by alanavillemez | Jul 29, 2025 | Aligning Data and Strategy, Improving the Student Experience
Conversion Isn’t Just a Goal—It’s a System We talk a lot about enrollment goals. Application goals. Event attendance goals. But goals are just direction. As James Clear of the NY Times Bestseller “Atomic Habits” puts it: “You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You...
by alanavillemez | Jul 22, 2025 | Aligning Data and Strategy, Brand and Outreach
Visibility Feels Like a Moving Target Because It Is Community college visibility isn’t one thing, it’s everything, all at once.You’re trying to reach everyone and someone: The general public and under-enrolled groups Through traditional channels and whatever’s...
by alanavillemez | Jul 15, 2025 | Meeting Market and Job Demands, Strategic Framework
A Tale of Two Colleges. Two Reputations. One Pattern. Is it really a “communication” problem? A new college president and marketing director I worked with kept hearing the same feedback from faculty and staff at every Board meeting: “We have a communication problem.”...
by alanavillemez | Jul 8, 2025 | Brand and Outreach, Strategic Framework
Awareness ≠ impact A college once spent 60% of its marketing budget placing ads during a high-profile basketball game that aired on ESPN (a paid cable channel). It was a bold move with expensive airtime, and a big audience. When asked about the decision, the Marketing...
by alanavillemez | Jun 30, 2025 | Brand and Outreach, Improving the Student Experience, Strategic Framework, Uncategorized
The Case for a Theory of Change Over the last few months, I’ve gone down a few rabbit holes. The most useful being the concept of a theory of change. Popular in the nonprofit world, it’s a planning approach that starts with a goal and works backward to map out all the...
