The ultimate higher education marketing strategy guide
Unlock the secret to attracting top talent with our dedicated marketing guide.
Introduction
Marketing in the higher education industry represents a unique challenge, unlike those experienced by your fellow marketers in other fields. No matter the shape or size of your institution, marketers for higher education brands face multifaceted challenges daily. Increased accessibility to education means competition is strong. The channels and strategies you adopt to attract new learners are constantly shifting.
To make an impact with your marketing, you need to stay on top of the latest trends and technology. In this ultimate marketing strategy guide, we’ll explore the challenges you’re currently facing in the higher education industry, upcoming trends, and what technology you need to stand out in a crowded market.
What is higher education marketing?
Higher education marketing isn’t just about using flashy marketing tactics to lure students in. It’s all about promoting your educational institution and the programs you offer to attract prospective students, engage with alumni, and enhance your reputation. It’s about positioning the university in a way that attracts the right students, answers their questions, and showcases your programs, facilities, faculty, and unique offerings to prospective students.
You can use various strategies, methods, and tactics to engage with your audiences, convey the unique selling proposition of your institution, and reinforce your brand image in a competitive environment. Ultimately, your goal is to create a friendly and welcoming atmosphere that inspires learners to reach their full potential.
Types of higher education institutions
The higher education sector consists of various institutions that offer different programs and degrees. These institutions can be categorized into five major types:
These institutions mainly focus on research and offer degrees at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels.
These institutions offer undergraduate education and award associate and/or bachelor’s degrees.
These colleges provide programs that lead to diplomas, certificates, or foundation degrees. Here, learners acquire practical skills and industry-relevant knowledge, preparing them for university or the workforce.
These institutions specialize in providing instruction in specific trades and professions.
These online institutions offer diverse programs through distance learning or online platforms, enabling learners to study from anywhere at their convenience.
Why is marketing important for your higher education institution?
Marketing is of great importance for higher education institutions for many reasons but here are the highlights:
- Enhance awareness: In today’s highly competitive market, marketing efforts are crucial to make your higher education institution stand out and reach a larger audience.
- Attract prospective students: Effective marketing helps you showcase your unique attributes, attract high-quality applicants, and increase enrollment rates, which ultimately contributes to the financial sustainability of your institute.
- Promote programs, degrees, and courses: Marketing allows you to highlight specific academic programs and generate interest among potential students to join these programs.
- Alumni relations: Marketing is vital in maintaining connections with alumni, who are valuable sources of donations, mentorship, and professional networks.
- Improve institutional reputation: Highlighting the achievements, research, and expertise of your faculty members, as well as the success stories of students and alumni, helps you build a strong reputation that will keep you top of their minds when applications roll in.
Challenges facing the higher education industry
- Competition: Growing competition among higher education institutions creates a difficult environment for marketers to differentiate their offerings.
- Diverse audiences: Marketers must connect with highly diverse audiences, such as high school students, parents, working professionals, and international students, each with its own needs and expectations.
- Demonstrating ROI: Marketing budgets are highly scrutinized, and marketers must track, analyze, and demonstrate the effectiveness of their efforts.
- Rapidly changing landscape: The higher education industry is evolving quickly, driven by technological advancements, new methods of learning, and shifts in market demand for specific programs.
- Regulations and restrictions: Compliance with regulations can limit marketing activities, which can hinder the ability to quickly capitalize on opportunities.
Top 10 higher education marketing trends
The average age of people entering higher education ranges from 20 to 23 years old. That places them firmly within Generation Z. With a growing Gen Z audience, you have to stay on top of the latest trends and be willing to move away from traditional marketing channels to keep them engaged and on the path to enrollment.
To help you, we’ve summarized the top ten trends you need to add to your marketing strategy today.
1. Incorporating AI into your marketing stack
Artificial intelligence (AI) is still relatively new but its growth has been exponential in recent years. From generative AI (writing assistance, image creation, and video production) to predictive analytics and note-taking, there are more ways than ever that you can incorporate AI into your day-to-day marketing.
It’s all very exciting. AI is touted to be the answer to increased efficiency and streamlining processes but it’s important to consider the finer details. Multiple stakeholders, not just those in marketing, should be involved to avoid potential issues with copyright and privacy policy infringements and ensure all teams have access to the resources they need.
2. Utilizing zero-party and first-party data
Unlike third-party data, zero- and first-party data is unique to your brand and owned by you. It’s collected with explicit consent from your website visitors, through direct interaction, text communications, or other marketing campaigns.
Personalizing your marketing efforts has never been easier. By collecting first-party data, you can segment prospective students based on their academic interests and program preferences. This approach enables you to target students who are most likely to enroll in your university.
3. Personalized messaging
Gen Z is highly skilled at spotting marketing that feels inauthentic and impersonal. As a result, marketing to all audiences all the time is too broad and doesn’t create the genuine, personalized feeling that Gen Z is searching for.
Fortunately, with the help of AI and big data you can now understand what each student is looking for. This allows you to reach them at the right time and with the right message. Through email, SMS, and web personalization, as well as segmentation, you can create memorable marketing experiences that connect with prospective students.
4. SMS communication
Did you know that most members of Gen Z prefer to use text messages over emails for communication? This means that SMS is becoming a more popular way to communicate. Gen Z members are three times more likely to open a text message than an email.
Universities and colleges can use SMS to reach out to prospective students and establish trust by providing important information such as enrollment deadlines, inviting students to information sessions, or welcoming new students with exclusive discounts.
Alumni can also benefit from text messages by receiving job placement alerts, reunion invites, and donation drive messages, which can help them stay connected with their alma mater.
Whether they’re a student or an alum, SMS is a powerful communication tool that should not be overlooked. By using simple and familiar language, organizing the information logically, and keeping sentences short and direct, you can make sure that everyone can understand what you mean.
5. Authentic content
Many members of Gen Z prefer to see real people in marketing campaigns, with 67% being more interested in narratives that feature realistic depictions of people. While influencers and brands aim to create visually stunning content when social media platforms like Instagram, this generation has resisted the trend, preferring raw, less polished content like blurry photos.
According to data from GWI, Gen Z cares most about content that is funny/lighthearted (58%), inspirational (52%), and helpful (51%) when it comes to brands. They value authentic content and expect it to align with the context of the platform. Assets that appear too polished, sleek, or heavily branded are less likely to perform well on their preferred platforms like TikTok.
6. TikTok marketing
TikTok marketing for higher education has the potential to become the most dominant form of marketing thanks to its flexibility and universality.
Gen Z, who spend over 5 hours daily on the app, makes it an easy choice for higher education marketers. TikTok can be used to showcase campus tours, highlight the new programs and share student-generated content, including alumni success stories.
Gen Z enjoys keeping up with the latest TikTok songs and trends, which is why higher education institutes need to stay on top of content creation. In fact, TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes such content. However, TikTok trends have a short lifespan of about 3 to 5 days, so it’s crucial to post your content promptly; otherwise, it will become irrelevant.
7. Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing is a growing trend centered around having open chats with your audience or anyone who comes to your website. Using a variety of channels, including WhatsApp, live chat, and social media messages you can connect with both potential learners and students who have already enrolled you.
8. Learners turned content creators
The latest generation of learners wants to be a part of the brands they interact with. Gen Z loves creating content far beyond viral TikTok dances. Today, young people from around the world are collaborating to create authentic content that represents them.
Now more than ever, prospective students are searching for genuine content that accurately portrays “a day in the life” or career opportunities they’ll encounter after enrolling in your institution. To achieve great marketing results, you need to tap into the power of your Gen Z content creators and turn them into brand ambassadors.
9. Multi-form video content
Video content is brilliant for capturing attention, providing in-depth explanations, and entertaining your audience. Uploading these to YouTube can help boost brand awareness and improve your SEO ranking.
However, the attention span of your average Gen Z-er peaks at eight seconds, so short-form videos (under 90 seconds) have become their preferred length. So, when creating video content, think about how it can be used, the alternative forms it may take, and how it can be repurposed across your channels.
10. Lookalike audiences
Lookalike audiences are another way AI can streamline your marketing strategy. Lookalike audiences help you prioritize resources on individuals more likely to engage with your institution and enroll instead of targeting a broad audience that may include less interested individuals.
Using customer insight tools like single customer view (SCV), you can easily identify your ideal customer profiles. Whether that’s someone who was super engaged throughout the whole enrollment process or someone who converted after a prolonged nurture series, you can use their profiles to inspire bespoke customer journeys.
Key higher education marketing strategies for impressive results
Higher education marketers face significant pressure to achieve results, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Student loan interest rates are at a high. Online and hybrid learning is on the rise. Focused, vocational courses are more in demand. Workplaces are investing more in upskilling their employees. Competition is at an all-time high.
To address these changes, modern marketing strategies need to focus on expanding higher education marketing channels, utilizing data, and building communities based on experiences.
In this section, we’ll explore ten effective higher education marketing strategies that will elevate your institution’s reach, reputation, and results. By leveraging creativity, innovation, and targeted marketing efforts, you can transform your institution’s future and ensure its long-term success.
1. Higher education email marketing strategy and best practice tips
Email marketing has dominated the world of digital marketing for a long time – and for good reason. Email generates a whopping $48 (£38) for every $1 spent.
Its benefits are vast, especially for marketers working in the higher education industry. The flexibility of email – its visual, video hosting capabilities, and adaptability to both long and short-form content – makes it the perfect communication channel for marketers looking to build long-lasting relationships with their audience.
6 essential benefits of email marketing for higher education
Here are six benefits of email marketing for higher education marketers:
1. Cost-effectiveness
Email marketing is a powerful and cost-effective way for higher education marketers to communicate with prospective and existing students, especially compared to traditional marketing methods like print materials or direct mail.
2. Targeted communications
Email marketing allows you to segment audiences based on factors such as academic interests, course preferences, location, or demographics. This helps you deliver highly targeted and relevant messages that connect and convert.
3. Improved personalization
Email marketing easily integrates customer data and personal details like the recipient’s name, location, or program of interest to create a more personalized and engaging experience for prospective students.
4. Timely communication
Email marketing allows higher education institutions to send time-sensitive information, such as application deadlines or course updates, directly to students’ inboxes. This ensures that crucial news reaches them on time.
5. Clear reporting and analytics
You can easily optimize future email communications and make data-driven decisions by tracking and analyzing the engagement metrics of your email campaigns via your marketing automation platform.
6. Building long-term relationships
Email marketing allows you to maintain consistent and ongoing communication with students before, during, and after their academic journey. This fosters long-term relationships and improves overall student satisfaction.
Email marketing best practice for higher education marketers
When it comes to email marketing in the higher education industry, there are certain best practices that you need to keep in mind. These practices can help you create effective email campaigns that engage with your target audience and achieve your marketing goals.
By following these best practices, you can improve your email open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, conversions.
Segment your email list based on factors like prospective students’ year in school, interests, or program of choice. This allows for targeted messaging that resonates more with each group.
Use students’ names and tailor content to their interests. This can be done by including relevant program information, scholarship opportunities, or upcoming events.
Keep subject lines short, action-oriented, and pique the reader’s curiosity. Consider personalizing them with the student’s name or program of interest.
Make sure your emails are responsive and render well on all devices, especially smartphones which students are likely to use most.
Incorporate high-quality images and videos to break up text and make your emails more visually appealing.
Tell students what you want them to do next. Use clear and concise CTAs that direct them to a specific landing page, event registration, or application form.
There are optimal times to send emails to students. Consider sending emails during evenings or weekends when they’re more likely to check their inboxes.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different subject lines, content formats, and CTAs. Use A/B testing to see what resonates best with your audience and continually improve your campaigns.
Only send emails to those who have opted-in to receive communications from your institution. This can be done through clear opt-in forms on your website, during registration processes, or at events.
Make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe from your emails. Include a prominent unsubscribe link in every email footer, and ensure it functions properly.
Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive subscribers or invalid email addresses. This helps maintain good deliverability rates and avoids complaints
Collaborate with other departments like admissions or financial aid to ensure your messaging is consistent and provides a seamless experience for students.
Be transparent about how you collect, use, and store student data. This aligns with regulations like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in the US or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU.
Promote your email campaigns on social media platforms to reach a wider audience and encourage further engagement.
By following these best practices, you can build trust with students and create effective email marketing campaigns that connect with prospective and current students, ultimately driving them further down the admissions funnel.
2. Marketing automation for higher education
Streamlining your marketing efforts and processes is essential for higher education institutions today. The increased competition brought about by the adoption of hybrid learning structures means attracting and retaining students is more difficult than ever before.
Luckily, marketing automation is the answer. Marketing automation is a powerful solution that automates repetitive like sending emails and SMS to your audience. Its ability to personalize communications with your prospective and current students makes scaling your campaigns to meet the new demands of online and hybrid learners, as well as keeping your alumni close, simple.
Benefits of marketing automaiton for higher education
1. Increased efficiency
Automating tasks like email nurturing and social media scheduling frees up valuable time for strategic planning and personalized outreach.
2. Personalized communication
Deliver targeted messages based on a student’s interests, demographics, and stage in the enrollment journey. This fosters deeper engagement and improves conversion rates.
3. Improved lead scoring
Assign points to student actions (e.g., downloading brochures, attending webinars) to identify high-potential leads and prioritize outreach efforts.
4. Enhanced data-driven decision making
Track campaign performance and gain insights into student behavior. Use this data to refine messaging and optimize future campaigns.
5. Streamlined enrollment process
Automate workflows for tasks like application reminders, financial aid guidance, and welcome messages. This will create a smoother transition for new students.
Essential marketing automation programs for higher education
Deliver a series of targeted emails based on student interests and enrollment stage. Offer relevant content, answer their questions, and guide them towards applying.
Keep prospective students engaged with personalized content like program spotlights, alumni success stories, and virtual campus tours.
Identify qualified leads by assigning points to website visits, downloads, and other interactions. Focus your outreach efforts on your highest scoring leads.
Send timely reminders to complete applications and submit necessary documents. This ensures a smooth application process for potential students.
Onboard new students with a series of personalized emails offering resources, introducing key contacts, and fostering a sense of community.
3. SMS marketing for higher education marketers
SMS is a marketing channel that thrives in a world dominated by smartphones. Luckily, most students and prospective students are glued to their devices, making SMS the most powerful communication tool in your marketing arsenal.
Top 4 benefits of adopting SMS marketing
1. High open rates
The reach of SMS marketing is unrivaled. Average SMS open rates sit around 98%, ensuring your message gets seen, every time.
2. Direct communication channel
Reach students directly, bypassing cluttered inboxes and delivering your message right into the palm of their hand. What’s more, did you know as many as 45% of people reply to SMS marketing messages? That means you can start real-time meaningful conversations with your audience.
3. Time-sensitive updates
SMS marketing is ideal for sending urgent reminders or important deadlines to your wide and diverse audience. By avoiding the email inbox, you can guarantee your time-sensitive message is delivered and read with a single send.
4. Personalized touch
SMS marketing built into your cross-channel automation platform allows you to send targeted text messages based on subscriber data like demographics and course interests.
5 types of SMS campaigns to get you started
According to G2, only 39% of businesses are using SMS as a marketing channel. Why? Considering it’s a cost-effective channel with great engagement rates, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. SMS is quick and easy to set up, and with no design requirements, it’s not as complicated are other channels.
Let’s have a look at some of the core SMS campaigns you can build today to drive enrollment and deliver engagements:
Send course information, scholarship updates, and virtual tour reminders to turn prospectss into happy students.
Ensure prospective students remain well-informed by providing application deadlines, status updates, and next steps. This will help build a strong and loyal relationship with students as they become donors and alumni.
Use SMS to promote campus events, deadlines, career fairs, and mental health resources.
Communicate critical campus updates, travel alerts, or weather emergencies to ensure students are safe and informed.
Like email, text messages can be personalized using information from your database. Send reminders for upcoming appointments, financial aid deadlines, or registration dates to provide a one-to-one experience for every student.
Best practice tips for higher education SMS marketing
To maximize the impact of your SMS outreach, here are some key best practices to keep in mind:
- Permissions are essential: Always obtain explicit opt-in consent before sending SMS messages – marketing or otherwise.
- Keep it concise: SMS has a strict limit of 160 characters per message. Keep texts short for optimal readability.
- Establish a frequency: Don’t bombard subscribers. SMS can feel more intrusive than other channels as it’s delivered directly to the palm of a hand. Aim for 1-2 messages per week to keep students engaged.
- Think about the value of your message: Ensure you’re providing valuable information, not just promotional content. Sending too much promotional content will cause students to switch off.
- Track and analyze results: Like any other marketing channel, you must monitor results to refine your strategy and maximize impact.
MMS marketing: the secret to making your SMS stand out
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) expands your SMS marketing by allowing you to send images and videos. While not as widely used yet, MMS can be a powerful tool for higher education. Here are some ways you can put it into action:
- Showcase your campus: Send visually appealing MMS messages featuring campus life, facilities, or student activities.
- Virtual tour enhancements: Integrate short video clips into campaigns promoting your virtual tours for a more immersive experience.
- Event promotion: Use eye-catching visuals to promote upcoming events, webinars, speakers, or workshops.
Remember, always prioritize clear value for your audience. SMS and MMS cut through the noise, driving higher engagements than most other channels. Sending too many batch-and-blast messages will reduce its impact.
4. Two-way conversational marketing channels for higher education
One of the biggest struggles you face as a higher education marketer is the fact that your target audience is neither a consumer nor a working professional. This makes figuring out which tactic works best for your institution a struggle.
Choosing a higher education institution is not a small decision. Most of your audience will be investing a lot of time and money into you and their education. Naturally, with such a big decision ahead of them, they’re going to have questions.
Having an open dialogue and inviting your audience into a two-way conversation will set you apart from the competition. Email and SMS are great for engagement, but this is where you can drive potential learners to convert.
Benefits of two-way conversation channels for higher education
Personalized communication
Unlike traditional marketing strategies, two-way channels allow for one-to-one interactions. You can answer individual questions, address specific concerns, and tailor your message for every potential student
Build stronger relationships
Two-way conversations help build trust and rapport with potential students. This, in turn, makes them feel valued and can help them connect with the real people who represent your institution.
Improved data collection
Two-way conversations provide valuable insights into potential student concerns, interests, and the decision-making processes. This data can be used to refine and optimize your marketing strategies and tailor your messaging.
Increased engagement
Interactive two-way channels foster deeper engagement compared to basic or passive content. Proactive outreach through live chat or personalized messages on WhatsApp can spark conversations and keep your education institution top-of-mind.
Improved conversion rates
Real-time communication allows you to address specific doubts and objections immediately. By effectively removing any potential roadblocks you’ll enjoy higher application and enrollment rates.
How to add two-way marketing channels to your marketing mix
The biggest struggle your marketing team will face when trying to decide whether conversational channels are right for you is figuring out where and how to implement them. Often, they’re considered to be less of a marketing tool, and more suitable for student-facing departments like finance and student services.
This is a mistake. You can learn so much about your target audience through these channels, making them an essential part of your marketing tech stack. Yes, the main users may be external teams, but by having these channels syncing to your marketing automation platform arms you with unlimited insight into audience behaviors and helps nudge them down the path to conversion.
Live chat use cases for your website
Provide live chat support to answer program-specific questions about curriculum, faculty, career outcomes, and application requirements. This will help speed-up the decision-making process and improve overall experiences.
Connect students with financial aid advisors to answer questions about scholarships, grants, and student loans. This will help build a relationship based on trust from the get-go.
Allow prospects to register for events over live chat to create more opportunitites to engage with them and answer questions about upcoming webinars, open houses, or information sessions.
WhatsApp as a communication channel: use cases
A great way to engage new potential students is to host interactive Q&A sessions on WhatsApp. This is where prospective students can ask questions directly to admissions officers or current students.
Share engaging content like photos, videos, or blog posts showcasing campus life, student activities, and upcoming events.
Deliver personalized welcome messages to newly opted-in contacts. Take the opportunity to introducing your institution and highlighting relevant programs, resources, or contacts they’ll need in the future.
Use automated messages to remind students of upcoming application deadlines, provide last-minute application tips, and offer assistance as necessary.
Inform students about scholarship and grant opportunities relevant to their academic interests. This will significantly boost the student experience by ensuring they feel like your top priority.
Offer ongoing support through WhatsApp after enrollment to help students transition smoothly into academic life.
5. Personalization tools and tactics for higher education
Mass mailing, generic messaging, and purchased marketing lists won’t help you hit the targets you need to drive enrollment, recruitment, and alumni donations. Your audience today is far too wary. They understand the importance of the decision they’re about to make and the financial implications it can have on their future. They’re picky and they have every right to be.
To make your email, SMS, marketing automation, and two-way conversational marketing truly impactful, you need to create unique experiences for your audience. Incorporating personalization as a central pillar of your marketing strategy will help your institution stand out in the highly competitive higher education industry.
Why is personalization an important tactic for higher education institutions?
Student expectations have shifted, especially if you’re targeting Gen-Z, your audience today craves authenticity. They want to feel a sense of connection and community with the institution they choose. Generic marketing is too impersonal. Personalization, on the other hand, demonstrates that you understand your audience as individuals, fostering a sense of trust, and ultimately building a stronger bond with your institution.
What are the benefits of personalized marketing?
1. Increase application rates
Using targeted communication to showcase programs and opportunities relevant to an applicant’s interests and goals makes them feel like your institution is the perfect fit. This will result in more completed applications.
2. Improve conversion rates
Personalized messaging can address students’ questions and concerns throughout the application process. By providing them with important information when they need it most, you can smooth the path to enrollment and increase conversions.
3. Stand out in a crowded market
Your audience is bombarded with generic messages from countless institutions looking to recruit them. Personalization helps you to cut through the noise by speaking directly to their wants, needs, and interests.
4. Build stronger relationships
Today’s learners crave authenticity and genuine connection. Incorporating personalization into your marketing shows you understand them as individuals, fostering trust and creating a stronger bond with your institution.
5. Boost overall engagement
Generic content gets ignored. That’s just facts. With personalization, you can tailor your messaging and content to resonate with your audiences, leading to higher click-through rates and stronger engagement.
6. Enhanced donor and alumni relations
Connect with personalized outreach to alumni to strengthen connections and foster loyalty. This leads to increased alumni giving and stronger overall support for your institution.
Essential personalization tools for one-to-one experiences
You can’t personalize anything without data. As you begin planning your personalization strategy, you need to have a look at your data collection tools and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. For truly seamless and unique experiences, you need a centralized data storage solution. Your data collection tools like surveys, landing pages, and onsite popovers should all sync smoothly with your CRM to ensure your data is always up-to-date.
Segmentation is truly the first step towards building personalized experiences. You should start by dividing your audience into smaller groups based on who they are, e.g. prospective students, enrolled learners, alumni, donors, and employees. You can dive in further by thinking about their shared demographic characteristics.
As you learn more about your audience you can create more bespoke segments based on academic interests, position in the funnel, and levels of engagement.
Intelligent segmentation tools allow you to use data stored in your CRM to create these bespoke audience groups. More advanced tools have already added AI to segment builders. This allows you to tap into predictive analytics and real-time behaviors to create moment-based marketing that resounds with your audience.
Your marketing automation platform must sync with your CRM and data collection tools to ensure you can deliver truly personalized experiences. Leveraging your cross-channel marketing automation tools allows you to send personalized email, SMS, push notifications, retargeting ads, and so much more.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing how people go about their daily lives, so it’s important you integrate it into your business. AI can analyze data and predict the behaviors of your audience. It can also surface content most relevant to segments or individuals, such as recommended courses or financial aid options. All in all, it allows you to create highly personalized experiences at a scale and speed you’ve never known before.
Long before prospective students visit your campus or enroll in a program, they visit your website. In many respects, your website is now the face of your institution, so it’s vital you make every visit as warm and welcoming as a face-to-face meeting.
Personalized greetings to repeat visitors helps elevate every experience. Whether they’re prospective students, already enrolled, or returning alumni, this personal touch on your website will keep students and donations rolling in.
Personalization in action: Higher education examples
Personalization can be used throughout your marketing campaigns to elevate the experiences of your audience. Here are just a few examples of how you can implement personalization into your cross-channel marketing campaigns to inspire action.
1. Targeting high school seniors by location
Target audience: High school seniors from a specific state or county (e.g. in-state vs. out-of-state).
Data used: Location data from website sign-up forms or demographic data from surveys.
Tactics used:
Use dynamic content to send targeted emails to your selected segments. Highlight the benefits of attending your institution to in-state prospects like hybrid learning opportunities, scholarships, or proximity to family. For your out-of-state students, showcase vibrant campus life, online learning opportunities, or unique programs.
Run targeted social media ads using the same data to showcase student testimonials from their specific state or highlight local internship opportunities available through your institution.
2. Providing personalized content based on course interests
Target audience: Prospective students who have expressed an interest in a specific course or program
Data used: Website behavior data (e.g., pages visited), program preferences submitted through surveys or preference centers, or email engagements (e.g., clicking links grouped as ‘engineering courses’).
Tactics used:
Use past browsing activity to prompt repeat website visitors to ‘pick up where you left off’ or use popovers to highlight the latest events taking place in the department.
Send a series of emails with personalized content related to their past behavior (e.g., upcoming webinars or success stories of recent graduates) to nurture them until they complete their application process.
3. Enhancing onboarding experiences
Target audience: Newly enrolled students.
Data used: Application data such as intended major or extracurricular activities.
Tactics used:
Send a welcome series with information about student organizations, information relating to their intended major, and invitations to relevant campus events or online mixers depending on their status as an in-person or hybrid learner.
Use two-way channels to connect new learners with current students enrolled in the same program through a mentorship program or online forum.
4. Re-engaging alumni
Target audience: Previous students who have graduated or completed their course.
Data used: Enrollment status and any previous interactions (emails opened, website visits).
Tactics used:
Send personalized emails highlighting new programs, recent achievements of fellow graduates, and upcoming alumni mixers.
Run re-targeting ads across google and social media reminding graduates about upcoming fundraising events, reminding them about your institution and driving more donations.
6. Retargeting marketing for higher education institutions
Decisions aren’t reached quickly in the world of higher education. Chances are, they’re out there right now, scoping out potential colleges, universities, or further education institutions.
At the beginning of the decision-making process, your institution is probably one of many. To make it to the top of their ‘dream school’ list, you need to keep your brand and your message in front of them.
95% of website visitors don’t convert on their first visit. Marketers in the higher education industry need to find effective ways to turn these one-time visitors into legitimate leads. When prospective students visit your site, they’re expressing interest, so you need to keep your message in front of them to convert them. But, how? The answer lies in retargeting.
What is retargeting
For those of you still trying to understand the many nuances of your marketing channels, here’s a brief overview of retargeting.
Do you ever wonder why you see ads for websites you just visited popping up everywhere you go online? That’s retargeting. It’s a channel that reminds your site visitors who you are and why they should enroll.
With retargeting, you can follow curious potential learners across the web and give them a friendly (and personalized) nudge back to your site.
How does retargeting work?
The best way to understand how retargeting marketing works is to think about a use-case scenario.
Imagine a student checking out your new study abroad options. Behind the scenes, a tiny piece of code (known as a pixel) on your website relays this activity to your cross-channel marketing platform where it is stored in their unified contact profile. This data can then be used to create personalized display ads that will appear as they browse other websites. It’s a gentle reminder that your study abroad program is there, ready and waiting for them to enroll.
Will the end of third-party cookies affect retargeting marketing?
There has been a lot of buzz and uncertainty around the demise of third-party cookies, but there’s truly nothing to worry about. Retargeting is still a strong marketing channel. It’s only going to get stronger as third-party cookies stop interfering with your marketing activity.
Here are some of the key changes you can expect to see:
- Zero-party and first-party data will take center stage
The collection of zero-party data will be more important. Zero-party data is information collected directly from the user, like email addresses and marketing preferences. First-party data is based on tracked activity such as opens, clicks, and registrations. This will let you target known visitors and subscribers who have already shown interest in your institution with relevant ads. - Contextual targeting will get more savvy
Cross-channel platforms like Dotdigital can track online activity to deliver contextually relevant ads to website visitors. For example, a prospective learner visiting your Literature course pages will receive ads inviting them to visit your campus for a look around the Literature department’s facilities and talk to existing students.
By focusing on the data, you collect naturally throughout their journey, you can stay top-of-mind and drive conversions with retargeting marketing.
The benefits of retargeting marketing for higher education marketers
At a time when your audience is being bombarded by choice, retargeting is one of the ultimate tactics to help turn website visitors into enrolled learners. Benefits of retargeting include:
1. Increased conversions
Most of your website visitors won’t decide on one visit. Retargeting allows you to reconnect with those users who are almost ready to convert. By providing them with gentle, visual, and personalized ads about your programs, campus, or learning opportunities, you will build stronger relationships that drive conversions.
2. Improved brand awareness
Decision-making in the higher education industry can take months. Retargeting helps keep your institution at the forefront of students’ minds as they compare options. By retargeting throughout the decision-making process, you reinforce your brand image as ‘the’ place they should be.
3. Hyper-personalized marketing
The time of batch and blast marketing is long gone. Retargeting lets you ditch that approach to focus on students who have already expressed interest in your institution. An all-in-one marketing platform allows you to tap into a visitor’s complete contact profile, so you can display personalized ads that will deliver conversions.
4. Strong ROI
All these benefits culminate in delivering an impressive return on investment. By focusing your advertising budget on those most likely to convert, i.e., students who’ve already shown some interest, you will see significant results improvement compared to traditional, broader marketing tactics.
Best practice tips for retargeting marketing ads
To truly make your retargeting ads stand out, we have a few simple, easy-to-implement best practice tips that will help you reach your full potential.
For impressive retargeting results, it’s essential you don’t blast the same message to everyone. Segment your audience based on their web behavior.
For example, show targeted scholarship ads to those who visited your scholarship page, highlight specific programs to students who explored a particular course, and showcase student life to those who browsed your dorms section.
This personalization makes your ads more relevant and increases their effectiveness.
To avoid ad fatigue create a variety of ad creatives with fresh visuals, compelling headlines, and clear calls to action. This keeps your audience engaged and prevents them from tuning out your message.
Tap into audience data to create bespoke campaigns that can be served to customers depending on their preferences and online activity, and ensure that users are unenrolled from campaigns to prevent them being overwhelmed by seeing the same ad.
The best thing about retargeting marketing is that it allows you to test different ad variations and see what resonates best with your audience.
Continuously monitor your results and adjust your campaigns based on what performs best. This ensures you’re always delivering the most impactful message to your target audience.
7. Data collection tools for higher education institutions
Information is power. But not just any information – collecting the right customer data is the key that unlocks marketing success. It’s the difference between a marketing team that consistently hits its targets and one that struggles to connect with its audience.
But how you collect data matters just as much as what you collect. Gone are the days of intrusive tactics that alienate potential customers. Modern marketing requires a strategic approach. You need to understand not only when to collect data, but also how to do it in a way that respects consumer privacy and builds trust.
This requires careful selection of the right data collection tools. The wrong tools can lead to irrelevant data overload, making it difficult to identify trends and insights. Or worse, they can damage your reputation if they’re seen as intrusive or violate data privacy regulations.
By understanding the importance of data collection tools and tactics, you can ensure you’re gathering the right information, in the right way, to fuel successful marketing campaigns and achieve your goals.
Why choosing the right tools is important
A huge amount of your marketing success hinges on the quality of the data you collect, how it’s stored, and how you can access its insights to improve your marketing. Choosing data collection tools that are integrated with your marketing channels is vital. This will allow for easy access to insights that can be used to inform your marketing strategy.
With big data at your fingertips, you need data collection tools that align with your specific goals. There’s no point in having a tool that collects reams of data that you’re not going to use but doesn’t allow you to send out surveys. Ultimately, the wrong tools can lead to irrelevant data overload. To keep team efficiency high, you need tools that meet your objectives.
It’s crucial to pick tools that deliver value for investment and avoid redundant or irrelevant features. Ensuring they work with your CRM and marketing automation platforms saves the need for costly custom integrations to be built. What’s more, with all-in-one platforms like Dotdigital, surveys, forms, popover, and more are all part of the whole package.
The marketing landscape can change alarmingly fast, making it hard for marketing teams to keep up. Your data collection tools must sync on a large scale to ensure your data is always up-to-date and relevant.
As marketers, you’re responsible for a lot of data. With privacy concerns at an all-time high, you need data collection tools with robust security to protect this information. This will help build a strong relationship based on trust with your subscribers.
As well as addressing user concerns, you also need to keep up with evolving data privacy regulations. Your tools should always be certified, guaranteeing they collect data ethically and comply with relevant rules.
Essential data collection tactics
1. Email newsletter subscription
Emails are a cornerstone of communication in higher education. Newsletters allow targeted outreach to current students, prospective students, and alumni. By tracking opens, clicks, and engagements, you can understand content preferences, identify behavior trends, and tailor future communications.
2. Blog subscription
Similarly to your marketing newsletters, blog subscriptions allow you to identify interested individuals and track content that resonates with your audience.
3. Surveys
Surveys gather feedback directly from students, prospective students, and alumni. You can use them to gauge program satisfaction, career aspirations, and campus life experiences. Surveys also help you identify areas for improvement and tailor marketing messages to address specific needs.
4. Downloadable content
As a higher education institution, downloadable content such as digital prospectus’, admissions guides, and sample syllabi are great lead capture tools. Using this tactic, you can gain valuable insights into user interests and generate qualified leads.
5. Event registration
Track registrations for virtual information sessions, campus tours, or admissions events to identify high-interest programs and locations for targeted marketing efforts. You can also analyze attendance data to improve future event experiences.
6. Quizzes and assessments
Interactive quizzes and skill assessments reveal much more about your audience than basic demographics. The gamification of your data collection will help you uncover the strengths, weaknesses, and academic goals of your audience. Following up with recommendation for relevant programs or resources also helps elevate their overall experience.
7. Preference centers
Preference centers empower learners or alumni to control their communication preferences and allow you to collect valuable zero-party data. Offering options to choose preferred communication channels, areas of interest, and frequency of updates fosters trust and increase engagement levels in your audience.
8. Live chat support
Live chat provides a real-time connection with prospective students, allowing them to ask questions and receive immediate answers. Your chat agents can gather valuable data during conversations, address concerns, and personalize the recruitment experience.
9. Website behavior tracking
Web behavior tracking allows you to analyze how users interact with your website. This will help you understand what content resonates and identify areas for improvement.
10. CRM integration
Integrating your data collection tools with a CRM system is essential. This helps you to create a central hub for student and prospect information, enabling personalized communication and streamlined workflows.
8. Integrate with your favorite marketing tools
The technology you use and how you use it can be the difference between a successful institution, and one struggling to meet its targets.
But it’s not as simple as just having software tools. After all, what’s the point of having personalization tools if they don’t speak to your CRM? Or marketing automation software that doesn’t communicate with your website? It would all be pretty pointless.
You need an integrated marketing stack – i.e., a unified system where all your marketing tools work together seamlessly. This will ensure your marketing activities run as smoothly as possible.
Benefits of having an integrated marketing stack
1. Streamlined communication
With an integrated marketing stack, you can easily run your campaigns across all your channels. Imagine you’re launching a new summer school program. By integrating all your channels and software, you can easily publish popovers on your website, send targeted emails to interested students, and promote your school using social media ads on their favorite platforms. This helps you deliver a consistent and targeted message.
Ultimately, this creates a strong brand identity and a unified experience for your audience, no matter where or how they encounter your institution.
2. Centralized data hub
Every tool in your marketing stack collects valuable data. With an integrated marketing system, you can see and access all this information in one place. You can understand how website visitors interact with your content, which emails resonate with your audience, and how well your retargeting ad campaigns perform. This data is the secret sauce that fuels your marketing strategy and enables you to create personalized and relevant messages.
3. Time-saving efficiency
Repetitive tasks like sending email newsletters, onboarding new students, and scheduling social posts can all be automated within an integrated marketing stack. This frees up your limited time for strategic planning, personalized outreach, and analyzing data to optimize campaigns.
4. Unified profiles
An integrated marketing stack consolidates data from various sources. This allows you to create a 360-degree view of every contact in your database. Whether they’re prospective student, enrolled learners, alumni, or staff, you can deliver targeted communication and personalized experiences.
5. Deeper data insights
Integration of your marketing stack allows data from your various tools to be centralized. This simplifies the process of analyzing campaign performance and pulling insights from student behavior. You can easily discover what’s working and what’s not. This lets you allocate your budget more strategically and optimize your overall strategy to deliver better ROI and results.
Building the perfect higher education marketing stack
As a higher education institution, your marketing team can rely on hundreds of applications, programs, and tools to achieve its marketing goals. But, over the years, these can spiral out of control and lead to a sprawling mess of disconnected technologies.
This can lead to many problems including a poor experience that causes prospects to drop out of the enrollment process.
So, building the perfect tech stack requires careful planning. You need to know what tech is essential, why, and how to incorporate it into your marketing stack.
Your audience interacts with your institution in various ways – website visits, email engagements, application submissions, etc. A CRM tracks all these interactions, creating a comprehensive profile for every contact. This allows you to:
- Personalize your outreach: You can tailor your marketing messages and content based on a contact’s interests, academic background, and enrollment status.
- Identify high-potential students: Use CRM data to identify prospects most likely to enroll and prioritize communication efforts accordingly.
- Improve lead nurturing: Automate email programs to keep prospective learners engaged and informed throughout the application process.
Your CMS is typically a software application that allows you to build and manage your website without having to code it from scratch, or even know how to code at all. Your website is a crucial marketing touchpoint. A user-friendly CMS empowers you to:
- Create compelling content: easily publish informative blog posts, course descriptions, and virtual tours showcasing your institution’s USPs.
- Personalize your content delivery: An integrated CMS can communicate with your marketing automation platform to display personalized content based on a contact’s profile or interests.
- Optimize lead generation: You can easily design landing pages with clear calls to action (CTAs) to encourage prospects to download brochures, register for webinars, or complete applications.
Understanding how visitors interact with your website is crucial to refining your website strategy and optimizing campaigns for better results. Armed with web analytics data, you can identify what content resonates with students, which pages need improvement, and which marketing channels drive the most qualified traffic.
Web analytics tools provide insights into:
- Traffic sources: Discover where website visitors come from, such as search engines, social media, referral links, etc.
- User behavior: Understand the actions of your visitors by measuring pages visited, time spent on specific content, or engagement with CTAs.
- Conversion rates: Conversion rates reveal how many visitors take desired actions, such as registering for events or completing application forms.
Today’s learners are highly active on social media. By managing your social media activity effectively, you can connect with your audience on a more personal level, showcase your college culture, and build brand awareness. An integrated social media management platform allows you to:
- Schedule and publish content: Easily plan and publish engaging social media posts across your social channels.
- Target your audience: Reach your audience with relevant content based on demographics, interests, and academic goals.
- Track engagement: Monitor online activity, measure the performance of your content, and understand student sentiment.
Running smooth, successful events is an essential tactic to ensure high engagement and strong conversion rates. From webinars and campus tours to fundraising events, utilizing an event management platform ensures a smooth and enjoyable experience. Plus, these are invaluable for collecting data for future outreach. These platforms help you:
- Streamline event registration: Integrated platforms allow you to manage event registrations effectively, collect student data, and send automated confirmation emails.
- Promote events effectively: Integrate event information with your marketing automation platform to promote events through targeted email marketing campaigns and social media posts.
- Gather essential feedback: Use post-event comms to collect feedback via surveys, and analyze data to understand audience sentiment and improve future events.
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for a perfect tech solution. It all depends on your institution’s specific needs, budget, and audience demographics. Here are some our top tips for integrating your marketing software into the perfect tech stack.
1. Start with your goals
What are your primary marketing goals, e.g. increasing website traffic, boosting student inquiries, or improving application rates? Prioritize tools that align with these goals.
2. Focus on integration
Ensure all your marketing software integrates seamlessly with your marketing automation software platform. This allows you to create a centralized system for data collection, analysis, and campaign execution.
3. Consider scalability
Always choose tech that can grow with your needs. As your offering and recruitment efforts expand, your tech stack should be able to handle the increased volume and complexity of changing behaviors.
4. Prioritize user-friendliness
Overly complicated tools will sit there underused and poorly utilized, wasting precious marketing budgets. Investing in tools that are easy to learn and use ensures an efficient workflow and maximizes the return on investment (ROI).
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the marketing landscape. Tech like ChatGPT has already become commonplace, there are hundreds of new, innovative applications that promise to revolutionize the way you connect with your audience. From advanced recommendation engines to image recognition software, AI is weaving itself into the world of marketing at an unprecedented rate.
Luckily, higher education institutes are well-positioned to benefit from these capabilities.
The benefits of AI in higher education
Higher education marketers face unique challenges. Whether it’s connecting with a wide range of stakeholders (students, prospects, teachers, alumni, and more), meeting the diverse needs of your audience, or navigating changing expectations, marketing to this sector can feel like an uphill battle. But thankfully, AI is here to save the day. AI can address many of your unique challenges through:
1. Personalization
AI can help you scale your personalization tactics to unimaginable heights. With the help of AI, you can personalize learner experiences by tailoring messages, content, and recommendations to an individual’s needs and interests. This leads to higher engagement and conversion rates, no matter your goal.
2. Efficiency
Struggling to hit goals and targets is a thing of the past thanks to the time-saving support provided by AI. AI can automate repetitive tasks, such as email marketing and content creation, freeing up valuable time for marketers to focus on strategic initiatives.
3. Real-time support
AI-powered chatbots can provide your audience with 24/7 support, answering questions and resolving issues quickly. This is essential for higher education institutions looking to expand their international student intake.
3. Data-driven insights
AI’s biggest and possibly most important benefit is its ability to analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends and patterns. This gives you valuable insight to inform your marketing decision-making.
WinstonAI™ for higher education marketers
WistonAI is Dotdigital’s powerful marketing intelligence engine and is guaranteed to be your most valuable marketing arsenal tool. Higher education marketers can leverage WinstonAI’s diverse capabilities to improve day-to-day marketing activities.
AI can help you generate personalized email content and subject lines that resonate with individuals. Whether it’s course recommendations or dynamically displaying relevant events, AI can help increase open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
WinstonAI is full of helpful suggestions to optimize your content creation process. From grammar and tone adjustments to converting email campaigns into SMS in one click, AI helps you optimize the time spent on building campaigns, so you can focus on the tactics that matter.
As a central part of Dotdigital’s all-in-one marketing platform, WinstonAI analyzes your essential audience data to predict their needs and interests. You can use this information to personalize your marketing campaigns, reach prospects, students, and alumni at the optimal moment, and improve your marketing outcomes altogether.
By leveraging WinstonAI and other AI tools available at your fingertips, you can create a more efficient, personalized, and data-driven strategy. But don’t forget, the key to successfully leveraging AI to improve your marketing takes planning and consistent use.
Here are our top tips for effectively adopting AI into your higher education marketing:
Before you start, define your goals and identify the specific areas in your marketing strategy where it can add the most value.
Use AI to personalize marketing messages and provide a seamless cross-channel experience throughout their journey.
Always be transparent about how you are using AI and audience data, and ensure you are complying with all relevant data privacy regulations. AI is still in its infancy so we have yet to fully understand its impact on existing regulations. Stay vigilant.
The only way you’ll be able to guarantee the success of your efforts is by tracking the impact of your AI-powered marketing campaigns. Keep a close eye on your results and optimize as needed.
Key takeaways for your higher education marketing strategy
In this guide, we have explored the unique challenges and opportunities facing marketers in higher education institutions. Let’s recap some of our top takeaways to elevate your marketing strategy:
- Embrace technology: Utilize AI for personalization, leverage marketing automation to streamline processes, and incorporate SMS marketing for higher engagement.
- Personalize your approach: Gen Z in particular crave authenticity. Make sure you segment your audience and deliver targeted messages based on data to foster connections and build trust.
- Go cross-channel: Reach your audience where they are with a mix of marketing channels, including email, social media, live chat, and WhatsApp.
- Focus on content marketing: Create valuable content that addresses student concerns, showcases campus life, and highlights program offerings in a variety of formats.
- Prioritize data-driven decisions: Track and analyze marketing campaign performance to optimize future efforts and maximize your impact.
By implementing these strategies you can attract top students, strengthen alumni relations, and ensure your institution thrives in a competitive landscape.
