Admissions and Marketing: A Successful Marriage, with Stephen Ostendorff
Our guest today is Stephen Ostendorff. He is the Director of Graduate Admissions at Bank Street College of Education in New York City.
“There's just something about the feeling you get when you're working with a student, helping them figure out the direction they want to go, whether they're undergraduate or graduate, if they feel they've been listened to and that their journey is beginning because of a conversation they've had; there's something very fulfilling to that.” - Stephen Ostendorff
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Summary:
Our guest today is Stephen Ostendorff. He is the Director of Graduate Admissions at Bank Street College of Education in New York City. He has been working in higher education for the better part of two decades, holding positions in admissions, student affairs, and marketing, and previously served as the Director of Admissions and Marketing at Metropolitan College of New York, Director of Campus Life and Residence Life at Molloy College. Moreover, he worked for two different marketing agencies in New York, running higher education verticals for them.
In this episode, Stephen talks about how he combines his teaching and marketing experience to focus on what is really important: the students. He also talks about the challenges he has to face to balance the practical aspects of his job with his role as a counselor.
Listen and take note of how marketing and on-campus recruitment efforts can work hand-in-hand to add value to your school.
In our discussion, we cover:
1:23 Stephen describes how his journey into admissions marketing began.
04:07 Stephen responds to Andrew’s question about how his marketing experience has informed his work as an admissions officer.
8:09 Stephen discusses how he balances his marketing and counseling tasks and how he fuses them together.
9:54 Stephen discusses how marketing for prospective teachers is different from marketing for prospective students in general educational fields.
13:16 Stephen talks about how counseling prospective students can help them overcome the obstacles that arise from everyday life which might stop them from enrolling.
15:01 Stephen describes how the target audience differs for Bank Street College of Education compared to the target audience for other schools.
21:51 Stephen responds to Andrew’s question about the ways in which he measures how successful his efforts are.
24:58 Andrew and Stephen discuss how to overcome objections arising from questionable marketing results.
33:38 Stephen outlines the online courses that Bank Street College of Education is and will be offering as part of the effort to grow the school.
35:11 Stephen answers Andrew’s question about whether it is a blessing or a curse for Bank Street College of Education to be based in New York City.
Quotes:
03:31 “There's just something about the feeling you get when you're working with a student, helping them figure out the direction they want to go, whether they're undergraduate or graduate, if they feel they've been listened to and that their journey is beginning because of a conversation they've had; there's something very fulfilling to that.”
05:41 “Marketing opens the door…”
11:00 “There has to be a value proposition in whatever we're doing.”
Here are some resources mentioned in our discussion:
https://online.bankstreet.edu/
Where to learn more about Stephen Ostendorff:
Stephen on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Ostendorff
Bank Street College of Education - https://graduate.bankstreet.edu/about/staff/stephen-ostendorff/
Stephen on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ostendorff/
Where to learn more about Enrollhand:
Website: www.enrollhand.com
Our webinar: https://webinar-replay.enrollhand.com
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