Sep 8, 2026 · 33 min · 13 segments
In this episode of *Mission Admissions*, host Jeremy Tiers has a conversation with Kelly Peiffer who shares insights on how colleges can leverage authentic storytelling to drive enrollment and build…
Kelly PfeifferGuest
Jeremy TeersHost
hear a lot of your peers or people on both the admissions and the marketing side, Kelly.
tell me, well, the challenge is how do I keep stuff on brand? And I'm like, the way you view brand or the way your audience views brand, because you have to remember, to the point you made earlier, Kelly, you're making the videos for your audience, not for yourself, if you're doing it the way that you should be doing it.
And so it's understanding what does authenticity mean to a 17-year-old, right? Because it may not mean the same thing to a 47-year-old that it means to a 17-year-old.
One is we, our team is made up of a former journalist and like his natural storytelling tendency is written.
He wants to write written stories in a journalistic format that are very nice and polished.
But do 18-year-olds read these beautifully written, crafted stories? No, they don't.
So we've had to change the way that we work and think because we want to reach the right students.
And how do we make these journalistic stories into a TikTok, into a Reel? and using a little mic and using students with those little catchy things that they do.
Actually, we shouldn't make it perfect because that's like a red flag for this generation that it's inauthentic.
So you want to strategically put imperfections in there so that it looks cool and modern and real.
So that's been one thing that we've tried to do is like less written stories and more video stories.
But As anyone knows who works in Marcom or social or content, video takes time.
hear a lot of your peers or people on both the admissions and the marketing side, Kelly.
tell me, well, the challenge is how do I keep stuff on brand? And I'm like, the way you view brand or the way your audience views brand, because you have to remember, to the point you made earlier, Kelly, you're making the videos for your audience, not for yourself, if you're doing it the way that you should be doing it.
And so it's understanding what does authenticity mean to a 17-year-old, right? Because it may not mean the same thing to a 47-year-old that it means to a 17-year-old.
One is we, our team is made up of a former journalist and like his natural storytelling tendency is written.
He wants to write written stories in a journalistic format that are very nice and polished.
But do 18-year-olds read these beautifully written, crafted stories? No, they don't.
So we've had to change the way that we work and think because we want to reach the right students.
And how do we make these journalistic stories into a TikTok, into a Reel? and using a little mic and using students with those little catchy things that they do.
Actually, we shouldn't make it perfect because that's like a red flag for this generation that it's inauthentic.
So you want to strategically put imperfections in there so that it looks cool and modern and real.
So that's been one thing that we've tried to do is like less written stories and more video stories.
But As anyone knows who works in Marcom or social or content, video takes time.
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