How Do You Market Higher Education?

How Do You Market Higher Education?

The marketing space for higher education is becoming more and more crowded, and marketers are facing a unique set of challenges in our ever-connected, digital world. Fortunately, there are some strategies you can use to get yourself ahead. Here are a few ways to boost your higher education marketing strategy to reach your audience faster and more efficiently.

Tips for Higher Education Marketing

Below are some common steps to take when establishing higher education marketing strategies and how they can be beneficial for your academic institution.

  1. Take an Assessment: Before you make any decisions about where you want to be, it’s important to know where you are. A SWOT analysis, analyzing your school’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, helps you determine the strength of your brand and where there’s room to improve.
  2. Define Your Goals: Clear, concise goals help any marketing strategy. Most higher education marketing strategies tend to focus on enrollment, student recruitment and funding. Your SWOT analysis will tell you what your goals need to focus on, and you can tailor these goals for specific teams. 
  3. Use Market Research: Market research is the most effective way to figure out how to effectively reach your audience. It can highlight important behaviors, such as what lines of communication they prefer, as well as what messaging and visuals resonates best. Surveys, focus groups and one-on-one interviews are all highly impactful ways to inform your strategy.
  4. Invest in Digital Marketing: Digital marketing, including social media, emails and targeted ads, has skyrocketed to the forefront of higher education marketing. It’s a highly efficient way to reach multiple audiences at once, especially current and prospective students. Digital marketing can also provide data quicker, allowing you to adjust and respond faster.
  5. Use Content Marketing for a Personalized Approach: Content marketing is a popular technique because it feels organic on a social media feed. To make your content feel personalized and approachable, center your marketing’s storytelling around professors or students. With content marketing costing up to 62% less than traditional strategies, it’s never been easier — or cheaper — to take this approach. 
  6. Be Responsive: Higher education is a field that’s always evolving. Staying static means you can get left behind — something you never want to happen. Don’t be afraid to appropriately engage with current events by participating in trends and taking in feedback to constantly refine your strategy. Ensure that your website is user- and mobile-friendly with effective UX/UI design. Also, consider adding a chat bot to your site to provide immediate feedback and answers to FAQs for potential students. This type of conversational marketing can successfully engage students in real time.

The Benefits of Higher Education Marketing Strategies

With the right strategy in place, your college or university will quickly start to see results. Higher education marketing with a focus on digital allows you to lead with quality over quantity, allowing your institution to stay top of mind with your audience. You also have room to experiment with multiple channels, giving you an added layer of flexibility and agility in your marketing. If your institution is looking for an efficient, effective and affordable way to market higher education, rely on the professionals at Think Integrated.