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Tune in to hear firsthand perspectives from leaders nationwide as they navigate the current landscape of their industries. Discover the challenges they face, the opportunities they seize, and the pivotal trends shaping their sectors. Gain invaluable insights into organizational leadership strategies for fostering a thriving culture and explore the innovative approaches shaping the future trajectory of their endeavors.
Dr. Kimberly Moore (00:02)
I am Dr. Kimberly Moore, a host of the Envision More Workforce Insight podcast. Join us as we explore workforce and leadership through an innovation lens with leaders from across the country and every industry. Whether you're in education trying to crack the code for workforce or industry seeking to address your workforce talent strategy, for maybe you just need to be inspired. We've got you covered. Tune in, save us as a favorite, and let's innovate together.
I'm so excited today to start the whole Workforce Insight podcast and I am joined by.
an amazing leader. I promise you listeners, this will be a treat that you do not want to miss. You will actually want to replay it over and over. He is just that amazing. So who am I talking about? It is the Travis Jordan that's joined me and I will tell you when you think about marketing and communication and just that whole space of getting the word out, telling the stories, there is no one that can do a do it better. And I mean this, this is across the country. So Travis, so glad to have you here.
Thank you. And if you don't mind, because I know I know lots about you, but we want everybody else to get a quick snapshot of who you are and then we'll jump into the interview. Absolutely. Thanks, Kim. And thanks for setting the bar so high on this interview for me. So I have a lot to live up to, especially on the repeat mode. But yeah, Travis Jordan, most recently serving as chief communications and marketing officer at Western Carolina University. It's a UNC system school about 45 minutes west of Asheville. You've probably never heard of the town.
but it's a fantastic institution. I've been there for about three years. Prior to that, I spent about 12 years in the state of Florida, really traversing the state from South Florida to Tallahassee and all points in between experience in the state university system, the state college system, the Department of Education and economic development. So really a trifecta of experiences of strategy, research, campaign launches, brand efforts and more. So happy.
to be here with you, Kim, and so good to see you again after so many years. Same here. It's like virtual hug, definitely sending that to you. And again, just for the listeners, the level of experience that Travis brings in such a, you know, in a key area, because Workforce Insight, it does take into account, you know, different industries, whether it's education, workforce, whether it's government, nonprofits. But today we're focusing in on messaging with education. But I will tell you,
that it really is transferable into the other spaces that we'll be talking about. So to not delay it, because we want to make sure that our audience gets these major nuggets. Travis, there's been a whole lot going on with just the changing dynamics in education and communication and marketing leading the way. It's evolved since the pandemic. So what are some of your thoughts on what the landscape is at now? It has evolved. And when I first started higher education back in 2011,
It was a much more simplified process looking back at it. And I think that what's really happened is one, a shift in higher education in general. Students aren't necessarily looking for a traditional four -year degree anymore. They're looking for options that can elevate, uplift themselves, re -skill, up -skill, go back into the workforce after they've already been away from school for several years. So I think that lots have changed. And I think that not only colleges, community colleges, but also universities have to look at ways to entice a non -
traditional students to come back to learn. And I think that what's really changed primarily for me in the workspace, especially coming from a state level and now at a university for the past three years at Western, is really audience segmentation. It's gotten much more targeted across the board and you have to really be able to target your messages across that way in audience segmentation. Meaning that you're talking to people who are online learners, they're coming back for a graduate program, they're coming back for rapid credentials or certifications, they're coming back from a
transfer from a two plus two program. There's lots of audiences that are out there and I think that what we've really really tried to own in on is the fact of how can we get our message out to those specific people not only to reach them where they are but also help spread the budget because as we know that budget resources are very limited a lot of times in higher education and to be able to really micro target these individuals across the board from digital or even traditional advertising is so important now and I think you got to find them where they are at this point. So I think audience segmentation has been a really huge driver for that and also storytelling.
Before I think it was a lot of individual colleges, universities, you know, talking about rankings. We're the best MBA program in the country. Well, how many colleges say that across the country? A lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the storytelling aspect and Kim, you and I did this at Tallahassee Community College. We were ahead of the curve on that. When everyone else was talking about enroll now, enroll now, we were telling stories of success of students, students in the workforce. And I think that's what's really changed in my opinion.
as a storytelling and segmentation aspect.
Such great points because you're right. We had such a run there when I think about our time there at TCC, Tallahassee Community College and just the level of storytelling. The how we made sure that the person that you know was working three jobs and decided that they wanted to give education a try and they did that and they were all the better for that that we made that the common household story that everybody felt like they
too could get that second chance and kind of reimagine themselves. So you're right storytelling is critical. Yeah absolutely and you know Western Carolina University I've always said it's kind of a hybrid of what reminds me of a community college, and a four -year university because it's really rooted in community and we also have had satellite campuses in Asheville who focus specifically on non -traditional students. So I think even with higher education it's really about those interesting ways to connect with those people, work with your community partners, and get those individuals back into the classroom.
So when you think and you've touched on it, the adult learners, we hear that constantly now that the growing demographic that we're seeing and how do, because it's not just your traditional anymore that you can target, waiting on those high schoolers to plan for that next step because there's gap years and everything else that it's happening. How have you and has there been a special campaign, if you will, to attract the adult learner? Yeah, there's actually been several and I think that's just
nature of what we just spoke about. COVID changed a lot of things.
And I think first and foremost, I think that primarily adult learners consume content differently, right? I think that, you know, when you're thinking about a traditional student, 16, 17, 18 year olds in the recruitment cycle, you're thinking digital first. You're thinking TikTok, Snapchat. How can I reach those high school students who are nearing graduation? But when adult learners, it's different and you have to be more nimble and flexible in your marketing strategies with that, I think. And I think that for adult learners, there's still a place for traditional
marketing. There's still a place for the billboards, the radio spots, the television, and specifically my most recent institution in Western Carolina where that was so rural, many of our students didn't even have access to internet. So that takes it up another level altogether. And I think that with that in mind you have to be considerate of the fact that you know 50 -50 split digital traditional kind of makes sense in certain areas. And I think that for adult learners you have to be where they are whether that's based on their program,
of interest, their location, their geographic location. I think it's really got to be specific to what they're looking at as far as they're considering to come back to college or maybe they are a single mother who's raising a child at home and they want to come back after 10 -15 years out of college. So all the messaging really has to come into play in those areas and I think we have to be very consistent with that and use research to kind of back that method up I believe.
So again, I shared with the listeners an amazing track record that you have in a variety of different spaces. What's your go -to strategy? Because, you know, for a lot of marketing officers and communication officers, they're such a dire need and they're looking for that institutions are looking for that panacea to fix it all. And so they would certainly I mean, you would be sought after. You know, that that's who you are. But what's your go -to strategy when you're going into a new institution?
or maybe even organization because you've seen it in a variety of ways. Yeah, I think the go -to strategy is going to be dictated, one, by where you are, your institution, and two, by the programs you're trying to promote. What we've really found works very successfully is what we call first -party data.
This is really low hanging fruit. These are students who have made a first step. They filled out a form, they've met someone at a recruitment event, they've made a first step, but they haven't enrolled, they haven't applied, they haven't signed up for a course yet. And with first party data, you're able to take that information, load it into your media plan, your media buys, serve up display ads, social media ads, directly to those students who have already taken a first step. So what this does is basically one, it is cost effective.
has somewhat of an interest in your institution. And two, you're getting to those students directly where they are, whether they're flipping through their social media feeds, whether they're walking down the road looking at their phone on CNN .com or FoxNews .com. You're hitting them up where they are in their journey and their path and reminding them that, hey, we're still here. That's one of my first go -to strategies, I think, and it's going to change for populations. You know, diverse populations, they're going to resonate with different types of images.
And this could be something that we go to and Western is another good example of this too being rural. Charlotte, North Carolina was one of our biggest feeder schools across the state. So in order to convince someone to come from Charlotte to what's called Cullowhee, North Carolina, try to spell that one out. So from Charlotte to Cullowhee, you have to be able to talk about the benefits from the make the trek over the mountain to come over there. And a lot of times that meant really customizing messages, customizing imagery to really fit with your geographic location. So if you're going to target
at someone in Charlotte, they want to see people like themselves and that's all transparency and all honesty and we have to be authentic about that. So we want to showcase stories of students who have made that trek over, who have been successful in the transition. The same with first gen students. They're coming back or they're coming for the first time in their family potentially and they could be a little hesitant or a little weary about coming over, trying that out for the first time and I think from the messaging standpoint they want to hear from people who have succeeded. They want to know what you've been successful.
at your institution. They want to know the services available to them to help ease that transition. So all of us come into play when thinking about the messaging strategy from start to finish, I think.
You know, so I think the critical piece that you keep honing in on, and I think it's just absolutely important, is, you know, the personalized messaging. People want to be able to identify with, they want to know that you understand them. And, you know, there's no better voice than someone that's walking down that path right now in their shoes. So I think it's just a critical point. Absolutely. So.
You know, you and I have experienced this together, this next question, and I know that institutions have to contend with this. You know, they're every in academia, you know, you think about those are the credit and degree seeking. And then there's those workforce people that have lots of ideas and realize that, you know what, we got to tailor that message because our audience is so different. So the whole notion about prioritization and being
in your spot as a chief marketing officer, talk to me about your insight there and how you have been successful at balancing the resources and the agendas and conversations that happen within the offices and institutions about why are you promoting this over this. Yeah, and that's always the first question. I think in higher ed, you have so many competing stakeholders across an institution.
You have individuals who want to promote services, who want to promote specific programs, very specific programs. You have your colleges who want to identify themselves as a unique brand across the nation. And you have your university brand and all the other ones in between. And I think that, you know, it's tough to go into a university and prioritize that from the get go. But I think what we've found to be successful over the past several years, and this goes back to my very first job at Broward College through the DOE and TCC and now Western,
I think has been the fact that you got to start with research and stakeholder buy -in. Because one that I found that, you know, if you don't have that research to back up your justification or your reasoning to go in a certain direction, it's going to fail. And unless you bring the stakeholders along with you in this journey, it's going to fail because they want to be able to have a voice in what's happening at their institutions. So what we found specifically, and this kind of traverses itself over the last several institutions, is start with research and data.
You start with your kind of your perception studies your competitive analysis I really define who you are as an institution Your personality and those are going to be different for every institution no matter where you are in the country You're going to have a different audience a different perspective of what someone thinks about you and you may not know what they're thinking about you You know once you kind of gather that information and research what we did typically is bring in the stakeholders in the next phase of that Showcase the research get buy -in from them get some brainstorming sessions
rolling across the board on that and hear what they think about the institution. So focus groups. So focus groups. And focus groups are everyone from the president to the board of trustees to faculty, staff, students, deans, program managers. We've done all of that. And what we've really found is that once they have the ability to give their voice in the process, it becomes a much easier sell down the road when you're ready to roll out a campaign. And I really think that, you know, when you
prioritize that it has to be an umbrella approach. So as you're kind of defining who the university is, you have your university up here, you have satellite campuses, you have your colleges, your programs and your services, but it all has to build from the university branding first and foremost. And everyone else has to have that cohesive clear voice across the board as it kind of trickles down into each of their areas.
You know, you can, and I'm certain the listeners will agree and I hear it again. I have the pleasure of working with you, but it speaks to something that's really important in the roles that when we talk about chief marketing officers or communication officers, the whole idea of inclusivity, that whole idea of engaging all, you have a wonderful knack of doing that, which is why, again, when I think about, and we're going to get to that one, so I certainly won't, you know,
to it right now, but because we had a run and we had an amazing campaign that we were able to launch, but it was because of just, you know, that special skill of being able to work across all of the different sections and, you know, departments and colleges to be able to bring that home and have it be a message that can be owned by an institution, though it may have originated in one area. So I think, you know, for those of you that are listening, Chief Marketing Officer,
and presidents and others, this is an important message and trait that you want to make sure that you see and have, and that your leader possesses, because this is the thing that's gonna bridge it. So let's talk about, we said, how do you make sure when you're prioritizing those limited resources, the next part of it is just measuring effectiveness, because you know, oftentimes that when there are budget cuts, folks start wondering, is communications that important? Do we really need to?
invest in all those ads. So what's your strategy for being able to respond to leadership? Yeah, I think ROI is one of the biggest questions and a lot of times it's because of the misunderstanding, right? So a lot of times individuals may not understand what marketing does as a function.
And I think a lot of the questions are, well, what are they doing over there in that office? Are they just playing on social media? I think that's a very natural reaction. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard going into a new position, you know, marketing's never reached out to us. Marketing's never come over and talked about what they're working on and what they're doing. We just know sometimes they may miss a deadline here and there. As you know, and from our experience with TCC, a lot of times marketing teams are really fighting with the fact that they're doing
all the day -to -day tasks, they're getting tons of requests in daily, and then they're also responsible for the brand. They're working with the advancement offices, potentially athletics, admissions, all these different areas, and typically it's a small budget with a small staff. And you know, when someone asks for ROI, you know, the first thing you want to go to is obviously enrollment, but first, how do you get to the enrollment point? How do you connect those dots? And really it starts at the very baseline, you know, ROI is measured in different ways at different stages.
I think and I think that when you're talking about a brand launch specifically that's coming into a market of may not understand who the institution is they may need to be reeducated about who the institution is so I always kind of baseline ROI from a brand launch is truly awareness is truly awareness getting your name out there once again and letting the state or the region or the city locality know who you are as institution what your mission and values are and I think from there that's essentially the
very baseline number. So that's your reach, your impressions, your website clicks coming to your website. Those are the big numbers. Those are the ones that are fun to take in the board and say, oh, we had 20 million impressions. That's great. And then you know what the next question is, right? It's well, how many students have we enrolled? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. What's the math on how many, how does that impact our enrollment? Yeah. I think once you have that first step of brand awareness, first of all, you have to kind of
the idea and sell the fact that you know you're measuring awareness right now you want to get as many eyes on this campaign as you can. I think your second tier really goes down to your call to actions that's where you're talking about getting people to register for specific programs you're pitching very specific programs or colleges out to the market at this point and these are really enrollment campaigns so that really changes the ROI that goes from more of a broad awareness impression standpoint to really more about tracking your website leads your form fills individuals
getting more information about a program specifically and then that way you're able to see okay well we had an ad about a nursing program they filled out a form and now we see their name on an inquiry list right so now we're seeing we're seeing progress being made and Kim I remember you and I when we were doing TCC to work we would look at programs I think it was weekly or bi -weekly and we would see we found some people who have come from this or this paid meetings
over here and that's kind of the next level I think of ROI reporting is you really want to see some action. You want to see people filling out forms, clicking on content, and then taking a first step I think in that way.
And you know when it really gets down to the next level that's really connecting with your admissions department. A lot of times marketing holistically has said that well we're here to get them in the door but admissions has to close that door. But one of my admissions over the past three years is really connecting the dots between an ad to enrollment and that's using the CRM systems. I mean Slate is a very common CRM system across most institutions in the U .S. right now and you know with their tool
and with their dynamics of slate, it gets much easier to really connect the dots between ad versus form fill versus who's actually enrolled in courses. And then that becomes your really your third tier, your highest level of ROI is to be able to showcase, well, we had 150 people click on this ad and we had 75 actually enroll and track it through UTM code so they're able to see exactly, okay, this traffic came from paid social media or it came from
paid display ads on Google. Or if you're using customized URLs on a billboard, even you're able to track that. So I think there's so many tools these days. You have to be very specific in how you're connecting those dots. And I think that it's your ROI is dictated in what stage you currently are in.
such an important nugget and I know that again our listeners will do rewind on that to hear that because it's critical. You can be passionate about an initiative but then there are the stakeholders that you do have to respond to so knowing what the ROI and what you're going to be measuring is critical. So let's talk about you know one of those successful campaigns and I say one you've had a bazillion successful campaigns or initiatives and I want to make sure because I know you know listeners are
thinking we're going to probably stay down the road of degrees or, you know, but I'd like to talk about workforce development because that's the hottest ticket around and how, you know, an institution can message and move the needle in that area is critical right now. So share an initiative that comes to mind and really how your team executed and what was some of the key ingredients for the success? Yeah, you know, there's three specific ones. It's really hard to stick to one.
Well, you go ahead and share. I want to start with TCC to work because that really is one thing that really kind of set me on a different type of career path, honestly. And I think that when we did that together, Kim, we were ahead of the curve. This was before COVID.
and we were talking about the rapid credentials and certifications and I want to say that we had to put this together in about four to six weeks. It was a really quick. Four to six weeks on that one and if you talk about the other one it was two weeks. So I for me it's essential. Turnaround and I think the ingredients that went into that was really closely working with our institutional effectiveness office learning about historical enrollment data first and foremost. We identified the programs. We went.
to see who's enrolled in the programs in the past, where they came from, who they were, their age ranges, their geographic locations, and then we really had to build out a quick strategy based on that, and that really built into a content strategy of sorts. So a content strategy that really connected the dots of written pieces for press releases. That press release became the photo gallery, that photo gallery became the video of the person in the story, and those assets then became the ads that went out to market.
So, you know, from looking at it from that way, it was really building it out from the ground up, very audience segmentation, you know, way ahead of its curve. And I think that putting all those ingredients together, and this was done internally, which is a really cool thing about it. Yes. Our internal team did this and our designers, our video photographers worked on this together. And we really were able to create a content funnel that was really sophisticated in nature that we rolled out 52 programs, 52 weeks.
It sounds crazy now, but we really were and I would say even to this point are with the mindset ahead of you. Yeah, absolutely
of what is possible because, you know, we believe and we believe then that it was possible and that we could tell those stories and it did happen. Yeah. And with that, you know, and just for the listeners here, you know, when you talk about 52 programs in 52 weeks, we had a great schedule in place. You know, I want to say Monday morning, a press release would hit the presses. Our ads would drop on social media that afternoon. During the two to three week run of the campaign specifically, you would see the ads on television, hear them on radio. And every Monday, a new program would launch.
while the others kind of saturated in the market for an extra few weeks. And it really created a presence in Tallahassee that was honestly unheard of. I think in this state of not the next world. Ahead of our time because I know there were numerous awards that your team and the college. That's right. There was numerous awards and that went from the pieces that were created from the design to the video photography to all the collateral we had created, the giveaways, the license plate for
the little stress trucks that matched up with the trucking programs. And we had all kinds of pieces that really built together. And honestly, that campaign that we worked on really formed how I've handled things since then. I mean, I've talked about it so many times and everywhere I've gone since then, I've really followed that format of content creation, content strategy. And leaving there, went over to the Department of Education where we did the Get There Florida campaign. And...
Again, they were behind in the times at that point because we already did. So we went down the street in Tallahassee to do that on a statewide level and used a very similar process of the storytelling, building out toolkits for all of our partners across the state from tech colleges and community colleges, and really supplying them with content and then really pushing that storytelling aspect and then connecting them with their college of choice across the state. And then coming up to Western, again, the same thing.
We really looked at it from that standpoint of how can we really take this same approach build in this content strategy and use a storytelling as a baseline and the same thing I did up there I took a singular fantastic student story that person became the video it became the billboard it became the radio spot and It's the familiarity you're building up. You're driving down the road You see this person on the billboard with a QR code or a link you read more about their story you see
see the longer form video, you're enticed to learn more about the program, and it's like this content funnel that makes one is more efficient for our workflow. So, you know, our team can go in, capture one day of interviews with this student, and you're getting the pictures, the video, the written piece, and then from there it turns into the design assets in the media plan.
And we had so much success at Western from this whole aspect. Our campaign was called Live Western and Live Western was truly about someone living Western. Like you could ask someone, what does it mean to live Western? It could be something as simple as, you know, 20 years ago, I was at a tailgate party at a football game, or it could be the first in your family to go to college. And pulling out those nuggets of personalization was so important. And it was really rooted from our work at TCC because that's what people are
resonating to the most, I think right now is hearing authentic stories. And, you know, we really changed the status quo and took a layered content approach. So it's no longer about the formal talking head style interview videos. That's great for a certain audience. But what else can we do? And with this campaign, we took it a step further. So we started doing Day in the Life's, which is truly how you live Western. So we gave a student a camera, which may scare some listeners.
I love that so! It's a true day in the life. So we would identify students across the campus, across the university, and these were very diverse students. It could be from the band, from athletics or football team, from programs specifically. They would take this out and film themselves for a week just doing things around the campus. It could be going to to lunch with their friends. It could be sitting in class. It could be doing band practice and it could be tubing down the river, you know, just different things that really
what it means to live Western because it's a very specific location and we would get that content back. Obviously we would vet it. Sometimes we'd get some crazy stuff back but we got some incredible stories back and those became our heart and soul of our campaign. We were able to take that student created content, make that into a 30 -second spot for television, make that into a video. Yeah, oh my gosh. And it was, you know, no money out to produce the video but it was good enough for
in today's times because I think that audiences are so used to the TikTok style, the authentic people holding the camera up, filming themselves. It became our most successful videos. And I'm just thinking of numbers off the top of my head on TikTok specifically, and I know some states have banned TikTok, which is really disheartening because it's been our most successful tool that we've used ever. And our one video of a student doing that had over five million impressions. Million.
And this was a very low cost to put out there. I think we spent maybe $1 ,800. So you're getting the traffic from the paid part, but it's also becoming viral in its own way. And I want to say that it sent over 27 ,000 people to the website. I mean, it's incredible. OMG. I mean, that's one of those moments that, you know, again, for the listeners who may be thinking that you got to put a ton of dollars out there to see the results. Here's a whole strategy.
you're focusing in on your important customers or student and using them to tell you the story. Let them tell their story because they're going to tell it in the way that's going to resonate with other students and what you get back is the fact that you're getting all this organic raw footage about them doing things around campus, extracurricular activities, things of that nature, but they're also talking about the program that they're in. So you're subliminally promoting your programs, your college, your student life, your student activities all in one little video and it just becomes
this incredible tool that you can use across the board for web, social, digital. You can take that person and put them on the billboard, send them to the video to watch and learn more about it. It's just a really good tool. And I think if that's one thing I wanted to leave everyone with is the fact that let them tell their story. It's going to be better than a scripted video that you're probably going to tune out of when you're wanting to learn about the college or institution. You know.
Yeah. Love it. Love it. So as we look to close out our conversation, but certainly you're always welcome into the workforce insight podcast. What you to pull out your crystal ball, crystal ball and thinking about, you know, what's on the horizon, emerging trends, you know, I know for one thing that comes to mind AI and even chat GPT and marketing and communications. How has that, you know, invaded your space now? What does that mean?
Absolutely. And you took the words out of my mouth. I think it's all about AI and how you really embrace that moving forward. And we've really embraced that from its core. I've got a few items to talk about here for AI specifically. And it's really important to understand that it's not just chat GPT. There's other things that have now been introduced in the marketing world that you can take advantage of. And one of our most successful tools that we used over the past three years is a service called Carnegie Clarity. It's called Clarity.
So what that is, it's basically an AI tool for website personalization. So let's say a student wants to go into a nursing program. They've seen an ad, they've clicked an ad, they've visited the nursing program page three to four times, or maybe they've indicated in a form that nursing was one of their programs of interest. So what happens with the website personalization is once they come back to your institution webpage, they get served up custom content.
for nursing. So they no longer see your standard page with the news stories.
No way! It's so awesome. What it does is AI in the background, it works its magic. It curates videos, curates stories that's been written about nursing, it curates information from the nursing page itself, and it serves it up on the home page along with reminders about deadlines for applications, financial aid information, open houses, and so forth. After the initial setup, it's on autopilot. It's amazing. It works for every page across your website. It's so cool.
end.
Oh my goodness, I know that as we share this out and with the marketing, I know that individuals will be taking notes and I'm gonna encourage them take notes while you're listening to it because you've dropped so many great nuggets. And what else were you thinking about with these emerging? Yeah, so another one which has actually been around for a while, which we actually use Kim at TCC was Merit Pages. This is a student focused AI tool, which is really amazing to use. And it's a low cost entry point into this kind of service. And what this is more on the communication sides of the house.
So your communications team, it kind of takes some workload off of that team as well. But essentially, I want to call it almost like a LinkedIn for every student at your institution. So it captures all their honors, their awards, if they've made the dean's list or president's list. And one example of how that works from an AI perspective is that, let's say they've made the president's list or dean's list at graduation or commencement. So we're able to take a simple Excel sheet from a registrar's office, upload that to merit pages. So that could be 200 or 2 ,000 students.
and you load it into merit pages and it generates individualized press releases for every single student on that list. All in the background, all AI, you're able to review, tweak it if you need to, and then it sends it out to their hometown media on your behalf. And it's very cool. So whether they're five miles from campus or whether they came 600 miles from campus, it bases it on their zip code when they registered for their courses or their programs and it then blasts it out.
to their hometown media and also the legislators in that general area as well. So you're getting people that are retweeting it, they're reposting it from different cities across the country. So you're getting your word out about your institution. They feel great about themselves making their local press and it just generates more traffic back to your social, back to your webpage. And that's another really great tool. And you know, you mentioned chat GPT. We've been using it. It's a great baseline. We use it to help us generate
to brainstorm for copy, for publications, for social media posts, even for press releases. It really serves up a really solid foundation for content. And our comms team has used that. Our social media team has used it. We've used it for paid marketing and for trying to come up with a quick tagline for an ad that's going to go out next week. Just a really important tool to take advantage of, I think, from a writing perspective. And AI, I think, is definitely where it's going to head fully and wholly over the next couple of years.
or so and don't want to leave the designers out because there's also Canva AI. This is a great way to lock down your brand but also allow stakeholders across the university or college to take advantage of easy to use tools for generating social media posts, flyers, brochures, and it's AI generated. You load up your colors, you load up your fonts, you load up your logos, and AI helps them generate this content to use immediately and it's branded.
cohesive and clear so there's so many great tools out there.
So I love hearing this because for a lot of people that are bouncing and are like, Hey, this is scary and this is going to replace jobs. And I know that you and I share that entrepreneurial let's, you know, next stage mindset or even on innovation that it doesn't, it allows you to do more. It's focused and it improves efficiency and you know, the ability to cover so much ground. So I'm so glad that you have identified as your trends and I'm hopeful that everyone.
that's listening will embrace that and see that there are so many opportunities. Yeah, that's absolutely the idea of AI. I think it's more of an extension of your team. It's more of an efficiency builder because as everyone knows that's listening, you know, you could have two people on your team or 22 people on your team and it's never enough because there's so many requests. I think to identify those tools that really work for you, work harder for you to develop DIY tools for your stakeholders, it just becomes an extension of your team and allows you to be more efficient.
more focused on the brand work, the bigger picture ideas and strategies. So fully behind AI tools and how to better make use of those.
So again, an amazing conversation. Well worth every bit of just reaching out and making sure that you were our top speaker when it comes to marketing communication. And I'm certain that everyone will agree one question before we leave the podcast. And that is, you know, your playbook you have, I know it's probably filled with lots of things. I'm not even sure how you carry that playbook these days because it's just so big, but thinking about community colleges and universities, you know, what would be that?
playbook tip and we talk about inspiring leaders as well. So, you know, what would you want to share? It could be from the vantage point of someone that's just getting into this role or maybe even a seasoned veteran that says, okay, what, you know, what can you share with me? So what would I mean? This is taking us out of our room. What we've been talking about, but relationship building. I mean, that has been a key playbook that I've had over the past several years. And, you know, going into an institution, being proactive and intentional on how you build relationships is so important.
and marketing communications. Because you're going to rely on those relationships when you're launching a new brand. If you're doing a website overhaul, if you're trying to condense social media channels from a thousand to 10, you have to have relationships in place and you have to be proactive and intentional about that. And that's not just for the leader. I've told my staff that, you know, a lot of times they look to me or the chief or whoever to be their advocate. I said, no, you're all advocates for this team. So you have to be proactive.
proactive. You have to go out there and meet with individuals, talk about what you're doing, what our plan is, what our strategy is, and really it's an educational experience for both sides of the house to get out there and talk to individuals. We've set up what we call UCM BEATS, University Communications and Marketing, BEATS, where we really identify two to three different units across the university and they're connected with a person on our team. So you can have your social media manager reaching out to legal.
to nursing, to athletics. And it's a 15 minute touch point bi -weekly. It's just a hey, how are you doing? How are things going? Here's what we're doing. How can we leverage each other's resources to one, tell a story, to get the word out about something important. But it's a really intentional way to build relationships, communicate, and make sure that you're getting the buy -in and that trust from across the university. So, so many ways to do that. But I think, you know, one tip in the
playbook is when you get in there to a new position meet as many people as you can. I think your first 90 days is truly listening. It's listening and learning, talking to people, and then formulating your strategy from there.
Love it again. It's such a wonderful opportunity to connect with you, to even reflect on the work that we did together and to know that you've just continued that record pace and of just building brands and doing that through collaboration. That's exactly who you are. So thank you for one, everyone tuning in to the Workforce Insight podcast powered by Envision More Consulting Group, where we bring your bold visions to life. And we are just thankful and
Travis know that the door is always open for you to come back because we want to stay close because we understand that you are the storyteller and you do it like no other. So thank you very much. Thank you so much for this opportunity. It's been fantastic. Thanks for tuning in to the Workforce Insight podcast powered by Envision More Consulting Group.
where we bring your bold visions to life. Remember to subscribe, share, and stay tuned for more insights on navigating the world of workforce and leadership. Until the next time, be bold, be great, and let's innovate.