Your Guide to Higher Ed Marketing

Undergraduate enrollment is expected to increase by 9 percent (from 15.4 million to 16.8 million students) between 2021 and 2031, according to the National Center for Education Statistics [1]. While that’s good news for higher education marketers, methods for recruiting new students are continually evolving. Many factors impact a student’s choice, from a college’s recognition to its size and location, so marketers must connect with prospects and provide the right information at the right time. 

Explore different marketing strategies for higher education, how data analytics can assist you in this process, and the trends that will likely shape higher education marketing in the near future.

How to tailor marketing strategies for educational institutions

Personalized campaigns focus on your institution’s target audience and help your team connect with prospects. By embracing digital marketing and platforms that can provide robust metrics, you can tailor strategies that connect with interested students.

1. Understand your unique audience

Effective higher education marketing starts with an understanding of your audience. Who are your potential students? 

Some universities might target traditional students who enroll in college after high school graduation. In contrast, others might recruit working students who balance a full-time job while taking college courses part-time. Generally, most colleges and universities can break their audience into these categories:

• Traditional (typically enrolling in a four-year program directly after high school graduation)

• Nontraditional (attending college part-time later in life while also working)

• International (traveling to another country to study) 

• First-generation (those whose parents did not attend college, so the process is less familiar to them)

• Student with disabilities

• Commuter students

Segmenting your audience is a good start, but consider using a marketing persona like a business does. Developing a persona for your ideal student can assist you in gaining an understanding of your target audience. To construct your student persona, you’ll need more data, like demographics, goals, preferences, affiliations, and common challenges.

2. Leverage digital platforms and social media 

While higher education marketing strategies embrace traditional marketing, such as direct mail, event marketing, and open houses, online marketing has become a significant priority in recent years. Digital efforts will often include a mobile-optimized website that uses search engine optimization (SEO) to help prospective students find your site. 

Since social media is likely a big part of your target audience’s lifestyle, creating content for social media platforms can help students evaluate your school and encourage them to apply. Consider sharing student testimonials, campus or classroom tours, and live events. You can also encourage your current students to make and share content. 

3. Utilize content marketing to capture academic interest

Consider creating digital content that caters to specific phases of the student’s journey, which includes four stages: awareness, consideration, decision, and delight. 

During the consideration phase, for example, you could create an e-book that focuses on specific academic programs, dining choices, and campus life. Use a call to action (CTA) to further connect with students, such as by suggesting they sign up for a tour or contact the university to request additional materials. 

The role of data analytics in higher ed marketing

Analytics is key to enrollment marketing in the digital age. By monitoring key performance indicators, or KPIs, higher education marketers can gauge a campaign’s performance and then make adjustments as needed, ensuring they better reach prospective students with impactful resources. Here’s what else you should know about the role of data in higher education marketing.

Data applications

Businesses regularly use data to personalize shopping experiences, boost sales, and optimize practices. Now, colleges and universities are doing something similar. By collecting data, bringing it together in a centralized location, and using tools to quantify it, your college can leverage its data positively.

Within higher education marketing, use cases include: 

• Collecting behavioral data on prospective students to better define the audience

• Attributing enrollees to specific marketing efforts

• Creating targeted student experiences that feel like personal communication

• Collecting data that results in segmented lists of previously unknown potential enrollees 

• Performing data analysis that provides signals that a student may transfer

KPIs to track

Higher ed marketers can track a series of metrics to gauge success, and in some cases, marketers focus on KPIs tied to the enrollment funnel. Using a variety of tactics, you try to inform and persuade potential students to move through the funnel, which uses six stages—prospects, inquiries, applicants, admits, deposits, and enrolls—to transition a prospect into an enrolled student. Consider monitoring these metrics to evaluate the efficacy of your funnel:

• Website sessions: The total number of visitors to your site

• Conversions: The number of people who follow through with your intended action

• Admission inquiries: The number of prospective students who request more information

• Click-through rates: The percentage of students who click a link in your content

• Enrollments: The number of students who enroll in the school

Common challenges in higher ed marketing 

As with any marketing effort, the higher education niche faces some shared challenges. From budget constraints to low conversion rates, marketers should be ready to identify common hurdles and overcome them. Explore some of these challenges, and more, below.  

1. Challenge: Slow tech adoption

Some universities are slow to adopt marketing platforms or digital tools that can engage students. 

What’s keeping your team from embracing new tech? While fear of change is common, some marketing teams are also reluctant to try new tools because of the time investment they’d need to research, implement, and transfer information.

2. Challenge: Converting prospects to students

Your marketing team must take on the job of connecting with prospects and converting them to enrolled students. During this stage, a prospective student is not only considering other schools but also other factors involved in the decision-making process, like commute time, family responsibilities, costs, and campus life. 

3. Challenge: Budget constraints

Limited funds can impact your ability to reach students, achieve the highest possible return on investment (ROI), and enroll as many students as possible. Fortunately, you can optimize your strategies and focus on efforts that result in the best ROI.

Higher ed marketing trends to know

As with any niche in this industry, consumer trends play a role in higher ed marketing. To stay ahead, marketers must understand these trends and leverage innovative digital strategies so they may compete with others. 

As you plan new campaigns, consider these trends:

• The younger generation expects personalization, so when you can, use data to tailor your campaigns.

• Short-form video is popular, so review your current posts and start emphasizing shorter, more focused videos, such as interviews with faculty and student testimonials.

• Prospects want to hear from alumni to see potential achievements and explore mentoring and networking possibilities, so create content to meet this need.

• Students prioritize diversity and inclusion, so highlight ways your campus embraces it. 

Engage prospective students with Coursera for Campus

You can use a range of higher education marketing strategies to recruit prospective students for your institution, including data analytics, personalized marketing, and social media marketing. Utilizing these methods is an effective way to contact potential students and persist as a competitive force in this arena.

One way to stay competitive and help students prepare for the modern workforce is with online learning and job-training programs. Coursera for Campus empowers any university to offer job-relevant, credit-ready* online education to students, faculty, and staff. With Coursera for Campus, you can promote student employability by teaching in-demand skills for high-growth fields and help students master job-ready skills with Guided Projects, programming assignments, and in-course assessments—online, offline, and via mobile. Enable faculty to create projects, assessments, and courses tailored to learner needs with Coursera for Campus.