Ep. 94 - Elysia Labita: Marketing Can't Out-Optimize Misalignment
About this episode
Elysia Labita discusses the importance of program alignment over marketing efforts in driving enrollment growth in higher education.
What if the biggest barrier to enrollment growth isn't your marketing budget—but your program portfolio itself? In this episode, host Jeff Dillon sits down with Elysia Labita, Executive Director of Portfolio Strategy and Marketing at EdPlus at Arizona State University. Over the past decade, Elysia has helped scale ASU Online from roughly four programs to more than 400, serving over 118,000 students. She brings a provocative and practical lens to one of higher ed's most uncomfortable conversations: programs are products. Elysia explains why "if you build it, they will come" is a dangerous myth, and why great intentions don't create demand. She shares how her team uses funnel data, market signals, and program life cycle analysis to make decisions about what to launch, modernize, or sunset—without alienating faculty. She also offers a guide to having difficult conversations about underperforming programs, using data not as a weapon but as a tool to uncover systemic friction. From the insight that high-enrolling campus programs consistently become high-enrolling online programs, to the revelation that AI is most valuable as a listening tool rather than a content generator, this…
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