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Another fantastic NACAC is in the books! Another year of connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. This year we took over one of our all-time favorite cities, Boston! A city rooted in history, innovation, and an incredible amount of pride. (I know this as the only Baltimore Ravens fan in the Carnegie bunch.)
In my opinion, NACAC knocked it out of the park when they chose Boston as the 2017 conference location. This is not an objective opinion—Carnegie Communications has called Beantown home for over 30 years. Like Boston, Carnegie shares a long history, love of innovation, and a good dose of pride. NACAC itself showcases how higher education has accepted innovation, and displays of school pride and industry pride are everywhere. The conference also gives us a moment to reflect on how higher education, especially its marketing, has changed over time.
Just as Boston has continued to grow and evolve, higher ed has also grown quite a bit in recent years. Enrollment marketing has reached the point where it is easier than ever to connect with unique student audiences rather than broad messaging to the group at large. For the first time ever, our college and university partners are able to reach stealth applicants, underrepresented minorities, first-generation students, international students, and more with unique messaging and guidance. Carnegie is proud to be leading the charge in reaching these audiences with proprietary strategies such as Audience Select, Carnegie Clarity™, Mobile Footprints, and IP Targeting. We take pride in strategizing with our colleagues on how to utilize these technologies to reach their audiences and goals. And just like all of the unique neighborhoods in Boston, no two conversations with our clients are 100% alike. Each one seems to uncover something new, exciting, and innovative in the higher ed space.
In particular, Audience Select, a proprietary IP Targeting technology, ignited a number of conversations at our NACAC booth this year!
We spoke to one client that will be using Audience Select to break into new markets prior to setting up recruitment travel for those areas. The goal is to build brand awareness so when they travel, prospects will be more likely to engage with their counseling staff. Another will be focusing on top-performing students in their core market in hopes of increasing their academic profile. They will be using messaging around the quality of their programs. We also have one client that will be reaching first-generation prospects in their core market with messaging around scholarship opportunities and resources.
This is the kind of targeting that will revolutionize how we reach audiences that were once simply lumped into broad messaging—a level of innovation that you could say was made for Boston!
While it was sad to say goodbye to NACAC Boston, we are thankful we had the opportunity to share our city with so many amazing colleagues from across the country. We hope your stay was filled with amazing memories, new connections, and lots and lots of lobstah rolls. Until next time, NACAC. (Salt Lake City, we think you’re a worthy challenger—see you in 2018!)