How to Grow and Increase Business School Enrollment: Strategies, Tactics and Best Practices

Both AACSB and GMAC statistics show that business schools applications are on the rise. Are you getting your fair share of that growth? How are you shaping your incoming class?

Ambitious business schools routinely approach Elliance for advice and execution of enrollment strategy, branding, website design and integrated marketing campaigns to win an outsized share of the market. Here is what we recommend:

Strategies, Tactics and Best Practices

Play to win.

To realize prosperity, a business school must play to win more of right-fit students and partners.

1. Understand situational context. Begin with performing SWOT and benchmarking peers.
2. Pick the right strategy lever. Where should the business school play and how will it win? Should it focus on growing BBA, MBA, EMBA, specialized masters programs or generalist business masters? Should it focus on growing its on-ground, evening and weekend, hybrid or online programs?
3. Identify pockets of receptive alumni and mission-aligned students. Understand right-fit demographic and psychographic micro-segments. How will you meet and exceed their needs?
4. Engage in integrative marketing with omni-channel micro-segmentation, A/B testing, SEO, GEO, and social media marketing powered by thought leadership content marketing informed by intentional editorial calendars and Keyword Guides.
5. Apply all levers to influence US News rankings because prospective students still use them as short-cuts. Ensure communicating with peers and US News survey recipients to influence their perceptions.

Know and articulate where you are going.

Thoughtful students carefully read and evaluate strategic plans to understand the school’s roadmap for navigating emerging challenges and to see if there is an alignment with their personal goals. As such, they must:

1. Articulate strategic priorities.
2. State how the business school curriculum, pedagogy and resources are being directed to meet the needs of the changing business landscape.
3. Identify how and where is the business school unstoppable.

Create an unforgettable brand.

In the sea of sameness, brands win. A brand is the DNA of an institution that affirms its purpose. The practice of branding demands that a business school:

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

Use your Keyword Guide and Editorial Calendar as your compass.

Page one is destiny for both Google and Generative Engines like ChatGPT, perplexity and Google Gemini. If prospects can’t find the business school, they won’t apply or enroll. If corporations can’t find the business school, they won’t recruit or partner.

The journey to Google and Generative Engine page one presence begins by creating an institutional Keyword Guide with the following groups of keywords a business school needs to claim and own:

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

Because fresh content is the fuel of Google and Generative Engines, create an editorial calendar. Never create a piece of new content without identifying the keyword first. You become the story you choose to tell.

Inspire prospects with a beautiful and persuasive website.

A website is the digital soul of an institution. All roads lead to it. Here are some guidelines worth following:

1. Merchandise hope.
2. Separate public facing and internal facing websites.
3. Don’t be a bore. A business school can’t bore people into enrolling, or buying into its brand ideals. You must inspire prospects to inquire, visit and apply.
4. Secure Google page one rankings for all the business school’s programs. If a program can’t be found, prospects won’t consider enrolling in it.
5. Romance prospects with high-fidelity academic program pages. We call them money pages. Feature courses, clinics, institutes, centers, talented faculty, students, successful alumni, internships, career traditional and non-traditional paths, recent employers and placement stats. Spotlight special scholarships.
6. Create online viewbooks and microsites that distill the argument for the business school.
7. Streamline admissions process. Avoid frustrating prospective digital native students with arcane process. Develop an accepted student microsite.
8. Make students and alumni the hero of the institutional journey, not the institution. Celebrate successful alumni.
9. Express Gen-Z and millennial diversity — religious, racial, and gender in your photography.
10. Feature brand anthem video to tell your brand story and why the business school matters.
11. Create a business resource channel as an extension of the business school website. Feature symposiums, summits, graduate addresses, keynote speakers, and emerging business topics such as data analytics, healthcare, space, international business, sports management and eSports, fintech and cryptocurrency, and more. Promote all this via social media.

Connect and build relationships via social platforms.

Turn on the charms and enhance a business school’s likability with social media.

1. Tell better stories of impact and consequential work of students, talented faculty and successful alumni.
2. Partner with influencers.
3. Promote social posts.
4. Create an editorial calendar.
5. Measure metrics.
6. Keep an eye on peer institutions.

Win hearts and minds of prospects with an integrated marketing campaign.

Business schools must fish where the fish are. They must:

1. Implement precise paid advertising campaigns with story landing pages and A/B testing. They must have the discipline to feed the winning ads and landing page alternatives, and starve the losers.
2. Conduct persistent content/SEO/GEO marketing campaigns with educational, career counseling and thought leadership content.
3. Amplify via social media.
4. Execute charming email marketing campaigns.
5. Run traditional media advertising if they have spare budgets.

Turn interest into action and relationships into loyalty with a boots-on-the-ground and follow-up plan.

If marketing lights the spark, then boots-on-the-ground activities fuel the fire, and follow-up shows genuine care. To be successful, business schools must orchestrate all three. They must:

1. Invest in first impressions – both digital and physical.
2. Curate tours and visits.
3. Treat accepted students like royalty.
4. Create a large variety of business clubs and organizations to mirror areas of competitive advantage and emerging specialties.
5. Befriend faculty at undergraduate program feeder schools.
6. Create experiential opportunities externships and internships, a variety of competitions, pro-bono projects, research assistantships, public speaking forums, and more.
7. Attend extracurricular events where business school prospects hang out such as industry events, a host of competitions, academic conferences, corporate open houses and information sessions, and more.
8. Create speaker series that attract surrounding communities with topics like data analytics, healthcare, space, international business, sports management and eSports, fintech and cryptocurrency, and more. Host hybrid events and promote them through digital and traditional platforms.
9. Influence ranking and rating agencies such as US News.
10. Respond to inquiries promptly and efficiently.

Invest in marketing.

Success requires investment — commit adequate marketing funds to drive impact.

13 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 business school’s curriculum. We highlight how these and other student experiences shape their foundation, bolster mental discipline, and develop broader business habits. We make the case that curriculum nurtures the development of thirteen key skills for business success: situational analysis and reasoning, strategic thinking, data-driven decision making, critical and analytical thinking, innovative and creative thinking, leadership and emotional intelligence, ethical and responsible decision-making, global dexterity and cultural awareness, collaboration and interpersonal skills, risk-taking and resilience, empathy and customer-centric thinking, entrepreneurial mindset, and continuous learning and self-reflection
2. We develop sophisticated, high-fidelity, academic program pages.
3. When applicable, we emphasize STEM designation to attract international students eligible for 36 months of extended practical training after graduation. This includes programs like cybersecurity and data privacy, compliance and risk management, all of which require data analytics, technology, and scientific concepts.
4. We focus on faculty imparting strategic thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship, resilience, professionalism, inquiry, self-reflection, ethical awareness, discipline, discernment, and perspective — the things that lead business professionals to greater success. 
5. We connect the classroom to various facets of experiential learning, including externships and internships, a large variety of competitions, research assistantships, public speaking forums, and more.
6. We look for and tell rich stories of interdisciplinary centers of excellence and symposia funded by corporations, major foundations and other government sources.
7. We connect the success of business school graduates with collaborative and teamwork aspects of their education in ways sufficiently concrete that they make sense to prospects and their parents.
8. We make a compelling case for why a business school education is unmatched in helping students to transition into the world of meaningful work and the work of the future. 
9. We highlight how faculty and alumni open doors for students to gain internship/clinical experience, find job opportunities, and explore innovative career paths.
10. We underscore what employers prize in the graduates they have hired.
11. We punctuate the argument with placement details: top employers, starting salaries.
12. We inspire students to aim for leadership roles in their chosen areas of specialization.
13. We create brand lines like “Opportunity, Inc.”, “Future Fit”, “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 business schools and marketing imagination to bring vibrancy to the life of business schools.

We hope we get the chance to use our talent and experience in marketing of business schools to advance the cause of business education at your institution. Please review our business school microsite and  higher education marketing capabilities and consider partnering with us.