About the Episode
About the Episode: In this episode of Breaking Silos, we sit down with Kin Sejpal, Vice President for Marketing and Communications, and Kevin Dyerly, Vice President for Enrollment at the University of Redlands, to uncover the story behind breaking silos at the cabinet level. Dive deep into their journey of unifying marketing and enrollment efforts to foster greater collaboration and enhance the university’s strategic goals. Discover their vision, the challenges they conquered, and the triumphs they celebrated as they worked towards a unified objective. From personal anecdotes to strategic insights, Kin and Kevin share how their collaboration not only improved enrollment metrics but also set a precedent for teamwork and innovation across campus.
Key Takeaways
- Cabinet-Level Collaboration Drives Impact: Unified efforts between marketing and enrollment foster a consistent strategy that aligns with the institution's goals, enhancing brand differentiation and boosting enrollment metrics.
- Centralization Creates Synergies: Centralizing marketing and enrollment functions allows for cohesive messaging, resource efficiency, and data-driven decision-making.
- Understanding Market Needs Matters: By analyzing campaign data and listening to prospective students, Redlands has optimized its messaging to let the market dictate demand rather than prescribing priorities from within.
- Brand Unity Improves Results: Consolidating efforts under university-wide campaigns has proven more effective and cost-efficient than siloed, program-specific marketing.
Episode Summary
Why Marketing and Enrollment Must Collaborate
At tuition-dependent institutions like the University of Redlands, the relationship between marketing and enrollment isn’t just beneficial—it’s essential. As Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Kin Sejpal brings a strategic focus to unifying the university’s brand and enrollment strategies. Her partner in this effort, Kevin Dyerly, Vice President for Enrollment, emphasizes how collaboration enhances recruitment, particularly in graduate and transfer student markets.
Both Kin and Kevin recognize that consistent, authentic messaging across all touchpoints is key to creating a seamless experience for prospective students. This partnership ensures alignment from the top down, bridging the gap between broad awareness campaigns and one-on-one enrollment communications.
The Benefits of Centralization
Prior to Kin’s arrival, marketing and enrollment at Redlands operated in decentralized silos, with individual schools managing their efforts independently. This structure often resulted in inefficiencies, such as multiple representatives competing at the same events or overlapping messaging in digital campaigns.
By centralizing both functions, the university has seen marked improvements:
- A single graduate campaign replaced fragmented efforts, letting prospective students self-select their program of interest.
- The first-ever university-wide campaign reinforced the Redlands brand, producing stronger engagement and lower costs per lead than program-specific campaigns.
- Shared metrics and weekly reporting foster transparency and data-driven adjustments.
Measuring Success Through Results
The partnership is already showing results:
- Applications for fall 2024 are up 10% year over year across all four Redlands schools, marking the first universal increase since before the pandemic.
- A unified graduate preview night brought together over 200 prospective students and faculty from every department, strengthening campus culture and recruitment efforts.
- Marketing and enrollment teams meet weekly to analyze performance, ensuring a collaborative approach to solving challenges like FAFSA delays and shifting demographics.
Overcoming Roadblocks
Both Kin and Kevin acknowledged the growing pains of centralization. Kin noted the challenge of restructuring marketing roles to function as specialists rather than school-specific generalists. Similarly, Kevin faced initial hurdles in balancing team transitions while ensuring essential communications were uninterrupted.
The key to overcoming these obstacles has been transparency, open communication, and a focus on the shared goal of institutional success.
Lessons for Higher Education Professionals
Why Collaboration Matters
For marketers and enrollment leaders aspiring to break down silos, the University of Redlands offers a compelling model. Centralization fosters synergy, streamlines messaging, and enhances both efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, partnerships like this build trust, improve team morale, and ultimately strengthen institutional culture.
Differentiation Through Authenticity
Kin and Kevin stress the importance of telling a story that is true to the institution. By aligning marketing campaigns with enrollment communications and listening to what students want, Redlands has created a compelling narrative that resonates with prospective students and their families.
Looking Ahead: A Roadmap for Growth
As Redlands expands its footprint through acquisitions and new program launches, the partnership between marketing and enrollment will continue to evolve. Both Kin and Kevin envision a future where data-driven strategies guide even greater alignment, allowing the university to optimize resources and focus on what matters most—delivering on its promise to students.
About the Show: We hear it every day across campuses: “We need to be working more collaboratively.” The higher education industry is notoriously siloed, with colleagues struggling to connect, duplicating services or having disjointed messaging.
Breaking Silos aims to showcase the remarkable work of marketing professionals and their non-marketing colleagues from different departments across campus, who come together to achieve common goals, implement new initiatives, enhance the student experience, and foster better collaboration among teams.
Each episode features a marketer and their non-marketing colleague to talk about their partnership. This unique format will inspire marketers to try new things and connect with colleagues in new ways, while also allowing non-marketing professionals an inside look at some of the most collaborative projects in higher education marketing.
Connect With Our Host:
Shane Baglini
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanebaglini/
About The Enrollify Podcast Network: Breaking Silos is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, chances are you’ll like other Enrollify shows too!
Some of our favorites include Visionary Voices: The College President’s Playbook and The Application with Allison Turcio.
Enrollify is made possible by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform helping institutions create meaningful and personalized interactions with students. Learn more at element451.com.
Connect with Us at the Engage Summit: Exciting news — Maya will be at the 2024 Engage Summit in Raleigh, NC, on June 25 and 26, and we’d love to meet you there! Sessions will focus on cutting-edge AI applications that are reshaping student outreach, enhancing staff productivity, and offering deep insights into ROI.
Use the discount code Enrollify50 at checkout, and you can register for just $200!
Learn more and register at engage.element451.com — we can’t wait to see you there!
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