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Mariah Tang: Did I say that out loud? Welcome to “Did I Say that Out Loud?”, a podcast where Stu Eddins and Mariah Tang reflect on agency life and answer questions from our higher ed and healthcare clients about the latest in digital marketing, content and SEO.

 

Mariah: You’ve got Stu and Mariah as always. And we have this fabulous guest today, Jen Jenkins. She is the director of digital experience for Western Governors University. How are you doing?

 

Jen Jenkins: I’m doing well this morning, it’s a Friday, so we’ll get extra smiles.

 

Mariah: I can tell we’re going to have fun this episode. All right, well, let’s get this train on the tracks here. So Jen, we met you first, when you were at the University of Utah health, the queen of Content Strategy and all things web over there. Now you are with Western Governors. University, still the queen of content, still doing all the website content things. Since Stamats does both higher ed and healthcare, we thought, gee, this would be a lovely opening to ask about some of the similarities and differences there. So lots of things we want to talk about today, but let’s, let’s start there. So with your career at Utah health, what were some of the big lessons that you learned in content strategy, just in general, working in the healthcare field?

 

Jen: You know, everybody has their area, their favorite area of focus, right? And so I think managing stakeholders, or, you know, if you’re working in agency clients where you say, we were just talking about, you have to say yes and right, where, where, every doctor in the healthcare centering is going to be like my area is the most important. You know, you work with a GI doc who happens to be an expert in constipation. Forgive me for going there and they’re like my information, my content, my livelihood is the most important, right? So it’s a critical, like working in healthcare is an absolutely critical learning experience and prioritization, I feel like, and it is important the content for that is critical. People go online and it it really impacts how they feel on a daily basis. You know, depending on chronic health conditions. One of my family members is going through a chronic like GI health condition, and she was just like, I did all the research, and then I felt better because I actually had the information I needed. So when it comes to content strategy for healthcare, it matters what you put on your website.

 

Mariah: Yeah, absolutely. And Stu is always talking about that kind of a you know, every word mattering, every word fighting for life. Maybe forgive that expression. But when you when you have a very clear, concise page, it really not only changes the trajectory of your campaigns or your, you know, digital flow, your user experience on your site, but for healthcare, it can definitely change someone’s life, someone’s livelihood.

 

Stu Eddins: And you know that GI doctor was not wrong in that moment that is the most important content to the person you’re trying to serve. So, yeah, juggling the priorities and the egos at the same time can be a handful.

 

Jen: Such a handful.

 

Stu: Yeah, yeah. We’ve encountered that in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it’s the answer has been okay, we’ll put a billboard on the route you take to get home, and you’ll see yourself. But the

 

Jen: Yes a tried but true concept for our internal, not external, audiences, right?

 

Stu: But I did like what you what you just brought up a few moments ago, about juggling the internal stakeholders and making sure everybody feels heard and as satisfied as they can be. I mean, there are parameters. Did you find any parallel with that in coming forward into higher education? Do you find it’s much the same thing, or are there differences there?

 

Jen: Higher education is a fascinating business. A lot of the you know, University of Utah health was an academic medical center, so I worked with both sides even before I moved to Western Governors University. A lot of the faculty are less devoted to their online reputation depending on who they are, which I found really interesting, right? They’re very occupied with like their students and their everyday doctors are very concerned with how they look online. A little bit more, so they have, I think, more, bigger stake in that.

 

And also, I found that academics tend to have a little less understanding of how things on the web works. So that’s interesting. You really have to go in with academics. It’s telling them which tactics are going to work, or excuse me for with doctors, it’s telling them which tactics are actually in a yield the result they want, because they’re happy to tell you how it’s going to happen and what tactics are going to work.

 

With academics, it’s more about convincing them or telling them. Here’s the value in actually doing the project at all, at least that’s what I found in my experience. And then you also have too many fingers in the pie, right? You think you have a lot of fingers in the pie with healthcare professionals and doctors? No, it’s there’s even more when you go into academics, right, some other committees, and then their committee, you know, oversight committees for the committees.

 

Stu: And then a stakeholder above that. I don’t work on websites from the from the point of view the two of you, Mariah and Jen, but I do engage with them, of course. And the rest of my job and I have to serve their needs, I found it interesting. And Jen, I’d like to find out if you’ve noticed this, it seemed to me that in healthcare, the content that was written did tend to be more explanatory. It did tend to talk a little more directly to the to the user who was reading the page. Did you find that to be true as well? Do you think that holds true?

 

Jen: It depends on how experienced your subject matter expert was, some people, some people are. You know, this sounds really strange, but it’s who you’re talking to in your mind and where you’re living, right? You know, you’ve always heard about like the filmmakers, filmmaker, you know the auteur, and when they make a film, it’s for other filmmakers. And then you have the filmmakers who are like, this is my audience. This is my you know, their horror audience, they love, like jump scares or whatever. They’re making a film for those people.

 

And it’s the same with your subject matter experts, like you have some, and it’s all about their colleagues. What are their colleagues doing? How are they. Competing, you know what? I mean? They’re here to establish their tertiary care center right, where they’re showing, like, the best skills and teaching the best things. And those people tend to write for different audiences or even speak, right? And then you have, then you have the docs, like our GI doc, and he was genuinely, he’s like, I want to tell my patients how to get relief, or how to, you know, genuinely take care of this issue, which doesn’t mean they speak concisely. Any expert has an expanded vocabulary right in their niche topic, and so helping with clarity is part of our job, right?

 

Mariah: Yeah, it’s really interesting. I’ve worked primarily in healthcare marketing in my career. And you really do dive deep into very niche topics. You dive deep into this, you know, genetic condition that affects one in 50,000 human beings, but with higher ed I think the the markets are generally wider and broader, and the questions that people ask are more personal. So, it’s really interesting. Like, what can I do with this career? You know, in the future, if I get this degree, is there demand for this? What kind of money am I going to be making? As opposed to, like, what are my symptoms matching to this thing? You know, what are, what are some of the the big differences that you’ve taken then, you know thinking about that voice in the head and who you’re talking to, what are some of the differences that you take compared to? Let me start that over. What are some of the differences that you take in your strategy, approaching the subject matter experts, approaching those stakeholders when you’re trying to create or guide the creation of a piece of content for your higher ed sites.

 

Jen: And this is a fascinating topic, because, again, you have your professors looking at it from a different viewpoint. One really interesting thing I found about Western Governors University, or WGU, which I’ll call it from now on, they have a competency-based program, right? So it’s all about skills. It’s all about making sure that you have the necessary like, foundation. And so I found that they’re very practical, right? They actually base, like, they’ll do research into a degree that they’re going to offer, and they actually will employ keyword research to see, like, what are they calling the degree? You know, what? What are people looking for online? Which is, quite honestly, an unusual approach, right? And I don’t think that started with the faculty. I think the SEO team, you know, came in and said, Look, we can help you. Do you want the help? Right? We can make you successful.

 

So I think one of the main differences when you go to talk to your subject matter experts is you have to say, look, this may not seem important, or the work you do every day may not seem as important, but what we’re trying to reach is the potential students who want to connect with you and who need this. And they understand that absolutely, right? They have a huge queue as well, right? In academic and with academics, they’re never done, which I feel like it’s different from doctors, because academics are often thinking about all of these spin-off tangents or their research, or other things, like, there’s hyper focused, right? This is all that’s important I have, like, all these papers to grade and all of this. So you really have to emphasize, I am going by priorities. This is something that will make a difference in who finds you, who comes to you, which students you help, the people that really need it.

 

So there’s a lot more selling yourself in the product, so to speak, than with doctors. Doctors know what the product is. They generally know, of course, we want more patients. That’s a good thing. It’ll get me more specialty cases, right? But with academics, you have to say, No, the time you invest in this is just as important as the time you spend with your students. So I think that’s one of the main differences. I would say.

 

Mariah: Yea, and on our end, I’ve seen when it’s time to review the content that’s been created for them, or, you know, ghostwritten for them. Doctors will say, I have 15 minutes on Friday the 19th, and we’re going to get it to you by then. Whereas I think in academia, like you said, that there’s this constant, could this be better? You know, I’ve thought about this some more. Can we add this? You know, which is, which is fine. It’s, it’s thoughtful, and it’s, it shows that they’re engaging in the pieces. And it’s not just some passive thing that they’re like, whatever. So you know, on the one hand, we can appreciate that, you know, shared intending, but on the other hand, it’s like, it needs to be, like, we gotta get this out the door, friends.

 

Jen: Academics want thought leadership content, more likely than not, they’re much more dug into their specialty, I think, in a very, almost niche level, like we have a cybersecurity program, right? How many people are going to be interested in a tech cybersecurity program? Why there’s going to be much less, you know, like traffic, much fewer conversions, though, those will be really high-quality conversions right then. But the people, you know the type of topics they’re going to write about, are not going to be like, why should you choose, you know, a cybersecurity program to get your degree in, or something like that? They’re going to be much less interested in talking about that. Then they’ll be talking about actual techniques where, like, the reason it’s important? Well, there you go. The reason it’s important is good, but still.

 

Mariah: So you know when you’re when you’re working on a piece of content, and WGU is unique. It’s, it’s entirely online. They have all of these accelerated programs where it’s really like, if you’re coming here, it’s because you’re interested in something, and you’re, you’re ready to take that leap, as compared to, you know, maybe healthcare, or maybe a traditional four year where people are doing the research, thinking about, you know, the time investments, what’s it going to take? Because that’s external. What was that kind of mind shift for you in saying, you know, there’s, there’s a different type of immediacy here with the content.

 

Jen: True, it’s fabulous. Quite honestly, it’s telling students, this is the benefits you’ll get out of it. I think when you’re in a university, you and, you know, the trust in higher education right now is it at all time low, right? And so if you’re going to find something that’s going to meet student needs, and one of the values, you know, WG has is they’re like, we’re student obsessed, right? We’re here for the student. And when you go to larger, not actually, not even larger universities, ours is pretty large, but when you go to more traditional organizations, they have a lot more things that they’re balancing, even down to getting to the buildings and the right, you know, classrooms and getting the students in there they’re teaching, you know, classes that are, like, huge, and they have to actually deal with the in-person, logistics, right? How do we grade like X number of papers? Whereas, if you don’t like it’s amazing how much time you save just not having to go to a location, just being able to flip open your laptop and meet with somebody right there on the screen, or that type of thing.

 

Mariah: Student obsessed. I like that. What do you think about that, Stu?

 

Stu: I think it’s a great focus. And you’ve said a couple of things even before we started recording, and student obsessed kind of puts a fine point on it. Yeah. I think there’s a tendency when we’re looking at screens in front of us and numbers and representations to forget there’s a person on the other side of it. We’re trying to talk to or influence. Yeah, and some of your background, you described that we have very different backgrounds, but it still comes down to some sort of a sense of customer service. Yeah, it’s understanding who you’re trying to serve, how you can engage with them and get it done and and I think that I’m just going to toss this out there and see if anybody agrees. I think that having to do it face to face makes it easier to do it when it’s one removed through digital I think it you don’t get the immediate feedback. You don’t have the body language like you did in my career or in your previous career, where you’re looking at the person and you see the offer you give them and the rejection in their eyes before they even say anything, or whatever it might be.

 

Jen: Or the power dynamics in a room you walk into a room full of doctors or, you know, deans in person, and the power dynamics are actually different than if you’re on the screen, which can be a pro or a con, depending on how much you remember right, how much it affects your political standing, right, depending on your interactions.

 

Stu: Well, in kind of in the healthcare space, I tended to know I was working with a client who kind of got that concept about the people before we started working at it, if I looked at the content, and it looked like it read like the physician’s desk reference, as opposed to, you know, here’s symptomology, here’s what it was always about the disease process, instead of the person who had it.

 

Jen: Yes, that’s true.

 

Stu: And I think that that was something I noticed. And in the com. Comments you’ve made and everything else leaving to believe that, you know, in from what I’ve seen, that does tend to make a more successful strategy when you’re able to put the person into the equation.

 

Jen: Oh, absolutely, yeah. I would say, at U of U Health, and this was a particular emphasis we have. It was all about what to expect at your appointment, what might be I mean, we wouldn’t say this is a psychological decision point. We would say, like, you know, when should you actually see a doctor for this? When will it make a difference in your life? Right? Which, yes, you know, other websites offer that content, but when it’s really customized to your system, when you get here, you know, you’ll check in at this desk, you’ll go here, here’s what to expect. That helps a lot of people.

 

It’s not something you worry about in academics, right? As much like, Here’s what you’ll experience when you get online. And it is something that we have worked hard at. WGU on our website, to be like, here’s what to expect as well. This is about you. How can we help you? You know? How can we be responsive? I have not found that. I didn’t find it in my personal, my academic experience, right? I did go to a very skills-focused master’s program, and it is true that the first time they were like, oh, we sent out a survey to see, like, what worked for you and what didn’t. I nearly fell off my chair because I was like, I’m sorry, what you care about what the students think, which is a terrible thing to say about a university.

 

Well, you know, and I think it points to the two different aspects, the two different needs, right? Originally, universities were established as libraries, almost of knowledge. You had people who were libraries there, right? And so you’ve got this idea of of actually keeping a physical location with people who are knowledge bearers as well as, like, artifacts, right? Books, you know, written things, imagery, all of these huge collections. And then you have the idea of packaging this up as a product or a service and selling it. So there are like, two different business models right there, which I think creates a lot of friction in some of these traditional universities.

 

Whereas when you go like this, this particular business model that WGU has, it is about helping students directly with their careers or their education. It’s more about the product than it is about retaining this library or field of experts, although we do have experts, right? Because you got to have that to teach.

 

Mariah: Yeah, yeah. Stu, are you going to say something?

 

Stu: Well, I’m always going to say something. The the thing that I kind of liked about that, that entire approach, is that, yeah, higher education is changed from the from the we have the knowledge come, come during, from it and move on into more of a depending on the on the career field and the course path. It’s almost more like it can join growth of the institution and the student. They both can make it through the process and learn something along the way.

 

And I think that that that also points out something else, and, and this is something where content can really make a big difference. In healthcare, you just described that getting somebody to make an appointment is, of course, an objective, and then you gotta tell them what to expect afterwards, step by step, because the one thing you don’t want to have is somebody skip out on their appointment. Somebody skip out on a survey or whatever it is.

 

In higher education, many institutions seem to be a little bit behind the times on this, and they put all this into acquisition, and then they forget the nurture that comes after. They skip the hand off, and your number up through acquisition. We hit our numbers, we got our enrollment, we got the correct number of people in class. The nurture has to be Bob needs to show up for class on September 5, yeah. And I think that that that is something where content can step in to magnify the the the labor force they have, rather than relying on somebody to keep calling them on the phone. Yeah, create the content that can play the assisting role. It’s not going to do it for the college or university. Yeah. But create that content that that can keep the engagement up, the excitement up, the anticipation, what you want to do, but get it moving in you.

 

You said something very critical there, where you talk about health care, tends to do that. And higher education, in some ways, kind of tries, but misses the boat. Occasionally it did. I think that’s a good development area.

 

Jen: You know, and it’s, I feel like it’s a two-edged sword, though, because you have people who want you to solve operations with content, you know, they’re like, oh, just put something on the website and we’ll get fewer calls, right? And you have to be strategic about it. It’s like you said, it’s about the user, and we’re always like, but the user wants this, or they don’t want that. Or, you know, just putting content on there and making it clear I have terrible banner blindness, right? So when I go to a website, I swear to you, half the time I actually miss the CTA, the call-to-action, because I’ll be looking somewhere else for it, or it’ll be a weird button somewhere, and I’m like, how does that make sense?

 

But I am by no means, I think, your standard, your usual audience. So I’m always like, my opinion doesn’t count. You’ve got to test it, right? You have to go test it with our typical audience. Because somehow my you know what I mean, that’s what matters in the long run, is who are you connecting with? But yeah, yeah, content can make a difference. I do believe that.

 

Mariah: If you’re making those decisions without somebody in the audience, in the room, or in the, you know, in the virtual room, giving you their opinion, you’re just kind of, you’re aiming in the dark, like, like, yes, we have historically, right before things were measurable.

 

Jen: And it’s amazing how much is based on that. Corporations right through the ‘50s and ‘60s, they were like, here’s who we are and here’s what you should know about our product. And it wasn’t really until the internet and social media that they had to change that, or they would have lost a lot of their audiences right where they had to actually say, Oh, our user is a little more important. And those that thought first about users and user needs, those are the products when it’s a good product, because it meets user needs, that stayed in the business, you know what I mean, or that that really got ahead.

 

Stu: Yeah, and, of course, back in the ‘60s, and even into the ‘70s, they owned the message because they could afford to deliver it, yeah. And there was no such thing as somebody in Lima, Ohio’s review that was poor of the product, of the product getting read by somebody in Denver, Colorado. The playing field was leveled in large by the Internet in that regard. But yeah, they could just simply keep saying, I’m Procter and Gamble, you know me, you buy from me, or, you know we’re XYZ hospital or university, we are the place that people in your area go to school or get healthy come see us. They didn’t have to get into the detail.

 

Jen: You know what’s fascinating to me now is that we are swinging back in that direction. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but with GEO right generative engine optimization, for a long time, we could take keywords and phrases and say, Oh, these keywords and phrases that we can measure on Google are going to drive X number of users to our site right, and eventually X number of clicks are like applications, while we can still look at those application numbers, that metric is going to become somewhat less helpful, right when we say, Oh, we appeared in front of X number of users, because it’s also becoming about brand.

 

Now there’s so much information and so much slop online that AI can turn out are easily available information. Then now it’s swinging back. You have to have a strong brand, and you have to have strong brand trust. So like, that’s something we never thought we would see. I don’t know about you guys, but when we figured out right, how to literally monetize and be like, we can assign an actual like, dollar value to our content, it was such a dream, right? Because you could be like, look, it’s actually made like this X percentage worth, you know, of difference. And now that we’re swinging back towards brand, you have the challenge once again, of selling, and again, this is the same to your academics, right? How do you sell it? And say, Look, without this, you know, there’s some intangible, you know, reputation or brand measurement out there, and you have to know, so I’m curious to see how that evolves, right?

 

I know that there’s some, you know, executives already being like, Oh, just speed up your time to market. And you know, everything will be fine. Just have it all written up by AI, right? There is some case to be said for speeding up your writing process, you know what I mean, using the skills available. But at the end of the day, you have to have the human aspect to it. You have to have it. Who wants you know? You go in, you read your AI overview. You. And people are like, Oh, AI, overviews are killing traffic. If that’s the case, then your content wasn’t actually built to be as compelling for your user as if you were writing it, you know, in the best way, and that is possible in the first place, because there was always Wikipedia, right? There are always encyclopedias. It’s just like, now they’re more visible, more in-depth encyclopedias online, and now you’ve got to make sure you actually provide what your users really need. So it’s an interesting change.

 

Stu: It is. And I think the other thing is, people are a little blind to how long ago this change actually happened. Nine years ago, they were reporting that that 60% of searches resulted in no clicks because of all the features Google had in search results, yep, okay, now it’s 90% sometimes, sometimes, if there’s, if there’s an AI overview at the top. And yet, everybody’s website traffic, for the most part, is increasing now, whether it’s quality traffic or not, don’t know, right now.

 

Jen: You know what we’re saying, which I’m sorry to interrupt you, what I find fascinating is that some of our organic SEO traffic has gone down, but that with paid ads has gone up, so people are still finding you. It’s just a little bit in a different method.

 

Stu: You brought up brand a couple of times in your previous statement, and you really hit a point that I’m hoping to get across to some of my clients and people I work with. What appears to be happening in the forecast, at least that I’ve read, is that AI is going to scavenge and consume that mid-funnel, non-branded search activity we currently have. What that doesn’t tell people is what’s available is the mid-funnel branded. And the only way somebody can put your brand with that mid funnel search is if you meet them and greet them above that point. If before this moment, everything was erased to the bottom of that pointy end of the funnel to get down to the bottom. Now we’re flipping the paradigm. It’s a race to the top, so that my brain becomes the one on the tip of your tongue when you have the questions to ask.

 

Jen: And how do you do that? It’s content. You may not get that content generated by SEO, but if you don’t have that content affiliated in the fan out query or the structured, you know, information architecture, like the pillar, the hub and spoke model, if you don’t have that semantic context and all of that back-end strategy built out with your front end. Good luck to you. If all you’re going to focus on is conversions, good luck to you.

 

Stu: Right, your conversion rate may go through the roof and your cost per conversion goes down, even as the count of them diminishes severely.

 

Jen: You know, the other thing, and this is something critical that we don’t think about, and that content, in many ways, cannot help with, and yet is critical, is fraudulent, you know, clicks, right? Bot management, and it’s so funny, because as a content professional, you know, you don’t necessarily need to think about it, right? It’s your job just to get, like, eyeballs to the page. But then what do we do about bot management? And bots have always been out there, right? Causing this sort of stuff, but it’s become something more critical that we have to think about now.

 

Stu: It is and and especially as more of the more of the information architecture goes into a black box where we can’t see the controls. I can’t see this particular level never to turn off, because that’s the one that kills the bot traffic the most.

 

Jen: Yes, and I actually highly encourage content creators to have a little bit more technical understanding, like a web ops view. You know what I mean is, and I just think it’s helpful in terms of context, because, you know, there we can have creative teams who write content, but if you don’t have the context of why the contents written the way it is for the web, and how users use the web, and how bots use the web, and how LLMs use the web, how are they weighting content? It’s just, I always found context so helpful, and maybe that was me, right? Some people don’t like to see the big picture. They like just give me my task for today. But I always encourage, you know, my content specialist, anyone, to get more context. But I like that growth model, right? I want to learn so.

 

Stu: I want to kind of change up here just a little bit, because I’m, when I saw this my calendar, I wanted to ask this question, and it’s more about your experience with content itself and how you see a particular difference. Healthcare, no matter the reach of the organization you’re working for, at some point, a person has to be in front of another person to get services. Yes, there’s remote things to a point, there’s the triage that is, that is online urgent care and so on, and medications can be subscribed and so on for minor stuff, but you got to get some so in healthcare, in your healthcare experience, proximity and location were important. Now, in your WGU experience, it ain’t, in fact, in fact, I would imagine that that your dream is to seem like you’re local to virtually everybody. So how does your content strategy differ between something that is, to some extent, location based, to one that is entirely online based?

 

Jen: You know, I will tell you, we have worked very hard on our national reputation, making sure we had a consistent brand nationally, right? And I’m interested to see, because it’s my understanding, this is a little before my time, right, that we did have some sort of regionally based pages, but they weren’t about, you know, unless they’re tied to location, they’re just not as important. If you don’t have to go into a physical location, they’re just not as important.

 

And so it is true, like when I worked at U of U Health, we had like, 500 location pages because we had to appear in regional city markets, right, where you have to, you know, find me the best thing near me. Find me the best services by X doctor. That’s not the case. Now we need to appear for things like, you know, best masters, you know, MBA, degree online, right? And so the it changes the whole scope. And I am curious to see we have regional affiliates, right? We have specific regions, and we’re going to dive more in in the next year, I think, into specific persona work and looking at our regions, right? But we have really focused on it from a national perspective, and previously, I don’t know that there was a lot of engagement tied to region specific audiences, because what you’re seeking is less region-specific and more skill-based. Right the type of skills that can be communicated online? I don’t know it’s interesting. It’s a definite business model change, right? Because we don’t have those location pages that we’re worried about optimizing all the time, which are critical for getting your patients to a location. And that’s another case where you may not even see conversions, right? You have all of these location-based pages. You have to have them. You have to have your zero click Search Results optimized for locations. You have to go claim things. You have to go do all of that. You know, Google, my business, local search work. And that’s a huge lift. It’s a huge lift. And content is critical. It may not even be that much content, but it’s got to be something to tie your keyword terms and phrases right to that location. And now we can, you know, when we’re looking at something that’s online based, nationally based, we spend a lot more time making sure that it’s about the product. Actually, we don’t have to focus quite as much as on location. But maybe that will change.

 

I’m really curious to see if there are like. What I’d really like to know is, if there’s a particular business located in a specific region, right? Does that mean there will be more interest in a degree that might be tied or skill sets that might be tied to that business? Right? So will that be a thing? I don’t know. TBD, we will find out.

 

Stu: Yeah, yeah. And of course there’s, there’s not much denying that the period of COVID gave a shot in the arm to online education. Now I’m seeing in a lot of in a lot of ways, that there was definitely a bounce that came out of that. But you see me coming down, but we’re hitting a stable point with that. Yeah. Now, when I started thinking of things like content strategy, I also come up with content marketing, which is a subset, if you will, where I’m trying to influence with the content I have not just make sure that it has part of that strategy. Do you find that you have to write differently when it is entirely online? When, the when, the when, the ultimate when, product you’re selling is entirely online, as opposed to one that is delivered in person.

 

Jen: I think you spend less time, for example, with doctors. It was kind of about their philosophy, their personal philosophy on like practice and how they delivered. And then there’s the patient ratings type of thing, which really could make or break we looked at like video profiles for your doctors. You know, you’re really interested in increasing expert visibility, and we actually have spent less time. Think on that from like individual, like, we’ve got to have profiles for every single professor. We’ve got to have that.

 

That’s not something that we focused on in in like, courting prospective students, right? Whereas for prospective patients, or even your current patients, they want to know if your doctor how they feel about vaccines. They want to know. You know, are they always like pushing surgery first? You know what I mean? Like your patients want to know that type of stuff, whereas our students online are really concerned with the skills. How will this help them make advancements in their lives? It’s a very different mindset.

 

Stu: Okay, so, so what I’m hearing you say is, is that one of the differences the online approach is more about the outcome for the specific student, rather than the connection with the person of the entity of the of the delivery, if it’s WGU or somebody else. Okay, I didn’t know if maybe you thought that you needed to humanize the experience a little more in the content.

 

Jen: Humanize it, and the communications there is about alumni so the connection there is about your alumni testimonials, your alumni quotes, because that’s who the students respond to. Right? Did this help these other people who are the same as me make a difference in their lives. So that’s the connection, and those are the users that we focus on, or maybe I should say, experts in some ways, right, or the alumni. So it’s a change in expertise and authenticity or trust building. Who do you trust? In this case, it’s going to be the other people who had this experience, which healthcare does do, right?

 

They do patient readings and and you’ve seen the research that patient readings matter, obviously, right? Patients will trust other patients comments more than they will a recommendation, you know, from another doctor in the institution, like the doctor will say this person is actually a better skilled surgeon, or whatever, the patient will look at the comments that matters more to them what their fellows are saying, and that actually is the same when it comes to students, right? It’ll matter a lot to them what the alumni are saying. Is this practical?

 

And if you think about it, especially in our current system today, right? I don’t necessarily say the capitalistic system, but kind of right our jobs are tied to the quality of life that we lead in the aspects or the access we have to the things that we need is basic human rights. And so for these people, it matters immensely. For these students, you know what I mean? How do I how do I find the right skills? How do I make sure that I can get for my loved ones and family members, you know, the experience or the life that we want? So it is two very different aspects of your experiences, your life, desires, your needs, two different, very different states of mind.

 

Stu: Yeah. And that is something that I’ve kind of struggled with internally myself to try to figure out if there’s, if there’s anything that can be learned from with healthcare, I tend to be selling a relationship to a doctor or to a team with education, I tend to be selling more of a relationship to your future self, to what this process is going to make you be at the at the other side? To me, there should be something in there that I could, I could be borrowing from one to add to the other, and that’s a tough one for me.

 

Jen: It’s really we have built content around career guides and skill sets, and that has been a differentiator for us, which I can tell you, it’s no secret, right? It’s kind of obvious, when you go do an analysis of our website, right? That that is something that makes a difference, and has made a difference in our online presence, and it’s something that we’re definitely going to continue to beef up, right? But that’s what our users want to know. It’s the same as health information, you know, two different information areas, but it does, in many ways, come down to that mentorship a little bit. And when our students get enrolled, they get assigned mentors, right that they do speak to so that is part of the process, and will tell you it is right. You know what I mean? Don’t worry. We will shepherd you through this. You’ll have somebody to talk to you that understands and that talks to other students, but it they’re a little bit like, you know, patient coordinators or patient navigators, right when you have those. But there is that third aspect of the doctor that becomes very important for healthcare patients in that relationship so with the product or service.

 

Mariah: Well, Jen, it’s been real. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy trails to you and your in your online ventures at WG, you. Thanks. Thanks a lot for joining us.

 

Jen: Thank you.

 

Mariah: Thanks for listening to “Did I Say That Out Loud?” with Stu Eddins and Mariah Tang. Check out the show notes for more information about today’s episode. And if you have any questions, concerns or comments, hit us up anytime at stamats.com.