Retro // Channel - June 2025 by Hilary Peterson Roberts

Channel Scholarship

2025-06-04 15:06:35 UTC

Improved templates and communication around Channel scholarships.

Pre launch meetings

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:07:00 UTC

Extremely valuable! Prepared counselors with specific details and allowed for Q+A.

Cross Team Collaboration

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:07:15 UTC

Constant communication across teams via Slack, Asana, meetings, to communicate time sensitive info, changing requirements, etc

channel waitlist pulls

2025-06-04 15:07:24 UTC

visibility into who, how many, who has enrolled etc

Collaboration

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:07:24 UTC

Collaboration across stakeholders greatly improved YoY. Communication and alignment, specifically.

Open House Timeline

2025-06-04 15:07:25 UTC

Was able to confirm open house timelines with advanced notice for annual strategy sessions to discuss live in the room with partners

Cross-functional communication

2025-06-04 15:07:25 UTC

everyone worked really well together and stayed in touch between channel ops meetings - didn't feel like anything major fell through the cracks!

Continued strengthening of partnerships

2025-06-04 15:07:44 UTC

More channel partners in "repeat" cycles and were experienced with having attended past Open Houses, Summit, etc

Course Guides

2025-06-04 15:07:46 UTC

Course Guides were incredibly helpful. Onboarding was able to redirect students/parents to those resources

Big impact from late launches from previous cycle

2025-06-04 15:07:49 UTC

IU, USC

Channel marketing journeys

2025-06-04 15:07:50 UTC

This year they were much easier to manage, and dynamic content worked correctly, allowing for much more scalable work in the future.

Pod structure for ADM

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:07:58 UTC

Limited WL Pulls :)

2025-06-04 15:08:00 UTC

Channel school contact (for families)

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:08:04 UTC

When partners are open to it, having a channel contact for prospective students was extremely valuable as many nearly demanded it to get them over the line.

Cross functional slack channel

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:08:36 UTC

Real time updates, lots of visibility, improved communication!

A/B marketing tests

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:08:46 UTC

Tested different areas to improve immediately or to better plan for future cycles

Enrollment & UP Relationship

2025-06-04 15:08:55 UTC

I think the relationship between both teams has continued to improve-- communication, escalations, alignment on goals, etc. Good progress this cycle.

Waitlist Updates

2025-06-04 15:09:01 UTC

Just having updates on what might be coming, updates on who was pulled and enrolled in their channel school, has been very helpful

Course Reg guides

2025-06-04 15:09:17 UTC

continuous improvement - each cycle get better and better

Condensing / adding programs

2025-06-04 15:09:19 UTC

Cutting down on redundant programs (i.e. rolling UConn and Syracuse Engineers into their flagship programs) -and- adding programs for new audiences (UConn addition of Year program)

Customization in SFMC

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:09:22 UTC

Ability to customize content for partners, set up custom journeys for capacity programs, and accommodate minor dynamic content requests.

Email Coms Journey

2025-06-04 15:09:42 UTC

Being able to share the email/text journey with partners allowed them to create parallel journeys to students/families.

Channel Data in SFDC

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:09:55 UTC

Ability to find most if not all pertinent partner program data in Salesforce!

Open Houses

2025-06-04 15:10:00 UTC

Very organized, with great presenters and breakout rooms. A lot of support from staff and Channel partners.

Channel Open Houses!

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:10:08 UTC

Frequency, attendance, partner participation, organization, and increased admissions SAC participation for answering questions (as we had more sessions)!

Cross functional collaboration

2025-06-04 15:10:21 UTC

Infrastructure/Ops improvements

2025-06-04 15:10:31 UTC

Better usage of SF as the source of truth with partner programs, which better supported information sharing between Rev Ops, Enrollment, etc.

Improved Systems

2025-06-04 15:10:42 UTC

Reduced the number of places AMs were expected to 'report out' and log different channel program details

Partner Programs in SF

2025-06-04 15:10:46 UTC

-From an AM standpoint, I preferred working with cross-functional teams with SF as the 'source of truth' for numbers and most info (although Asana is still best for project management tasks!).

Asana to SF data transfer

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:10:47 UTC

Loved having additional information about partners/programs in Salesforce, rather than solely Asana

Open House Comms Improvements

2025-06-04 15:10:55 UTC

Additional comms saw a boost in attendance and day-of sign ups

Open Houses

2025-06-04 15:11:02 UTC

specifically the part where we assigned specific Verto team members to various Verto breakout rooms to assist in the chat. The creation of a doc with FAQs and links to pull from and easily copy paste into the chat was a huge help, too

Partner Program Area of SF

2025-06-04 15:11:24 UTC

Worked really well as a source of truth this cycle

Main List Workbook

2025-06-04 15:12:00 UTC

The articulation workbook made articulation data much more consistent. The google sheet allowed me to monitor progress and help partners who had questions.

UP post launch strategy

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:12:09 UTC

Loved having additional focus on what the partner can do to improve enrollment post launch (open house emails, waitlist releases, etc)

Depth of relationship with partners

2025-06-04 15:12:19 UTC

Evidence of deepening trust and relationship between partners & Verto from channel open house presenters/presentations to willingness to connect with Verto students at different points throughout the cycle(advising), information alignment, etc.

Pre Launch Comms

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:12:52 UTC

Specifically want to highlight Meghan and Jenn for incredible communication prior to launches! Thorough articulation of what to expect and specificities of the program.

Working with Israel for Channel Academics

2025-06-04 15:13:02 UTC

Working with Israel on course registration guides and articulation follow-up was organized and went well! Thanks, Israel!

Total Opportunities

2025-06-04 15:13:03 UTC

Increase in total Opportunities.

Alignment meetings

2025-06-04 15:13:14 UTC

While a lot of work and time, the weekly meetings provided a critical space for key stakeholders to align, which created less "spin" on key issues that would be identified.

Late Channel launches

2025-06-04 15:22:01 UTC

We don't control our partner timelines.

Enrollment Staffing

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:22:41 UTC

Staffing for a short timeline without having the inputs is challenging.

Anticipated Audiences v Actual!

2025-06-04 15:22:44 UTC

The plans we set with the partner and intentions we have from our fall strategy sessions to how things actually play out with their applicant pool don't always align as we'd hoped!

Fluctuating Launch Dates/Inability to Plan

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:22:50 UTC

A "normal" situation for us, but it makes staffing challenging when the launch dates change. I know we're a bit at the mercy of the partners, which is why real-time updates were so helpful.

Alignment on how partner program fields are used

2025-06-04 15:23:03 UTC

Disconnect between teams on how to use partner program fields and interpret information.

Partner Requests for Developed Syllabi

2025-06-04 15:23:12 UTC

During the articulation process, lots of partners stated that the syllabi linked on the main list didn't have the information they needed to articulate courses effectively. I had to spend lots of time looking for onsite syllabi or trying to develop syllabi for new courses on the fly.

SFMC Fires

2025-06-04 15:23:25 UTC

Due to very quick/rushed implementation of SFMC, we had multiple SFMC fires during the cycle

Changes to audience type/volume

2025-06-04 15:23:34 UTC

It's challenging when a partner sends less students than we had originally anticipated/they had estimated at the top of the cycle. The challenge here with the 'estimated audience size' field in SF potentially being seen as a guaranteed audience number rather than a best case scenario estimate.

SFMC Migration Pains

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:23:43 UTC

As the migration was such a large undertaking, timelines got delayed and butted up against channel launches. This led to lots of bumps along the way and discovering issues and bugs etc. as channel launches began and volume increased.

WL pulls by partners

2025-06-04 15:23:53 UTC

Part of our business model is that these are their students first to make their fall enrollment, and that is why we gain the opp to yield more students. So, we need to continue to understand this dynamic. Some years will be better than other years.

Additional resources would be beneficial for specialized channel programs

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:24:04 UTC

MANY students in specific STEM programs or Business that would benefit from more resources about how Verto would impact their trajectory, i.e. Kelley Business School

Prague Recovery Program

2025-06-04 15:24:07 UTC

Transcript collection

2025-06-04 15:24:21 UTC

Channel student transcript collection this cycle is night and day compared to last cycle

Partner specific School regulations

2025-06-04 15:24:31 UTC

USC/Indiana as examples with School specific limitations for enrollment weren't clear at the beginning of launch. Having additional clarity would be very helpful.

Historical Data

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:24:33 UTC

Prior cycle partner data and top of funnel data not in Salesforce and makes it difficult to look back and compare.

Launch requirement changes

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:24:36 UTC

In some cases, there were last minute changes in requirements for launches (requiring updates to minisites, comms, or rushed turnaround of requests)

Late Changes to Partner Strategy

2025-06-04 15:24:38 UTC

Dear Colleague letter/political climate had a some partners rethinking strategies post-campus strategy visits.

Expectations on Partners

2025-06-04 15:24:41 UTC

As we continue to build out marketing asks, and growth expectations (e.g. adding more programs), we are pushing partners hard and need to continue to balance critical asks to ensure we are making the most of our requests. We are pushing the line here with a number of partners. As Kelly Walter from BU tells us regularly, Verto's enrollment goals aren't BU's enrollment goals.

Missing team members made it challenging

2025-06-04 15:24:44 UTC

UP Team rose to the moment to meet the challenges.

Presentation/transparency of program info for students & parents

2025-06-04 15:25:03 UTC

I learned the hard way this cycle that when info is dug down deep in FAQs, this can lead to issues (i.e. whether participating in the program guarantees admission to intended major). More on this in Areas of Improvement (it's an easy fix!).

Channel Launch delays/changes

2025-06-04 15:25:03 UTC

I know we can't control these things

Too much micro management from the very top getting into the dirt below the weeds

2025-06-04 15:25:37 UTC

Standardized method of recording small details for channel programs

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:25:39 UTC

This can be an admissions responsibility in tandem with UP, but we had amazing pre launch meetings that could benefit from a standardized way of recording all the valuable info shared within them.

Website systems

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:25:45 UTC

We encountered some bugs and issues with our web technologies (form systems, website backend etc) throughout the cycle that required quick remediation

Articulation issues (approval for core courses)

2025-06-04 15:26:28 UTC

We ran into some issues with challenges for faculty approving courses for core curriculum.

Late(r) changes to the partner mainlist and CRG

2025-06-04 15:26:50 UTC

Can improve closer collaboration with UP/AAHQ so this is incorporated into an earlier planning cycle.

Channel users not getting pulled into comms correctly

2025-06-04 15:26:57 UTC

Until later on in the cycle, we did not have reconciliation reports to tell us if many users were not getting pulled into comms and why. When we found this out, it was usually by accident, and we had to go back and create a catch up campaign, etc.

Limited resources

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:27:21 UTC

Limited resources across multiple teams, requiring a lot of prioritization and reprioritization to focus on the most essential work and minimizing the ability to do more enhancement-focused work -- including limited tech and marketing resources.

OG limitations for late launches

2025-06-04 15:27:40 UTC

Limited enrollment slightly for OG-dependent populations of late launch schools like UAlbany/Baylor, especially for DOB issue students with Prague as only option.

Data Discrepancies in partner portal

2025-06-04 15:28:16 UTC

Partners who didn't perform in-line with previous cycles

2025-06-04 15:28:16 UTC

I had partners with similar audiences to last year who just didn't perform this cycle (despite doing "all of the things" -- i.e. University of Denver). Huge contrast in deposits from last year to this cycle and no good explanation.

Lack of staffing resources on the marketing team made it particularly challenging, all cycle

2025-06-04 15:28:18 UTC

Hopefully we will notice a change here with a new team member :)

Cost-Benefit Analysis - Channel Partners & Programs

2025-06-04 15:28:40 UTC

Continuing to align resources poured into so many things we do: 1) Co College and no ROI but time intensive for all involved 2) Building a Pitt program w/ no enrollment

Pre-Launch meetings

2025-06-04 15:28:41 UTC

We need templates for all AMs for all schools so SACs can refer back to them with consistent information.

ADM only: Pod imbalances

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:28:48 UTC

Admissions-specific, but we do our best to try to balance each Pod's portfolio of partners. Fluctuating timelines and audience types/sizes lead to imbalances across pods, so sometimes some pods were slammed and others weren't, or one pod worked with schools with much higher conversion rates which sometimes impacted SAC morale, etc.

International Program Launch

2025-06-04 15:28:59 UTC

Tons of resources and no ROI

Fall Alignment being very program specific, where updates were previously provided.

2025-06-04 15:29:39 UTC

Less year long students

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:29:50 UTC

Datashare expectations v. resources to support

2025-06-04 15:30:52 UTC

Resources don't align with the growth of this audience.

Standardized cap management

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:40:36 UTC

Aligned approach internally to present externally

Planning Timelines

2025-06-04 15:40:48 UTC

Recognizing the channel team begins planning months prior to many teams, given the nature of our cycle. Improve expectation setting for when information from other teams will be ready for the 26-27 cycle to manage partner expectations.

Customer First focus

2025-06-04 15:41:05 UTC

We can't build things that create additional work for partners/students. We need to always have the "customer lens." To this end, we also need to understand how many asks/emails we are sending to partners.

centralized partner/program knowledge hub

2025-06-04 15:41:08 UTC

potentially not in SF, as that maybe isn't the best place to gather non numerical data. but there have been cross functional asks of UP to share our partner knowledge more broadly and deeply with cross functional team members. not sure how to best do this, but want to note that it has been asked by many and I hear it and want to see what we can do.

Channel mini-sites

2025-06-04 15:41:14 UTC

They are getting cluttered with lots of information. How can these be optimized to focus on conversation to RFI/app? Need to really look at the data and focus the site to be pre-deposit focus only.

Channel Open Houses

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:41:15 UTC

Think through content, flow and best practices

Template Communications for Partners

2025-06-04 15:41:17 UTC

Collaborate with Marketing to revisit old templates and create new templates for partners to send to students

Deeper requirements gathering & discovery

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:41:22 UTC

Before starting a big project, more time should be dedicated to discovery and fleshing out requirements, in order to ensure the work is fully scoped, viable, and doable from a resourcing and timelines standpoint.

Meetings with partners specific to specialized programs

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:41:26 UTC

If possible, additional resources - whether that be meeting with a partner rep or just the UP AM facilitating the comms with SAC for understanding the intricacies of some of these more specialized programs. Business school, etc.

Data share conversion

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:41:28 UTC

More time to focus on marketing initiatives vs 'just trying to keep up'

2025-06-04 15:41:36 UTC

Expectation setting with partners earlier

2025-06-04 15:41:42 UTC

Open houses, pre-departures, WL release, and post-launch engagement - we can have these convos and set expectations earlier so less reactive.

Staffing for the cycle earlier based on anticipated growth

2025-06-04 15:42:05 UTC

Encourage Partners to use Creg guide to full capabilities

2025-06-04 15:42:06 UTC

The Creg guide template has been updated to give partners more areas where they can add clarifying information for their institutions and channel requirements. Many partners are leaving sections blank. Meghan and I added some information to a Creg guide because of an upset parent. I think we should look for ways to educate partners on the Creg guide template and encourage them to use all fields.

Improved Customization

2025-06-04 15:42:49 UTC

Consider what infrastructure needs to be put in place to better allow for increased customization in the student experience from mini-sites and comms.

Standardize asks from partners

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:42:50 UTC

What are we comfortable presenting for review vs feedback? (email, SMS, mini site, etc)

Channel comms review

2025-06-04 15:42:50 UTC

Work with Jackie and new marketing team member, as well as UP, to look at current comms flow and see what changes might be worth making.

AM/SAC Pre-Launch Meetings

2025-06-04 15:42:56 UTC

I (Brad) would propose that Meghan and I put together a cheat sheet template for each university for reference after Pre-Launch meetings. AMs provide a lot of great information that is easily lost by SACs when dealing with multiple schools at the same time, but especially when there is a tiny launch and pre-launch meeting in December/January and the massive launch is 2-3 months later.

Website optimizations

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:43:03 UTC

Dedicate more time and resources to getting minisites to ideal state and optimize those pages to serve their ideal purpose (aka - get students to submit app / convert)

Understanding efficiency versus partner personalization

2025-06-04 15:43:10 UTC

Is there value in personalizing marketing journeys to be partner-specific versus having efficiency as the priority? Basically, what does the data suggest as what creates the highest conversion rates.

Clearer presentation of most critical program info (rather than FAQs only)

2025-06-04 15:43:39 UTC

Making sure the most critical program info is clearly (and repetitively) stated in partner decision letter, minisite, FAC deck, and course reg guide (not just dug deep down in the FAQs). I ran into a situation with angry UNH family because it was not clear that entry was guaranteed to the College of Liberal Arts, and while this is stated in the FAQs, it was hard to find. I didn't blame them for being upset. This is an easy fix! We need to consider all materials and presentation through the lens of student/parent viewing this for the first time.

Ability to segment audience type

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:43:43 UTC

Training for internal teams

2025-06-04 15:43:49 UTC

Slightly more face time/visibilty/ space for framing, talking points, Q&A directly from the UP team to teams that hold students/families (SOA). The all hands Michael did was helpful and only scratched the surface. There is a lot of room for increase collab here so that SOA don't feel like deer in headlights at times and we are all maximizing the work UP does to get us students on all sides.

Data-driven best practices for partners

2025-06-04 15:44:02 UTC

Providing benchmarking and historical data to push them in the right direction.

Comms optimizations

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:44:06 UTC

This cycle, we were focused on getting journeys into SFMC and doing the MVP for content / copy optimizations. Now that we have completed the migration, we can take a more critical look at improving our communications (copy itself, graphics, CTAs, etc)

Continued improvements on partner engagement

2025-06-04 15:44:58 UTC

UP team project! Lots of ideas for how we can continue enhancing the information we share with partners to encourage them to engage further -- best practices "playbook" (i.e. understanding the Course Selection process and offering their own pre-advising).

academic customization

2025-06-04 15:45:06 UTC

we came across an issue in SF when we were working with Bentley and their desire for required and recommended coursework per Verto location. Not sure what we may be able to do to to change this limitation in SF if anything, but we need to be able to have flexibility with partners on their academic desires for their channel cohort when and wherever we can.

Additional training and best practice work in SFMC for marketing team

2025-06-04 15:45:07 UTC

Main List Building/Mesaging

2025-06-04 15:45:14 UTC

Some partners downloaded the main list as an excel sheet which means that I can't track their work. It also breaks some of the coding when I put it back into google sheets since Excel and google don't play well together. Need better messaging on the Main list and how to use it. I also need to add more protected columns as some partners changed the format/broke the coding when trying to get syllabi.

Ideal student journey

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:45:22 UTC

To be able to identify what creates the most successful student. What touchpoints and information are crucial? Are there other leading/lagging indicators we can look at?

Parent Comms+Engagement approach

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:45:42 UTC

Opp vs RFI - both needed?

hillevi4 — 2025-06-04 15:46:02 UTC

Not a fully baked thought, but I would be interested to see if the data deems necessary this split between ROIs and Confirm Interest forms. Is one enough if the language is broad? How can we better support students in finding that form in the first place? It's been a bit of a sticking point.

Case Management

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:46:05 UTC

Refresh of images for partner Open House decks for next cycle

2025-06-04 15:46:43 UTC

Some partners who had participated in Open Houses last cycle asked if we could update the images for next time around (specifically the Slide 1 photo used for Open House and FAC decks)

More data in SFDC

jackiesilva — 2025-06-04 15:47:04 UTC

Currently, there are dates and other data points that still have to be maintained manually in SFMC, which is not a best practice and leaves room for error / inefficiency. We hope to add more dates and data in Salesforce so that we can pull that info into comms dynamically.

Excited for Marketing Strategy!

2025-06-04 15:47:27 UTC

Waitlist and Verto's Business Model

2025-06-04 15:47:42 UTC

One of the core tenets of our business model is that we are clear to partners that including Verto in your waitlist letters is "no risk". This the is the only path to grow partners and grow Verto's inclusion with current partners. And, as a result, WL clawback is part of the model, so how do we as an org accept this as something we can't mitigate and will happen. Ideally, not the UT 2 years in a row, but there will be UTs in the future as we grow our partners.

Having a real Channel marketing roadmap for the first time!

2025-06-04 15:48:13 UTC

Clearer processes for students switching Channel partners or from Channel to Traditional

2025-06-04 15:48:18 UTC

I had a lot of situations where students needed to be "recoded" and DQ helped with manual tickets, but sometimes the process was clunky because we had to go back and ask students to re-submit new application for another program or for Traditional.

Not introducing new initiatives mid-cycle

2025-06-04 15:48:21 UTC

ELL vs int'l audiences :)

Continue to improve our projection models

2025-06-04 15:49:29 UTC

Currently driven by historical rates versus being driven by student-initiated engagement, etc.

Balance self-service with group vs individual

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 15:50:01 UTC

Partner requests for more insight into student journey

2025-06-04 15:52:12 UTC

A lot of partners have asked for this -- perhaps we can consider a cross-functional webinar series or some other way to really walk them through the process of what happens after their launch (FAC to Onboarding to Course Selection to on-site...)

Balancing partner asks vs. Verto expectations

2025-06-04 15:53:47 UTC

We need to continue to balance Verto needs versus partner expectations. We don't get unlimited asks to partners, so what is MOST important to driving our goals.

Further development of International Program in London

2025-06-04 15:58:04 UTC

Ensure Verto has been approved as a highly-trusted sponsor for the UKVI so that we can sponsor Tier 4 visas for AY 26/27 (to improve on the fall/spring short-term visa workaround that was presented for AY 25/26).

outcomes data

emilyherman1 — 2025-06-04 16:04:47 UTC

Customizing Retention Marketing Messaging

2025-06-04 16:17:07 UTC

customizing communication at the program/partner level at scale