Category: Education

Using Digital Storytelling to Enhance Student Recruitment Campaigns

Post author By admin
Post date July 3, 2024

Thanks to the advent of social media, a compelling story can connect millions of people with the click of a button. This is all the more likely when we relate to the stories being told. Storytelling is a skill that has prevailed through the ages, so it’s a no-brainer that it has become a go-to marketing strategy for academic institutions.

Incoming students crave someone or something to ease their fears throughout an unfamiliar process, and a relatable story can be the perfect fix. Follow along to learn how to leverage the power of authentic storytelling in a way that defines your brand narrative and resonates with incoming students.

The Power of Narrative in Marketing

The best marketers consistently utilize the power of a strong narrative. You are much more likely to reach a larger audience with a captivating tale than statistics and facts. The right story can build an emotional connection with potential students and build trust.

Identifying the Key Elements of Effective Digital Storytelling

What the most effective marketers have in common is that they have simplified their execution by splitting digital storytelling into four key elements: relatable characters, strong narrative, vivid imagery, and an inspiring call to action.

Ideally, prospective students should be able to envision themselves succeeding within your community before they ever step foot on campus. So the “characters” in your story need to be relatable to help viewers live vicariously through them. Utilizing a narrative that highlights conflict resolution, you can help them experience possible challenges and successes through the eyes of others. Just ensure that you always highlight the vibrant aspects of campus life and share a glimpse of their future.

They say seeing is believing, and when it comes crafting a compelling narrative about campus life, that is especially true. Use videos, photos, infographics and anything else at your disposal that you believe would serve as a proof point for your stories and inspire people to learn more. Take advantage of YouTube, social media, and websites related to your institution to attract a global audience and generate organic interest.

And most importantly, once the hard work of creating this content is done, make sure you close the loop by have a motivating call to action that guides students to the next steps. CTAs are known to drastically increase the likelihood that your viewer will engage, and a directive makes the process of proceeding clear and simple.

Encouraging Personal Experiences

Now that you know what you should be doing, let’s talk about how to do it consistently. To truly harness the power of digital storytelling, it’s crucial to encourage individuals to share their personal experiences. Asking students, alumni, and faculty to share their voices can be operationalized through surveys, social media prompts, and campus events. Whether it’s a life-changing lecture, an unexpected friendship, a story about accidentally starting a fire on day one in the dorms… No? Just us? Regardless, these personal stories can become powerful narratives that resonate deeply with prospective student.

Aligning Stories with Your Brand Identity

While it’s important for stories to be relatable and visually interesting, they must also echo the greater story and voice of your brand. Every narrative shared should reinforce the values, mission, and identity of your institution. Consistency in messaging ensures that prospective students not only relate to individual stories but also gain a clear and cohesive understanding of what your institution stands for. This alignment helps in building a strong brand identity that is memorable and appealing to your target audience.

 See It In Practice

Stanford University is a pro at using video content to tell stories. In 2019, they ran the #Stanford19 campaign on Instagram, where they placed a spotlight on 2019 graduates. Each video was a story about a student, their background, and their accomplishments at Stanford. With over 600,000 followers at the time, they were able to reach thousands of potential students and connect with them in an inspirational way.

Taking a different approach, Wright State University launched a new Push-built brand in 2016, with a narrative of being a school that doesn’t try to weed out the ones who won’t succeed––but instead tries to find the success in everyone. Their story drew in potential incoming students, many of whom were non-traditional and needed to balance every other aspect of life along with school. Thus helping WSU attain their goal of increasing recruitment rates.

 Conveying Your Brand Voice

To achieve your desired impact, whoever is writing your stories needs to have a deep understanding of your brand voice. It’s not just about sharing experiences but doing so in a way that reflects your institution’s ethos. This ensures that the stories are not only engaging but also cohesive and true to your brand. A skilled storyteller can weave perspectives that align with your institution’s identity, creating a narrative that is both compelling and credible.
If you find yourself struggling to create relatable content that aligns with your brand’s voice, or don’t know how to seamlessly incorporate your narrative into multi-media formats, hit us up.

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Social Marketing Communications Education

How To Plan a Marketing Campaign for a Single Degree Program at a University

Post author By admin
Post date August 17, 2022

Most universities offer an impressive array of services, programs and resources for students. And while that’s a great benefit to students, sometimes the messaging can feel too broad, unfocused or even overwhelming. That’s why honing in on a single degree program that your university excels in can be a successful marketing strategy. Here are several tips for bachelor’s degree marketing and how to effectively communicate about one program or degree to prospective students.

Identify Your Audience

The first step to college degree marketing is to identify your audience. Understand who exactly you are talking to and why they would be interested in the program you’re advertising. This helps you to identify the right messaging and media channels to pursue. As suggested by Parthenon Group, consider segmenting your audience into these six groups to better address their individual needs:

Aspiring Academics: “Traditional students,” mostly 18-to-24-year-olds with a focus on academics
Coming of Age : Mostly 18-to-24-year-olds who have yet to decide on what to focus on.
Career Starters : 8-to-24-year-olds who are using college as a springboard for their future careers.
Career Accelerators : Older working students looking to advance in their field of work, usually online.
Industry Switchers : Older students looking to switch fields.
Academic Wanderers : Those who are getting into college later in life who believe that a degree will open up doors for them.

Market On Social Media

With 84% of 18-29 year olds using social media, it only makes sense to focus your efforts here to get your message out. Some tactics to consider for content could be to feature successful alumni on your social media channels or student and faculty achievements. Another way to reach potential students could be through student social ambassadors—think influencers for your university. These students can reach the exact audience you’re after with fresh, engaging content that gives people a closer look at the degree program you want to highlight.

Create a Highlight Reel

A well-done video can go a long way to get people excited about learning a new skill or promoting the benefits of the degree program and what makes it unique and desirable. The content for the video could feature the technical and academic skills related to the program that will support students throughout their career, the hands-on experience that students get in the program and information about financial aid. This video by Middlesex Community College shows how students can learn a skill and land a good job in less than a year while having access to state-of-the-art machinery.

Design Landing Pages That Convert

Make sure your first impression is a good one. If you’re linking out to a landing page from a social post or ad, make sure that it is just as effective on mobile as it is on desktop, as 1 out of 5 potential students use mobile only to access the Internet. Your landing page should be SEO friendly as well and crafted to answer the questions students may already be asking themselves in order to capture the “warm” visitors who are seeking a program like yours. And don’t forget, the better your landing page, the more time prospective students are likely going to spend on your site.

If you are also looking for ways to execute a marketing campaign for your university, check out our article that discusses 5 Lessons From Successful University Marketing Campaigns. For more university degree marketing tips or ideas on how to market your single degree program, check the work we’ve done for universities in the past. And if you need more inspiration or help, we’re here to help take your brand to the next level, so don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more.

Branding Marketing Communications Education

How to Stay Relevant to Business Students During Fall Enrollment

Post author By admin
Post date July 11, 2022

The fall semester is starting for most universities any day now, and many community colleges may be feeling like they fell short of enrollment goals. We know that over the past two years, community college enrollment has fallen, with an 11.3% decline being reported in 2021. But don’t give up on your enrollment numbers just yet. Consider the following tips on how to increase enrollment in community colleges as you make a last push for fall numbers or look towards the spring semester.

Tip #1: Incentivize Enrollment

With inflation eating into students’ budgets, they may feel like they can’t keep up with enrollment costs over time, even if they could afford a semester or two. Consider incentivizing enrollment today by offering grants that would cover tuition costs for one or two courses during a semester down the road. For example, students at Alamo Colleges District who complete 18 or 24 credits in the academic year receive one to two courses, respectively, tuition-free in the summer. This model could help offer under-enrolled students set aggressive goals and stay on pace toward graduation.

Tip #2: Refine Your Value Proposition for Students

At a time when students may be questioning the value of a degree, it’s important for them to understand how their education would apply to real-world success. When marketing to college students in 2022, be sure to communicate how their path will lead to a brighter future. Some ways to communicate this could be through sharing alumni stories on social media, posting articles that speak to student successes and using hard data to back up any messaging about your programs and degrees.

Tip #3: Optimize Your School’s Content Marketing Strategy & Website

Even though teens prefer consuming video content on social media, you can’t underestimate the power of a strong content marketing strategy. In fact, 64% of college prospects would rather consume content through text and articles on college websites.

Be sure to consider SEO when posting content or articles on your website—optimizing for local searches can be a powerful way to attract students that are more likely to enroll soon. With your website, you should also make sure it’s intuitive, easy to navigate and optimized for mobile.

And finally, another area to consider in your marketing mix is SMS—they have a staggering 98% open rate. Once a prospective student opts in, a well-timed message might be just the thing to help them take the next step.

Tip #4: Improve Conversions with Responsive Chatbots

Responsiveness to student inquires can be paramount to keeping a prospect engaged. Students are eager to hear back when they engage with a university, and according to recent a study, colleges and universities are actually 10 times more likely not to reconnect with a student if they fail to respond within five minutes. To ensure you get back to students in a timely manner, consider a chatbot that would be able to reply to frequently asked questions or escalate the question to a representative.

If you’re looking for more ideas on how to connect with prospective students, Push is here to help with years of experience building enrollment campaigns for two- and four-year colleges and universities. View our work and contact us to see how we can help take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Marketing Communications Trends Education

3 Ways Small Universities Can Grow in 2022

Post author By admin
Post date May 30, 2022

Small universities provide students with a great environment to foster lifelong relationships, broaden their worldview, hone their craft and prepare them for the next step in their lives. But over the past few years, it’s been harder for these institutions to provide this experience for their students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like everyone else, they were constantly pivoting to find the best ways to keep their students safe while still providing them with a valuable education.

Some of those changes implemented during the height of the pandemic were out of necessity, but some were beneficial to students, especially those at small universities. As we move further away from this time, it’s important that universities use the information they learned from the pandemic to continue to improve their operations. Using our expertise in the higher education space, we’ve compiled a few ways universities can continue to innovate on their current experiences.

Embrace Your Size

A huge benefit to being small is the ability to make changes quickly and pivot back if necessary. This means it may be easier to rethink course structure or your academic calendar based on students’ needs. With a smaller student body, you may also be able to tap into their feedback more and actually apply those changes as you see fit.

Stop Chasing Rankings

An important skill that a young person can learn is that comparing yourself to others is an unfulfilling plight. This is something that many universities could benefit from as well. Rather than focusing on the competition, it’s important that institutions look inward and align their values with their students and faculty. Spend the resources that are put towards boosting your rankings on your faculty and students and celebrate their hard work and success. Yes, knowing your peer institutions and following their efforts and success can be very helpful, as well as having a finger on the pulse of the broader national higher education landscape, but focusing on your own academic program quality and student successes will reap your university the biggest rewards.

Celebrate Your Value

Higher education provides students with a great opportunity to receive an education that will prepare them for the first step into the career of their choosing. While this value is apparent to those that are in the industry, it isn’t as obvious to the public. It’s especially important that smaller universities are effectively communicating their commitment to affordability, convenience and career-readiness learning to prospective students. One way of showcasing this is through case studies, providing a look at how past students have found success post-graduation and how the university prepared them for that initial step.

Explore Immersive Technology

Due to the pandemic, nearly every student has now become familiar with an online class and how they differ from the traditional in-person class. For some students, their class structure didn’t stray too far from what they were used to in their in-person classes. But for others, it was a difficult transition. Many students who participated in labs missed out on valuable hands-on experience that you can’t get through a computer screen. The introduction of virtual reality (VR), the Metaverse and augmented reality (AR) combat this issue, providing technology that can immerse students within a scenario that an on-person classroom may not even provide. Students now have the ability to communicate and collaborate in their own virtual office, rather than a Zoom call. And with this technology still in its infancy, who’s to say that students won’t be able to put on their VR headset and walk the streets of Ancient Rome for their history class?

How Push Can Help

At Push we are always looking for new, innovative ways to market and support higher education institutions. Check out our work and get in touch to let us know how we can help you meet your goals.

Social Branding Lifestyle Trends Education

The Future of Education Marketing in the Metaverse

Post author By admin
Post date February 17, 2022

As you know by now, the idea of the metaverse has started to gain more and more popularity as many leading companies and brands are starting to shift their attention to the newest frontier, Web 3.0. This next evolution of the internet sees online experiences evolving, creating communities where users can immerse themselves within a virtual world or brand.

Metaverse Marketing

Although the term metaverse has just recently gained mainstream relevance, there have already been versions of the metaverse that companies have been collaborating with. Games like Roblox partner with brands like Gucci and Vans to create visual worlds that users can explore to learn more about the brand.

Tips for education marketing in the metaverse

But these virtual experiences aren’t limited to just businesses—education marketing in the metaverse can give prospective students a better understanding of your school and what you have to offer. Here are some tips for education marketers on how to effectively leverage the metaverse to promote your institution.

Tip #1 – Prospective student meetings

Through the power of the metaverse, enrollment teams will have the ability to meet with prospective students in virtual rooms, instead of being separated by hundreds of miles.

Meta, formerly Facebook, is already using settings like this in their new virtual technology called “Horizons Worlds,” providing users with virtual spaces where your avatars can meet with others. These virtual experiences can create a sense of intimacy that is lost on a video or phone call.

Tip #2 – Virtual campus tours

Bring your campus to life in the metaverse and allow prospective students to take a tour of your campus. Virtual tours can include a game day experience, giving future students the best seat in the house for the big rivalry game. You can show how your school’s traditions are truly unique and allow the guests to take part.

Research shows that students who visit a campus before applying to a college are two times more likely to matriculate. These experiences are essential to the admissions process, and taking it to the metaverse allows potential students to be fully immersed into the campus no matter where they are.

Tip #3 – Virtual in-class learning

With the power of VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), your online learning experiences can be transformed to immerse students in their education.

In recent years, online learning has seen a significant increase, but students are claiming that this new mode of learning leads to feelings of isolation. These online learning environments often lack the human interaction that in-person classes provide.

Marketing the use of VR and AR in your online classrooms can show prospective students that your programs look to provide the community and interaction that many online learning programs currently lack. Instead of students and professors being trapped inside boxes on a screen, they can walk around and interact with one of another.

Why Push?

Here at Push, we’re always looking for ways to maximize the reach of our higher education brands, and with the increasing potential that the metaverse holds, we want to make sure our brands are utilizing the technology to its fullest potential. To continue learning more about how you can grow your college or university’s enrollment, check out how content marketing funnels can grow student enrollment.

Marketing Communications Advice Education

5 Lessons From Successful University Marketing Campaigns

Post author By admin
Post date October 28, 2021

Colleges and universities looking to stay relevant with today’s potential students are presented with a unique challenge to create and share content that entertains and inspires. And, as new student enrollment continues to decline year over year it’s becoming increasingly important to implement marketing strategies that have a proven track record. So, here are 5 lessons your institution can implement into your next campaign to help engage potential students.

Lesson 1: Get Emotional

According to several studies, appealing to your prospective student’s emotions with a positive spin can help make your message resonate. In fact, a Nielson study found that individuals are 8.4x more likely to trust a company and 7.1x more likely to make a purchase when they feel a positive emotion from that brand.

What’s more, showcasing real and shared experiences with photography and video can help invite your prospective students in, such as an inspiring story of an alumni’s financial life after getting their degree, or showing how networking through school helped change a life. For example, a Harvard University campaign showed how two graduates with disabilities connected and worked together to form a resource that empowered other students. Whichever stories you choose to highlight, as WordStream notes, it is import to “think outside the box and pull together some compelling story lines to draw new leads in.”

Lesson 2: Emphasize Career Outcomes

In a 2019 survey of American college freshmen administered by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, the most popular reason cited for attending college is to get a good job. While that may come as no surprise to some, it emphasizes the fact that alumni careers are an effective strategy to showcasing the possibilities with a degree-seeking students. One great way to do this is to highlight outstanding alumni and work with them to become brand ambassadors off campus. Another, is to take Boston College’s approach with a webpage dedicated to listing the career outcomes for their previous students.

Lesson 3: Know Your Audience

When it comes to reaching prospective students, instead of a general and wide approach, aim for narrow and niche. Is your university known for environmental science? Or an outstanding business school? Personalizing your message to prospective students with interests in the programs your University is known for is more likely to resonate and engage those prospective students. This is especially true in targeted social campaigns across age, gender, detailed targeting and interests for current high school students. Justing as we’ve covered in 5 Post-COVID Branding Trends for Universities, “If you try to appeal to every possible student looking to go to college, you might not be speaking as directly as you could be to those students who would be the perfect match for your school and who are more likely to enroll if you’re able to connect with them in the right way.”

Lesson 4: Pivot to Video

It’s a phrase popularized by the rise of short-form content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat and TikTok. But it couldn’t be more true when it comes to getting your university in front of prospective students. Video content is digestible, visually stimulating, has the power to convey a powerful message effectively and is suited to the mobile experience. And seeing as how 8 in 10 students visit college websites on mobile, this is an incredibly important factor. Furthermore, marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than marketers who don’t. It’s also no secret in the higher education industry, with 86% of universities and colleges having a presence on YouTube.

One great example is a Leeds University campaign ‘Student Life at Leeds’ which “not only speaks the language of existing and prospective students, but puts people in the shoes of someone studying at the university in a way that is visually inspiring.”

Lesson 5: Showcase UGC

A study from Digital Marketing Institute found that “brand engagement improves by 28% when consumers are exposed to both professional and user-generated content.” Plus, the same study found that 9 out of 10 students consult a college search review site when researching where to study. From this, it’s clear that prospective students trust the insights and opinions of their peers, which is all the more reason to leverage user-generated content (UGC) in your next campaign. This could take the form of student social media takeover days, student-led Q&A sessions via Facebook or Instagram live and even guest blog posts on your institution’s website written by existing students or alumni. Any of these UGC strategies can help your prospective students to connect with existing students on a personal level, which shows transparency and builds trust with your brand.

For more on how Push can help with your education marketing efforts, contact us or here or call 407-841-2299.

Branding Education

Using Former Students to Accentuate Your Branding

Post author By admin
Post date September 23, 2021

Alumni can be powerful brand ambassadors for your college or university, and are a direct extension of your institution’s values and voice in the community. But are you utilizing them enough to accentuate your education branding? A recent report from Alumni Access found that 85% of alumni in a professional field believe that universities and colleges are coming up short when it comes to engaging alumni—particularly those of the younger generation. So here are a few ways to engage with and use alumni to build your brand.

Find Your Ambassadors

To avoid alienating your alumni, ensure you are targeting the right people with the right message via a CRM that integrates information across departments. This not only allows tracking, but can help you personalize your communications for a greater response rate than a one-size-fits-all approach. This personalization is important because according to Educase, “of students who received personalized communications, 87 percent said that those communications were an important factor in their enrollment decision.” Then, reaching out to alumni with a personalized message via a survey—both active and lapsed—can provide your team with key insights about which alumni are most prone to engagement. Prioritize the most promising respondents to become part of an ambassador program with the opportunity to share their experiences and knowledge with you and potential students.

Share Your Alumnus’ Success

Whether they’re an ambassador or lifelong fan of your institution, proud alumni are happy to speak glowingly about their college years. And it means more to your potential students if it comes from your alumni. As DMI found, millennials trust user-generated content 50% more than other media, and 86% report that it’s a good indication of the product. So asking for and then highlighting key alumni success stories across newsletters, social and collateral can not only serve as great testimonials for your institution, but can also rekindle relationships with past alumni who may want to but don’t know where to share their successes.

Organize Meet Ups

While social media, and especially LinkedIn, are a great way to connect with alumni, there is no substitute for relationship building through in-person contact. And this goes well beyond reunions. Organizing alumni travel groups, interest groups, community causes, inviting alumni to judge competitions, meet ups based on areas of study and even guest speaking roles are all great ways to reconnect with and reengage alumni.

Make a Lifelong Partnership

According to Educase, the key to alumni engagement is relationship building. And keeping your alumni informed can help foster a lifelong partnership with graduates, college and university leaders—ultimately leading to countless opportunities to advance your programs. Just as we’ve noted before “An updated alumnus is an engaged alumnus. So provide them with consistent and fresh content that keeps them in the loop with their alma mater and then invites them to share their resources such as their time, career insight, pro tips from their time as a student and more.”

For more on how Push can help with your education marketing efforts, contact us or here or call 407-841-2299.

Digital Media Education

How Content Marketing Funnels Can Grow Student Enrollment

Post author By admin
Post date September 2, 2021

By definition, a content marketing funnel is a system that introduces new customer leads to your business through different types of content. These leads then have the potential to become customers by progressively ‘funneling’ them through more types of relevant and useful content. While getting the right message in front of the right people is nothing new, organizing your marketing tactics strategically through a funnel can lead to converting more potential students into full-time students by considering three basic marketing funnel phases: Awareness, Inquiry, and Conversion.

THE AWARENESS PHASE

At the top of the funnel is the awareness phase, which focuses on brand awareness and driving site traffic. This part of the funnel is all about generating content that grabs attention. According to Forester, on average, a person consumes 11.4 pieces of content before making a decision. And as this applies to potential students, it’s important to focus your recruitment campaigns in the right markets via the right mediums to build awareness. Depending on the goals of your college or university this could include a heavy focus on social, digital media, and search engine optimization in addition to traditional advertising (radio/TV), public relations and earned media coverage, high school recruitment events, pay-per-click (PPC) ads via Google Adwords and relevant blog posts that capture the culture of your institution.

INQUIRY PHASE

In the middle of the funnel is the inquiry phase, which focuses on lead generation in the form of nurturing, educating and informing your potential students. At this stage, it’s important to consider the type of marketing content that will best inform and grab the attention of your ideal audience. Depending on the goals of your institution, this may include involving your current students whenever possible as they will connect best with students considering enrollment. Successful inquiries from your potential students can also be achieved through statistical comparison content that highlights the key statistical areas your college or university is strongest, virtual tours and campus walkthrough content, inviting inquiring students to tour campus and shadow classes, promoting your financial aid and scholarship offerings as well as being accessible for potential student inquiries.

CONVERSION PHASE

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 19.7 million students were enrolled at U.S. colleges in fall 2020. And that number has the potential to grow even bigger in the conversion phase of the marketing funnel. As it applies to enrollment, this phase is all about making the decision to enroll as easy as possible. The content you serve potential students should be highly personalized to drive interest and make the potential students feel wanted so that they are inclined to officially commit. Successful conversions that lead to enrollment can be achieved through student success stories or testimonials, using CRM software to send personalized communication to students and families, and investing in training for admissions staff given that they are your direct line to potential students.

IMPROVING YOUR FUNNEL

As student demographics and the goals of your institution change, it’s important to re-evaluate how well your marketing funnel is serving you. For example, you may be catching the wrong prospects at the top of your funnel if your targeting is too wide or you may be losing qualified prospects through leaks in the middle of your marketing funnel. Worse yet, the conversion phase of your funnel may lack a personal touch, discouraging potential students from enrolling. If there is a problem, sometimes getting an expert, an outside perspective can lend some insight. With decades of experience working with colleges and universities for recruitment help, we are always available to talk.

For more on how Push can help with your education marketing efforts, contact us here or call 407-841-2299.

Marketing Communications Education

Using Alumni to Boost Student Retention

Post author By admin
Post date August 10, 2021

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the retention rate for full-time degree-seeking undergrads who entered 4-year degree-granting institutions in fall 2018 was 81%. And the retention rate of private, for-profit 4-year institutions was just 63%. But this doesn’t have to be the case for your college or university. By involving your alumni now, you can boost the confidence of your undergrads and ultimately retain more of your student body. So here are a few strategies to engage your alumni for long-term student retention and growth.

HIGHLIGHT ALUMNI ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Current students are more likely to gain confidence in their university if they see what their alumni have accomplished out in the world. After all, an alumni’s success after graduation is the university’s true “proof of concept.” So it’s important to showcase your successful alumni by displaying “alumni spotlights” to current students in the classroom, on social media and through special events on campus such as speaking events or career fairs.

FOSTER MENTORSHIPS

Forming an alumni-student mentorship program could also be key to increasing retention rates. As illustrated by The Nursing Journal, 76% of full-time students who’d been mentored successfully by an older student completed the semester. By contrast, the completion rate was just 36% for students who hadn’t been mentored.

With this in mind, consider engaging alumni for mentorship opportunities based on the same field of study via LinkedIn or quarterly in-person events to help your students and alumni develop relationships. Inviting alumni that are experts in specific fields to guest lecture is another excellent way for them to get more face-to-face time with students. Your alumni will feel more connected with your university if they know a few current students and can be a resource to them.

KEEP YOUR ALUMNI IN THE LOOP

two street signs that read Alumni DR and Homecoming Circle

An updated alumnus is an engaged alumnus. So provide them with consistent and fresh content that keeps them in the loop with their alma mater and then invites them to share their resources such as their time, career insight, pro tips from their time as a student and more.

This could include inviting them back for more than just reunions to stay connected, playing up the nostalgia of being a former student and amping up the feeling of youth with your communications, or making your alumni feel important by asking for their input on surveys for future decisions in the university. The latter is also an excellent way to keep alumni employment and demographic info up-to-date to help better inform your future marketing strategies.

In all, retaining your student body is all about connections. If your students have an opportunity to meet with past alumni, see their success, as well as a path to their own success, your students are more likely to graduate from your college or university. Alumni involvement and engagement is vital to the long-term life of your university. So give them every opportunity to stay engaged, visit and mentor the next generation of alumni.

Branding Education

5 Post-COVID Branding Trends For Universities

Post author By admin
Post date July 20, 2021

Discover what universities are doing to bring students back to the classroom.

The impact of COVID-19 can be felt on virtually every industry, with higher education being no exception. According to recent data, undergraduate enrollment is currently in its steepest decline so far since the pandemic began, down 5.9% compared to this time last year. Community college enrollment fell by double digits, with enrollment down 11.3%.

With the burdens of going to college clearly mounting for many, it’s vital that schools learn to brand themselves in a way that shows value more than ever. Here are five branding trends for universities that you can use to help catch the attention of potential students and boost enrollment.

Share Your Value

Male College Student Meeting With Campus Counselor

Know your strengths and highlight those. Does your school offer an an outstanding support system? A faculty made up of experts in their field? Experiences outside the classroom that your students are seeking out? Hone in on what makes your school and its story unique, and highlight those to help your university stand out from the competition. Be sure to highlight the things that are truly unique to your institution. But be careful not to cast your net too wide—be sure to only emphasize what is true to what the school is now, not what you hope it will be or what it has potential to become.

Appeal to Your Ideal Student

Young afro american woman sitting at table with books and laptop

Know your target audience and approach your branding with those people in mind. If you try to appeal to every possible student looking to go to college, you might not be speaking as directly as you could be to those students who would be the perfect match for your school and who are more likely to enroll if you’re able to connect with them in the right way.

Highlight Connection

Group of happy students surfing the net on laptop

Universities offer a unique experience that people may be craving in a post-COVID world—being a part of a community with shared interests and experiences. Being a brand that focuses on these shared experiences is more valuable than ever. Appeal to this desire for connection by using language and imagery that is honest, authentic and genuine while underscoring the camaraderie students will find at your school that’s hard to replicate anywhere else.

Have a Clear Voice

More and more, students see increased value in a university that provides active and vocal support for social causes. While there’s always the risk of polarization, silence from a university could be considered a red flag to some. Be thoughtful about your messaging, stay true to your values as a school and don’t be afraid to be vocal about issues that your prospective students care about.

Stay Active on Social Media

young man using a mobile phone in a corridor on campus

Finally, don’t neglect your always-on channels of communication with prospective students, like social media. A big part of staying relevant with a younger audience is getting in front of them where they are with compelling and interesting content. Putting out thoughtful, creative posts and actively updating your channels is a valuable way to show students you care about reaching them in a way that really resonates.

We hope you’re able to apply some of these branding trends for colleges to help boost your enrollment for upcoming semesters. For more on how Push can help with your university marketing efforts, contact us here or call 407-841-2299.