NAGAP GEM Summit Takeaways

Excellent educational sessions at the NAGAP Association for Graduate Enrollment Management Summit in Chicago last year.  Here are some quick takeaways:

• The importance of graduate degree programs has come to the forefront in higher education marketing.
  
• Collaboration between internal stakeholders/department heads and lack of territorialism (is that a word?) is crucial for institution-wide change.
• Interesting idea - set up a "Marketing Taskforce" consisting of people in departments other than Marketing (i.e. Admissions, Advancement, Student Success, etc.) to periodically review marketing collateral and messaging and ensure its effective in the trenches.
  
• Sales content (i.e. promo video) is NOT marketing content.  Won't pull people into the top of the funnel.
  
• Valuable resources such as marketing content can grow top of funnel, but need to bring prospects along at a slower pace with different communication sequence than prospects already in inquiry stage.
  
• Follow the data of what works, and invest in that first.  Prove success in one area (i.e. one degree program), invest in it, and then replicate with other areas.