those metrics to make sure that we are, you know, we're doing the job properly. The other thing is also lead. Right. We can bring in as many leads as we want. Right. If that's all I'm being measured on, you know, I can just pump up the spend and get as many leads through the door. But if those leads aren't quality leads, then it's, it's money thrown, you know, out the door. Right. So I'm also look at conversion rates, right. Of the number of leads that I bring in how many are actually completing an app, and then ultimately how many end up converting into a student. And so it's the combination of all those different metrics that help me determine am I, you know, doing my job successfully. 19:45 Sharlyn, Content Strong I talk about that all the time. Just the idea that in higher education, the lead time can be so significant and so long. I mean, an applicant could be looking at your school and be engaging with, you know, all of your materials two years before they apply. Right. Because it takes that long sometimes for them to understand the reputation, realize, if it's for me, get a good sense of what the journey is going to be like for them, and then get to apply. I wonder if. I don't know if that hinders you in any way or, you know, impacts the way you kind of roll out your strategy, just knowing that lead time can be so successful. Significant. 20:19 Simon Ring Yeah, I mean, I will say that. And, you know, education in general, higher ed in general is. Is a. Has a longer sales cycle. Right. But I think it's maybe not as long as going to a private university where you may be paying $80,000 a year. Right. So there's a. There's a, you know, range there, and I think that's where the brand building comes into play. Right. Because, you know, it's a. It. It's a long game when you're trying to build brand equity, and you have to be consistent with it so that, you know, the person who might be a freshman in high school. Right. Is already starting to, you know, think ahead and, you know, just being exposed to, you know, our. 21:07 Simon Ring Our brand, what our value proposition is may not be realized until they graduate or when, you know, when they're a senior ready to make that decision. But, you know, but having that consistent messaging out there will help in just helping with the conversion cycle. 21:30 Sharlyn, Content Strong I wonder, as you were talking about that, if you have any wins you'd like to share, any recent wins that you're like, you know what? We did a really great job with this thing, and this is what we did, and this is what, you know, the end result was. 21:41 Simon Ring Yeah. So we, you know, this year we. We intentionally did more brand kind of building strategies. 21:50 Sharlyn, Content Strong Right, Right. 21:51 Simon Ring And so we launched a campaign which I. I call the Moments Campaign. You know, it's really inspired by the insight that, you know, we all. There's always one key moment in our life that sparks change. Right. Whether it's, you know, I'm, gonna, you know, I'm gonna lose 10 pounds and, you know, and start exercising, or I'm gonna stop smoking or I'm gonna, you know, decide to. I'm gonna go back to school. 22:20 Sharlyn, Content Strong Right. 22:21 Simon Ring And, and so we built these campaigns around telling the stories of our gone through that. That, you know, that moment in their life where that, you know, where it flipped the switch in their mind that I need to make a change to better my life, you know, and we wanted to do it in a way, you know, that was truly honored the diverse student population that we serve. And of course, that also meant carving money out of the stuff that I could truly measure from a digital perspective. Right. You know, we, you know, use the tactics such as connected TV streaming, you know, and of course we had a TV buy, a local TV buy in. In within Phoenix. And in order to, you know, and I know as a marketing professional that branding works. Got it. 23:17 Simon Ring But can it work in a short burst and with very limited budget? And so before the campaign launched, we, you know, we did a pre aware and brand awareness kind of survey. And then six months after we did a kind of a post now the campaign continues. Right. But, but we wanted to kind of put our sand in the ground and say measure the impact. Right. We did the same survey six months after and what we saw was a 21% increase in brand awareness and a 12% increase in brand consideration, which I think is a great win. And I think it validates the fact that despite how much money you might have, even small amounts can make a huge difference. 24:13 Simon Ring And you know, and while we may not be able to measure it in terms of, oh well, this person saw our ad and ended up being an enrollment, we're seeing that in our overall, you know, overall enrollment numbers, which is great. 24:30 Sharlyn, Content Strong That's huge. That's a big win. And I love. It's a very, It's a big, it is a big win because I always say that it's sometimes it's difficult to tie it the numbers actually be able to demonstrate some of the numbers right off the bat. And you setting that benchmark and then being able to demonstrate, look, we've. It's the same survey all the only thing we've changed with this campaign, I think is a big deal. Congrats. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm thinking a little bit about the next six to 12 months. What, what does that look like for you? What's one major shift or one major capability or one major goal you're kind of focus on building or achieving, whether it's a tool or a skill or student experience. Initiative, whatever it is. 25:10 Simon Ring Well, and you've probably heard this ad nauseam, right? AI. Yeah, I know it is the most probably overhyped and probably underrated, you know, breakthrough, right. Not just within our industry, but everywhere else. Right. You know, right now we're in this kind of, you know, test scenario with at least within my department. I know there are larger efforts across the college on how to better leverage AI technology to improve workflow, increase efficiency and whatnot. You know, we started this about a little over a year ago, right. And started to test different tools. Right. And one was a tool that really helped us do, to do, create video at scale. 26:09 Simon Ring Because oftentimes it's very time intensive if you create a video and my dog is right next to me, so I apologize, you know, if, and we wanted a tool that could easily create videos on the fly. If we had to make any edits, we could do it right there and not have to, you know, involve my videographer to go in and do a lot of post production and out of that. That's been really successful because we've been being able to create a lot of video content that helps with onboarding. It helps with, you know, just, you know, create explainer videos to, to explain the expectations when a student comes, you know, starts with us, you know, because a lot of our students aren't amazing available to talk to, you know, an advisor to go through all that. 26:58 Simon Ring They lead busy lives and they just want to be pointed to those resources and we've created those resources for them so that they can, you know, consume it on demand essentially. Right. And so that's a great win for us and, but we're testing into it, right. The great thing about AI is a lot of the tools are not that expensive. Right. And so it's easy to kind of, without committing to a long term contract to try some of these things to see if it works out, you know, might our developers use, you know, use AI to really cut their coding time by 70%. Right. And so these are huge gains that we can realize with very small investments. But my intent is to be a lot more intentional going into the next 12 months. Right. 27:55 Simon Ring Because you know, we've kind of done a kind of a broadcasted a broad net, you know, shotgun approach to see what sticks. And you know, I really want to identify where are the greatest opportunities within my department where we could, you know, create greater capacity and greater operational efficiency with AI and what are some of the tools that are out there that can meet our needs? But also, before we even go out to look for new tools, what are some of the existing tools that we're currently using where AI features have been added so that we're not just going out and spending more money on tools when we might have tools that actually, you know, have introduced AI features that hasn't really been broadly announced. 28:43 Simon Ring Like, go look at what we're using right now, see what's available, and let's see how we can extract value out of that. 28:50 Sharlyn, Content Strong Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of institutions, ideally, if they're not, they should be doing that kind of strategic auditing almost to say, what. How could we be using this better? What could we be doing to help us propel our goals, but essentially save money in the long run? Right. I think that's huge. The final question I always ask is the magic wand question. I know you're ready for it. I think you are. If I handed you a magic wand right now and you could wave it, snap your fingers instantly, remove one persistent challenge in your world right now, what would you fix to accelerate your impact? What would it be? 29:28 Simon Ring I would probably end with what I started. Right. And it's. And it's to really kind of make an impact on all students and not just, you know, our students at Rio. And that is changing the perception of community college. Right. Because, you know, I truly believe in the rising tide lifts all boats and if we could, you know, help me out. If we can just band together for all community colleges. Band together and do a national campaign similar to like the orange. Orange growers or the egg producers. Right. The incredible edible egg. Right. And do a national campaign to really start to shift that perception. It'll make our. All of our jobs so much easier. Right. Because once they realize what community colleges offer, it's an easy sell. It's an easy sell. But we have to get over that stigma right now. 30:27 Sharlyn, Content Strong I think, I think you touched on a huge opportunity, not just for you, but exactly as you said. This section of this sector, community colleges, finding those partnerships, banding together and saying, look at the value you are all leaving on the table. That's a huge opportunity. We'll talk about that at some point. 30:46 Simon Ring Can we embark on an effort to do something like that? 30:49 Sharlyn, Content Strong I feel like we need to. 30:51 Simon Ring I think that would be such a great opportunity. 30:55 Sharlyn, Content Strong Who to anyone who watches this episode, be prepared to have a conversation with us about that. Especially if you are in community college sector, we want to talk to you about it. 31:08 Simon Ring And if you're an agency out there, that would like to be involved. I would love to talk to you. 31:15 Sharlyn, Content Strong Let's do it. Is there anything else that you're like, listen, I want us to talk about this. I wanted touch on this, but I forgot or Charlene, you didn't ask me about it. Anything else you want to interject? 31:26 Simon Ring Well, I think the only other thing that I would interject with community college. Well, I think in higher ed in general, I think there's also been a missed opportunity to connect education with career outcomes. Right. Because when you think about people that go to college, they are, the vast majority of them are doing it because they want to start a career, they want to switch a career or they want to upskill to get a better job, career advancement. Right, Right. And yet, you know, I think, I don't even think even the best colleges and universities in this country do a very good job at that. Right. And it, and it can be, you know, taking a more holistic approach to help students better connect with their learning to career, real life applications. Right. 32:23 Simon Ring They need to be able to articulate what they've learned and how it applies to what they want to do. And that's not something you want to wait until right before you graduate to learn. It's, it's something that you need to learn all along the way in your journey and then providing the career services, not just, you know, oh, I have a job fair and companies are coming and you can come interview, but actually helping them through, you know, how to refine their soft skills so that they can build the confidence in explaining their, how they're, how they can stand out in, you know, with other candidates. I think that's something I haven't really seen with any college or university or community college. 33:12 Simon Ring But I think that's an immense opportunity for community colleges, especially because we've always been in the business of connecting education to careers. Right. And when you think about how most community college graduates really transfer their credits to a four year institution and the loyalty typically has always been with their four year university and not the community college. This is a great way to build that loyalty. Right. When it's when a community college graduate can say, you know what? I got to where I am today because I learned certain key skills when I was in community college to really stand out. So that's another mission. 33:57 Sharlyn, Content Strong I think that's a, I think that's a huge point. And I, you know, what's really interesting about it is I, I do actually think there's a specific Opportunity specifically for community colleges over every. I feel like everyone else should be doing it. I wish I had gotten some of that additional support when I went in my undergrad and my master's and all those. Those things that I would have gotten that extra support to say. Here, here are the soft skills that you need to present yourself and present your own value based on what you've gotten here in a specific way to. To kind of launch your career. 34:29 Simon Ring It's. 34:29 Sharlyn, Content Strong That is so valuable. 34:32 Simon Ring And use the time that you're in, getting your associate degree to refine those skills. Right, right. Embedded in the curric. In your. In the program, the curriculum of the program, so that students are learning each. A little bit each step of the way. 34:47 Sharlyn, Content Strong Yeah, I think that's. I. And you know what I think? Yeah, I think it takes, Honestly, I think it takes a marketing brain to sit here and think about that, because I think it really does take our type of brains to take that step back and then have those conversations with, you know, policy program leaders and say, how can we build this into what it is that you're doing to create, honestly, a better product and a better experience? Right? Yeah. 35:12 Simon Ring I can't tell you how many times I, I have interviewed candidates. On paper, they look great. They look like the perfect candidate, but when you get them on the camera or in person, they're not able to articulate what they've done. It's, it's. It's such a huge disappointment. And I feel. I feel bad for them. Right. Because, you know, clearly you have this great experience, but if you can't connect the dots, you're not going to be able to achieve the goal. You're going to fall short of your goal. Right. Because ultimately, you know, when you go to community college, your goal, yes, it's to complete and get a degree, but you're going to fall short of that goal if you don't get that job. 35:55 Sharlyn, Content Strong You'll get the job, which is why you come there in the first place. Absolutely. 35:58 Simon Ring Exactly. 35:59 Sharlyn, Content Strong Absolutely. And I think it ties back to what were talking about earlier is the value piece. Right. Is connecting the value of why you are getting this degree in the first place, which is you want a career, you want a livelihood, you want a future. Right. Simon, thank you. What an interesting and valuable conversation I think we've had today. I mean, your perspective is, like, robust. I've gotten so many ideas from this. You and I are going to talk about those offline, ideally. 36:27 Simon Ring Can we really. 36:27 Sharlyn, Content Strong I'd love that we will 110% to everybody who listens or watches this episode. I hope it sparked your own ideas as well, affirmed your own experiences, or helped you see a challenge in a new light. If you are a communications or marketing leader or leader in higher ed, you don't have to be in communications or marketing. And you want to contribute to this evolving conversation, we'd love to hear from you. Because these conversations are not just talk. They are the start of our roadmap for all of us. So let's get to work. Thank you, Simon. 36:57 Simon Ring Thank you for having me. It's been fun.