How to Market Liberal Arts Colleges: Strategies, Tactics and Best Practices

There is an art and a science to marketing of liberal arts colleges and universities. Let’s review some strategies and tactics first.

Strategies and Tactics

Strategy

1. Understand your situation. Perform SWOT and benchmark peers.
2. Pick the right strategy lever. Where will you play and how will you win.
3. Address demographic and psychographic segments. Meet and exceed their needs.
4. Prioritize marketing of signature programs. Let them generate unfair returns to bring the rest of the program along.

Brand

1. Define core promise that is enduring, immutable and indisputable.
2. Articulate brand image which is distinct and memorable.
3. Position the college vis-a-vis peers and competitors.
4. Pursue a big idea, without which you’ll be ignored.

Keyword Guide

Create an institutional Keyword Guide with the following groups of keywords:

1. Programs keywords.
2. Brand keywords.
3. Reputation keywords.
4. Location keyword.
5. Decisioning keywords.

Never create a piece of new content without identifying the keyword first.

Website

1. Merchandise hope.
2. Separate public facing and internal facing websites.
3. Don’t be a bore. You can’t bore people into buying from you, or buying into your brand.
4. Secure Google page one rankings. If you can’t be found, you can’t be considered.
5. Deploy a smart program finder. Half the site visitors think your college doesn’t offer a program when it does.
6. Romance prospects with high-fidelity academic program pages. They are money pages.
7. Use retail merchandising techniques to promote related programs.
8. Develop an accepted student microsite. It’ll improve admissions yield.
9. Make students and alumni the hero of the institutional journey, not the institution.
10. Express Gen-Z diversity — religious, racial, and gender.
11. Feature brand anthem video.

Social Media

1. Manage college brand perceptions.
2. Partner with influencers.
3. Promote your posts.
4. Create an editorial calendar.
5. Measure metrics.
6. Keep an eye on peer institutions.

Integrated Marketing Campaign

Fish where the fish are.

1. Implement paid advertising campaigns.
2. Conduct SEO/Inbound marketing campaigns.
3. Execute email marketing campaigns.
4. Use traditional media advertising.

Boots-on-the-Ground and Follow-Up Plan

1. Curate and orchestrate tours and visits. Invest in first impressions.
2. Treat accepted students like royalty.
3. Befriend high schools and community colleges.
4. Offer pre-college programs and summer camps.
5. Create joint programs with high schools.
6. Create, cultivate and fortify corporate relationships for internships, coops and job placement.
7. Attend events where your prospects hang out.
8. Cultivate strong relationship with surrounding communities.
9. Influence ranking and rating agencies.
10. Optimize follow-up programs. Responsive brands win unfair share of students.

Budgets and Calendar

1. Dedicate sufficient budget.
2. Develop a smart editorial calendar.

Elliance Best Practices

We address this challenge by employing an investigative mindset to uncover concrete evidence and proofs, combined with a creative mindset to infuse brand appeal and craft persuasive arguments.

1. We begin our work by taking a close look at a school’s general education core and first year studies courses. How do these and other student experiences shape their mental muscle and instill certain habits of the mind. We make the case that liberal arts nurture the development of seven habits of long term success and fulfillment; learning, relating, organizing, creating, connecting, communicating and leading.
2. We focus on faculty imparting maturity, discipline, discernment, perspective and resilience — the things that lead young people to early success and traction. 
3. We connect the interdisciplinary classroom to various facets of experiential learning, including internships, study abroad, service learning, undergraduate research, and field experiences.
4. We look for and tell rich stories of interdisciplinary centers of excellence and symposia funded by major foundations and NEA, NEH and other government sources.
5. We connect the success of liberal arts graduates with specific aspects of their education in ways sufficiently concrete that they make sense to prospects and their parents.
6. We make a compelling case for why a liberal arts education is unmatched in helping students to transition into the world of real work and the work of the future. 
7. We highlight how faculty and alumni open doors for students to gain experience, find job opportunities, and explore new career paths.
8. We underscore what employers prize in the graduates they have hired.
9. We punctuate the argument with placement details: top employers, starting salaries, acceptance rates into graduate and professional programs, and the institutions at which they are completing their advanced studies.
10. We create brand lines like “Light the Way”, “Be Central”, “Talent to Shape Tomorrow” and “Flourish!” backed by high octane communications to give tailwinds to all marketing efforts.

It takes a village to nurture liberal arts programs and marketing imagination to bring vibrancy to the life of underdog majors.

We hope we get the chance to put our talent and experience in marketing of liberal arts programs together to advance the cause of liberal education at your institution. Please review our higher education marketing capabilities and consider partnering with us.