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Strategies for Growing Graduate Student Enrollment – A Higher Education Marketing Agency Perspective
Elliance, a higher education enrollment marketing agency, has built a reputation by both increasing and significantly growing graduate student enrollment for more than 50 colleges and universities. Following are some of the most successful strategies that our university clients have activated to unleash enrollment growth in the past two decades: 1. Invest in branding. In the sea of sameness, brands win. When the University of Delaware College of Business and Economics wished to create a rising tide for its vast portfolio of graduate business programs, Elliance crafted and paid off their new brand line “Opportunity, Inc.” It worked and attracted students from across the region, nation and the globe. 2. Bake research about student behavior and what they value into website, microsites, landing pages and ad creative. When we reflected GMAC research findings into Carnegie Mellon’s MS in information systems management program microsite and ad creative, its applications grew by 118 percent within one year. 3. Tell a better story. … Continue reading
Posted in: Enrollment Marketing, Recruiting graduate students
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Elliance, a higher education enrollment marketing agency, has increased and significantly grown graduate student enrollment for more than 50 colleges and universities. Founded on the principle of right-fit matchmaking, our recommended strategies revolve around four core beliefs. First, if they can’t find you, they can’t buy you. Second, if they do find you, you can’t bore them into buying from you. Third, the students must be able to see themselves at your institution. Fourth, you must pursue right-fit students at all cost. All our recommended actions revolve around these core beliefs: 1. Know that you become the story you choose to tell. It’s how institutions make meaning from the arc of their history, and operate with a sense of destiny to create purpose that propels them into the future. This story is what students and employers buy into. You must articulate your story so it’ll appeal to your right-fit students. 2. Celebrate students, not the institution, as the real heroes of your … Continue reading
Posted in: Recruiting graduate students
To combat shrinkage in college-bound high school students, higher education enrollment marketing professionals are developing strategies for winning an outsized share of the online, adult, graduate and international student markets. In other blog posts, I’ve shared our playbooks for increasing and significantly growing adult, graduate and international students enrollment. In this blog post, I’ll address strategies for recruiting online students. In growing enrollment for online programs for the past 25 years for numerous colleges and universities, we have learned three things: First, students can’t buy your programs or buy-into your college unless they can find you on Google page one or are referred by satisfied peers and friends; Second, you must build student support and flexibility into every aspect of your online offerings; Third, someone on your team must play the role of chief experience officer who views the entire student experience from their perspective. To succeed, higher education institutions must deploy a unique balance of the marketing air-game, boots-on-the-ground game and follow-up contact strategies. … Continue reading
As a leading social media agency for colleges, universities and higher education institutions, we are frequently asked to share our best practices. This is part of a series of posts to explain how social media audit can serve their interests. A social media audit involves a comprehensive review of a higher education brand’s primary social media presence, activities, and performance. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of the current strategy and identify areas for improvement. This typically includes social media channels of the institution, schools, departments, alumni and centers of excellence. It excludes social media channels of athletics, labs, clubs and organizations, special events, and special initiatives. After gaining access to institution’s social media management software, we conduct a twelve-point social media audit to assess the following: 1. Profile Information AuditAssess all official social media profiles to ensure accurate and consistent information is presented, including logos and colors, profile pictures, cover photos, about information, and contact details. 2. Platform … Continue reading
Posted in: social media audit, social media strategy
The most effective college enrollment marketing strategy is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a set of techniques college marketers employ to secure page one rankings on Google, Bing, and other search engines. Choosing the right set of keywords and creating content infused with those keywords is how college marketers achieve coveted page one rankings for their programs and schools. Elliance works with higher education marketers to not only map the right set of keywords across the prospective student journey, but also to optimize their website and social media to secure Google page one rankings for those keywords. We undertake this task regardless of whether the objective is to increase enrollment for undergraduate, graduate, online, adult, or international students. To make a college decision, prospective students and their families move through a logical set of steps. At each stage of their journey, students and families use a unique set of keywords on Google and Bing to search for information. AWARENESS … Continue reading
Today, more than any other marketing touch point, a website is the digital soul of an institution. All roads lead to it. As a leading website design agency for colleges and universities, higher education institutions frequently come to us to perform website audit so they can develop a plan to improve it. These are the ten dimensions of our website audit: 1. Brand AuditFirst and foremost, we ensure that your brand essence and brand values are infused into the entire website experience. We evaluate consistent application of brand identity, color and typography. 2. User Experience AuditUser experience is important to both human beings and search engine bots. Great websites are intuitive, easy to use, readable and engender trust. Their persistent navigation and prominent calls-to-action systems put the users in control. The Sitemap (org structure) and Wireframes (page schematics) – not just design and copy – create a logical content hierarchy and make a compelling argument. Balancing logic and emotion, stories and facts, they … Continue reading
Posted in: higher education web design
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the greatest equalizer amongst higher education marketing tactics. Using smarts, underdogs become wonder dogs and Davids defeat Goliaths. All our college and university clients have ambitions for increasing and growing their undergraduate, graduate, adult, online and international students. Following are a sampling of seven success stories of our SEO clients: 1. Underdog Wins: William Woods University Located in mid-Missouri, two hours from Saint Louis and three from Kansas City, William Woods boasts a combination of me-too and distinctive programs. Just by dominating Google page one in all four corners of Missouri for its commodity programs, we doubled their online enrollment and grew their graduate enrollment by 25 percent over a 3-year period. For its distinctive equestrian science and ASL programs, we secured national Google page one rankings which began attracting students from across the US. They never looked back. 2. Small Giant Leaps: St. Edward’s University Located in eclectic Austin, Texas, surrounded by big publics, … Continue reading
With strained budgets, weakened endowments and the anticipated demographic cliff the college bound undergraduates are beginning to shrink. Colleges are developing strategies for winning an outsized share of a shrinking undergraduate market. Our higher education marketing and enrollment clients have started asking us to prepare a playbook for successfully recruiting and growing undergraduate student enrollment. In increasing enrollment for undergraduate programs for the past 25 years for numerous colleges and universities, we have learned two things: First, students can’t buy your programs or buy-into your university unless they can find you; Second, you can’t bore students into enrolling in your university. To succeed, universities must invest in first impressions, and deploy a unique balance of the marketing air-game, boots-on-the-ground game and follow-up contact strategies. ASSESS THE SITUATION Appraise the college’s situation by immersing yourself in the college data and touch points: Asses your brand. Are you a local brand, regional brand, state brand, super-regional brand or a national brand. Your … Continue reading
In the past 30 years, Elliance has deployed SEO strategies for more than 100 colleges, universities and higher education institutions in service of growing their enrollment, endowment and reputation. Why have we insisted on recommending SEO to our higher education marketing clients? For two reasons. First, because Google/Bing page 1 is destiny. Trusted page one organic rankings and high visibility for your social media content equate to owning the world’s hottest real estate. 90% of users never go beyond page 1 of search results. Organic rankings (i.e. the top 10 natural search results) are clicked 9-folds more, trusted more, and convert three-folds better than paid ads. Second, being found on page 1 is the best means for finding, getting, keeping and growing right-fit students, faculty, and staff as well as nurturing relationships with alumni, foundations corporate partners and media. We recommend our clients begin the SEO journey by crafting an intentional plan powered by a Keyword Lexicon that contains clusters … Continue reading
As a top SEO agency for colleges, universities and higher education institutions, we begin their SEO journey by conducting a 12-point SEO audit to assess their websites.