SPEAKER_00
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_01
Welcome to the Higher Ed Marketer podcast, where, as always, we interview higher ed marketers that we admire for the benefit and hopefully the betterment of the entire higher ed community. My name is Troy Singer, and my partner in creation is Bart Kaler. And today, Bart, we get to talk to Mary Barr from Ball State University, who is a brand expert within the higher ed community.

Can you tell us what we can hear from her during our conversation?

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, Troy. I think that I've known Mary for several years and have had the opportunity to have worked with her. And one of the things I've always really admired about Mary is that she's got such a pulse on brand, a pulse on storytelling.

And I think a lot of the conversation we'll talk about today, whether it's about some of the transitions that she's been in her career and how she's kind of weathered the storms of some of those, as well as just some of her innovative ways of using focus groups and research and inexpensive innovative ways. I think everybody could learn from that. And then just the idea of just kind of how do brands kind of do new things and storytelling around that when you are doing new things that fit your brand.

So it's going to be a great conversation. I think there's a lot to learn.

SPEAKER_01
Yes. I don't know Mary as well as you, but what I do know about her is that she is an idea woman. So let's bring Mary into the conversation.

We are pleased to welcome Mary Barr, Chief Marketing Officer at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana to the Higher Ed Marketer Podcast. Welcome to our podcast, Landmary.

SPEAKER_03
Well, thank you, Troy. And thank you, Bart. This is such a thrill and an honor to be invited to be on your podcast.

SPEAKER_01
The pleasure is ours. And before we get started, if you could give the listeners a little bit about you and your role at Ball State.

SPEAKER_03
Well, I would love to. Mary Barr, I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Ball State University. And I've been in this role about about four years.

However, I joke I've had a couple of tours of duty here at Ball State. I was the Director of Marketing for a period left and was recruited away to Rose Holman Institute of Technology on the other side of the state. I was Vice President of Marketing Communications there.

And then I returned back to Ball State in this current role in 2015. So I've been back since then.

SPEAKER_02
Very good. Mary, you and I have known each other for a while and it's been a pleasure to kind of work with you in those different transitions. I know I think we met early on through a mutual friend at Ball State that I knew before she arrived at Ball State.

And so Julie introduced us. And then there was some, you know, she and Depp at Rose Holman and you were at Rose Holman. And so we did some work together at Rose Holman and that I'm proud of.

And so just, you know, just full transparency, you know, you and I have worked together before. But I think it's just interesting that everybody can relate to the fact of a lot of transitions going on in, you know, in our careers and relationships follow one another to different places, which I always am grateful for. And it's one of the reasons why I really try to build relationships as a partner rather than a vendor.

I've kind of, I've known you long enough to know that sometimes these transitions kind of end up in the middle of other types of transitions. And I know we talked a little bit about that. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03
Oh my goodness. Yeah. No stranger to transition. And of course it's easier to talk about transition years later in hindsight for sure.

But like anything, I feel transition is an education. We can learn from it, especially as marketers and kind of leaning into it when we can. You know, we're creative people for the, for the generally speaking, for the greater good folks on our marketing teams.

But there is some comfort and routine in following, for example, a brand style guide. But we can always count on, on transition. I look at it as a good thing, especially if you can continue to deliver and stay calm and learn from the very brilliant people that are around us during those times.

Bart's been my phone a friend a time or two. I had a couple of presidents at Rose Holman, one unfortunately tragically passed away. So there was a sudden transition there.

And then, you know, whether it is folks on a team or retiring a campaign or new players that come in, transition always does seem to be a part of it. The good thing is a brand, a campaign can help identify some of the key players in those transitions. You definitely need them to be your biggest brand ambassador.

Hopefully they're at the table when a lot of those conversations are happening to help inform it and to help capture their vision, their strategy and all that too. So yeah, I kind of joke. It's me, all the transition wherever I go, the transition follows.

But I say that when I'm teasing, but I think when we can learn from transition, not be afraid of it, just consider it another part of a creative evolution as with anything.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it's interesting that you say that. We did a podcast a few months ago with Christie Jackson. She's at University of North Carolina and she talked about crisis communications and obviously crisis communication many times, whether it's the death of a president or other things.

It does require a lot of transition and kind of getting used to the transition. You know, one of the things that I thought she kind of articulated well, and I think I hear you in your voice too, is that, you know, as marketers, as communicators, we kind of have to plan that transition is going to happen. I mean, we have to plan and think about, you know, those things that change is going to happen, transition is going to happen, difficulties are going to happen.

And what is it in our playbook from a brand or from a communication technique that's going to help us navigate through that? Because, I mean, at the end of the day, many times those issues and those challenges end up in the marketing department and the communications department. And it sounds to me like a lot of that is just, you know, starting to learn to embrace the change, embrace the transitions. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, totally. There's, you know, reactive and proactive work that's always being done, embracing things that are where you have to react to and make it the best you can. But then also being proactive and moving forward and following some longer term strategies for sure.

And when you have this inside feeling that something's not quite hitting the mark, always going back to those brand messages, to that brand core, that brand strategy, and that can usually get you back on. But also being able to at least be open-minded when a transition comes or maybe a sudden new initiative or a sudden new plank that's being added on your plate. When you can really look at it, see it as an opportunity, seeing how it can help maybe fill some gaps of some things that you wanted to do before and just trying to make it work, you know, for sure.

But I think being reactive comes with the territory. This past year we have had to be reactive in many ways and everyone has. But also then just keeping an eye on the strategic plan, on the strategic planks within your marketing plan and having that help you stay the course.

SPEAKER_02
That's great. That's great. Thanks for sharing that and being vulnerable about that.

I think sometimes dealing with change is always going to be vulnerable and then talking about it later I think is difficult too. So thanks for doing that.

SPEAKER_01
Troy? Mary, in a previous conversation that we had, we likely discussed an idea and a thought that you had that similarly as you see in corporate larger brands, how they collaborate brands with one another for a mutual benefit or for a synergy. How we can do that within higher education. I would really like to go back into that conversation with you and get your thoughts around it or any type of initiatives that you think could come out of something, a collaboration within higher education.

SPEAKER_03
No, no for sure. You had asked me about what kind of trends I follow in marketing and industry and I seem to love to follow maybe the greater industries, keeping an eye on music and fashion and the arts. There's been a lot of collaborations by celebrities and consumer brands.

For sure. And it's kind of fun. A lot of them have a short timeframe but they're not just cool but they also elevate both brands, introduce new markets, new audiences to each often.

So I've been looking at that just thinking it's interesting. We all know sometimes higher ed could be a beat behind consumer marketing but make no mistake we've got audiences, we've got consumers, we've got people who shop and compare. Compare prices, compare a myriad of things.

So that's something I've been kind of looking at and I know a lot of universities are no stranger to, for example, lending a speaker series or a naming opportunities. Universities do things like that all the time in kind of a donor relation way. So maybe there are some aspects of that in higher ed but what are some of those things we can learn from some of the things that attract our attention as consumers as we look at our favorite brands.

We're consumers as well. We have to keep our eyes open for the things that attract us as consumers. We're marketers but I may be interested in the same brands that I follow and that I'm loyal to and they may have a partnership with musical artists and that opens my eyes to perhaps following that individual as an artist.

And so I think it's good for us to see what's attractive to us, things that we enjoy or open our eyes with our favorite brands that we follow.

SPEAKER_02
I like that idea Mary because I think that as you said, sometimes and I've said this many times, higher ed is a little bit of a beat behind. Sometimes I estimate it five to 10 years depending on what's going on. I understand that.

I mean, where higher ed has been for hundreds of years, I think that only in the last 10 or 15 years have they really had to start thinking differently and behaving differently because I mean, I'm a Gen Xer. I think we all are here on this podcast as far as the three of us and things changed kind of after we had our college experience and as we started becoming professionals ourselves. The world kind of shifted a little bit.

I don't know if it was when millennials came along or if it was when it went from the three channels we were used to to cable and everything else. I mean, a lot of things shifted. The internet came online in the mid 90s and so the world shifted.

And I think that the consumer brands, the retailers, a lot of other places kind of kept up with that shift. I think higher ed kind of continued to ride the wave that they had been on, not realizing that they needed to kind of shift as well and do the transitions that we were talking about. And so I think sometimes it's difficult for academia to accept that our prospective students are consumers.

They have choice. They are shopping, as you've said. I mean, there's a lot of things that I think that I remember being in meetings in the mid 90s and I would use the term sales or I would use the term shopping or I would use the term consumer.

And you needed to pick up the administrators off the floor because I mean, they were offended by that and we are academia. We do not talk about things like that that doesn't apply to us. I think that's changed.

I think that's shifting and I think that's really healthy. But I think that it still comes down to the fact that we're still a little bit slow. I was talking to a client the other day about their social media and missed opportunities because their messaging wasn't crafted perfectly and it wasn't.

It didn't go through the entire system that they wanted to and they missed opportunities because it took them three or four days to reply to something that would need it to be replied to in an hour, especially social justice issue that was the topic at that point. So we've got to kind of, I think it's a bigger topic. We've got to be able to kind of adapt and lean into that more.

But I think it comes back to the fact, like you said, paying attention to those other industries, paying attention to consumer brands and retail and seeing what's going on. I mean, just paying attention to what happened on that TikTok video last summer, where guys riding a skateboard and drinking ocean spray and listening to Fleetwood Mac. Okay. All of a sudden you've got two big brands that jumped onto that and they did it well. I mean, Ocean Spray really did that well.

They partnered well. They kind of took care of that man and they did it well. And I mean, obviously he had his 15 minutes of glory and fame and obviously it really impacted Fleetwood Mac and McFleetwood kind of responded in kind.

And there was a lot of really good things that happened out of that that I think is we as higher ed marketers can see how brands, how influencers, how others kind of play in the marketplace. And I use the word play intentionally because sometimes it does take play more than it takes work or overthinking something. And I think that that collaboration between brands is something that we have to start playing with rather than coming up with this perfect solution.

I mean, in a lot of ways, higher ed has kind of already created that way, but we call it articulation agreements. How can we start talking about it more as collaboration? And I find that fascinating to kind of think about that.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah. And, you know, that leads me to think, Bart, too. We've got some great experts around us and that's our students.

And I like to turn often to, for example, our tour guides or admissions tour guides, their experts. They have their finger on the pulse. If we need them to help us articulate some things, let's have a focus group of five with them or have them film something for us or give us some guidance on some things.

Give us some guidance on swag. You know, oh, it's not swag, it's merch. They call it merch.

So again, the differences in age. So but yeah. And I think for us to enjoy that and to just sometimes think of, hey, they're the experts.

They know what's attracting them. And if we ask them, they are very ready to know they can articulate brands. They know how to make their own brand with their own blogs and their key messages and their look.

So our current students are very astute to their presentation. And so I think when we can tap into them or I joke about having my little posse around me, I had that at Rose Holman. I was not an engineer, but I had a bunch of engineering students around me and I had about four or five students.

I tried to create a relationship with that I could bounce some ideas off of them from a branding perspective and all that if it would kind of meet their needs. Since they have a very specific viewpoint as they were assessing brands and their higher ed options.

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that's great. And I think that even doing that, you're recognizing them. A lot of them are influencers in their own right.

You know, we talk about influence marketing. And but I think that, you know, social media, especially has kind of elevated that, you know, whether it's YouTube or Instagram. You know, I was talking to one one school, I was at a conference and they were kind of explaining how they were using Instagram and influencer marketing with some of their students who had, you know, some of these students had 10,000 followers in and of themselves as freshmen in college.

Well, that's the definition of influencer marketing. And so how do you recruit those students to coexist with your brand, you know, partner with your brand partner with the brand of the school. Because obviously they are a consumer of that brand.

And so, yeah, I think that's a that's a really interesting thought, Mary. And I know that even in our pre conversation, kind of leading into that you talked about, you know, you just talked a little bit about focus groups and pulling some people together. And you do that a little bit more around orientation for sometimes tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, no, for sure. And I know many of your guests on your show are no stranger to research and analytics and that's that's great. I know we got to have that.

But also tradition that we do here is in during incoming for incoming students during during orientation. Boy, here are people who have just been on a constant flow of marketing from all state and others. And so we always just want to have a check step with them during orientation, incoming freshmen and their families.

And yeah, obviously it worked. So we're learning from the folks that it was effective with. And so every year we have a different agenda with with them.

I'm doing it right now. I've already conducted three groups and have three more groups in the upcoming weeks. And, you know, we we try to get perhaps current messages in front of them to see what resonates.

Perhaps it's a new program for incoming freshmen or for the first year experience that is a trend in higher ed now how to brand a first year experience. So students meet their milestones during the year. So as we're rolling out some new things, asking that audience, I've even showed them billboards and TV commercials and things along those lines just for them to rate what their favorite ones are and have the conversation around it.

And then that's always helpful when perhaps leadership or our internal clients have, you know, really love something and you're like, well, you know what, our brand of student, they really like to see this type of thing. And when we can point to that and have some of the narrative around it, sometimes that's all we need to kind of change course a little bit. Because again, yeah, they're the experts.

They've just been on the receiving end of a lot of our work.

SPEAKER_02
That's great. And I what I like about that. And when we talked earlier, I just thought it was not only is it a build and check in and just kind of that process of, you know, there's already a group of people there that we can talk to.

And I think sometimes when people hear the word focus groups, they think of, you know, I think of two-way mirrors and dark rooms and 37 people there that, you know, it costs a lot of money. But I think the way that you're kind of approaching it, you don't have to say, well, we don't have the resources to do focus groups. Well, you've got the focus group already there.

You just have to pull them together and ask them. And I think sometimes just that, you know, that's that's a vulnerable thing to ask for somebody's opinion and be willing to hear it. I think sometimes that keeps us from doing it.

And we use excuses of cost and effort and everything else. And so I think that I like what you're saying. It's being vulnerable with ourselves to be able to say we might not know everything, but we do have some people that know more.

SPEAKER_03
Right. No, frankly, it's it's really not that expensive. That sometimes it's just the the cost of lunch and a t-shirt.

And I'll tell you what, when you offer a free lunch and a t-shirt, many people raise their hands and need those orientated. to help just get the amount that we need. And but yeah, keeping it small to the one we had the other day was two students.

And at first I thought, oh, boy, but boy, we could really drill in and they were fantastic. And it was very enlightening and I brought some piece of feedback back that day. And leadership changed a message, you know, over it because we were kind of certain about something.

So so it's inexpensive. It's right in front of us. And for me, it's also educational and humbling to people that I work with.

You know, I often need a note taker. And if I could have someone either on the team or an internal client help take notes for them to hear things firsthand, too, I think it's helpful for them. And then their ambassadors of the research and all that.

And so it has come at least at Ball State people even through the years. And it's like, hey, we'll need to test that during focus groups. And I love it when some of our internal colleagues are mentioning it and instead of us always bringing it up to.

So it is inexpensive. It's right under our nose and it is a great check step positive or negative slash constructive criticism that we can learn.

SPEAKER_02
That's great. That's very good.

SPEAKER_01
Sounds like you get a lot of pertinent information on your marketing through that research very inexpensively, for sure. Mary, thank you for everything that you've shared with us today. But again, I can be a little greedy.

So before we close, would there be one nugget or idea that we didn't get a chance to mention that you think could be applicable for other marketers out there?

SPEAKER_03
Oh, gosh, well, we did cover a lot and I can talk about marketing and I read and Ball State all day. But one thing that's maybe a little random, I guess, is a little bit about recycling and recycling our vinyl. I don't know about other folks, but under my purview is a lot of campus banners and billboards and a lot of vinyl on campus, even some of the things in the athletic facilities.

You know, we generate a lot of that. Of course, all universities have good recycling protocols in place. But it's still plastic after all.

So one of the things we have done here is here at Ball State is we took one of our vinyl banners that was displayed very prominently in the Indianapolis International Airports during our centennial celebration. And we took that down. We cut it up.

We had some experts at a local company make them into little zipped pouches that we then used as gifts. And we use with a little card in them with a little bit of the story that this was a centennial banner that hung in the airport and it's recycled. And hopefully you can have a little piece of our centennial celebration and then gave a little life and another nice little story.

That we could pass on. So we passed those out to some key donors and some key folks who worked really closely with the campaign, the centennial campaign as a thank you gift.

SPEAKER_01
That is a wonderful idea. And as I think about it, and as we produce things like that for other colleges and universities, vinyl is everywhere. And I hope someone else steals that nugget.

If I may ask, was that you or someone on your campus, a student, how did that idea come about?

SPEAKER_03
Yeah, no, I've been kind of tuned in. I don't know if I should name the company, but PUP. It's a nonprofit in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I've had a relationship with them through the years, just through some of my other volunteer work. And PUP stands for People for Urban Progress. And they do a lot of that work with sports outlets and other entities that do produce a lot of vinyl.

So they are a really wonderful recycler of materials. And so I had a relationship with them before. And so I was always seeing vinyl and I've always wanted to do a project with them.

And I was thrilled that I could. At the time, one of their founders was a Ball State alum. So that added added to the story as well.

But yeah, there's they are amazing nonprofit located in Indianapolis. I'm sure there's some other folks or sometimes even internally with an apparel design program, fashion design. Sometimes you may have some resources right under your nose as well.

And again, adds to the story for something that might be kind of fun and unusual for a fundraising campaign or a special event.

SPEAKER_01
Thank you, Mary. That was a wonderful example. If someone would like to contact you about that idea or anything else, what would the best way for them to get in touch with you be?

SPEAKER_03
Oh, gosh, probably my old school email. I'm easy to find mbar, mbar at bsu.edu.

SPEAKER_01
Thank you very much for your time and all the wonderful wisdom that you gave us today. Bart, before we get out of here, do you have any parting words?

SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I just wanted to thank Mary and for all that she's offered us today. And I think that knowing her for so long as I have. And just in this conversation, I think everyone can kind of understand and know that she's a brand expert.

And I think one of the expertise of recognizing that and somebody who really understands brand is how willing they're able to kind of talk about stories. And I love the fact that a lot of what we talked about today, whether it was the use of some focus groups, whether it's about stories of some of the transitions that she's been a part of and what that means and how to navigate that. The idea of what stories can two brands together tell.

And even down to the story of, hey, we want to recycle something, but not only do we want to recycle it because it's the right thing, but how can that then support our brand? Because our brand is all about empowering people. It's about, you know, Ball State's brand is a lot more than just recruiting students. There's a lot of things that Mary has kind of talked about today that I think is reflected in her conversations and things that they're doing at Ball State that go deeper.

And telling those stories to help articulate the brand, I think, is so important. And I think that Mary does a great job of doing that, whether it's through a billboard that you see on Interstate 69 or whether it's just through this conversation about, you know, the recycled elements and utilizing a local nonprofit to do that and making those into meaningful gifts for donors. I think there's a there's a chance for all of us to tell our story better.

And if you want to learn how to do that, I would observe what's going on at Ball State. And so those are those are some really good ideas. So thank you again, Mary.

SPEAKER_03
Oh, gosh. Well, thank you, Bart. And thank you, Troy.

And thank you for all the work that you both do in our industry and help us look great.

SPEAKER_01
Our pleasure. And want to remind everyone that the sponsors of this podcast, number one is Bart's company, Kailer Solutions, an education marketing and branding agency, and by Think Patented, a marketing execution, printing and mailing provider of higher ed solutions. On behalf of Bart Kailer and myself, Troy Singer, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00
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