Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | January 30th, 2024

Paid Search Best Practices and Strategies for Grad Schools

Paid search ads (also known as pay-per-click, or PPC ads) can be a powerful marketing tool for graduate schools for many reasons. How so? Paid search best practices and strategies for grad schools allow for specific demographic targeting based on specific criteria, can be turned on to generate leads almost instantly, and offer a lot of flexibility when it comes to crafting your messaging and marketing goals, such as boosting brand awareness, generating demand, or bringing in more qualified leads.

All of that being said, it’s important to have a strong grasp of how paid search marketing works in order to use it the most effectively. Below, we’ll examine a few strategies and best practices in detail so you know how to effectively leverage it. Let’s take a look.

Research and understand your audience very carefully

Before actually launching any paid search campaigns, always conduct thorough research of your target audience and understand their goals, demographics, and pain points.

This may seem obvious, but all too often paid search campaigns are launched by schools, businesses, and organizations without a clear understanding of who exactly they’re targeting. As a result, many of them waste their time and money on ineffective campaigns. To avoid this, have a strong grasp of who you want to target and for what reasons before budgeting for any paid search campaigns.

Conduct thorough keyword research

Conducting extensive keyword research is also crucial.

Focus on high-volume, relevant keywords with user intent in mind. For example, focusing on a general keyword like “MBA” is too vague and will likely result in squandering your budget, but targeting keywords like “best schools for an EMBA” are much more likely to connect you to the right target audience that’s seeking the programs you’re offering.

By targeting these longtail keywords based on user intent, your campaign will more effectively target the right audience and more effectively funnel leads directly into your specific programs.

A/B test consistently and for many variables

A/B testing is a great way to determine what’s working most effectively in your campaigns and help you optimize them by leveraging this information.

When A/B testing, focus on variables like ad copy, keywords, landing pages, calls-to-action (CTAs), and visuals in both the ad if applicable and landing page. The more information you can glean from A/B testing, the better optimized your campaigns will be, leading to higher conversions without wasting precious dollars.

Determine your goals and KPIs

Setting up specific goals and KPIs early on is critical too.

Without a clear goal and KPIs to track in mind, your campaign will be aimless and end up wasting a lot of time and money. Instead, map out what your specific goals are and the metrics needed to track them before launching a campaign. For example, you may want to set a goal of increasing leads 25% before the start of the next semester. Whatever your goals and KPIs are, be sure that everyone on your team is aware of them and is working towards them with the correct metrics and timelines in mind.

Avoid contact forms that are too long and complex

Finally, avoid contact forms that are too long and complex for your ad landing pages.

While paid ads are great for generating leads and increasing conversions, your efforts may go to waste if your landing page contact forms are too long, overly complex, and invasive in terms of privacy. Instead, keep your contact forms simple, concise, and avoid asking for too much personal information, as many people may be reluctant to give that out early on.

Leverage paid search best practices and strategies for success

By keeping these paid search best practices and strategies for grad schools in mind, you can better optimize your paid search campaigns for your grad school programs. Whatever your goals are, paid search can be a powerful tool when it comes to accomplishing them – if you do it well!

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | January 17th, 2024

Effective Grad School Email Marketing

Although social media has been all the rage over the past few years when it comes to marketing to prospective graduate school students, email remains a very cost-effective and reliable method for communicating with prospects. As with all forms of marketing, email marketing has changed a lot over the years, meaning that higher education institutions need to know the current best practices and strategies to ensure that they’re using it effectively for grad school email marketing.

So, let’s examine some email marketing tips for higher education institutions to help supercharge your marketing campaigns!

Segmentation and automation are key

When email marketing to prospects, be sure to segment your campaigns based on factors like funnel stage, anticipated start date, and persona match. This way, you can better tailor your messaging and content to the right audience simply and effectively. Using automation tools like HubSpot or Constant Contact is something else to keep in mind, allowing you to fully automate your campaigns so you can focus on strategy, creating content, and other more productive tasks as opposed to time-consuming manual work.

Personalization is a must in grad school email marketing

Likewise, personalization is key nowadays too.

A mass email addressed to prospects is unlikely to get their attention, but including the specific names of individual recipients in the subject line and body is a simple yet effective way to increase open rates and conversions. Similarly, including the signature of an actual staff member, such as the Dean or Director of Recruitment, can add an additional personalized touch to each email, creating a human connection with prospects.

Optimize for all devices

When email marketing first started in the 1990s, marketers only had to worry about how their emails looked on desktops. Today, the media landscape is much more diverse, with recipients regularly checking emails on their smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other devices.

To that end, make sure that your emails are fully optimized for all devices, especially mobile. This can be done with thorough testing to ensure that your content reaches its recipients visually represented like you wanted it to.

Ensure brand consistency in email marketing

Consistent branding and imagery is important when designing your emails so that the recipient can identify your institution quickly and easily. Including your logo, branding colors, and a consistent voice can build trust and a stronger connection with your prospects more effectively.

Convey engaging stories to your prospects

Finally, use email marketing as a storytelling medium to boost engagement with your prospects.

Email can be used to convey student and alumni success stories, testimonials, interviews, and other forms of content that focus on personal stories. Doing so is a great way to add a personalized, human touch to your program, boosting engagement and conversion rates in the process.

Use grad school email marketing to reach and engage prospects

Indeed, email marketing may not be new or flashy, but it’s a tried-and-true marketing channel that continues to pay off today – and for years to come. By using these grad school email marketing strategies and best practices, you’ll be able to better reach and engage prospects with valuable and useful content, boosting your recruitment efforts over the long term.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | December 28th, 2023

Improve your university’s brand awareness

The way higher education institutions market themselves to prospects has changed dramatically in a short amount of time. The rise of social media and the growing importance of content marketing, especially video marketing, has forced colleges to grapple with new ways to improve their university’s brand awareness and reach prospects effectively.

So, how should schools go about building brand awareness in a more complex and multifaceted digital world? The key is actually to embrace it. By using effective digital marketing strategies, you’ll be able to increase your brand awareness quickly and cost-effectively.

Let’s take a quick look at a few ways to do just that:

Create a detailed brand awareness strategy

First and foremost, don’t fly blind with your brand awareness strategy. Instead, draw up a detailed roadmap that includes timelines, metrics, types of content, and next steps to stay accountable and execute your strategy thoughtfully.

Be sure to conduct thorough research and develop detailed personas when crafting your brand awareness strategy too. It’s also a good idea to set measurable goals for content production, such as publishing two blog posts per week, and for metrics, such as increasing conversions by 50 percent within a year.

Create and share engaging and compelling content

Once you’ve done your research, created personas, and mapped out a detailed strategy, it’s time to start creating and sharing compelling content. This is at the crux of any successful brand awareness strategy.

Focus on creating engaging and useful content tailored to your target audience in the form of blog posts, eBooks, social media posts, email newsletters, videos, infographics, podcasts, and more. With a healthy mix of content published on a steady cadence, your institution can boost its inbound marketing and grow its brand awareness very effectively.

Focus on SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for building brand awareness over the long term.

You can boost your site’s SEO by blogging and creating quality content more frequently, targeting valuable keywords and topics with your content, optimizing your meta tags, building outbound links, and ensuring your site is fast, mobile-friendly, and free of any major technical errors. By consistently doing SEO, your institution’s website will climb higher in the search results, ultimately boosting your brand awareness.

Leverage social media channels

Social media marketing is critical for building brand awareness.

Strive to post on channels like X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok regularly and use relevant hashtags where appropriate. Content that works well on social media includes everything from blog posts to video testimonials to longform guides. Finally, don’t forget to actively engage with social media users rather than just post content. Answer questions, post polls, and in general try to engage with your target audience to humanize your school’s brand.

Use paid advertising effectively

Paid ads are another great way to build brand awareness, working alongside SEO to boost your content’s visibility.

Paid advertising on both search engines like Google and social media channels, particularly LinkedIn, can help you reach your audience very quickly and effectively and should be a key part of your brand awareness strategy. Another good idea is boosting content such as blog posts, videos, and longform guides on LinkedIn, which can greatly expand their reach to your target audience.

Improve your university’s brand awareness today

With a detailed strategy and engaging content, you can improve your university’s brand awareness today quickly and cost-effectively. Need a hand doing it? GPRS has the expertise and resources to increase your institution’s brand awareness so you can ultimately boost enrollments and revenue. Contact us today to find out more.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | December 14th, 2023

Higher Education Trends to Watch in 2024

Higher education is constantly changing, with each year ushering in new challenges – but also new opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath both sparked, as well as accelerated many notable trends. Following are higher education trends to watch in 2024 that are likely to impact undergraduate and graduate programs.

Institutions need to stay ahead of the curve and keep tabs on these fast-changing developments to ensure that their marketing and recruitment efforts remain effective. Here, we take a closer look at some of the higher education trends to watch in 2024 so that you can plan, and adapt, for success.

Online and hybrid classes

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the explosive growth of online and later hybrid learning virtually overnight. In the wake of the pandemic, these options remain popular among prospective students thanks to their flexibility.

When marketing your programs to prospects, be sure to highlight your modalities and the benefits. Doing so can position your institution as a place where students have the flexibility and freedom to learn on their own terms.

Rising costs present a challenge

It’s no secret that rising costs have put a damper on the public’s enthusiasm for higher education in recent years.

The solution? Stress the value that your programs offer to students over the long term. By shifting to this messaging in your marketing campaigns, you can help prospects understand that their continued education is an investment that can reap rewards for many years to come.

Upskilling and reskilling remain important

The Great Resignation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic saw millions of Americans rethink their careers and everyday lives to follow their passions and achieve better work-life balance and more meaningful, engaging careers.

Although the Great Resignation has largely ended in recent months, its impact on the mindset of both students and professionals remains. Not surprisingly, upskilling and reskilling has become very important and will likely remain so in 2024 and beyond. Higher education institutions should embrace this trend and highlight how undergraduate and graduate degree or certificate programs are an effective way to shift careers/industries, gain new marketable skills, and ultimately create a more fulfilling life.

The rise of AI

Talk about AI has been everywhere in 2023 and certainly will be in 2024 as well.

There’s no doubt that this powerful technology movement has instilled a lot of trepidation in people, including in higher education. However, it can also be harnessed and used to boost marketing, recruitment, and administrative efforts in many ways. For example, chatbots can give fast, personalized answers to prospects online while advanced analytics can help narrow down applications quickly, letting staff focus on more productive tasks.

Although AI technology is still in its infancy, its potential should be embraced by schools as a way to make life easier and simpler overall due to its many useful applications.

Stay ahead of the higher education trends to watch in 2024

These are just some of the key higher education trends to watch in 2024. However, by having a better understanding of what to expect, you can position your marketing and recruitment efforts for success well into the new year.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | November 30th, 2023

What you need to know about higher education content marketing

Content is king when it comes to promoting a university to a target audience – but just how do you go about higher education content marketing effectively?

By creating and distributing engaging and useful content tailored to your target audience, you can do everything from building brand awareness to boosting conversions to educating prospects about the key details of your programs. Ultimately, all of this can play a crucial role in increasing enrollment, but the trick is doing it effectively. As prospects are bombarded with content online, via social media, email, and other channels, creating content that really stands out and reaches them is imperative.

To that end, here are a few strategies and ideas for creating content that truly stands out and engages with your target audience!

Optimize your blog

Blogging is a crucial tool at your disposal for effective higher education content marketing. Topics could include your program’s history, campus culture, the benefits of enrolling, interviews with professors and alumni, and much more.

To optimize your blog, be sure to take search engine optimization (SEO) into account and conduct thorough keyword and topic research beforehand. Establishing a content calendar to publish content on a steady cadence is another good idea to stay accountable and keep tabs on key metrics like views, dwell time, and conversions.

Create valuable longform content

Longform content like eBooks, guides, and whitepapers are great for bringing more in-depth information to your target audience efficiently and effectively.

Topics for longform content could include campus life, your school’s local community, career options, and the like. Another advantage of longform content is that it’s easy to distribute via email or social media and can also be gated, making it useful for lead capturing.

Leverage case studies and testimonials

Case studies and testimonials from students and alumni are an excellent way to humanize your school’s programs and add a more personalized touch. By highlighting real-life examples of students and alumni, schools can help prospects imagine themselves in your program and boost the odds of their enrollment.

When creating case studies and testimonials, focus on the success stories of students and alumni profiled and relate them directly back to your program. Also, remember to share this content on social media and email to increase its reach to prospective students.

Create engaging videos

Given the popularity of social media channels like YouTube and TikTok and the changing nature of how content is consumed, video marketing has never been more important than right now.

Embrace this trend and leverage video marketing to its fullest potential. Some ideas include video case studies and testimonials, campus tours, interviews with faculty, campus events, and more. Keep in mind that shorter videos tend to convert at a higher rate and that sharing on social media is crucial.

Share useful infographics on social media

Finally, don’t overlook the power of infographics.

They’re a great way to communicate key information in a visual, simple, and engaging way. Before creating them, create an outline for each one that focuses on telling a relevant story, and be sure to make it visually appealing with the right colors and fonts. After creating an infographic, share it on social media channels like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram to ensure it reaches as wide an audience as possible.

Boost your higher education content marketing strategy today

The bottom line is that content marketing is crucial for promoting your school, and its programs. Interested in optimizing your content strategy? Contact GPRS today to leverage our resources and experience in this area.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | November 14th, 2023

Why Your Local Marketing Agency Won’t Help You Meet Your Higher Education Enrollment Goals

Your local marketing agency might seem like a tempting choice to fulfill your higher education enrollment goals, but is it the right fit? Let’s explore the reasons why relying on a local, generalist agency may not be the best strategy for your higher education institution.

Specialized Needs of Higher Education

The higher education enrollment landscape is unique, with distinct challenges and goals. Higher education marketing and recruitment require a deep understanding of the education sector. Generalist agencies might not possess the industry-specific knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of higher education marketing.

Complex Target Audiences

Reaching prospective students can be challenging. Higher education enrollment marketing often involves targeting specific personas, such as veterans, stay-at-home moms returning to the workforce, future entrepreneurs, career changers, and professionals seeking career advancement. Crafting messages that resonate with these diverse groups is a specialized skill that local agencies might lack.

Lead Generation Expertise

Successful higher education enrollment campaigns hinge on effective lead generation. Local agencies might lack the mastery of lead generation channels necessary to attract and nurture qualified leads for your programs.

Measurement and ROI Optimization

To ensure the best return on investment, you need robust measurement platforms and the ability to track results accurately. Some agencies might not have the capability to provide data-driven insights, which are vital for optimizing your marketing efforts.

The Cost of Experimentation

Higher education institutions can’t afford to gamble with their marketing budgets. The stakes are high, and you need a partner who can deliver results consistently. A local agency may not offer the level of certainty that higher education marketing demands.

Meet Your Higher Education Enrollment Goals

In higher education marketing, it’s not about locality; it’s about specialization. To navigate the unique challenges of higher education enrollment marketing and achieve your goals, seek a higher education marketing agency with industry expertise, lead generation proficiency, measurement capabilities, and a proven track record of success.

Don’t let a misguided choice jeopardize your institution’s future. Contact GPRS today to leverage our expertise for your institution!

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | October 31st, 2023

Grad school demand generation best practices and strategies

You’ve launched brand awareness and lead generation marketing campaigns in the past for your institution, but something still seems a bit off in your marketing strategy. Are you taking grad school demand generation best practices and strategies into account?

As graduate schools face an increasingly complex marketing landscape trying to reach, engage, and ultimately recruit prospective students, it’s important to take demand generation into account, not just traditional metrics like brand awareness and lead generation. Let’s examine what demand generation is and take a closer look at some demand strategies and best practices to keep in mind for your recruitment marketing campaigns.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a marketing strategy that educates and informs consumers about products and services with the ultimate goal of creating demand for them.

It’s similar to both brand awareness and lead generation, but differs in some key ways. While brand awareness focuses on establishing a brand’s presence and lead generation attracts prospects, demand generation centers on creating measurable demand. You might want to think of it as filling in the gap between brand awareness and lead generation, serving as a bridge to generate demand for products and services that consumers are aware of. Ultimately, using all three approaches for an integrated marketing strategy is typically your best bet for success.

Boosting grad school demand: Focus on the “why?”

At the core of demand generation is answering “why?”

Why should consumers buy a product, use a service or, in this case, attend your graduate school? To determine this, take a step back and ask some high-level questions about your institution itself. What are the main reasons why a prospect would want to attend? How would attending your institution advance the career of a prospect? What’s its history and culture?

Once you have the answers to these questions and can better articulate your value proposition to prospects, you’ll be in a better position to create demand generation content.

Create educational content that engages

Educational content to spark consumer demand is a key pillar of any demand generation strategy. Specifically, the content you produce should focus on conveying your value proposition clearly and concisely to educate consumers about your institution’s selling points and ultimately turn them into leads.

Many formats are effective at doing this, including blog posts, videos, case studies, landing pages, newsletters, and more. Be sure to also leverage email marketing and social media channels, especially LinkedIn, to distribute your educational content quickly and effectively to your target audience.

Personalizing communications is an important demand generation strategy

Personalized communications are another important demand generation strategy to keep in mind. Make sure that all of your email communications, newsletters, flyers, and other marketing collateral address prospects by their first name to create a more humanized, personal touch.

Create lead scoring models to boost grad school demand

Creating a lead scoring model can be an effective way to gauge where prospects are in your sales and marketing cycle and tailor the next phase of your messaging and marketing channels specifically to them. For demand generation specifically, they’re often a great way to measure the success of your efforts so far, gauge what’s working and what’s not, and craft a more personalized, bespoke form of messaging for individuals in your funnel.

Use these grad school demand generation best practices today for success

Understanding what demand generation is and some strategies to employ it can help supercharge your recruitment marketing efforts, filling in the missing link between brand awareness and lead generation.

Are you looking to boost your demand generation efforts and overall recruitment marketing strategy? Contact GPRS today to leverage our expertise for your institution!

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | October 19th, 2023

How Specialized Institutions Can Compete

Specialized colleges and graduate schools have a number of advantages, particularly when it comes to attracting and recruiting students in their unique niche. However, they’re often at a competitive disadvantage compared with other, better-known schools for a number of reasons. How can specialized institutions compete with all of these larger schools out there?

The good news is that gaining a competitive edge is easier than you might think. Let’s examine some of the challenges that smaller and more specialized schools face, some strategies for staying competitive, and how GPRS can potentially help.

The challenges facing specialized schools

Specialized institutions face a number of unique challenges when it comes to attracting and retaining students. Compared to larger and more well-known institutions, they often have limited brand awareness and name recognition. Compounding these issues is the fact that they often operate with smaller budgets compared to larger institutions, hampering their marketing and student recruitment efforts. In addition, their specialized focus leaves a smaller pool of prospective students compared to larger schools, meaning that they have to compete especially hard for every enrollment.

Taken all together, these issues make it difficult for specialized institutions to compete with larger schools and grow their enrollment. Fortunately, by implementing some innovative strategies and messaging, smaller institutions can gain a key competitive advantage.

How specialized institutions can compete with larger ones

Smaller, specialized schools need to be nimble and forward-thinking when it comes to staying competitive with larger academic institutions. Just a few ways to do that include:

Focusing on their unique story and selling points in their marketing campaigns and messaging. Conveying your institution’s unique history, culture, and specializations as a way to stand out against your larger competitors.
Taking pride in your institution’s smaller size and scope and sell its benefits to students. A few advantages typically include smaller class sizes, less bureaucracy, more innovative and flexible curriculums, greater collaboration, and a more personalized service.
Sharpening your marketing and messaging to prospective students with personalization. Making sure that all forms of communications – emails, text messages, phone messages, and the like – are addressed to them specifically.
Getting active on social media. While it’s true that larger institutions naturally have better name recognition and hence a larger following, posting engaging content consistently, interacting with prospective students, and telling your unique story on social media can be a great way to build brand awareness and increase engagement quickly and cost-effectively.
Personalizing your school’s story, mission, and achievements with student testimonials, alumni success stories, and even case studies of individual or small groups of alumni. This content can be produced in many different formats, including blogs, whitepapers, videos, landing pages, and more. It can also be repurposed into multiple formats and easily shared on social media, creating a virtuous cycle of greater brand awareness and engagement with your target audience.

How GPRS can help

At the end of the day, specialized schools often need a helping hand staying competitive with larger ones – and that’s exactly where a dedicated and experienced partner like GPRS comes in.

Since 2001, we’ve delivered enrollment results for schools of all sizes and specialties through our advanced marketing and recruiting expertise, unmatched experience, and extensive knowledge of the higher education recruitment industry. We leverage our deep knowledge of all facets of recruitment marketing to ensure that higher education institutions, no matter their size, meet the enrollment challenges of today with our array of professional services.

Want to learn more? Contact us today to see how our experience and expertise can help your specialized school overtake the goliaths.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | September 28th, 2023

How to Grow EMBA Program Enrollment

Executive MBA (EMBA) programs are a valuable way for working professionals to pursue an impactful, advanced degree. However, marketing to EMBA candidates is considerably different from trying to reach typical MBA candidates. The target audiences and core messaging are much different in each case, making things a bit more complicated.

So, how can grad schools reach candidates effectively and grow EMBA program enrollment? Here’s a quick look at a few strategies to do just that.

Invest in content marketing

Content is king when it comes to reaching your target audience – something especially true for EMBA candidates. As working professionals, they already lead busy day-to-day lives and require an effective content strategy to reach them.

To reach prospective EMBA candidates and convey the benefits of your institution, employ a variety of content marketing channels. Blog posts and landing pages can convey your value props in detail, while video testimonials and case studies from current and former EMBA students is a great way to humanize your school and its benefits.

Social media platforms, especially LinkedIn, are an excellent way to build brand awareness and engage with prospective EMBA students. LinkedIn paid ads in particular can boost brand awareness, generate leads, and deliver valuable content to your target audience cost-effectively and efficiently.

Create the right personas to grow EMBA program enrollment

It’s important to remember that the background of EMBA candidates differs substantially from traditional MBA candidates. When crafting your marketing strategy and messaging to your target audience, take a data-driven approach and create custom personas with this in mind. Remember that EMBA candidates are working professionals with considerable field experience already and different goals and pain points compared to traditional MBA candidates.

Similarly, make sure that you fully understand exactly who your target audience is and create custom messaging for them specifically. Undertake extensive research, hold interviews with current and former EMBA students, and take the time to fully understand the mindset of EMBA candidates and how you can best reach them.

Focus your messaging on benefits and value

When crafting your messaging to prospective EMBA students, focus on the benefits of an EMBA degree and convey the value of your school. As busy professionals, EMBA candidates need to know that their investment in an advanced degree will be worth their time. Position your school as the best place for career advancement and stress selling points like flexibility, networking opportunities, and leadership development.

Grow EMBA program enrollment today

EMBA programs are a great way for candidates to pursue an advanced degree, develop their skills, and build a lifelong network. If you’re looking to grow your EMBA program enrollment, GPRS is here to help. Contact us today to see what our experience and resources can do for you.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | September 14th, 2023

How Colleges Can Solve Undergrad Admissions Challenges

It’s no secret that colleges face a number of challenges when it comes to attracting undergrads in the future. The much-discussed “demographic cliff” will shrink the pool of potential freshmen as soon as 2025, and at the same time, many parents are now questioning if college has the best return on investment (ROI) given its rising costs and the rapidly changing nature of the country’s economy. So how can colleges solve undergrad admissions challenges?

Fortunately, all hope is not lost. In fact, colleges all around the country can use these admissions challenges as opportunities to reinvent themselves and prepare for the future. Here’s how colleges can tackle the undergrad admissions challenges head-on and adopt the strategies they need to succeed in the future.

Undergrad Admissions Challenge: Facing the demographic cliff

Sometimes called the enrollment cliff, the demographic cliff facing colleges in the near future has been the source of much hand-wringing, but just what is it exactly? It refers to the potential 10-15% enrollment drop facing colleges due to the shrinking population of 18-year-olds beginning around 2025. This is largely due to the demographic impact of the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 and its aftermath, which caused many families to have fewer children or put off having them entirely. In the subsequent years, birth rates have failed to increase, leaving fewer college-aged students in the coming years.

Although colleges can’t alter demography, of course, they can take proactive steps to prepare for the upcoming enrollment cliff and minimize its impact. Some of these include:

Making the application process simpler and more streamlined by switching to a test-blind or test-optional admissions process.
Placing additional recruitment marketing efforts on students who attended college in the past but never graduated with a degree. These non-traditional students represent an attractive opportunity to help bolster enrollment.
Crafting messaging toward prospective adult students looking to reskill, change careers, or adapt to economic changes like the rise of AI.
Employing personalized marketing campaigns toward prospective students, with tailored emails, text messages, and other forms of communication.
Shifting your marketing strategy and messaging to engage students earlier, focusing on the benefits of attending college, and ensuring they’re getting the information they need quickly and easily.

Undergrad Admissions Challenge: Addressing the ROI question

At the same time colleges are facing demographic challenges, many families are flat-out questioning if college is worth it given rising costs and the fast-changing nature and unpredictability of the economy.

Although this is another undergrad admissions challenge that colleges need to address, prospective undergraduates and their families can be assuaged with the right messaging and information. When marketing to them, focus on conveying the value that a college degree offers. Statistics consistently show that college graduates on average make $1.2 million in lifetime earnings more compared to those without a degree – make sure your prospects know this figure!

In addition to this, emphasize the transferable skills, higher social capital, increased employment opportunities, and access to jobs with better benefits that college graduates are able to obtain. By conveying value and long-term opportunities, your messaging and marketing can help calm families understandably skittish about rising college costs and lingering student loan debt.

Prepare for the future today

Colleges are at a crossroads. Despite the looming challenges facing undergraduate enrollment in the future, taking proactive steps and adopting new and innovative strategies can help future-proof your organization. Need help in preparing for the future and addressing these challenges head-on? GPRS has the experience and expertise you need. Contact us today for more information.