How To Market a University with Teresa Flannery

There are a few leading voices in the world of higher ed marketing. Dr. Teresa Flannery is one of those voices.

More than likely you already know her as the CMO of CASE, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

But before that, Teresa Flannery was the first marketing director and chief marketing officer at the University of Maryland and the first Vice President of Communications at American University.

Recently, she wrote the book How to Market a University, which engages leaders and CMOs in discussing their work and its strategic nature and purpose. 

The book has also been developed into a master course on Enrollify, a digital resource hub designed to empower the modern enrollment marketer. 

That’s why my podcast co-host, Troy Singer, and I were excited to have her on The Higher Ed Marketer podcast to talk about these important, high-level concepts in education marketing.

Here are some highlights of our fascinating conversation with Teresa Flannery.

How to Market a University

There are a lot of books on marketing and advancement, but there are few written from the perspective of someone with as much real-world experience as Teresa Flannery.

At the beginning of our conversation, she opened up about the beginning of her new book, How to Market a University.

I don’t think I would have ever had the nerve, or the courage to think about writing this book on my own. 

But I was approached by the editor of the Johns Hopkins University Press who said they had this series for higher education leaders, practical little books that helped presidents, provosts, and trustees think about how to work successfully in higher education. [For example, the series includes] books on how to run a college and work with the university board. 

He really felt like they needed a book on how to market universities. He noticed that higher education leaders, presidents especially, are hungry to know how to do this work well. They want to know how to organize it, how to resource it, and how to measure success in that area. 

The primary audience [of the book] is those higher end leaders, speaking to them to try to help them understand our work and its strategic nature and purpose. 

But I had a secondary audience that we’ve included in how I wrote the book, which is chief marketing officers and their teams. So every chapter in the book has a set of discussion questions that are designed to engage leaders and CMO’s in discussion about where they are on that part of the work.

Personally, I think a work like this is a valuable resource for higher ed marketers who want to better align with their leadership. 

A book like this can inspire and teach you, while informing your leaders of the work you do. 

I’m very hopeful about the book as a tool to help get everyone on the same page in regards to strategy and budgeting for marketing efforts. 

The Teresa Flannery Master Course at Enrollify

Another exciting feature about Teresa’s latest project is the course she’s put together with Enrollify founder Zach Busekrus to go along with the book. 

As an online learning platform for education professionals, Enrollify is the perfect place for higher ed marketing and enrollment professionals to learn and fully benefit from Teresa’s experience.

But the Enrollify course features many more voices than Teresa Flannery.

Zack Busekrus approached me about doing a podcast related to the book. But then he came back to me again, and he said, “I got a really crazy idea!”

We [want to develop] a series of master courses. Would you be willing to use your book as the subject and be the expert for this course?

At Enrollify, they’ve got this really wild premise of developing the first fully digital professional development experience for enrollment marketers. 

The course is a master class approach, and I’m sort of the “sage on the stage.” But I didn’t want [to do it that way]. 

So the first thing I did was call fifteen friends and said, “Would you come play with us so that your expertise rounds out my voice?” 

They all said, “Yes!” 

So Zack traveled all around the country to interview them all and have them contribute content on different aspects of the chapters as we went along. I’m grateful for their shared expertise. 

As the co-host of The Higher Ed Marketer podcast, I love the idea of having multiple voices sharing their expertise for others to learn from.

But with the Enrollify master course, enrollment marketers also get the benefit of exercises to help them digest the information and put it right into practice. 

We developed a series of sprint exercises for every session designed to make you stop for two minutes and just think in a kind of brainstorming mode that helps get the juices flowing. 

Then there are some exercises that are developed to apply the material in the book in a much more specific way at your institution.

These exercises can be extremely helpful to getting from the abstract level of learning to the practical rubber-meets-the-road work.

As someone who’s spent decades in this sector, I’m very happy to see Dr. Teresa Flannery’s new book and her Enrollify course. 

Discover more when you listen to the podcast!

Like all of our blog post reviews of The Higher Ed Marketer podcasts, there’s so much more to learn in the podcasts themselves.

Listen to our interview with Teresa Flannery to get even more insights into:

• The idea for the first fully digital professional development experience for enrollment marketers through the book How to Market a University and master course. 
• Why Higher Education organizations are in the best position they’ve ever been in. 
• Why Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are coming from outside higher education to roles inside the sector. 

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Featured image via case.org