What are two or three digital marketing/social media/management trends that impact your role as a manager, and why?

• Using content to engage our audience. In higher education, we tend to sit on a vault of valuable academic content, whether it’s research by faculty, theses by alumni, or lectures and courses taught by faculty. Both Google and our audiences rank that content quite highly and consider it a trusted library of knowledge. The challenge, however, for academic institutions is to build platforms that gets content effectively into their audiences' hands in order to build their loyalty without the pushy sales pitch. EDx, launched in 2012 by Harvard and MIT, is a perfect example of this. 27 universities participate in the EDx open course platform, giving students of all ages the opportunity to learn and experience a high standard of education from a distance and free of charge. Although the forum is a stellar example of content marketing, it’s not the only content platform available to universities and colleges. Content is shared in a variety of forms through lectures, webinars, conferences, online publications, audio or video lectures, articles, social media, and so on. The key is selecting the appropriate platform to engage and build a relationship with prospective students. 
• Connecting and then segmenting fractured lists of data is a huge challenge for the higher education industry. At Regent College, we utilize two key databases: one for students and one for donors. Additional data about those constituents is often held either in email lists, a CRM database for enrollments, e-commerce databases, or through online forms. The challenge is to move away from manually managing data from different sources and towards viewing all data as alive and connected to one central source. The technology is there, the investment is substantial, but in the long run, achieving a complete centralized repository of consumer data, helps to know more about the customers we engage with in order to provide them with value added learning opportunities. 

In your experience, what are the top success/failure factors for a marketing campaign?

What do you consider essential skills for a marketing team these days?

• Strong writing skills
• Exceptional design skills that can translate your brand into every medium
• Ability to connect your brand to the interests of your audience
• Ability to be responsive and nimble in the digital space

What do you feel are the most underrated skills in a marketing team these days?

How did you get the background and skills necessary?

What advice would you give to young people who want to do your job some day?