Matthew Pellish, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at CampusReel, is a consultant and public speaker providing strategy and business development advice to C-Suite leadership. He focuses primarily on higher education and health care, but also spends a growing amount of time as a private consultant to Ed Tech startups in the northeast. After 10+ years on the road presenting to clients, conferences, and events he freelances as public speaking coach to CEOs, presidents, and government. He founded and managed a team of consultants, speakers, and business operations staff to set growth strategies, drive market smart product decisions, and adopt industry best practices resulting in revenue growth, operating efficiencies, and client successes through 1000+ client engagements per year. He has conducted over 350 in-person consulting engagements with universities, health systems, and startups across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
In the higher education space most schools were, and still are, predominantly focused on that in-person campus visit to do all those same things, but it’s expensive and it means only students and parents who travel to campus can get that real-life feel and experience.
MEDIA 7: Can you please take us through your journey with CampusReel?
MATHEW PELLISH: Well, a few years ago, I got a random connection request on LinkedIn from some guy named Nick Freud in Brooklyn. He was very excited by the fact that he and fellow CampusReel founder Rob Carroll had developed a way to source and share videos from hundreds of college campuses and thousands of students all over the country. When I learned about the CampusReel approach of a user-generated video to help students I knew it was going to be a game-changer for the industry. After a little over a year serving as an advisor to Nick and Rob, I came on full time earlier this year to drive our growth strategy and new university partnerships. I’m lucky enough to get to work with our ridiculously creative and fast-moving team to bring education to life through video, and to help schools connect with new students.
M7: How does CampusReel connect students and families to the best-fit university and programs?
MP: We start with the user-generated video. If you think about the way any of us shop for any product or service, we’re usually watching videos to learn more, find the right fit, and get user reviews. In the higher education space most schools were, and still are, predominantly focused on that in-person campus visit to do all those same things, but it’s expensive and it means only students and parents who travel to campus can get that real-life feel and experience. By creating CampusReel.org as a video-focused college search tool any student or parent from any background, location, or experience level can engage with real students and alums from schools they might never have considered before. Furthermore, in order for students and parents to find the right fit university, the institution itself needs to be able to effectively communicate what makes its campus and community unique and decidedly its own in an increasingly digital-first ecosystem. Through a holistic and multi-channel video recruitment strategy, we empower partner institutions with the tools and software necessary to effectively meet prospective students with authentic, visceral video content at every step of the recruitment process.
Furthermore, in order for students and parents to find the right fit university, the institution itself needs to be able to effectively communicate what makes its campus and community unique and decidedly its own in an increasingly digital-first ecosystem.
M7: How does CampusReel help Higher Education recruiters use video content in their hiring process?
MP: CampusReel is more of a student or parent-facing tool as opposed to a tool for recruiters from the HR angle who are looking to hire new employees. At the same time, our videos are an authentic dive into a campus’ culture and feel, so anyone interested in a higher-ed career at a college or university would learn a lot about a college’s mission, vision, and values by hearing it from their students before they decide to work there.
M7: What sales automation tools and strategies do you use to ensure high lead turnover for CampusReel?
MP: There are several pieces that come to mind. First is the front-end push to engage prospective students and families on CampusReel.org. Through a blend of SEO and distributing our videos across a partner network of 12 unique college search sites, we’ve been able to drive 3.5 million users per month to our platform. Simultaneously, we provide a back-end software platform for our university partners designed to integrate video into every single touch-point they have with a prospect creating a seamless multichannel student search journey and better intelligence on student behavior.
‘Spirit’ is the energy, drive, and passion you need in a growing organization to go above and beyond whatever you did last week. ‘Intellect’ is typically assumed to be academic in nature, but I see it more as the curiosity, creativity, socialization, systems engineering, etc. that are critical to a business. Finally, ‘Purpose’ is the why at the core.
M7: What is your approach to branding for CampusReel, its products, and services?
MP: Once again there’s a two-pronged approach. On the student-facing side, CampusReel has quickly become a “go-to” destination for students searching for a college since our user-generated videos give you a behind-the-scenes view of campus and academic life. On the university side, we are a video, technology, and lead provider that has changed its whole approach to video and enrollment. In both cases, we’ve established ourselves as the industry leader with a team of both video and higher education expertise delivering demonstrable results for students, who are able to find the right school for them, and universities, who are able to get the right content, in front of the right prospect, at the right time to generate enrollments.
M7: What is your advice to business operations teams for revenue growth and client successes?
MP: When I was an undergrad student at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, my mentor was actually our university President at the time who summed up our school’s approach in three words: Spirit, Intellect, Purpose. Those three words have carried me through my entire career in higher education, and now at CampusReel, I see our success in both revenue and clients being linked to building a team and an organization with those three concepts at its core. ‘Spirit’ is the energy, drive, and passion you need in a growing organization to go above and beyond whatever you did last week. ‘Intellect’ is typically assumed to be academic in nature, but I see it more as the curiosity, creativity, socialization, systems engineering, etc. that are critical to a business. Finally, ‘Purpose’ is the why at the core. It’s what gets you up in the morning, wakes you up in the middle of the night, and keeps you breaking boundaries and expectations. Every person on the CampusReel team brings these three characteristics to life every day and I know that’s why we’re changing the college search process.