The Higher Ed Marketer

“Data silos” have been at the top of the buzzword pile for a few years now. But the truth is that many higher ed enrollment and marketing departments still don’t quite get each others’ roles. Michael Doran , CRM Implementation Strategist at XEquals , thinks the biggest problem is they speak different languages. The solution? They need a translator — someone who knows how to unlock marketing soluti...

In this episode, we are joined by the Director of Content and Strategy Assessment at the University of Rochester , Brian Piper . Not only do we get an inside look at his approach and strategies around content with the University of Rochester, he shares his perspective on this quickly changing landscape, and it was beyond insightful. Not only has AI seemingly changed things overnight — people have...

Higher ed marketers sometimes forget that they’re not merely engaging with prospective students. They’re selling their brand’s value proposition to future alumni. That’s why Ellen Johnson , Vice President For Enrollment Management at Allegheny College , says her school’s enrollment marketing speaks to the entire breadth of the student life cycle. And by making their brand storytelling part of ever...

Jenny Petty , Vice President of Marketing Communications at the University of Montana , had a tall order to fill when she arrived at the school in 2021. After nearly a decade of declining enrollment, the university was in desperate need of a branding facelift.   Jenny knew she and her team needed to bring positivity back to the school’s messaging. And she started by taking everyone to “Brand Camp....

Many college and university admissions offices are so focused on processing applications that they forget that students want to feel a connection with their school. As Liz Rainwater , Director of Admission Marketing and Communication at TCU , reminds us, trust is the foundation for every relationship. That’s why the folks at TCU prioritize giving over taking when they start a dialogue with prospec...

Higher ed creative teams have seen incredible changes since Covid, for better or worse. We saw a shift that included a greater appreciation for work-life balance for employees, but is there a point when leadership’s focus on caretaking hurts more than helps? WAYNE BARRINGER Wayne Barringer , Founder of Jaro Group, believes many higher ed marketing leaders have lost sight of their North Star, and t...

As digital marketing channels continue to elevate new ways of promoting user-generated content, higher ed marketers have to continue identifying emotional stories that will speak to their target audience. That’s because prospective students want to feel a genuine connection with their peers through real stories. Nate Jorgensen , Senior Director of Strategic Academic Marketing and Communications at...

A practical SEO strategy is critical to keeping your school’s enrollment website. But how can you know when to invest in pay-per-click ads versus the long content game? Guus Goorts , Founder of DutchMarketer.com and author of Successful Student Recruitment With Google Ads , believes building an SEO strategy is like planning a road trip. A common issue is that most schools know where they want to g...

Guy Kawasaki has been a marketing icon since his early days with Apple spreading the word of a product that’s now synonymous with personal computing, Macintosh. Today, the best-selling author and host of the Remarkable People podcast is the Chief Evangelist for Canva . Guy talks with us about why his fandom made him a perfect fit with Canva and how their product puts the power of design right into...

Drone shows are much more than pretty lights in the night sky. Through curated storyboarding and other audiosensory elements, these innovative spectacles can bring communities together by painting a larger story. After Joy Fulkerson , Director of Leadership and Civic Engagement at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), saw a local theme park show, she knew her school’s community needed that exper...

As a veteran of the newspaper business, Jaime Hunt , Vice President for University Communications and CMO at Old Dominion University , has seen firsthand how resisting change can destroy industries.    That’s why she believes higher ed institutions and organizations need to hit the pause button on banning ChatGPT and other AI services. Rather than branding it as a threat, higher ed marketers need...

When evaluating a school’s content marketing system (CMS), it’s easy for higher ed marketers to get tunnel vision when defining their target audience. But as Kat Liendgens , CEO of Hannon Hill , reminds us, the national pool of traditional college students is shrinking fast. That means marketing teams need to get with the times and bring a diversity of voice into their CMS strategy. Kat explains w...

So many small and mid-sized colleges and universities are caught up in trying to spread brand awareness that they’ve forgotten their core purpose — meeting the needs of prospective students. Philip Smith , Founder and CMO of Education Marketing Agency , thinks it’s time for higher ed institutions to stop trying to impress their competition and get back to the basics. Philip joins us from Ireland t...

Since 2017, the Pepperdine University - Graduate School of Education & Psychology has nearly tripled its enrollment from about 1,500 students to over 4,000. So how did they do it? According to Luke Phillips , the school’s Executive Director of Marketing and Enrollment, they did it by avoiding the weeds and taking a strategic approach to their enrollment funnel. It isn’t enough for marketing te...

Mission-fit storytelling is an essential piece of higher ed content marketing. That sounds straightforward on paper, but many schools struggle to attract students by meeting them where they are. Neal Foard , Chief Marketing Officer at Within, Inc. , thinks too many marketing teams are adrift in a sea of algorithms and analytics and have lost sight of their true purpose. Neal believes marketers mus...

Despite digital marketing’s evident impact on prospective students, social media managers are still some of the most undersupported members of many higher ed marketing teams. Any school administration should be able to clearly see Gen Z’s appetite for digital content, so why do these disconnects continue to happen? According to Santhana Naidu , VP of Marketing and Communications at Rose-Hulman Ins...

Community colleges are the front door of higher education for hundreds of thousands of students annually. They may be smaller than their 4-year counterparts, but schools like Butler Community College are leading the charge in innovating classrooms and workforce development programs. How are they doing it? It’s simple — by listening to students and their future employers and pivoting to their needs...

Peer-to-peer marketing may be one of the most underutilized strategies for American colleges and universities today. Several studies show that current students are Gen Z’s most preferred source of information about prospective colleges and universities after school websites. Many students are ready and willing to answer their fellow Gen Z’s questions through peer-to-peer marketing, and the barrier...

As regenerative AI takes the marketing world by storm, enrollment marketing teams continue to look for ways to boost engagement with prospective students. David Tal , Co-founder and CEO of Verse.io , suggests there’s a straightforward solution to getting your school’s message to student leads — and it’s already sitting in their pocket. David talks to us about the positive results colleges and univ...

Higher ed marketers often get so caught up in promotion that they take a backseat in developing the other core components of their school’s brand. But as Carrie Phillips , Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the University of Arkansas - Little Rock , pointed out, marketers have the power to be change agents for their schools. As the enrollment cliff approaches, they’re going to need all...

Enrollment marketing teams face new challenges every day as they work tirelessly to attract prospective students. Despite those obstacles, Teresa MacGregor , VP of Enrollment Management at Jacksonville University , and her colleagues are celebrating increased first-time enrollment at their school. And it’s not just because of the campus’s beachfront view. They did it by actively engaging with thei...

The compounding effects of the pandemic and the Great Resignation have left a lot of schools looking for answers. Design planning may be just the solution colleges and universities need to get a broad perspective of their marketing constraints in 2023 and beyond. That’s because, as Errol Wint , Founder of Mara Bridge Consulting Solutions , pointed out, your school is a business, and your marketing...

DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — is top-of-mind across marketing channels, not just higher education. That’s because as Gen Z starts to leave school and filter into the workforce, they’re leading the charge of reshaping our culture through a lens of empathy. As Gabrielle Gambrell , adjunct professor at NYU and Columbia University and founder of Gift of Gabrielle , suggested, higher ed mark...

The proof is in the data pudding: higher education is racing towards a demographic enrollment cliff over the next few decades. Be it due to ethnic, lifestyle, or regional indicators, hundreds of colleges and universities could be facing a long-term enrollment crisis. Tim Fuller , Founder of Fuller Higher Ed Solutions , thinks schools need to get back to the basics and be intentional in their recru...

Higher ed marketing teams often tout content as an asset, but does content that falls on deaf ears still make a sound? Without a consistent pipeline for their content, creators will suffer depreciating value in what is truly their most significant asset: their target audience. Kyle Campbell , Founder and Managing Director of Education Marketer , believes audience-first marketing can revolutionize...