Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | August 30th, 2023

Proven Graduate School Engagement Tactics

The competition for graduate school program and MBA recruits has always been tough. Many times, higher education institutions focus on building awareness and generating leads first and foremost – and rightfully so. However, there’s more to it than just that if you want to convert these leads into actual graduate students. Our proven graduate school engagement tactics can help.

Generating inquiries is key, but keeping leads engaged and interested is even more important. By failing to do this, your marketing funnel campaigns will fall flat, with very few leads ultimately becoming students. However, many prospect engagement strategies exist to keep your grad school and MBA programs front and center, boosting the chances that they’ll stay interested and ultimately convert. Let’s take a look at some proven graduate school engagement tactics.

Focusing on value is one of the proven graduate school engagement tactics

First and foremost, prioritize bringing valuable content to your target audience. By showing your program’s value with engaging and informative content, you can better convey your unique value props to prospects and keep them interested. This can be done in a number of ways, including blog posts, whitepapers, social media, videos, infographics, and more.

That being said, it’s important to focus not just on your own program, but the benefits for your prospective students. How will your programs help change the trajectory of their careers? Will they make connections? What will be their long-term benefits financially? By answering these questions in your content, you can convey value and entice your prospects to learn more.

Interact on social media to engage with graduate prospects

Engaging with prospects on social media is another crucial strategy to use. Sure, social media is a great way to bring valuable content to your audience quickly and efficiently, but don’t forget to engage and interact with them too!

Answer their questions and comments, hold Q&A sessions, conduct polls, and try to interact as much as possible with your audience as opposed to just posting content. This way, you can convey a more human touch and improve engagement with your prospects in real time.

Personalize your marketing efforts to engage your audience

Personalization is key in marketing today, but all too often, some higher education institutions may forget this. Generic content to a mass audience just doesn’t cut it anymore – instead, personalize your email marketing campaigns, newsletters, direct mailers, and as many other forms of communication as possible to let your prospects know you understand them on a more personal level.

Understanding your audience is another one of the proven graduate school engagement tactics

Finally, make sure you understand your prospects so you can better craft your messaging to them. Conduct polls and focus groups, research extensively, and talk to them on a one-on-one basis in order to ascertain their pain points, goals, challenges, and other views in order to tell your story and serve them the most engaging and valuable content possible.

Improve prospect engagement today

Boosting engagement with prospects can seem difficult, but with these proven graduate school engagement tactics, you stand a much better chance at success. If you need help building a pipeline of leads and prospects for your grad school and MBA programs, contact GPRS today to see how you can leverage our experience and expertise as trusted higher education marketing experts.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | January 30th, 2019

How EMBA Prospects Choose Their Future Programs

The decision-making process for a prospect to enroll in an Executive MBA program is painfully long. Statistics show that this process can take up to two years. So what can you do to speed up the process? Develop — and implement — a pull-through digital enrollment marketing strategy.

Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is a key component of any successful marketing strategy, online or offline. Don’t throw a wide net; targeting will produce better results. Why? Because you will be delivering relevant content. If you bid on keywords that are too broad, you may be wasting your online advertising dollars. To promote a Healthcare EMBA program, for instance, both the keywords and the ad messaging must be specific. Otherwise, you may receive a great number of leads but not quality leads. Quality leads are more engaged in your EMBA program and, therefore, more likely to commit sooner.

Timing

Timing is everything. While you want your online ads to appear prior to your program deadlines, you also want prospects to see them at key stages in their decision-making process. Keep in mind that, although these two timelines may intersect at certain points, the overlap may be minimal. That’s why you should schedule ads throughout the calendar year, not just based on the academic calendar.

So what are some of the stages that prospects will go through on their path to enrolling? Here are a few common stages:

Considering an EMBA
Deciding what type of EMBA program
Seeking information
Applying
Enrolling

Reasons Why a Prospect Stalls

Just because you get a prospect into the funnel, that doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing. Bottlenecks can pop up anywhere:

Cost of the program
Concerns regarding work-life balance
Questioning ROI of EMBA degree

Offering Incentives

Your program positioning and digital marketing strategy must address and overcome these and other obstacles. You can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by offering incentives for early enrollment.

First, financial incentives will help to bring down the overall cost of an EMBA. Second, incentives can help shorten the decision-making process.

What kinds of incentives can you offer? That depends on your program’s pricing and operations budget. Some programs offer scholarships, waive application or GMAT fees (some programs waive the GMAT altogether), or pay for textbooks. Other programs offer incentives to specific groups, such as military veterans.

If you find that work-life balance is an issue for prospects, take a look at your program format. EMBA programs must be willing to rethink traditional models in order to appeal to professionals with limited bandwidth. Programs with flexible scheduling will have an advantage over those with rigid formats and may prompt commitments earlier in the decision-making process.

Your digital marketing strategy must demonstrate program ROI. How? Include testimonials on ROI from current students and alumni. If favorable, compare your tuition to that of other EMBA programs. Survey your alumni to find out how they moved up the career ladder (and how quickly) and how much their salaries increased post-graduation. Collect stats, and then use them to your advantage.

Digital enrollment marketing is more than just “setting and forgetting” a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign. Your strategy should be made up of many components: keyword optimization, banner and search ads, landing pages, search engine optimized (SEO) web content, social media advertising, retargeting campaigns and more. Your online campaign also should be consistent in visuals and messaging with offline marketing.

Don’t forget to monitor your campaigns. Tracking results will reveal which components worked best, and which fell flat. Then tweak your campaigns for optimal results.

A coordinated, consistent, ongoing marketing effort will produce the best results and, ultimately, shorten the prospect’s decision-making timeline.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | December 12th, 2018

How to Make Your EMBA Program Stand Out

Many words come to mind when describing an Executive MBA program:

Transformational
Experiential
Leadership
Elite
Incomparable
Potential
Advancement

Do these words describe your Executive MBA program? It’s likely they do, and they can also be used to describe most EMBA programs. Herein lies the problem. Most EMBA programs look and sound the same. How is a prospective student expected to distinguish between your program and that of your competitors?

What is your unique selling proposition?

Let’s start with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP is the reason why you are better than the competition. It can include things like price, values, and curriculum. Think of your EMBA program as a product. What is your unique selling proposition (USP)?

What is your USP?

Exceptional ROI. Is your EMBA program the least expensive in your city? region? state? the nation?
Fabulous faculty. Are your faculty members noted for their research or publications? Have they received awards? Do they have industry experience? Students want to learn from those who’ve “been in the trenches,” so to speak.
Innovative curriculum. Most EMBA programs cover business fundamentals. But what types of electives are available? Do you offer specializations in or tracks according to areas of interest?
Impressive cohort. Is the caliber of your cohorts head and shoulders above the rest? EMBA students learn from each other as well as from their professors. This could be a big selling point.
Brand equity. Is your program ranked? Does it have exclusive accreditation? Is it part of a business school that is ranked or widely acclaimed? Is it part of a prestigious college or university? It’s OK to piggyback on the brand of your parent organization.
Program format. Many schools tailor their program schedules to meet the needs of working professionals. Is there anything about your program that is especially flexible? Do you offer a hybrid of learning environments or formats?
Leadership development. Do you go above and beyond basic executive coaching? Do you go the extra mile when it comes to careers and placements? Do you take leadership development to the next level? What about executive education?
Global reach. Does your EMBA program have an international component? If so, how does it differ from all the rest?
Alumni network. This extends the value of your program beyond graduation. Where are your alumni now? We’re talking both geographically and in terms of positions at their respective companies. You might just find a trend to capitalize on, such as a track record of success in a particular industry.
Another way you can distinguish yourself is through your Think about foregoing the traditional students-in-classroom imagery and use an image totally unrelated to academia. This will make your ads eye-catching, which is the first goal of any ad. Your messaging, however, will still resonate with your audience.

If you’ve read the above bullet points and still are scratching your head over how your EMBA program stands out, this could be a wake-up call. Perhaps you need to revisit one or more elements and adjust them to make your program more enticing to prospective students.