Room: Sugar Land I & II

Cesar Jimenez, Webmaster, Brazosport College

Simply put, if a website’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer students’ key questions, they leave the page. In this session, we’re tackling the notion that “students don’t read” and equipping you with the tools and techniques to develop content that will educate, engage, and move people to action.

Room: Sugar Land III & IV

Julian Cavazos, MD Anderson Cancer Center

Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT are changing the way we work–and many marketers are skeptical about it. I’ll share how ChatGPT can be highly valuable in generating content and highlight how marketers are still needed to make that content shine.

Room: Sugar Land VI & VII

Candace Guinn, Copywriter, Standard Brand Co.

Storytelling is essential to the preservation of our culture and experiences. The exchange of our stories and experiences allows us to build trust and authority, make connections, and add depth to our interactions as we build community. This presentation challenges participants to reimagine the power of storytelling to build an institutional brand, curate robust digital experiences, and build relationships with the students, faculty, and staff who contribute to the community college culture. A professional copywriter, Candace has worked in higher education and knows our challenges.

Room: Sugar Land I & II

Darin Kazmir, Director of Marketing & Communication, Victoria College
Elizabeth Garza, Relationship Management Coordinator, Victoria College

Victoria College embarked on a journey in 2021 to consolidate multiple stand-alone systems that “do no talk to each other” into a single enterprise CRM system. A newly formed task force began an extensive learning phase and created a list of desired features, which led to VC receiving a grant in 2022 to purchase a comprehensive system. Hear about where VC is in the process, how we got here, challenges faced along the way, and planning for next steps in a journey that’s really just beginning.

Room: Sugar Land III & IV

Lauren Lowe, Digital Media Coordinator, San Jacinto College

Balancing the amount of static flyers we post on our social media feeds can be frustrating—even more so when the college has no procedure in place for requesting event promotion in a timely manner, or the content you’re asked to post doesn’t fit brand standards. Learn how San Jac’s digital media team spent a year finding a solution that might work for you, too.

Room: Sugar Land VI & VII

Nikki Davis, Creative Director, Slate Group / Cyan Marketing

Graphic designers and creatives in higher ed are wearing more and more hats these days making it tough to constantly pump out new creative content. In this session Nikki Davis, Senior Graphic Designer at Slate Group, will go through her Survival Guide for Creatives, such as the importance of slaying your dragons before breakfast to remixing ideas and mind mapping techniques.

Room: Sugar Land I & II

David White, Web Analytics & Optimization Manager, San Jacinto College

On-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the fundamental skills you need for better webpage search engine result page ranking and to gain more organic search traffic. It’s so much more than just keywords. This session will review tip and tricks, using a SEO checklist, to optimize a webpage for search engines.

Room: Sugar Land III & IV

Lisa Elliott, Director of Marketing & Comm., McLennan Community College

Concerned about enrollment? Want to learn more about what motivates community college students to enroll at your college? This presentation will examine factors that influence students in Texas select their college to pursue a higher education. McLennan Community College has uncovered common themes and trends among factors that impact the college selection process in today’s world. Gain valuable insight to proactively address enrollment concerns during this challenging time.

Room: Sugar Land VI & VII

Ben Oldale, Senior Account Executive, Glacier

Glacier’s presentation explores the latest trends on advertising to Gen Z. We’ll delve into Gen Z’s unique characteristics and preferences when it comes to digital platforms and share tips on creating authentic and visually compelling content. We will also examine successful campaigns that have effectively targeted Gen Z on channels like TikTok and YouTube. Who knows, maybe you’ll start using words like “yeet” and “lit” without feeling “cheugy”.

Room: Sugar Land IX & X

Jake Myers, Adjunct Professor & Head of Local / Regional Advertising Strategy for Atmosphere TV

Follow us on a walk through an update on the state of the Digital Media Space. This session will cover best practices for media planning, content design and how to conceptualize and make data relevant and actionable. Learn how to do these things well, how to do them on a budget, and ultimately how to communicate the value to key stakeholders in your organization.

Room: Sugar Land I & II

Darin Kazmir, Director of Marketing & Comm., Victoria College

Looking for strategies to help you meet your personal goals or the goals of a work team? Join this interactive presentation for a look at how setting SMART goals, prioritizing activities central to your goals, and calendarizing priorities can help you stay motivated, avoid burnout, and make steady progress on the things that are most important.

Room: Sugar Land III & IV

Jacquelynn Conger, Director Public Relations & Marketing Comm., San Jacinto College
Nate LaValley, Digital Media Producer, San Jacinto College

Are you charged with creating videos for your college but don’t know where to begin? Or simply want to improve your current process? No matter the length, video production can be an overwhelming task. Join Nate and Jacquelynn as they share the creative process from beginning to end to create fun, engaging videos that tell your story. Along the way, you’ll also learn tips and tricks to help make your video planning, process, and product the best it can be.

Room: Sugar Land VI & VII

Kathi Swanson, President, CLARUS—A Carnegie Company

Community colleges seek increased enrollments & marketing has traditionally been responsible for the top of the funnel-generating applicants. And examining the national numbers, marketing has been successfully doing just that– new applicant numbers are up. So why aren’t enrollments? Applicants are getting stuck in the mid-funnel from applicant to enrollee. Learn how the predictive model can assist a college in determining the likelihood of who is going to enroll & gain results in enrollment.

Room: Sugar Land IX & X

Dean Hanson, Element 451
Erin May, Blinn College

Explore the strategic approach Blinn College took in selecting Element451 as its CRM platform, their accelerated implementation process, and the AI-powered personalization features that allow them to engage students during critical moments in their student lifecycle. Learn how Blinn’s team utilizes email, text campaigns, and dynamic content to deliver personalized experiences, boost retention, and achieve record-low dropouts. Preview AI technology for higher ed, built on Open AI GPT-4. Take away insights on multi-channel, 1-1 student engagement to use at your college.

Room: Sugar Land I & II

David Fallavollita, Assistant Dir., Social Media, Dallas College

Dive into the world of social media content planning and discover the key to capturing your institution’s leaders’ attention and approval. And when your institution’s leaders know you actually have content planned - that they can see with their own eyes - their trust will follow. We’ll equip you with the tools and strategies to flex your content planning muscles.

Room: Sugar Land III & IV

Jodi Pack, Dir. of Marketing and Public Relations, Northeast Texas Community College
Cindy Smith, Dean of Student Success/Public Information Officer, Howard College

Do you work at a smaller college with minimal staff and resources? Let’s get together and share ideas! Cindy Smith from Howard College and Jodi Pack from Northeast Texas Community College will lead an open round-table discussion designed for anyone who feels like they are constantly doing more with less. Bring your own innovative ideas to share because this session will be all about takeaways we can put into practice.

Room: Sugar Land VI & VII

Mark Smith, Scarborough Specialties

We will discuss topics such as declining enrollment, student and staffing experiences, and brand strategy/ control & how to properly utilize promotional products as the solution to some of these most pressing issues facing higher education.

Room: Sugar Land IX & X

Aaron Radtke, Account Executive, Genius Monkey

Programmatic advertising is a critical component of a successful student recruitment campaign. In this session, you will learn how to leverage programmatic advertising’s analytics to your benefit, see how your campaigns measure up to industry averages, what data is available to make your campaigns more efficient than ever, and much more. Key topics to be discussed:

• Student Journey: From the First Touch to Enrollment
• Student Conversion Cycle: Understanding what it takes for Students to Take Notice
• Going Beyond the Click: Measuring the Value of View-Through Conversion
• Balancing Media Budget: Properly Allocating Spend across Unique Media Types
• CRM Integration: Go beyond RFI and Measure True Return on Ad Spend

Room: Sugar Land I & II

Kaitlyn Davidson, Sr. Marketing Account Executive, Salesforce
Jonathan Blundell, Senior Director, DX, Dallas College

Join your Salesforce experts for a thoughtful discussion on how education institutions and organizations all over the world have recognized the value of marketing automation to drive better constituent experiences and optimize their digital marketing campaigns. In this session, we will talk about the benefits and outcomes of using the power of marketing automation with real-life examples of what institutions have gained to better serve their students, employees and surrounding communities.

Room: Sugar Land III & IV

Karla Fernandez Parker, Managing Director, Sensis

A look at the market opportunities for Texas community colleges to thrive and grow in the changing higher education environment.

• We’ll examine the enrollment cliff and how it’s different for Texas and Texas community colleges
• Review of market dynamics that will create unique opportunities for enrollment growth for Texas community colleges
• Where are the market opportunities for Texas CCs
• How to activate and leverage these market opportunities with the right marketing programs

Room: Sugar Land VI & VII

Trey Laverty, Slate Group

By understanding our purpose and values, we infuse our work with inspiration, authenticity, and impact. In this presentation, Trey Laverty, President of Cyan Marketing and Director of Sales and Marketing at Slate Group, will explore the value of capitalizing on your “ y ” and the immense impact in can have on your work professionally and personally, as well as the importance of extracting and understanding the “ y ” of others to create more effective marketing campaigns..