Session 1
How to write for a Distracted Digital Audience
Vikki Maver, Refresh Marketing
Today’s online audiences are impatient and ruthless. They have zero tolerance for boring, robotic and copycat content. Content that’s punchy, original and engaging, on the other hand, will seize attention, hold interest and inspire action.
In this presentation, Vikki shares her insider secrets on how to write content that will elevate your brand – and delight your online visitors. She shows you how to:
- Understand the online audience ‘mindset’
- Create content that’s consistent and brand-aligned
- Inject humanity and authenticity into your writing
- Elicit a response – and inspire action
Imagine it now: content that people actually want to read. Content that gets results.
Bridging Marketing & Admissions: Creating a Seamless Customer Journey
Margo Bastow, Director of Community Relations, Santa Maria College, Perth
Discover how marketing and admissions can work together to create a seamless, engaging experience throughout the entire customer journey. Margo Bastow will share practical strategies for integrating content marketing, social media, and personalised communication at each stage—from Awareness and Consideration to Onboarding and Advocacy. Learn how this collaborative approach not only boosts enrolment success but also builds lasting connections with families. Ideal for marketing and admissions professionals seeking to enhance their partnership and optimise the enrolment process.
Building Thriving Alumni Networks: Real Tactics and Metrics for Success
Nathan Wood, CEO, Alumnly & Prashaant Anand, CIO, Alumnly
Join us for an insightful session where three schools with distinct backgrounds and alumni networks will share their journeys using Alumnly. The panel members are:
- Barbara Lomas, Communication & Engagement Officer, Catherine McAuley College
- Matthew Luczek, Director of College and Community Engagement, Loyola College
- Amy Melleuish, Marketing and Communications Officer, Ave Maria College
This panel will dive into the tactics each school employed to boost alumni registrations and engagement, discussing practical strategies that can fit a range of school contexts.
You’ll learn about the key metrics they tracked, the obstacles they faced, and the unique approaches that helped them build thriving alumni communities.
Perfect for any institution looking to grow its alumni network effectively, this session promises actionable insights you can take back to your own school.
Session 2
The Lure of the Shiny: Understanding the Digital Marker's dilemma
Meg Coffey, Founder, Coffey and Tea
In a world where the crazy outweighs the calm, we do not need more content. Cut through the shouting and learn to give your customers what they need, when they need it – rather than shoving it down their throats. Find the balance between your long-term goals and short-term needs and become effective with your messaging. In other words, let’s do more with less.
Enquiry Tracker - User Workshop: Enquiry to Enrolment - An Exemplar Journey
Greg Campitelli, Director, Enquiry Tracker
Join Greg as he presents the keys to providing an exemplar enquiry to enrolment journey. This highly interactive session will include a demonstration of the Enquiry Tracker solution now used by over 500 schools. The session will also showcase the 10 Best Practice Reports that Admissions and Marketing Managers can utilise for Principals and Business Managers.
Whether you are an existing Enquiry Tracker customer or simply intrigued to learn more about how software is revolutionising the enrolment journey, this session will be an invaluable opportunity to discover and share your thoughts.
Funnel: User Workshop: Tips, tricks and trends to set you up for admissions success
Hayley Knight, Senior Customer Success Manager, Digistorm
Join Hayley for this practical session covering enrolment trends, top-notch customer touch points and best practice solutions for common waitlisting challenges schools face. We’ll cover tips and tricks that can be helpful for Funnel and non-Funnel schools alike:
Admissions trends: especially focused on parents’ increased expectation around the volume, quality and speed of communication.
Creating quality customer touchpoints, while saving time: Show and tell through our top Funnel automations that schools and parents love.
Waitlist management: Using best practices from schools in other regions, we'll showcase ways of managing three common waitlist scenarios.
Session 3
Marketing your School in Social, Search and AI Chat
Sue Ellson, Consultant
How can you ensure that your school appears in all three online channels – social media, search engine results pages and generative AI chat results without paying for sponsored content?
Whilst only 16% of internet users are actively using chat for gathering information, the numbers are steadily increasing. Other users are still using social media and search engines, so you need to ensure that your school’s online marketing strategy maintains a presence in all three channels – for your location, school name and primary keywords. How can you be found in both databases and datasets? How can you increase the probability of your content being indexed or scraped? Which search engine optimisation techniques are standing the test of time?
The Legal Labrinth: Navigating Legal Issues in Enrolments
David Scanlan, Director of People and Culture, St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls
This session will examine the key legal issues in enrolments and admissions in the Australian context. It will cover two main categories: enrolment contracts and the risks when saying no to an enrolment. We will consider the framework of the enrolment process, the key things which should be in your enrolment contracts (and why they’re important!), and some common issues like separated families and varying terms. We will also touch on some of the challenges and risks when refusing enrolments, including discrimination claims. We’ll finish by looking at some emerging and/or project challenges, including around the automation of enrolment processes and the role of technologies like AI.
Engagement with History: Digital spaces, connection and participation
Kellie Hasluck, Director of School Development and Philanthropy, St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls
The St Hilda's award-winning Heritage Centre was a three vision that brought the school's digital catalogue to the community. The Heritage Centre now welcomes hundreds of visitors to the school and is a key aspect of its community and philanthropy building strategy.
This session shares the journey of conceptualisation to realisation of this project including aspects such as the preparing the business case, fundraising, curation, project management and launch. It will also provide an overview of the digitisation process and how this is managed at St Hilda's.
