In higher education and many other fields, staying on top of the industry news and trends is crucial to gaining a competitive advantage. You can benefit significantly from using a strong higher education marketing strategy that aids you in identifying opportunities for growth, generating leads, and retaining students. As an SEO agency for higher education, we know how important this is!
Read on to learn more about the current higher education marketing trends, how to adapt to digital transformation within the industry, and how to use cutting-edge technologies to succeed.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education can be noticed in the visible shift in marketing strategies toward digital reinforcement and virtual events. In comparison to before, the path to reaching prospective students has changed. The immense use of digital platforms has necessitated a similar approach to marketing strategies.
The key to higher education success is not only accepting these marketing trends but fully embracing them. So, read on and learn more about higher education marketing strategies you can use to stand out from the crowd in 2023.
Considering the rising cost of education and the heavy burden of student loans, today’s prospective students are facing new challenges in deciding what higher education they should enroll in or if they should do so. As a result, higher education marketing must shift towards a more student-centered approach to drive results. Before, higher education institutes’ marketing concentrated on “this is why we are great” messages. Now, it focuses more on “this is why we are great for you.”
There are many ways you can reach prospective students by developing your brand identity, including content marketing. Quality content naturally helps boost engagement and helps build credibility. You can reach audiences on various platforms ranging from written content to audio and image.
Firstly, a common communication channel between higher education institutions and their audiences is blogs—spaces where the school can share relevant content, introduce various topics and programs, and create a community. Blogging is a highly effective tool for content marketing associated with many benefits on top of educating and engaging students. According to a study conducted by HubSpot Marketing, on average, companies that blog have:
To attract even more prospective students, you can utilize guest blogging to share content on a third-party blog. This way, you can create hyperlinks that direct visitors to your site and thus improve your visibility and web traffic.
Another format you can utilize for content marketing is podcasts. The popularity of such a tool has been at an all-time high in recent years. Statistics show that in the U.S., around 41% of the population listens to podcasts every month, with 28% doing it weekly. Because podcasts are naturally conversational, often featuring guest speakers that introduce content in a more personal way, there is plenty of room to create student-centered content.
Video content is also gaining popularity in higher education content marketing. Both long-form and short-form videos are helpful, depending on the content you are presenting. For example, in higher education, you can utilize long-form videos for personalized campus tours, explanations of the application process, financial aid explainers, tutor introductions, and much more.
Your strategy should be to create high-quality content and incorporate it within your social media posts to reach customers. Link your blogs, podcasts, videos, and more on social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more—provide your audience with a glimpse of the content they can access by visiting your site.
Short-form videos provide viewers with a timely snapshot of important events and programs within your school. You can accompany them with a clickable link, sticker, message option, hashtag, and more to increase engagement and stay connected with your audience.
A popular destination for such videos is TikTok which has quickly grown in popularity, with over 80 million monthly active users in the United States. An interesting statistic to keep in mind is that 60% of TikTok users are Gen Zers—a prime demographic for higher education institutions. Therefore, TikTok is an excellent platform for your university or college to connect and engage with Gen Zers as prospective students in an entertaining and relatable way.
Though you can create videos that provide students with scholarly content that gives them an idea of what your university can provide academically, it is best to mix such videos with non-academic ones. Videos focused on student experience, athletics, your university’s student services, the campus, and much more are where the real engagement opportunities lie. We advise you to involve your student body in order to present the most authentic representation of what life would be like for students at your university.
You can also improve your higher education marketing by shifting your PR strategies online and collaborating with other professionals. Consider shifting your focus from school-produced content to student-focused and student-made content in order to better connect with your target audience. Furthermore, place ads on content websites typically frequented by prospective students and increase the chances of them interacting with your site.
Another element you should add to your marketing efforts is establishing ties with professionals that can help you create content as well as have an established presence on social media platforms with a dedicated following, such as:
Leverage such tactics by embracing these influencers with the ability to reach your prospective students more effectively through their content.
It is no surprise that SEO has considerable control over today’s marketing strategies, and rightfully so. It is the marketing channel that helps your site rank higher on a search engine results page (SERP) and consequently receive more traffic. However, a more recent marketing trend you should consider using is local SEO to optimize local searches. According to statistics, about 46% of all searches have local intent. Therefore, implementing basic local SEO strategies will help your site’s ranking in the local market, reaching many prospective students for recruitment.
You should work with SEO experts and devise a strong content strategy that focuses on producing content answering questions from searches near your area and containing relevant keywords so as to improve local visibility. All improvements made in your online presence within your region will help recruit local students.
It is clear that one must always stay updated with higher education marketing trends as the field is constantly evolving. To stay ahead of the curve, keep generating leads, attract students and retain them, you should keep up with the trends and implement the necessary practices in your strategy. Recently, for example, higher education marketing trends include the increased importance of digital marketing, especially through student-centered content, short-form videos on popular platforms, and local search engine optimization.
A well-chosen digital marketing strategy is crucial to expanding your institute’s student base. Our digital agency can help you stay on top of the current trends and be one step ahead of all that is to come. We’ll devise and implement a successful digital marketing strategy that encompasses all the above trends and much more. So, schedule a free consultation, and let us help you grow your education institution!
CEO, Co-Founder
Faton is the Co-founder & CEO of Manaferra and someone who wakes up every morning seeing endless possibilities to progress and help others make a difference, for the better. That thought then translates everything he does to see both the team and clients move forward.
Faton is the Co-founder & CEO of Manaferra and someone who wakes up every morning seeing endless possibilities to progress and help others make a difference, for the better. That thought then translates everything he does to see both the team and clients move forward.
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