Your Guide to Higher Ed Marketing

Key takeaways

Personalized marketing efforts can help your university connect with potential students and attract them to your institution. 

• As your university develops a marketing campaign, consider your unique student audience, and use digital and content marketing to answer students’ key questions.

• To connect with students, design personalized marketing campaigns that use short-form videos. 

• You can use data analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and identify areas you may need to adjust.

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. Then, discover how you can equip your students with in-demand skills with Coursera for Campus. With access to more than 10,000 courses from leading universities and companies, students can improve their employability.

How to market higher ed

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)

• Students 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 a learner persona, you’ll need more data, like demographics, goals, preferences, affiliations, and common challenges.

2. Leverage higher ed digital marketing. 

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 learners 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 testimonials, campus or classroom tours, and live events. You can also encourage your current students to make and share content. 

Read more: Your Guide to Mobile Learning

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 prospective 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. Discover 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 learner 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, including 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.  

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, such as 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. 

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