Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | April 17th, 2024

Top Graduate School Myths in 2024

Higher education, including graduate schools, sometimes gets a bad rap. All too often, prospective students assume graduate school isn’t for them because of some persistent myths and skepticism about higher education. However, higher education institutions can dispel these graduate school myths by communicating their value to prospects clearly and effectively.

Here are three common myths that grad schools should address with their marketing content to put prospects’ minds at ease.

1. Grad schools aren’t worth the investment

One of the biggest misconceptions about grad schools (and higher education in general) nowadays is that it isn’t worth the investment.

On the contrary, obtaining a Master’s Degree translates into $3.2 million in lifetime earnings compared to $2.8 million in lifetime earnings for a Bachelor’s Degree holder. MBA graduates from the top 50 business schools in the United States, more specifically, will see a staggering $5.7 million in lifetime earnings.

Clearly, obtaining a graduate-level degree is worth the investment. To counter the myth that grad schools aren’t worth students’ time and money, higher education institutions should focus their marketing messaging and content around the value that an advanced degree brings to help prospects see that their hard work and financial investment in grad school is worth it.

2. Grad school is unaffordable

While it’s true that graduate school isn’t cheap, many financial aid resources exist to help students pay for the cost.

Loans, grants, scholarships, and academic fellowships are readily available to help students lower their tuition and overall grad school costs. In some cases, grad programs at certain institutions are fully funded, meaning that students graduate essentially debt-free. Plus, it’s important to remember that graduate degree recipients enjoy higher lifetime earnings compared to those without them, meaning that even though their initial upfront investment may be higher, the long-term financial payoff is worth it.

For graduate schools like yours, it’s important to communicate these financial resources in your marketing materials as a way to entice prospective students and convey that, even though the upfront costs may seem intimidating, financial help is available in many forms.

3. A full-time job makes it impossible to attend graduate school

Finally, another graduate school myth worth dispelling is that having a full-time job makes it virtually impossible to attend school at the same time.

This myth lies in the common misconception that graduate school is the same as college when it comes to time investment. However, the truth is that the vast majority of graduate schools tailor their programs with working professionals already in mind. That means that classes are more sporadic, often meeting just once or twice a week, and typically in the evening hours or on weekends to accommodate working professionals. In addition, many grad schools have increasingly adopted hybrid and remote options in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, offering even more flexibility for grad school students.

To boost enrollment, it’s important for grad schools to bust this myth in particular. Marketing content in the form of blog posts, landing pages, social media posts, email communications, infographics, videos, and more are all ways to convey the flexibility and student-friendly options that current grad school programs offer.

Convey value to prospects to debunk graduate school myths

While it’s no secret that higher education, including grad schools, has faced strong headwinds due to factors like rising costs and alternative career options for prospects, their future is still bright. By working to dispel these common graduate school myths, schools can position their marketing campaigns for success and stand a better chance of converting prospects into students.

Looking to boost your conversions and optimize your marketing efforts? Contact GPRS today to find out how we can help.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | March 26th, 2024

How to Grow Enrollment in Your Specialized MBA Program

Specialized MBA programs remain a popular option for graduate school students, but growing enrollment can be difficult. It’s no secret that competition for prospects is fierce and finding the right recruits can be tricky, so higher education institutions need to implement the right strategies and best practices to grow enrollment in your specialized MBA program.

Here, we’ll take a closer look at some of them to help you boost your enrollment. With these strategies, your institution can leverage tried-and-true ways to help attract and retain the right graduate school prospects for years to come.

Take a digital-first approach to marketing

When it comes to marketing, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve.

Many higher education institutions still don’t utilize digital marketing and advertising to their full potential. Make sure that your institution fully embraces digital marketing, including various social media channels to attract and engage with prospects, personalized email communications, a frequently-updated blog, and paid search and social ads targeted specifically to your audience.

Emphasize all of your flexible learning options that are available

These days, specialized MBA prospects value flexibility and choice. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic made online and hybrid learning the norm in many ways for students nowadays. Embrace this change by highlighting any flexible and remote learning options your program offers in your marketing content, as it can pay dividends over the long-term.

Create detailed personas

Data-driven, detailed personas can play a key role in your marketing efforts too.

As specialized MBA prospects differ from traditional graduate students in a number of ways, understanding their specific demographics, pain points, and goals is crucial. To that end, creating personas can help you craft the right marketing materials for your audience. This can be done by carefully analyzing your current student database and conducting surveys and focus groups to obtain the data you need before creating in-depth personas tailored to your specialized MBA audience for your marketing campaigns.

Stress the value of a specialized MBA

It’s also a good idea to emphasize the value of a specialized MBA from your institution.

Stress that a specialized MBA is worth a prospect’s time and money as an investment in their future. This can be done by leveraging data available on statistics like lifetime earnings, job prospects after graduation, career satisfaction, and the like in your marketing content.

Data-driven infographics and short-form videos work especially well in this regard since they convey large amounts of data in a visual and engaging way, though longer, more in-depth content like blog posts can also work. Whatever marketing channel you choose, be sure to demonstrate the value of your program to prospects clearly, concisely, and effectively for maximum impact.

Humanize your marketing with student testimonials and alumni success stories

Finally, humanizing your marketing with testimonials and success stories can help create better engagement and personalization with your prospects, boosting conversions.

This is a great way to tell a story and communicate the value of your specialized MBA programs in a unique way that helps connect prospects with their peers in your programs. Blog posts are a good marketing channel for these, but the most effective way is generally through video marketing. Videos can easily be distributed via social media, email newsletters, your website, and even paid ads, greatly amplifying their reach to your target audience.

Grow enrollment in your Specialized MBA today for success tomorrow

Specialized MBA programs face tough competition for students, but with these tested strategies, you can successfully grow enrollment. When implemented, they can help supercharge your marketing funnel and bring in a steady stream of prospects over the long run.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | February 27th, 2024

What Do Grad Students Want in 2024?

As 2024 dawns, higher education institutions all across the country are hard at work preparing for the next wave of graduate school students with marketing and recruitment efforts. But what do grad students really want in 2024?

In order to recruit and retain the next class of students in 2024 and beyond, it’s important to have a strong grasp of their pain points, needs, concerns, values, and goals to successfully produce the marketing materials needed to connect with them. Here, we’ll take a more detailed look at what prospective graduate school students really want so you can better craft content and messaging that connects with them.

Flexible courses

The COVID-19 pandemic made virtual and hybrid learning commonplace for students. Even though the pandemic has receded and virtual learning largely with it, today’s graduate school prospects still value flexibility. To that end, make sure that your programs offer online and hybrid class options and that this is effectively communicated via your marketing to show you know what grad students want in 2024.

A commitment to inclusion

Prospective students today value diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) more than ever. To attract them in 2024 and beyond, recommit to DEI initiatives at your institution, build diversity into your marketing efforts, and make sure that your prospects know about them through social media, email, blogging, and other marketing channels.

An eye on the future economy

Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders.

That means your institution needs to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to offering courses and classes relevant to the emerging economy. Make sure that you’re incorporating new trends like AI, robotics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, digital media, green energy, and the like into your curriculum, and communicate this to your prospects in your marketing materials.

Mental health support

Prospective students take mental health seriously. Don’t discount this – invest in mental health professionals at your institution and ensure that your students know that you value mental health as well.

Career readiness

Finally, emphasize career readiness at your institution too, not just gaining an advanced degree in and of itself.

All too often, graduate school students feel unprepared for the job market after graduating. However, your institution can make a difference for them through networking opportunities, job interview advice, internships, hands-on training, and other activities to maximize their employability after graduating.

Know what grad students want in 2024 to attract and retain students

The nature of prospective graduate school students is changing – will your institution change along with it?

By having a stronger grasp of how to connect with prospective students, you can tailor your content, marketing channels, and messaging to them more effectively. In turn, this can lead to improved recruitment and retention in 2024 and beyond despite a more challenging and complex educational landscape.

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 | 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 15th, 2022

Take pressure off your marketing and admissions teams

If your marketing and admissions teams are currently trying to do more with less budget, staff, and time, you are not alone. Many schools right now are facing budget cuts and resourcing issues that can make it difficult to create and maintain enrollment momentum. Taking pressure off your marketing and admissions teams could be the answer.

A lot has changed (and continues to change) for the teams responsible for enrollment over the last couple of years. Some of your staff may still be working remotely. Your recruiting team may be smaller with more work to do. Your marketing budget may be lower than in previous years. Even if your entire staff isn’t waving the white flag, it’s likely that you are feeling the strains of a post-pandemic environment where there is still a bit of uncertainty and constant change.

If you’re struggling to create new leads, keep up with your funnel or strategize new innovative ways to do more with less, we have some ideas to help. By working with an experienced digital agency like GPRS, you will benefit from our over 20 years of experience in helping higher ed institutions just like yours.

Recruiting assistance

Many schools are starting to realize that depending solely on traditional recruitment methods to meet the 24/7 demands of today’s prospects is unrealistic. To connect with prospects on their terms, and within their timeframe, you need more scale. This is where a centralized contact center can become your support system. At GPRS, we can provide inbound or outbound support that is in alignment with your brand. We can also help pre-qualify leads so your staff can be more effective with their time.

Email nurture campaigns through your CRM

Although personal follow-up is extremely valuable, communicating individually with every prospect can eat away at your recruiting team’s time. When you create nurture campaigns that send automated emails through your CRM, you are ensuring a continuous flow of valuable information so you can stay top-of-mind with prospects while also relieving the pressure on your team. There are several ways you can create an email campaign that works for your team, starting with the segmentation of your audience and a targeted build of information with an automated schedule. By doing the work upfront, you can create an “easy button” for communicating with prospects and reduce the stress on your team to be constantly available.

Get strategic help from a qualified firm

Industry and strategic enrollment experience, mastery of lead generation, and technical measurement platforms for optimization and ROI tracking are some of the most important factors you should consider when hiring a firm to support your recruiting and marketing teams. If you’re looking for a firm that has higher ed strategic experience, can prove their results, and has worked with your peers, GPRS can be a great partner to help you.

If you need help taking the pressure off your marketing and admissions teams, GPRS can be an extension of your recruiting and marketing staff. We can assess your needs, fill the gaps and find ways to bolster your team so they can do what they do best – find and connect with students. We have worked with over 60 schools nationwide, and have insights into digital marketing strategies and how to leverage your school’s unique selling points to enhance communications with prospects. Contact us today to start the conversation.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | October 27th, 2022

Why employment data matters in your marketing

In a recent survey conducted by GMAC, it was reported that 86 percent of 2022 U.S. business school students were employed immediately after graduation, which is up from 80 percent the previous year. This rising employment rate for graduates is promising for higher education as a whole, even as we enter a recession because it showcases the sustained value of the skillsets a business degree offers.

In addition to employment data, it was also reported that for students seeking a career change or promotion as part of their degree plan, a majority (57 percent) achieved this goal post graduation. So what does this mean for business and graduate program marketing? In addition to a closer focus on career data, schools can also highlight their career coaching and placement services, student testimonials, and corporate partnerships.

Here are a few ways your program can amplify its messaging surrounding employment and career data to help you stand out from the competition.

Showcasing promotion and career advancement

Whether prospects are looking to move up the corporate ladder, or they’re looking to switch industries all together, they may see an MBA as the key that can open the door to their next career move. Finding a way to position your program as a trusted partner along the journey to a rewarding promotion or management role is critical. You can showcase the value of your program through the lens of career growth by sharing alumni testimonials, including promotion data, and reinforcing how a broadened perspective can help students speak the language of business.

Career Services

Allowing your students the opportunities to explore career options while in school and ultimately set goals that are the right fit for them requires coaching and guidance. If your school offers career services, now is the time to highlight the process so it can help prospects understand how you’ll help them compete in the business world and forge their unique path.

Consider pulling together data for the past 2-3 years that showcase the industries, firms, and titles of students hired from your school. You can include metrics such as internships, job offers post-graduation, salary, firms, locations, and job types. This gives a well-rounded view of the results of your program as it relates to the end goal – a job that will provide a solid return on investment and pay dividends for the future.

In addition, try highlighting other key aspects of your career services including corporate partners, leadership development, and even employer and alumni profiles to highlight success stories.

If you need help determining how well your marketing plan covers the career and employment aspects of your program, GPRS can help. We have worked with over 120 schools and have insights into digital marketing strategies and how to leverage your school’s unique selling points to enhance communications with prospects. Contact us today to start the conversation.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | October 18th, 2022

How well is your website equipped for helping your school meet enrollment goals?

Your website is your number one vehicle of communication with prospective students. It’s the first place they land when starting their research and it’s the last stop on their journey toward creating and submitting an application. Although there are many other touchpoints throughout the admissions process — personal conversations, campus tours, events, etc. — your website is the key to communicating your brand and helping you meet enrollment goals. As a result, it’s important to treat your site as a critical team member and make sure it has all of the resources it needs to accomplish the task at hand — landing your next seated class.

Within your website, the active enrollment pages that contribute to your prospects’ decision making-processes need to be top performers. Here we will examine the ways that you can evaluate and optimize them (at least on a monthly basis) so they can help you achieve your goals.

Engagement

The true test of how well a page is performing is related to user engagement. The longer a prospect stays on your page, the better because this means they are engaging with the content. In addition, you’ll want to track how many (and which) links they click on and their scroll rate if your analytics allow it. Some platforms even give you the ability to apply a heat map to a page so you can see which areas, sections, and menus are the most used.

Another test of engagement is bounce rate which is defined as the percentage of people that visit your page without taking an action or entering your site and then immediately leave. Often this is measured on the site’s main entry points like the home page or admissions page, however, you can also track your pages that are intended to spur action. If you see a high bounce rate, for example, on your application page, it could signal that people need more information from the previous page before making that decision.

Traffic

Traffic to your site can be deceiving. In addition to ensuring that your reporting dashboards are set up to capture accurate information, you always want to evaluate the data you receive in the context of your marketing campaigns, your spending, your recent optimizations, and market trends.

Daily, you’ll want to capture page views so that you can view your trend line over weeks and months and also capture any spikes that may be related to campaigns. Be sure that you’re examining your total page views, unique visitors, and new visitors. You’ll also want to review the data on how people came to your site – organically (through search-optimized content), or through paid media, email campaigns, digital marketing, referrals, or direct links.

Functionality

Just like you might tidy up your house before inviting your friends over for a dinner party, the same applies to your website. Although this may seem obvious, it’s not always a step that schools take before launching a large campaign or creating an email flow that links to your site. It’s a good practice to review your site’s functionality reports at least monthly to ensure there aren’t major 404 errors or problems with load time that could be easily fixed by cleaning up backlinks or reducing photo sizes.

If you need help determining how well your website is optimized to help you meet enrollment goals, or need assistance with SEO, GPRS can help. We have worked with over 60 colleges and universities and have insights into site functionality and how to leverage your site’s data and analytics to ensure peak performance. Contact us today to start the conversation.

Insights from the Higher Ed Experts

BY Anthony Campisi | September 29th, 2022

Leveraging storytelling to enhance your school’s digital online presence

Lately, it may seem as if the term “storytelling” is everywhere. Influencers are using it to showcase their glamorous lives while selling products, and brands are using it to create a connection with potential customers. So how can your school make the most of this marketing tactic to boost your content’s value?

In a recent blog post, we discussed using your school’s blog to tell your story and increase traffic. Here, we’ll dive into why storytelling is relevant in higher education and different ways to use it (beyond your blog) to highlight your school’s key differentiators.

Defining storytelling

Storytelling in marketing quite simply means developing a deeper connection with your audience. A recent Forbes article outlines three reasons that marketers should prioritize storytelling:

Stories unite humans through authenticity and relatability.
Storytelling is a powerful tool that enables brands to teach and prospects to learn through shared experiences.
Stories can cut through the clutter and engage consumers in a fragmented world.

When you are considering utilizing this method, you can think of it as using stories to help prospects see themselves at your school while connecting their personal and professional journey to your program’s offerings.

Who can be a storyteller?

When creating your strategy, be sure to select the right representatives of your brand so they can accurately convey your key messages. Although anyone can be a storyteller, it’s important to lean on your marketing and admissions department to identify what stories need to be told and by whom. Your greatest impact can be found with authentic, original content that conveys realistic perspectives and often vulnerability.

Here are a few methods to incorporate storytelling into your marketing strategy:

Student stories – these can either be formal write-ups or pieces of content created directly by students discussing what it’s like to participate in classes and clubs and be part of your school’s community.
Faculty stories – these can chronicle a class project, discuss recent research or highlight a philanthropic venture.
Alumni stories – these can showcase success stories as told by alumni themselves.
Other content creators – try tapping your admissions or marketing team members to create stories as they are likely in tune with what prospects are looking for.

How to showcase your stories

Regardless of what story you’re telling, or who you’re using to communicate your key messages, there are multiple ways to showcase your final product. You can post them on your website, utilize them in social media or include them on your blog. You can also include snippets in email campaigns and marketing materials. Additionally, don’t forget about the value of video storytelling for its emotional connection and relatability.

If you need help determining how to create rich content and utilize stories to enhance your school’s online presence, GPRS can help. We have worked with over 60 graduate schools and have insights into program branding and how competitive schools are using digital advertising to position themselves in the market. Contact us today to start the conversation.