We’re pleased to welcome Ali onto the show for this week’s episode! She speaks with Dustin about her journey into this work, and reflections on how best to approach the unique work of housing and residential life marketing. Ali details the importance of effective marketing as a tool to tell stories, build community, and achieve departmental goals.
Guest: Ali Santander, Associate Director of Marketing & Communications at University of Arizona
Host: Dustin Ramsdell, Independent Higher EdTech Content Creator
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Show Notes:
Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Dustin Ramsdell:
Welcome back everyone to Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast. If you’re new to the show, every episode, our team of hosts brings you timely discussions on a variety of topics of interest to hired professionals who work in and with university housing, residence life, residential education, et cetera. Our conversation today is I think the first of this flavor of this theme of housing marketing, so the idea of how are we putting the story out there, marketing on campus living, and those sorts of things. I think we’ll start high level here and then perhaps we will continue to explore this topic in future episodes, but Ali, you’ve been generous enough to kick us off on this journey, but we’ll start as we always do, if you want to briefly introduce yourself and give a quick overview of your professional background.
Ali Santander:
Awesome, yeah. My name is Ali Santander. I use she/her pronouns. I am currently the Associate Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I work in housing and residential life, and I also oversee our off-campus housing program and I’m also working with our student affairs. We have a new again division of student affairs here on our campus within the last year, so I’ve been supporting our vice president in marketing and communications, so doing all the things.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m sure this is familiar to many, just I guess the cross-functional piece there, but now for zooming in a little bit because I think it’s relevant to our conversation here. While you’ve worked in higher education recently, you’ve also worked at a lot of different places completely outside of higher ed so I wanted to start and go chronologically here for our first bit of those times of doing this kind of work outside of higher education. Upon reflection, how has that informed your approach to housing marketing?
Ali Santander:
Yeah, no, I think that’s a great question, and really I think it all comes down to knowing your audience and having a really basic understanding of your audience and who you’re targeting when you’re doing your marketing or your communications. I have a background in social media. I was a social media director for a national nonprofit. I’ve worked in PR for various industries, fitness, real estate, and technology. And really, when I was going to college here, actually at the University of Arizona, I studied journalism and wanted to be a journalist, and that is my foundation.
I think my strengths are my writing, and I think that’s all come into play from my journalism background. I’ve been able to use strong writing in all of those different fields throughout the years, and working in the corporate world outside of higher ed is pretty different. We don’t have to get into that today, but I think as long as folks have the foundations to understand their audience, take the time to look at data statistics, know who they’re talking to, I think that’s going to carry whatever department or industry that someone works in.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I think it for better or worse, and I think there is some instances where this is the case, but I think higher ed large views itself as exceptional, different, unique and whatever else. But I think at the end of the day, good marketing is good marketing and that’s being, what’s resonating for me from what you’re saying is that if you can just write well, understand your audience, which is going to be a unique audience and things, but take certain skill sets and insights and all that and blend it all together, then you will be able to do effective marketing of higher education, or in this case for our conversation, housing residence life and things like that in particular.
Because yeah, I guess my guess or estimation would be that especially with large institutions, is that they may often be too reliant on just mass generic unpersonalized outreach versus trying to get more segmented or based on certain actions or behaviors and things and personalizing that way. I guess there’s any more reflections on that of just what you saw as you came into doing marketing in this different space. Were there things that I don’t know, felt like points of friction or things that maybe they did that were surprising to you or anything? Just for that transition piece to get back into housing marketing, what was that experience like I guess as you entered in to do this work initially?
Ali Santander:
Yeah, so I’ve been in my current role for almost 11 years, and there was quite the transition and mindset shift when I was first stepping into higher ed. I didn’t have a background in higher ed. Of course, I attended college as a student, but once you’re here on the inside so to speak, it’s a little bit different. And as a student, you don’t really pay attention to which department is hosting which event or et cetera, and I think that was a really sharp learning curve for me was, oh wow, housing is super siloed and it’s very niche, and we don’t really do the same things as maybe our cohorts in admissions or whatever. We all work together of course, but the way that we do our marketing is going to be different maybe than the university as a whole. I think just finding our place, and finding my place to that within our own department definitely took some time.
I think anyone coming into higher ed, I remember my director told me this when I first started is it takes a good year to really get the full picture and understand all of the different timings of things, the different events throughout the year. But once you’re in it, I think regardless of what unit or department that you work in within higher ed, it really does, it really takes that full year picture to make sense of things of what is a move in, what does that even look like? You say that’s really busy, but what does that actually mean when your boots on the ground? I think transitioning out of the corporate space and coming into higher ed with that mindset, that was, like I said, it was a shift and a learning curve for me because corporate world is so cyclical, depends on what’s happening right then and there for whatever the nature of your business might be.
Whereas higher ed is we have move in, we have move out, there’s transitionary times on our calendars that we can plan for and anticipate and from a marketing lens year over year can assess what we did last year. Let’s reframe it, let’s look at our data, let’s look at our email response rates, et cetera and refine. It is an interesting industry in regards to that rinse and repeat mindset of, okay, let’s do what we did last year, but maybe change it up a little bit. From a marketing standpoint, I want to say that was a big shift in my own brain to be like, “Okay, that’s done for the year. Let’s figure out how to rework it, make it better for this next year when we’re going to have to do it all over again.”
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I honestly did not think about that. Even the notion of, because I think there’s the cyclical nature, certainly yeah maybe in all marketing workflows, but higher ed is almost just exclusively defined by that, of that is just what really orient what are we telling people when it’s this really strict flow of the academic year. But then the other thing that came to my mind is the notion of a lot of it is going to be based on the future or something, for lack of a better term, it’s the idea of, well, during this year we’re going to be promoting live on campus next year, this sort of conceptual, abstract, ambiguous thing that we promise you you’re going to want to decide now for these reasons and do this thing that we’re, live on campus because X, Y, and Z, whatever, versus being in a corporate world like you’re saying, it’s definitely going to edge where it’s going to have a lot of aspects of buy now, get this right now, there’s urgency.
It’s immediate. It’s like we’re trying to identify where’s your pain point right now? How can we solve it and how quick can we get you from point A to point B. I think that is a really interesting insight where I’d say that that’s not, especially with housing marketing, necessarily going to be the case very often. But even with all that being said, I think about this a lot just as ground a lot of these conversations because we can talk a lot, but then forget to highlight just the so what factor of what makes all of this so important? What is the impact? What is the outcome? What makes the work of housing marketers like yourself so important?
Ali Santander:
That’s a good question. I think it comes down to telling your story, and I think that’s a practice that all marketers focus on. But for housing, and I know in the work that I do with my team, we’re always telling our story, we’re hyping up the benefits of living on campus. We’re comparing ourselves to our competitors and talking about how we’re different in a positive light. We have Tucson, the market here like so many other places has just exploded over the past handful of years as we’ve come out of the pandemic and we’re over saturated with housing options here around our campus. I think that’s really provided us the opportunity to stop and think about what it is that we are offering to the students, to the families in regards to support services, and really highlighting those benefits that students get when they live right in the heart of campus, when they connect with a resident assistant or other housing staff, that they would not be able to have those same connections in an off-campus apartment or a rental home.
I think it’s really just about taking a step and thinking about what makes your own institution, your housing operation beneficial for the residents? What are you doing, and everybody’s doing the work, but really are you talking about it in the right way? Taking a beat, really thinking about your story, your individual story, and how you can spin that to work for your audiences, and keeping in mind your audiences are not just the students, they’re also the parents, the guardians, there are other people on campus. It’s really just about getting everyone aligned to know essentially your talking points or your story across.
We have so many different audiences within housing, but the more work that we can do to facilitate making sure everyone knows U of A, for example, we don’t have a mandatory live on, but it is highly encouraged. When I started, that kind of messaging was not really out there across our campus, and we worked really hard to make sure that was something that advisors were talking about. They were talking about professors and stuff that once you live on campus for at least a year, you’re going to do better in school, you’re going to have more access to resources because you’re going to know about what’s going on on campus and who to go to for certain things. I think it really does come back to telling your story, and thinking about what that is for your own institution.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I think so many great points there because I think that acknowledgement of increased competition I think necessitates this sort of work that much more of being like, okay, let’s differentiate and make it clear what is that story around the value you individual student are going to get in terms of certainly community and certain things I think are givens, but it is certainly fair to just uplift those and highlight it and again, keep it top of mind, but then that student success piece. I think that being something that certainly a variety of folks on campus that are supporting students can be knowledgeable about and reinforced to students, and I think, yeah, even just that you’re acknowledging this work is important because there are so many stakeholders, we have so many people that we need to speak to that need to know what we’re offering.
You’re getting good value out of it, that we’re always striving to be improving the spaces and listening to feedback and all that. You need to make sure that all those folks are hearing the relevant aspects of the stories and stuff. And in my mind, I think especially right now you’re saying it is an area where there’s expansion with the competition and all that, but I think just for institutions that I think are really trying to adjust themselves and be an accessible option that is going to be helping the student be successful and all that.
We’re just in a climate, I guess that just feels like there’s going to be no shortage of scrutiny to go around for any of the different areas and that you want to make sure that you are not just resting on your laurels or just assuming, oh, everybody knows living on campus is the best. It’s just like, “Well, tell them that,” and make sure that you keep a good occupancy in your halls and that you’re, because yeah, again, it’s going to move the needle to be retaining these students and having them feel like they got a good experience and all those sort of things. Well, let’s just not just leave it up to chance. Let’s exercise some of our agency here to make sure that we’re achieving all those things that we might just assume are natural law.
Ali Santander:
I think that’s exactly what I’m getting at is I think we in higher ed, maybe we’re so close to the work. We know all of the work that we’re doing within different housing institutions or institutions as a whole to support students to make sure students have the resources that they need. But I think being able to talk about that is okay because students or families may not know that. I think it’s about boasting all the good work that we’re doing day to day because it may not be top of mind for a student or mom or dad, and I think that’s okay to talk about and remind them that living on campus, you’re in the heart of everything and we’re going to help you get connected to an academic resource if you need one, or if you’re not doing well, we’ll connect you with mental health resources. We’re going to be there, and I think that is okay to talk about.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Just early and often thing and in a variety of modalities and mediums, because I think that could be sometimes a pitfall is like, “Well, we talked about it once during orientation, don’t they remember and memorize everything?” Yeah, in certain points of the semester or whatever else, it’s like, let’s reiterate, let’s uplift it again and do promotional campaigns around all that, because I guess yeah, especially that idea of housing marketing within the halls.
It’s like, “Okay, I’m a current resident. I’ve bit the bait. I’m in, I’m here.”
But then it’s like, how do we make sure that you feel like you are taking advantage of everything and making sure that you’re having a good experience of that idea of the customer marketing like we’re marketing to our current customers and making sure that they understand all those things as much as other stakeholders like parents or community members or whatever else, or students who may be considering living on campus want to. It’s just all the above and oftentimes certain messaging can serve many purposes. But as we’re winding down, just to make sure, because I feel like this could be just really the real meat of this conversation here is from your perspective and experience recently, do you feel like there could be some quick wins for folks who really want to improve their housing marketing efforts? If there things that you feel like are just really effective, low-hanging fruit, those sort of things that you’d want to encourage folks and give advice to look into?
Ali Santander:
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s so many little things and it all takes time and it takes effort. I have talked to a lot of different institutions over the years who come from different marketing backgrounds. Some folks just fell into it and now it’s their day job and they’re figuring it out as they go. I think that’s all fine and good. It’s really, I think it goes back to figuring out what your story is, how you can use your data, your information to highlight your benefits and compare yourself to maybe your competitors, other institutions that you may be nearby.
For us, I want to say one thing, we talk to students how they talk. I’m a big advocate of that, so sorry to anyone, we do say dorms on our campus, and that’s because we heard students and families saying dorms, so we want to talk to them just like they talk. We don’t want to have that big question mark of what’s a residence hall, because we were literally having those conversations. It’s just about making everything authentic and transparent as much as as you can, and little things like that have really gone away a long way on our campus. Just again, talking to students how they talk using not the trendy lingo, but a little bit of it.
You can play with it in your marketing for sure, to make sure your messaging gets across. We’ve done some cheeky things here on our campus, and I thank my leadership for letting me talk to students how they talk, and I remind myself, I’m not the target audience by any means, but when I’m doing my marketing work, I’m talking to 18, 19 year olds. I’m allowed to play a little in order to get their attention. So maybe some things here and there if someone can make some changes or just change some vocabulary here and there.
I think that does go a long way. Goes back into knowing your audience, think about your different audiences, your different maybe personas and how a first gen student is going to view your housing application view. Those benefits that we’ve been talking about compared to a student from out of state, coming to your campus. Just having those different perspectives of who all you’re talking to and really using any data that you can to help differentiate between those audiences, I think is really helpful. Just so you know the scope of, wow, this mailer is going to reach so many people, but we have to make sure that the language resonates with everyone. Little things like that will really help you understand your audiences and think about their journey as essentially your customer as they go through the application cycle or picking a room or a roommate.
Just knowing where they’re coming from I think is really helpful in marketing, and really, I mean, remember your target audience. Like I said, I am not the target audience. That’s not who I’m marketing to, but I remember that in the back of my head when I start new campaigns or I have my team, we brainstorm things and we remind ourselves, okay, this isn’t something that really resonates with us, but we’re going to go ask some students and see what they think and get that feedback to make sure that we’re on the right track. So all of that is super attainable. I think no matter the size of the team or whoever is doing the marketing work, it’s always helpful just to have that perspective of who you are talking to.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I think that is a great strategy and advice for quick wins of knowing that so much of our work is prescribed and routine and or cyclical, is that doing this intentional due diligence to look into the language you’re using and checking your assumptions of who are you speaking to and all that of, I think could go a long way. I guess just in terms of the ROI, minimal effort to be just taking a good hard look at some pretty established email templates and copy or website stuff or whatever you’re setting out there and trying to improve that optimize, I think is the route that you could go for some quick points for sure.
Ali Santander:
Yeah, and I know I sound like a broken record, but it is, it’s comparing yourself to your competitors. That’s okay. If you can find maybe there are negatives like, ooh, they’re two miles away. If you live there, you’re going to have to drive to campus and find a parking spot, pay for parking. Whereas if you live on campus, you can essentially go to class in your pajamas. I think that’s okay to talk about, and I think a lot of schools maybe forget that, yes, we are talking to 17, 18 year olds and that’s what they want to hear right now. So I think it’s about just finding not what you can get away with, but what you can do to be authentic to your audiences. And yes, I get away with a lot.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, well, and that’s great. Yeah, because I think just even that sandbox to play in of just stuff that feels a little bit outside the norm and everything, there could be sometimes where you do something like that, it’s noticeable, different people really enjoy it and it gets an outsized impact, and obviously that’s just also just good feedback and reinforcing making those adjustments and stuff. But I think, yeah, just bringing the self-awareness of your brand, what your department is doing and speaking the language of your audience. All very good advice because I think, again, that’s in my mind of optimization of these things is just be thoughtful around the word choice there and stuff. But as we finish up, I just want to also give you an opportunity if there are any resources that we could share in the show notes, things that maybe you’ve found helpful, books, podcasts, websites, whatever else, just feel free to shout them out and we’ll put them in the show notes.
Ali Santander:
Yeah, I did want to give a shout-out to the ACUHO-I Marketing Awards. I’ve been a part of the Marketing Awards since they started about 10 years ago, and really, I have learned so much from other institutions as a marketer. It’s just really cool to see what else is out there and what other institutions are doing in their marketing. That’s why the marketing awards were created. We could not only highlight really great stuff that’s going on, but also have a space to share ideas and maybe borrow ideas.
I would definitely encourage folks if they’re interested to check out the ACUHO-I Marketing Awards as a resource or the marketing community. I think, yeah, there’s great things that we can learn from one another because as I have found over the years, we are such a niche within the higher ed institution. Housing marketing is its own thing, but there are other folks that are doing the work, and it’s been great to connect with others or run ideas by other institutions of, “Hey, we’re really having this issue related to conduct,” or whatever it may be, “how are you all addressing this? Or what have you done in your marketing to address XYZ?” So just I think finding the community is really helpful to inform the work that we’re doing because it is so specific.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I mean, that’s great recommendation, I think. I guess, yeah, the resource is advice from other people. It’s double-dip it on the advice there, but I think that is a powerful thing, and just in terms of this ability to utilize these communities for super specific on-demand resources and that idea of they’re just like, “Oh, we’ve got all these blog posts,” or whatever else.
It’s like, “But I’m looking for this one thing,” and they could go to this group and be like, “Does anybody know an answer to this question or confronted this problem?” Or whatever else. Going that route, it’s like you will get your question answer because somebody out there has had that super specific niche thing versus just a.
Ali Santander:
I’ve asked folks, “Hey, we’re seeing a lot of clogged toilets in our dorms. What all do you do to talk about proper flushing?” It’s super, super niche. I’m not going to be able to reach out to my friends in the tech or the fitness world to ask those kind of questions, so I think having a community of our own that knows what everybody else is dealing with, especially when working with students who are figuring it out for themselves, I think it’s super helpful.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, great. We’ll link out to that and have ways to connect with you as well in the show notes, but just thank you so much for hanging out and sharing all that you did. This is really great, and I think, again, I presume maybe the first chapter and an ongoing story exploring all the different aspects of housing marketing because I think this is a rich area for us to continue to explore and appreciate you kicking us off here.
Ali Santander:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, like I said, I think at the beginning, there’s so many folks that are doing the marketing work now that maybe that’s not where they started within higher ed, but yeah, please know that there are resources out there to help everybody figure it out because it changes year to year. Students are students, but they’re different every year too, so you’ve always got to figure out what’s happening year over year.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Amazing. Thank you, Ali.
Ali Santander:
Thank you so much.
