SPEAKER_02
You're listening to the Higher Ed Marketer, a podcast geared towards marketing professionals in higher education. This show will tackle all sorts of questions related to student recruitment, donor relations, marketing trends, new technologies, and so much more. If you're looking for conversations centered around where the industry is going, this podcast is for you.

Let's get into the show.

SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the Higher Ed Marketer podcast. My name is Troy Singer and I'm here with my co-host, Bart Kaler. Today on the show, we interview Lindsay Nyquist.

She's the director of marketing communications for Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. This episode is all about how to market the uniqueness of your school. Fort Lewis College is a very unique college in rural Colorado.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah. It's a great episode. We kind of get started.

We met Lindsay through, they were the inaugural episode of the college tour. On episode 47, we interviewed Alex Boylan, the producer and host of the college tour. We kind of get started on that, but we also kind of get into the whole idea of Fort Lewis is a very unique school.

It's a public liberal arts school. It's in rural Durango, Colorado in the middle of the ski mountains. And 59% of their student population are students of color and come from various backgrounds, including Native American.

So I think it's a very interesting conversation. She kind of walks through a number of things. So I think you're in store for a great podcast.

SPEAKER_00
I agree. Here's Lindsay Nyquist. It's our pleasure to welcome Lindsay Nyquist, director of marketing and communications for Fort Lewis College in Colorado to the High Red Marketer podcast.

And before we get into our conversation of how to market the uniqueness of your school and you'll see that Fort Lewis is a very unique college in Colorado. If you could tell us Lindsay a little bit about the school and the makeup of it, population, what village it's in, very unique school.

SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. So we are a technically Colorado's public liberal arts college. We have about 3,500 students.

Again, speaking to the uniqueness of it, more than 50% of our students are students of color, around 59%. And a large proportion of those are students from Native American or Alaska Native backgrounds. And I would also say just our location in beautiful Durango, Colorado is a big part of who we are and the way that we address education, both by being really connected to the place where we are in an academic way and in a student life way.

So yeah, I would say that's how we stand apart.

SPEAKER_00
I first got, was familiarized with the school through the show, the college tour. And in your episode, it's very evident. It's a school where your students are outdoors a lot.

SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. And you know, that takes many different forms that can, as I mentioned before, that could be an archeology field school or it can be students in our adventure ed program who are out there leading trips with first years. It can be students who just like to go out and ski on the weekends, which is very popular with our first year free pass to our local ski resort.

So yes, very much the core of who we are is that connection to place.

SPEAKER_00
That is a very cool perk, especially for the wintertime like it is. Again, Lindsay, we were first introduced to you through the college tour and our conversations with you were around that experience. So I know that you were one of the first, if not the first episode or school that they approach.

If we can, if you can give us a sense of how that opportunity came to you and the decision-making process of you saying, yes, this is something that we would like to take on because I don't think anyone else has said yes to them until you did.

SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. Yes, we were episode one, season one of the college tour and we're really proud of that. It really came from, I'm sure anyone who is in a position similar to mine knows that you get cold calls from vendors many times a day.

So sometimes it's really hard to sift through and find out what's going to be a good fit for your school and ways to reach your students. And when that one came to us, we were really in the early stages of the pandemic. And Beth Cohen from the college tour reached out to us and presented this idea and it just seemed really unique and different to us.

So the idea that we could be on Amazon Prime, on IMDbTV and that we could really, you know, we're a small regional school, but we do have students from all over the country. And how can we reach more of those students and really show off that unique, all of our unique characteristics and try something new? So we really took that leap of faith. We met up with the producers, Alex Boylan and Lisa Hennessey right off the bat and we're just really impressed by them.

They really cared about who we were, who we are. And they took the time to listen to any concerns we had and, you know, they were feeling it out the same way we were. So I think we got some extra special attention from them and it was just, it was a really fun experience the whole way through.

So the way that we actually made it happen was we were, because of COVID, we were really reassessing what our budget looked like and how we could use it more effectively. So one thing that we chose to do was stop our advertising in the Denver Airport because travel was pretty slow at that point. And we reallocated that money towards the college tour experience.

And it just really paid off for us. We had such a good time and it's really cool to see so many schools signing on there at, I think there are over 50 schools on that show now. And that we were part of the beginning of it, it was really powerful.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that's really interesting. We had Alex Boylan on the podcast a few episodes ago on episode 47. And it was fascinating.

I mean, he's such an exciting guy and he's got such a passion for what he's doing. And I think that for you guys to be the inaugural episode and then to actually see where it's gone, like you said, 50 episodes, it's pretty amazing. And I love that they come in with such a high level of production and professionalism.

I mean, having experience on amazing race and survivor and all those other shows that they have done before, it really kind of helped you guys. Articulate and hone your own stories to be able to tell that. Was that your experience?

SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. So I mean, we knew they were coming in with that high production value, but it still blew us away. And I think it was just such a cool experience for the students.

We had 10 of our students featured on the show and they just loved everything they got to do. I mean, they were treated by big stars and they got to share their individual stories. Alex did a great job of prompting them to write their own scripts.

They're not handed language to regurgitate. It's really, they're telling their own stories and we just help shape it in a way that works. And I just, it was such a cool experience and it helped us rethink how we shoot our media because, you know, we have a full-time videographer and a full-time photographer on staff.

But the way they came in and got so much content in one week, I really sort of reconsidered the idea of a blitz to really just, you know, go out on one day and try and shoot in 10 locations and make sure that we're focusing on that side. Because of COVID, we haven't actually been able to do that. But as soon as masks are off, we fully intend to, you know, take that habit into our production schedule as well.

SPEAKER_03
That's great because I'm just kind of reminiscing now about last week's episode with Dr. Mark Job at Moody Bible Institute. He really talked about the importance of authentic storytelling and really leaning into video.

And it seems to me like that's a lot of the lessons that you learned through this experience with the college tour and it will probably go forward, like you said. Tell me a little bit about how, I mean, anytime you invest in some new way of communicating, I mean, certainly everybody says, oh, if I can put a billboard up at the airport or at this location in town, then I can expect these kind of results. What kind of tangible results have you guys seen from, you know, being the inaugural episode on this Prime TV IMDB type TV experience?

SPEAKER_01
You know, the ROI is tough too. And I always struggle with this is, you know, proving a very clear ROI in the efforts that we make. I will say that just anecdotally, it's been phenomenal.

So we were really focusing on reaching prospective students, reaching their parents. And that's about as far as, as we were expecting. The other audiences we reached have been so powerful to, you know, our leadership.

So we reached our, you know, other college presidents were super impressed. Other, you know, people who are on foundations that we have close relationships with. It really reached through all sort of levels of society, which was, and just every single constituency.

The alumni loved it. The parents loved it. Current students loved it.

And so we were just really pleased with the, how far the message really reached. It was tough to make a exact correlation between being on the college tour and, and how we are performing admission wise, but our admissions up, we just had our, in the fall, we had our largest freshman class in 15 years, and our largest overall class in five years. So I definitely think the college tour had something to do with it, do with it, even if we couldn't make every single line connect there.

SPEAKER_03
That's great. That's great. I think it's, it's unique.

It's interesting to me that as you described the different constituents that kind of were touched by that, you know, obviously that's a, that's a diverse group of people that you just talked about with, you know, you've got your board, you've got other college presidents, you've got your own leadership, parents, I mean, they're all kinds of people. I guess it kind of even reflects back to Troy's initial conversation early on, is that when we look at how, you know, even like the college tour could impact, you know, the internal constituents that are very diverse, but that kind of starts to reflect a little bit about how the college tour is also impacting your external diversity. Because I mean, as you mentioned earlier, got a very unique and diverse community, making sure that that's represented, I mean, certainly that was happened in the college tour, but how are you taking those lessons learned and kind of making sure that the rest of your marketing and communications are really reflecting that diversity and who you really are?

SPEAKER_01
Across the board, authenticity is the name of the game. So we really, you know, we try not to stage too much. We lean very closely into representing our real students and their real stories.

The same way we did with the college tour is what's reflected on our social media. And we've got a new social media coordinator in place, and she is coming up with all kinds of amazing new video series that can really show our student story. She is pushing us way into more video.

We used to do, you know, heavily on photography and let the video creep in on our social. And now I think it's an 80-20 split the other direction. We're incredibly happy on video and on making sure one of the things we're focusing on this semester on our team is making sure that the student story is what's told by students.

So we're always hoping to do that, but we're doing a lot more day-in-the-life videos with students on, you know, shooting their own content. We're doing working with our influencer and ambassador programs. And we're starting a series called College Cuts that will highlight our student research in the words of our students.

So super

SPEAKER_03
excited about all those options. That's great. Just out of curiosity, what social channels are you

SPEAKER_01
leaning on for those student stories? We're really happy on Instagram, mostly on Reels these days. And, you know, as Instagram's pivoting sort of within itself, I think it's a very interesting platform. TikTok is another really fun one for us.

And that's where we really push truly student- generated content. Because you don't want to look like the old guy on TikTok. The one who doesn't know how it's supposed to be working or the one taking itself too seriously.

That's exactly right. Yeah, really, you know, we're soliciting ideas from students really actively. We hire a ton of student interns so that we can make sure that our audience and that we're using media in the right

SPEAKER_03
way to reach our prospective students. I love that because I think that far too often, I think that we try to think at it, think of the marketing through the lens of who we are personally. So, you know, like myself, a 52-year-old, you know, white male is not going to necessarily know exactly the right way to do social media.

I mean, I'm a professional so I can point in the direction by asking questions like this and observing. But at the same time, I think you're right. The student's voice is going to be a lot clearer, a lot more articulate and more powerful on platforms like, you know, TikTok and Instagram.

Whereas, you know, maybe there's more ways to use Facebook and other areas for alumni and some of those other constituencies that we talked about. But I think that's just a, I bring that point up because I find still far too many schools are relying on Facebook to try to recruit students and I'm guessing that's not part of your strategy.

SPEAKER_01
They are not there. I mean, we're absolutely putting content out there, but you're right. We're angling it more towards influencers, be that parents, be that, you know, high school counselors.

So, we're trying to be in every platform where we can actually do it well. I always say that it's better to be on fewer platforms and get it right than to try to be everywhere. But, you know, when we're reaching students, we're making sure that we're hitting the right demographics of

SPEAKER_00
those media. That's great. If anyone has a conversation with Lindsay, you're going to hear the phrase, the Skyhawk way.

And I'm assuming that's part of the DNA when you are at Fort Lewis. But like to talk formally about branding and, you know, your approach to how you develop your brand and if you could share with us over the years how that's come about. Absolutely.

I think we've had

SPEAKER_01
a really interesting journey in that world. You know, five, 10 years ago, we didn't even have much of a marketing department. When I started here 15 years ago, the marketing department was one and a half people and it's slowly grown over time.

But because of a lack of resources, both human and financial, we didn't have a lot of clarity around who we were and what our brand was. So in 2018, 2019, we started really addressing that. It started with a website audit where we just wanted to update our website.

And the company we worked with on that audit said, you can't even start on your website yet. You need to figure out this core of who you are first. And so we took their advice.

We really reached out for an RFP for a brand articulation. We ended up with a firm called 160 over 90. It's out of mostly LA and Philly.

And we, you know, they spent a lot of time on our campus. We talked to them nonstop and they did an incredible job of diving deep into who we are and really helping us articulate our brand both visually and conceptually and verbally. And that has given us this really powerful playbook that we still use till today.

And we'll continue to use on for many more years for sure.

SPEAKER_03
That's great. I've got a great deal of respect for that company. They do great work.

And I think that, you know, I think it's such a powerful tool. And I think it really kind of, really kind of gives some freedom to the clients when they can clearly articulate the brand. Because I mean, I think everybody kind of gets it internally.

And it's like, I get it. And especially we hear that when students come to do a campus visit. I mean, every, every school will say, well, if I can get them on campus, then I know that they're going to come.

And I think that that is the fact that the students are coming in, they're experiencing the brand. They're, they're living it out. And I think part of the challenge for schools and higher ed marketers is how can we articulate that and put it and put it into a playbook that we can repeat outside of a campus visit we can repeat in, you know, in a show like the college tour, we can repeat in, in an Instagram post or, you know, an ad in a, a pay-per-click ad or other ways.

I think that, you know, what, what was some of those threads that they found when they looked at the, the Skyhawk way? I mean, if you kind of look at your playbook, what, what are kind of those

SPEAKER_01
threads that kind of go through that? A lot of it, I mean, we have, our students come from such diverse backgrounds, but that's something we always struggled with. And when you talk about, a lot of times people on campus have the right concept. It's just struggling to articulate it.

Even within campus, we really struggled to, to all be consistent about saying who we were. Some people believed we were a very classic liberal arts institution. Others thought it was more of a ski and adventure school.

So we had a lot of different conflicting messages. And so a lot of the work that we did with 160 over 90 came out to this common thread of grit. So whether our students are coming from, you know, inner city Denver or a reservation in New Mexico or, you know, Marin County in California, they're all bringing a certain amount of grit with them.

And that's what led them to Fort Lewis, we believe. So it's just really interesting to find that commonality among our very disparate student group. And so a lot of our, our, you know, our pillars of our brand speak to that and speak to working through challenges and, you know, finding your own way, things like that became the key of who we are.

And, you know, it's, it's really helped us. I think our increased enrollment numbers speak to finding students that are excited to be here and want to connect with it. You know, we're a, we're a small rural school, we're not for everybody.

We don't have Greek life. We, you know, are, we do have an NCAA Division II. We have a lot of great sports, but it's very different than a big state school, even like the one I attended.

So I think finding students that are excited to be here for what Durango and the Fort Lewis campus offers, those are the students that are going to stick around, be really successful and take advantage of what's here.

SPEAKER_03
That's great. I love the, I love that how even that word grit, I mean, that's obviously not showing up in your, in your headlines and all that necessarily. But I think it gives you a, a framework.

And I think that's one of the important things is a brand, a clear brand articulation and really walking away with a good brand deliverable can allow you to do because all of a sudden it gives you that framework to be able to say, how do we communicate these, these stories that overcome challenges? How do we share these different aspects of, of who we are through this, through this filter and lens of, of grit without necessarily, you know, saying that, you know, specifically. And I think that's what really makes up a really good grand brand program

SPEAKER_00
several times. So that's great. Lindsey, if you've listened to this show, you know that we always ask from your perspective, and I guess in through the lens of uniquely marketing a brand, if there's a piece of advice or theory, an idea that you could offer other marketers out there that they could implement almost immediately, what would your advice be? I think my best advice is to

SPEAKER_01
hire good people and to listen to them, you know, and in my role, we've talked about as, as we sort of age out of digital marketing or social media, it's so important to stay in tune with young staff and students and just staff with very specific areas of expertise and really let them do their thing and support them in that journey. So that's, I mean, I am so fortunate to have such an amazing group of team of people that I get to work with every day, and they just create the most amazing stuff and they collaborate well, and we get recognition for it. And we are able to serve the students that we do because of that.

So it's that's something I feel pretty passionately about. And I see sometimes that larger organizations, just the complexity lets that not happen. If you have a super rigid brand, I think you're not able to flex and be creative like a creative team should

SPEAKER_00
be. So listen to your staff. That's great.

That's great. Thank you, Lindsay. If anyone would like to contact you as a result of this conversation, what would be the best way for them to do that?

SPEAKER_01
Definitely can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Lindsay Nyquist. It might be the only one.

SPEAKER_00
That's great. Thank you for being a guest with us. Really enjoyed learning more about you and Fort Lewis.

Awesome. Thanks so much to both of you. Bart, do you have any thoughts that you would like to share before we close out today? Yeah, I just have a couple things that I kind of

SPEAKER_03
want to pull to the top of the surface here from what Lindsay has said. And I want to encourage everyone because I know there's a lot of different demographics of schools that listen to the podcast. I mean, we've been growing over the past year and we're grateful for that.

But I know that there are some schools out there that listen to this and you have one person or one and a half people as Lindsay kind of talked about, you know, 15 years ago when she started at Fort Lewis. I just want to encourage you that as things change, as things grow, as marketing impacts things on campus, your team will grow as well. And I think that what you're hearing Lindsay say today is it should be encouragement for you to kind of look and prepare and head down the path, start doing the things that are kind of maybe what you can do because you're nimble, because you're small, but also kind of listen to the wisdom that comes through this show.

I mean, Lindsay kind of talked about the authenticity that she's trying to and her team are trying to come across with their storytelling, with their video, what they learned from the college tour. And maybe you're not going to be able to have the college tour come to your campus, but you can watch several seasons of that college tour and see how see the patterns that they do and how they're doing that, you know, borrow from that. I mean, and I think that Alex would say that just as much as he did on his episode, take advantage of that and see and look at what other people are doing, apply it to your own school, obviously, to be the most authentic, but kind of lean into those places.

And then also just this whole idea of brand, really taking the time and if you can afford to have somebody on the outside come in, it's probably going to be better. But even if you just want to do your own exercises internally, just to say, who are we and what makes us different? There's all kinds of books, there's resources out there to be able to walk you through that. But if you can have that and you can have a playbook, all of a sudden, your marketing starts to take off and it really starts to get legs of its own.

And I think that Lindsay kind of demonstrated that in some of the stories that she told and the way that they're seeing success in their enrollment and seeing success in some of the marketing aspects they're doing, even by, you know, internal recognition from the board or from other presidents in the region. There's a lot of things that can kind of play into that. So again, authenticity, video and brand and be encouraged that even if you're a small shop, you can continue to do the good things and grow into something much bigger.

SPEAKER_00
Well said, Bart. That brings us to the end of another episode of the Higher Ed Marketer podcast. Our show was always sponsored by Kailer Solutions, an education marketing and branding agency.

And by Think Patented, a marketing execution company combining print and personalization for engagement success. On behalf of Bart Kailer, my co-host, I'm Troy Singer. We are grateful that

SPEAKER_02
you joined us. You've been listening to the Higher Ed Marketer to ensure that you never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast player.

If you're listening with Apple podcasts, we'd love for you to leave a quick rating of the show. Simply tap the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. Until next time.