Higher EducAtion
experience
EDUCATION MARKETING ISN’T JUST ABOUT BOOSTING ENROLLMENT AND ENDOWMENT. BUT WE’RE PRETTY GREAT AT THAT TOO.
Perhaps the scale of the challenge is why we love higher education marketing so much—because whether we’re recommending media tactics or optimizing creative performance, our approach is the same: we meet the audience exactly where they are and inspire them to see something new.
HIGHER EDUCATION MARKETING IS ANYTHING BUT ONE DIMENSIONAL
There’s no isolated audience and rarely a singular goal. Instead, each individual strategy and tactic needs to
achieve specific results while also supporting the organization’s larger brand goals.
Lists, ranks, early decision, test-optional, FAFSA, apps, yield…the perennial challenges to keep the lifeblood of a university flowing. That lifeblood? the all-important incoming class. If that array of factors isn’t enough, the impending enrollment ‘cliff’ is another challenge for higher education marketers to navigate in the balance of this decade.
Performance media and driving cost-efficiency for those tactics are critical elements to meeting enrollment goals. But we believe it’s more than securing cost-efficient applications. A consistent brand media effort against the broader set of decision makers and influencers is essential to differentiate a university and be that top choice school. It’s not just the biggest purchase of a young adult’s life, it’s the pathway to fulfilling their dreams. Every university needs to claim its ground and tell their story to a broad audience of stakeholders and influencers on why their community is the place to launch those dreams.
Advanced degree programs are essential components to ensure a school is a vibrant place for academia, research, and advancement. Success in marketing those programs has slowed in recent years coming off a very healthy past decade.
As schools must take a hard look at how to evolve their advance degree programs, the marketing approach also must adapt to how, when and where the adult target is discovering and inquiring for graduate program information. Audience data and segmentation is paramount to making the marketing budget sustain an interest cycle that goes through the year.
Supporting the broader university community is one of the many roles of the ucomm department. Whether it’s museums, research study recruitment, athletic events, healthcare division support, or advertising support to community relation programs, we have worked on it all.
The support we provide may be varied in scale but the core delivery is the same – executions that are on brand for the university, sound in strategy and expertly implemented and stewarded.
Building a loyal customer base is not about who’s aware of your brand, but who believes in it. Feels an attachment to it and chooses to make it part of their lives. When you give people that compelling reason to become active participants in your brand, they’ll put their money where their heart is. Even when somebody else whistles. That’s true brand participation. The difference between a customer and a brand’s best friend.
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