Caitlin Way Answers Key Questions About Digital Advertising

This October at Converge 2015, our focus is to bring the best and brightest together to revolutionize higher education. In this series of blog posts, Content Marketing Intern, Mikayla Wilson, asks our speakers key questions. Read on to find out more about our passionate speakers and the importance of their topics. 

Name: Caitlin Way

Institution: Trulaske College of Business at the University of Missouri

Session: How Mizzou’s Hybrid execMBA Program Used Digital Advertising to Attract the Right Students

Date & Time: Thursday, October 22 | 11:30-12:15PM

Summary: Caitlin will be joined by Hayley Warack of Converge to highlight how digital advertising can drive qualified leads in higher education. Caitlin and Hayley will share examples from their joint digital marketing projects.

MW: Tell us more about yourself.

CW: I’m a marketing and communications professional with a special passion for working with educational and nonprofit organizations. While I have worked with several organizations, the bulk of my experience has been marketing and recruiting in higher education. Currently, I manage all of the marketing, recruitment, and admissions for the Trulaske execMBA Program at the University of Missouri, a fairly young program gaining traction in the highly competitive executive MBA space.

I specialize in digital marketing and analytics, but I approach marketing goals as holistically as possible. To me, it’s important to understand all the moving parts that must align in order to lead a person to the product or service that’s the best fit for his or her needs. I love numbers, messaging, design, and content generation – and I love piecing them together to form a clear and cohesive plan.

I grew up in West Plains, Missouri and have lived in Columbia since 2007. My husband John and I are foodies, fitness buffs, winery frequenters, and love catching a good movie at Ragtag in downtown Columbia. I have also been teaching piano lessons for eight years and am a regular volunteer with the City of Columbia.

MW: What is new and next in digital advertising?

CW: Industry experts aren’t overemphasizing the importance of data. To me, data is everything in advertising strategy. Marketing has historically been thought of as a more qualitative, creative industry – “Who knows if our billboard is working?”

With digital, that’s no longer the case. There’s really no part of digital advertising that should leave marketers guessing about effectiveness at this point. Sure, we have to test tactics, but we have the ability to know so much about our audience and to do so much with the knowledge. We can find out who clicked, how they got there, how long they looked at the content before clicking, which parts of the page they spent the most time on, where they are geographically, what other topics they’re interested in, and what they bought on Amazon last week.

The availability of this kind of information has some people grabbing torches and exclaiming how “creepy” digital marketing has become, but it really excites me. From my point of view, knowing more about you means that I can serve info to you if my product is relevant and quit bugging you if it isn’t. This mindset, combined with the rising popularity of inbound marketing (aka “permission marketing”), is actually great news for consumers. Marketers don’t want to cold call you during dinner anymore. They want to offer products and services that are important to you, and they want to gain your trust by providing you with extras like valuable content and free trials.

MW: What challenges have you seen in higher ed in digital advertising?

CW: Anyone who works for a public institution knows that budget is always a challenge. Every year, higher ed marketers are expected to accomplish more with fewer resources than the year before. Luckily, new digital tools are becoming more abundant and easier to access, but with so many channels and never enough money to try them all, building a strategy can be challenging.

Another challenge I’ve faced specifically with the execMBA has been audience analysis. Working with a new program since its inception has been almost like working for a start-up, only within the context of a huge established institution. Our program has a fairly uncommon format and could appeal to anyone from any industry in the US or even abroad, so figuring out where to start with market identification and segmentation was tough for our team. We knew what we were offering would fill a gap, but reaching those people in a strategic way is an ongoing process. We’re always tweaking targeting and still occasionally stumble upon an entire segment that we’d never thought of, but for whom our program is a great fit.

MW: What are you most excited about for Converge 2015?

CW: Working in a business school, I’m always pushing to make our processes more business-like and less higher-ed-institution-like. So I’m looking forward to a higher ed conference that won’t be attended by only folks in higher ed. Hearing from experts from companies like Google and HubSpot will be so valuable, and I think it will be a different experience than what I’ve had at other conferences. I’m excited about fresh perspectives and getting real feedback on ideas, and I’m hoping to leave with a list of specific tactics to try in 2016.

Plus, I’ve never been to New Orleans.

MW: Attend Converge 2015 to hear Caitlin and many other great speakers. We hope to see you there!