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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:00]:
Hello again and welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. And one of the issues that comes up most frequently when I'm out and about and people want to hear about different subjects on the podcast is marketing. Marketing is hugely significant to everyone, right? To every business and certainly to every educational institution. It is uniquely important to, we believe, our schools, because our schools don't have the state subsidies, they don't have the inertia that exists with regard to student notification and so forth. It's really important for students to be able to make their presence visible to students. And in the changing atmosphere of TikTok and social media and all of the things that have changed, so hugely important to have a strong marketing ability and a presence. So I wanted to find the absolute best person I could in the entire country to talk about marketing and I promise you, I found her. And she is Dr.
Jason Altmire [00:01:11]:
Kate Lamberton. She's currently the Alberto I. Duran President's Distinguished professor of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, which is a big deal, I don't have to tell you. And she is widely regarded for her research consumption related phenomena, banning topics related to retail, responses to taxation, the emotions of the consumer, the role of dignity and respect in marketplace experience. She had a book last year on that very topic, which we will talk about. She's the editor of the Journal of Marketing and she's been retained as a consultant, importantly for our audience by the U.S. departments of Education and labor, as well as by a whole host of major US corporations for her expertise. So, Dr.
Jason Altmire [00:02:04]:
Lamberton, thank you for being with us.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:02:07]:
Thank you so much for having me.
Jason Altmire [00:02:08]:
And I will, for full disclosure, I'm going to call you Kate from now on because you and I have known each other for a very long time, so this isn't happenstance. But I'm really glad to have you on because you do amazing work and your expertise is sought after all across the country. So I, I, I think the, you know, the first question which I touched on is you've, you've done this for a while. You have a PhD from South Carolina and you know, have written and spoken on these topics. How has it changed the evolution of social media and the fact that you can't just run an ad on television now to reach a consumer, you have to do it in a different way. What's been your experience in kind of categorizing the best way to reach out to those different types of demographics?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:03:00]:
So it's an interesting question because on one hand everything has changed. We can no longer count on exposures to an ad as an indicator of some kind of, some level of response. Because as we know, people use three screens at once. So maybe they see your ad on tv, but they're looking at their phone and then their laptop is next to them too. And so the battle for attention has become much bigger. We just can't bank on a given exposure getting you anywhere. I mean, even beyond that, if you get some kind of response, you get a click or you get some interaction, people have developed, I think, a lot more grounded skepticism about the monetary value of that engagement. So the path to get people all the way to take action has gotten a lot more complicated than it once was.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:03:45]:
And there, there are lots more places where you can lose people. Now. The upside of that is there are also a lot more places where you can reach out to people. And what that also means is that if you can identify places where you will actually get people's attention, that's where you want to focus. Whether it's, you know, the analog version is you're at the bus stop, you got nothing to do but stare at what's on the wall. But there are other ways of thinking through where attention is really likely to be captured. So more complex paths, more opportunities, but also a really important big, really sort of a premium on understanding where attention is available for you.
Jason Altmire [00:04:22]:
You hear about with crisis or with change comes great opportunity. And I think you just outlined that, because one of the primary concerns I hear among the members of our association and just people out in the higher education world is how difficult it is to reach these new demographics of students. Because our schools are not only, you know, post high school students. These are non traditional students who are getting their news and their information in a different way than they used to. And I find two different types of people, people who are open to the change and understand that this presents a great opportunity to reach out. Because as you said, there's so many different ways to connect with people. But then there are folks who have done it for a long time the way they've always done it, and they're kind of resistant to or don't know how to approach that change. What would you say to that second group about the opportunity that exists to use marketing and use the new tools at their disposal for their benefit?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:05:26]:
You know, I think I'd say something to both groups. I think what your second group has that sometimes the first group lacks is a grounded understanding of strategy. And so they may have spent more time thinking through things like who is our competition for this segment? Right? Like, what are they actually considering instead of us? They may have spent more time thinking through exactly what they offer that's distinctive from the rest of the world. What really makes them win in that competitive space? They may have spent more time thinking through things like what are the capacities of our firm and what can we actually move around? What can we change that? The more traditional marketers often have taken a more strategic approach to making their media buys because they had to. And what I think what they often see when they look at the new media approach is a lack of strategic thinking. People say things like, well, we've got to be on TikTok, so let's make some TikTok stuff. But that TikTok stuff is really divorced from a fundamental understanding of what your strategic competitive advantage is and how you should be communicating that. So I think you actually need the two to come together, you know, and I can say that for TikTok, I could say the same thing.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:06:41]:
For something as simple as a banner ad that's run online very often, the people that are cranking those things out, putting them up, paying for that space, aren't doing that with a really clear idea of the overall firm strategy and the nature of the brand and who the target segments are. And because of that, you don't feel like you're moving the ball forward. So I think the two groups do need to talk to each other, but I understand the skepticism of the second group because unless this new stuff is tied into a really foundational understanding of strategy, it's not going to do any good.
Jason Altmire [00:07:14]:
I think there was a lack of understanding of the. There continues to be a lack of understanding of the influencer crowd. Right. Like, there was so much talk in the election about Joe Rogan and YouTube and, and I, I, I just feel like. I personally feel disconnected from that whole world. But it's so important in marketing now that, that you're reaching these influencers who, who are going to help you carry the message, but you want your visibility to be high. And it, it just seems like such an enormous challenge if you're coming from a perspective where you've never dealt with that before. How, how can people kind of get their, you know, their thinking process in such a way that they're reaching that.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:08:01]:
Audience for students, yeah, influencers are interesting. And you have a few huge names, right? You have the Joe Rogans. And in this space, you do have, you know, people that are speaking quite a bit about how to survive in the changing economy and I think the kinds of institutions you work with have a really important voice in that conversation. So the first thing I would say is again, do your foundational work to understand what your brand is and what you really offer that's distinct from the competition. After you do that, find the people who are authentic fits to your brand. It's not going to make that much sense to pay a lot of money for an influencer who has no reason to have any affiliation with your organization. That will only be effective if you're selling something that is a really impulse, no thinking purchase. Right.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:08:51]:
So if, if I'm selling, you know, scented candles and I decide that I'm going to have Snoop Dogg sell them, it doesn't matter that he knows nothing about scented candles because it's a candle. Nobody cares. But when you're talking about something as important as education, people are going to slow down and think about the investment they're making. So you need a really good fit with that influencer. And if you don't have that, it's going to look inauthentic for them, it's going to look inauthentic for you. Other thing that we have learned from research, this is other people's research, not mine. But there's really interesting work about the fact that there's a Goldilocks level of influencer that you don't actually want necessarily the person with the biggest number of followers because the people that have the huge follower list have a really heterogeneous mixed set of people they're talking to. So you aren't going to get a message that's really relevant, that's really tailored to those listeners.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:09:43]:
It's going to hit a few, but it's not really going to land where it needs to. You're better off finding an influencer that has a smaller and better fitting number of followers than the one that is going to reach 20 million people on average. The effect is going to be greater for you. So, so don't stress out about number of followers as much as fit.
Jason Altmire [00:10:02]:
You've written a lot about Generation X and how to hit younger people with some of these ideas. But I talked about our schools serve primarily non traditional students. So in this new world where all of these new techniques and social media exists, but the older students, the non traditional students maybe aren't as involved in that world, how do you reach an audience like that?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:10:31]:
Well, I think there again there's so much pure gold in really understanding who your audience is. It's not that hard to figure out what your Actual audience is doing. So, you know, when you say Gen X, that's, you know, that's where I live, right. We're in the, we're in the generation. We're listening to podcasts, right? Podcasts are still a good way to reach people and the traditional media persists because it still can work. So I think you really have to understand what your consumer is interested in and where they're already going. In an ideal world, you don't have to fight to create a new communication channel. You use something that's already happening.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:11:06]:
So some very effective ways of communicating are to work through community groups, right? So if you know that your target audience is a church going population, you can reach out to affinity groups that are organized in those ways, use the ways that they already, that they're already getting together and try to capture their attention there. You certainly can use things like TikTok and Instagram, et cetera. But again, you've got to figure out how to get into the algorithm that suits those people. And so I think you then want to do is figure out how to align yourself with something they're already interested in. You know, at certain points there, there are certain points in people's lives when you know they're undergoing major transitions. So some very effective marketing takes place, for example, when people have recently moved house. Right. Or when that, because they're open to change, they're clearly changing something in their life.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:11:54]:
Or when they've had children, they've just taken to college, they now have a different kind of daily experience. Their time is budgeted differently, their money is budgeted differently. So other thing I would do is look, look for indicators of major life events and see if that's a moment when you can be in the right place for somebody who's looking to change or who's open to change things in their lives.
Jason Altmire [00:12:14]:
I mentioned that you do some work with the US Department of Education, also Department of Labor, which as career schools, those are two agencies that are very important to us. What type of work do you do with them?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:12:29]:
Well, so I haven't done anything in a few years. I did, however, when I was in college, during one of my off semesters in college, I became familiar with this intersection because I worked at a Department of labor job corps and it was fantastic. I was, I was really inspired by the way that these students, they were coming in with, not most of them, not a very strong idea of what they wanted to do, often from at risk backgrounds, and then walking out with a certificate to be a plumber. Or an electrician or a nurse, or a, a cook or chef and going on to really fantastic careers. And so that was the moment when I started to understand how important the sort of non traditional paths to a career were in people's lives. And for many of these students, they could also take junior college classes while they were there, certainly open to all the, you know, all the opportunities. But it was a real eye opener for me to realize how valuable these other paths could be. When I was working with the Department of Labor and Department of Education, mostly we were talking about ways to communicate complex information to people.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:13:34]:
So for example, there's a lot of data available about how good certain, certain schools are at certain things, but the data is a mess. It's really hard to communicate. And it wasn't even clear that if parents, for example, had all this data, they would use it in a way that helped them make a better choice. So a lot of that work was trying to figure out how to communicate that in a way that it would help people. Another set of projects focused on supporting students who were first generation, low income, who were going into higher education. Because, you know, I think some of us don't realize how much we soak up from the people around us about how this whole system works. And so it was really interesting to look at programs that tried to support people in that process. And you know, in any educational environment you have massive attrition.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:14:19]:
Right. So there was also a problem at the time where students would start some kind of educational program and stop halfway through. And that was a worst case situation because they hadn't finished a credential, but they had incurred the financial costs. And so the question was, how can we set things up so that they are pulled through the completion of a program? Because again, there's so many ways that they can go off. So it was a really interesting process. And you realize how psychologically complicated an education is, as in, in a sense, everyone needs an educational therapist to make sure this experience is going to work in a way that leads to the outcome that they want.
Jason Altmire [00:14:56]:
Absolutely. That's exactly the challenge that we face. You mentioned the, the career path. We are the schools that expand the pipeline to those types of careers that you were speaking of. And it is critically important when you think from a marketing perspective and a student recruitment, student inquiry, that you're marketing to students who can actually finish the program, who have an interest. It's, it's their, their life's calling at that moment. Maybe they've tried something else. It hasn't worked.
Jason Altmire [00:15:27]:
Whatever the reason, now they're taking this path, but you want to make sure it's a student who understands what they're getting into and, and they want to do the work. And from the marketing perspective, how do you approach the, the inquiry to students in a way that you're not only providing information to them, but you're also getting information to them to see if it's the right fit for you as a school as well?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:15:51]:
I think that the biggest tool there would be making everything concrete. And so rather than asking, you know, can you allocate the time in your schedule to study? Which everyone's saying, of course I can, of course I have time, of course I can do it, you have to ask something like, if you were to add two hour a week guitar lesson to your schedule, how much stress would that create in your life? You have to translate the requirement into something that people can imagine or to ask something about trade offs, which is to say this is going to add four more hours of X to your weekly schedule. What can you give up to make space for that commitment? Because that's a reality. We only have so many hours. And so I think if I were trying to sort out the people who are really going to be able to finish, I would ask, I've translated into a concrete current that they care about and I would ask about the trade offs that they're going to be able to make in order to support this addition to their life. I think too that in, especially when you're talking about older students, sort of students who have more aspects in their life than say an undergrad does to manage, I think it would also be useful to ask about your family situation to the extent that you can, which is to say, you know, how supportive are the people around you? Do you have any friends or family that have done this before? Because that's a huge positive influence. If people have seen others go through a program and emerge with something that was, that felt like a success to them, I think those things are important. And then I think once you have people in, there's a lot that is useful about encouraging people to set their own personal goals.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:17:21]:
Of course, the abstract goal is to finish the credential, but there are also more concrete goals, like I want to be able to take time off to do X, or I want to have the funding to do Y. I think if you can then encourage people once they're in the door to form those concrete goals so that even when things get tough, you say, but you remember you wanted to do this you know, do you really want to walk away from that? We're going to help you get that. Then you have a source of personal motivation that goes beyond the umbrella abstraction that might land, but. But also won't pull people through when things get difficult.
Jason Altmire [00:17:52]:
I think this relates to your second book that you wrote last year. You've become a leader, I would say even a pioneer, on the idea of how emotions play in market experiences for consumers. You talk about the concept of dignity and respect and how they feel about this approach to marketing that has been thrust upon them in the marketplace. And so you, you wrote a book about that called Marketplace Dignity and talked a lot about some of these issues. So related to what you just said about how the consumer perceives in an educational setting, this discussion that they're having about this very monumental life choice that they need to make, how does the concept of marketplace dignity fall into that?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:18:40]:
First thing I would say is that for your audience, dignity is such a powerful lever. You're talking about people who want to take agency in their life to transform who they are and therefore to gain a different set of capabilities. And the capabilities are the different ways that we can meet our goals in life. Right. And so education is fundamentally connected to dignity and particularly this kind of experience. When people perhaps have gone down a path that didn't give them the choice that they. The choices and the control over their life that they wanted. In a really profound way, this kind of educational opportunity is.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:19:19]:
Is exactly dignity on a platter. It is to say you have the opportunity to change direction. You have the opportunity, and we see you and we hear you and we understand what you have to offer. So I think that's something that, if, if I were in this category, I would, I would make that very clear. That's really about what education is about, particularly for people who are perhaps not coming through the path that everyone was told was the dominant way to. To live your life. And so recognizing that and respecting that is a really powerful step to take. Beyond that, what we would say is once people start considering these opportunities, you want to reinforce that dignity experience.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:19:57]:
And it has three parts. The first one is this sense of control or agency that people have choice. So flexibility is really important for people. And you don't want that just to become. You can do whatever you want because we don't care. And it's up to you. You want that to be. This is your way of crafting your experience and controlling what you're going to go through here.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:20:17]:
So I think making sure people feel really in control is important. The second piece is fairness, which is to say you're going to get the same opportunities as others. We want to make sure that everybody that comes through here has access to the same chance to do what they want to do. And fairness is such a fundamental idea for people that if they start to feel like things are unfair, even if they're wrong, even it is fair, but they don't feel that way, you got a problem, Right? So even just making sure people understand that it's a level playing field and everybody has a chance here to thrive. And then the third piece is representation, which is being seen and heard. And this. You mean, we all know how this is like if. If you're in an.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:20:55]:
Or in an institution where you talk and no one hears you, it's a terrible feeling. Just feel like you. They don't. You're not a person, you're just a number. And so it's really important throughout these experiences to keep asking and listening. What is the experience like? How is this working for you? And then giving people voice to share with other people, too. There's a really interesting finding that we have in some of our data that the most powerful way to affirm somebody's dignity is to allow them to help other people. Because that recognizes who they are, what they have to offer, and gives them a sense of control over putting something positive into the world.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:21:31]:
So if you can take this journey and turn it into a chance to help somebody else, you kind of close the dignity loop.
Jason Altmire [00:21:37]:
And with regard to the feeling and the emotion of the consumer, the prospective student, in this case, education, of course, is not something that you make a decision and it has an immediate payoff. You decide you're going to pursue higher education curriculum of some sort, a program that is of interest to you, and you have to go through the study, you have to go through the training. And even after you get your certificate, often it takes a while to build your career. And how the concept that you just said, it strikes me it's really important that the student have this. This sense of dignity that you're talking about, but that they're able to carry it through the process and feel good about the choice that they've made all along the way, and then even now that they're in the job market to feel good about the educational experience that they just had. How does all of that come together?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:22:31]:
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think one thing that unfortunately our new technologies have created, and this is a much shorter attention span. I was just Reading this morning about this idea that when you are constantly in a situation where you get a dopamine rush every time you flip your finger across the phone, it makes it harder to hold out for these long term outcomes. We're just not used to doing it on a daily basis. So some help, some things that help people are giving them intermediate goals. So it's not all the way at the end that you get to celebrate. You celebrate every win because every win matters. And there's some great work that was done a few years ago by Professor Walton out in California.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:23:11]:
They did this really interesting work where they talk to students who were beginning a very, very challenging education. It was, I believe they were at Northwestern and many of these students were coming in not with, you know, not with all the support that you might hope for at the beginning of an education. And what they had seen happening was that students would hit challenges and then look around and say, nobody else is having these challenges. I must not belong here because I'm the one having a hard time. And what they didn't see was everybody was struggling in some way or other. I mean, it's your first year of college, everyone's overwhelmed. But it wasn't visible because people don't necessarily show that. So what they did at the beginning of this education was normalize challenge and say, everybody struggles, everybody faces challenge, it's totally normal.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:23:57]:
And it doesn't mean you don't belong. And that turns out to be a really powerful intervention. And so I think explaining to people, yep, it's gonna get hard, man. When you hit that second year, everybody's exhausted, everybody's sick of it, you're right in the middle, it's really hard. Plants a seed for people that makes them prepared for it. Some of the other work that I do right now is in pharmaceutical consulting, which may sound like a strange analogy, but it's similar in the sense that very often you have to start a therapy and it's going to be a long time before you get the payoff. And along the way you might experience all kinds of adverse events. You know, if you're talking about chemotherapy, you're going to go through some pain before you get to the other side.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:24:36]:
And it's a similar challenge where you have to say, yep, you're not going to feel that great. But the good news is that mean it means it's working. So you can also reframe the pain, reframe the struggle to say, yep, you know what's great about that? That means you are learning and you are getting closer. And also, if it was easy, everybody'd do it. So the fact that you make it through that is something you can be really proud of. I think proactively reframing what's going to happen can be really, can be really effective.
Jason Altmire [00:25:02]:
Well, I would highly recommend your book Marketplace Dignity, talking about these topics. It is something that are. Is very important to our schools. And I just think people generally to understand the concept of dignity and respect and not just in the consumer marketplace, but interactions as people. It's. It's obviously very important. So I'm really glad that you're out there telling that story. If, if somebody wanted to find you and get in touch and learn more about your work, how would they do that?
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:25:31]:
They're welcome to find me through the Wharton web pages. Just shoot me and I'll be happy to talk to them. And I really do think that these kinds of schools have a huge role to play, particularly as the workforce continues to change. And I think there are so many people that are hungry for new opportunities. And to your point, people want to be respected for the work they do. They want to be able to step back and say, I wasn't just part of a big machine. I made something better in the world. I fixed something, I did something, I created something.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:25:59]:
And opportunities to do that really do speak to the value of the people with whom we interact every day.
Jason Altmire [00:26:07]:
Our guest today has been Dr. Kate Lamberton. She is the Alberto I. Duran President's Distinguished professor of Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, among many other things. Dr. Lamberton, thank you for being with us.
Dr. Kate Lamberton [00:26:22]:
Thank you so much.
Jason Altmire [00:26:30]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.