For those of us on a fiscal year, it’s a new budget year. While many of our budgets have reset, chances are, more is asked of us than ever before. As our budgets become tighter, and things just cost more, free and low cost resources become more important than ever.
I started this tradition now two years ago and wanted to continue for the third year of providing a list of such MarComm resources to consider.
Given that tight budgets don’t appear to be loosening, it seemed appropriate to make continue this one. This is in no way a comprehensive list, but I think it’s really important to be smart on our budgets and plug into free resources where available.
Data
We talk about data-driven decisions, so it’s really important that we access good data in our world. Thankfully, many of our data partners continue to provide their research at little to no cost.
SimpsonScarborough – One of my favorite pieces of data repeats every two years. I cited the 2019 version in my dissertation, and I fan girled at the release of the 2021 and 2023 data (the release earlier this year). I strongly suggest giving the CMO Study a deep dive. It covers budgets, expectations, workload, spend, satisfaction, and much more.
RNL – This is another wealth of data. Each year, RNL looks at behaviors of various student types ranging from adult learners, online students, and high school students. Their insights provide an understanding of how students want to be marketed to, what information is relevant, and key decision-making factors. The reports are available to download, and are a great way to check your marketing strategies.
National Student Clearinghouse – This is one that I think gets overlooked quite a bit. The National Student Clearinghouse is a fairly comprehensive source of national student-level college enrollment data. Each year they put out reports on persistence, enrollment predictions, tracking transfer students, and more. The reports offer a strong way to understand national enrollment trends and extrapolate how that play out more locally.
Community
You may have heard me say how lonely our work can be. Even if you’re not in a CMO role, having access to a strong community helps. It provides personal connection but also a network to troubleshoot and problem solve on a variety of challenges.
HighEdWeb – This is an online slack community that offers a variety of channels for specific types of work. Whether it’s analytics, websites, marketing, or random questions, there are hundreds of people nationally working through many of the same challenges, so it’s a great way to gain support. You must be a member of HighEdWeb, but there is a free membership available.
HigherEdSocial – This is a Facebook group that is more than 12,000 members strong. Members in the group regularly post wins, challenges, questions, and conversation starters. The strength of this group is that with more than 12,000 members, someone has likely faced a challenge you might be facing and can provide guidance.
Marcomm Barbie – This group of strong women started at AMA last year (yes, there was a Barbie party) and quickly turned into a vibrant slack community. The brainchild of Josie Ahlquist and Mallory Willsea, this group is about women being a resource to other women. Expect lots of pink and sparkles but also a place to get feedback from women, with dedicated channels for executives, new leaders, content creators and more.
Professional Freebies
Many of our professional organizations also have great free resources that we likely aren’t taking full advantage of. I tried to pull some of the ones I’m most familiar with and use the most. That said, there are lots of these out there, so be sure to research the tools for your particular organizations.
CASE – CASE offers a plethora of free tools including online trainings in their new LMS. You can sort by cost to see free options. Additionally, CASE membership includes insights on current reporting and library access to work smarter not harder. Finally, I use the Circle of Excellence winners (announced last month) to see what great things other universities are doing around a particular challenge I might be facing. Access to all of these just requires a login, which if free if your university is a member.
AMA – As an AMA member, there are nearly 200 online training sessions available to learn about the marketing part of our work. Additionally, members have access to free tools such as a section on toolkits and templates for things like campaign timelines, creative brief templates, RFP templates, and a social media toolkit. The free tools is a section I have used before and found it incredibly valuable.
UCDA – Having presented several times at UCDA, I think they do a nice job of creating community in their free offerings. Whether it’s Creative Conversations each month around a particular topic or a video library of prior trainings, there are numerous free opportunities to learn that are included in the price of a regular membership.
PRSA – As a new member of PRSA, I’ve really enjoyed this space. They have multiple toolkits for a variety of challenges such as AI, misinformation, and DEI work. However, there’s also a Counselors to Higher Education Group that provides access to specific conversation and training for those of us working in higher education communications.
Podcasts
This kind of resource (in my mind) came of age in the pandemic, and it has not slowed down. There are lots of great resources out there of experts and others sharing their story on a wide variety of higher education topics.
Enrollify – The Enrollify podcast network is one of the biggest and includes more than a dozen regularly produced podcasts. The topics range from enrollment, marketing, AI, and more. Plus, there are lots of short-run podcasts as part of Higher Ed Pulse (I did a mini-series on leadership this spring).
TrustedVoices – This podcast is hosted by Teresa Valerio Parrot from TVP Communications and focuses on many high-level challenges facing our industry and what are things we should be doing to monitor and adjust. These are deep podcasts, but they’re also incredibly insightful and beneficial.
Josie’s Podcast – One of the original podcasts in the higher education space, Josie has focused on a variety of topics and has all seven seasons of her podcast (40+) online. This makes it easy to search for a specific challenge you might be facing. I’ve used Josie’s podcast for this several times.
HigherEdMarketer Podcast – This podcast is hosted by Bart Caylor and Troy Singer and it offers guidance on many aspects that a marketing professional should consider in their marketing work. Topics include things like building collaboration, strategic planning, and diversifying content for specific audiences.
Prior Blogs and Closing Thoughts
Like I said — this is a yearly tradition, and here are the prior two blogs on this topic. That said, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what is missing. Feel free to leave a comment on a great resource you use. I am excited to learn together.
*Photo from Freepik