Brand and Demand Marketing in Higher Education: Good Alone, Better Together

In higher education, a false dichotomy has existed between brand marketing and demand marketing. We strongly believe they need to be deployed in tandem.

Brand marketing builds long-term reputation, awareness and emotional connection to build affinity for the brand with future students, parents and influencers. In contrast, demand marketing (or enrollment marketing) focuses on immediate measurable recruitment by driving inquiries, visits and applications. The key isn’t choosing one, but unifying them: strong brand builds trust, making demand efforts more effective, and demand tactics generate immediate results, creating a synergistic full-funnel approach for sustainable enrollment growth.

Traditional vs. Inverted Admissions Funnels

In our world view, traditional admissions funnel is usually fed by demand marketing, but inverted admissions funnel is brand marketing.

Instead of attracting right-fit prospects with inspired and modern marketing, traditional demand marketers are typically employing tired, high-volume enrollment tactics from firms who buy names in large numbers, then throwing commoditized direct mail and emails at prospective students, hoping to snare a few. These dated methods disregard the habits of savvy Gen-Z kids who are maintaining five to six email accounts to filter out email noise from colleges, and are mercilessly tossing away the similar-looking direct mail pieces. These tactics result in a commoditized traditional admissions funnel. To combat commoditization, we recommend two steps:

First, we recommend modernizing traditional admissions funnel marketing by using more advanced tactics like micro-segmentation, look-alikes, machine learning, big-data algorithms and affinity groups generating better quality, right-fit leads.

Next, we recommend enrollment marketers supplement their traditional funnel marketing with inverted funnel or brand marketing efforts. We help them focus on promoting the various segments of their star students and alumni, which attracts more “look-alikes”, creating a growing tribe of like-minded prospects more likely to convert into applicants, engaged students, loyal alumni and lifelong donors.

Brand Marketing

Brand marketing involves the continuous creation of relevant and high quality content, such as news magazines, PR2.0 assets, articles, social posts, blog posts, videos, infographics, white papers and thought leadership events, and igniting that content through promotion and conversation-starters to encourage peer-to-peer sharing. Carefully curated content is distributed through channels you control (your “owned” media, such as your website and social networks) and the channels you don’t control (the social media of people/organizations in your network), where our content strategists spark conversations on your behalf. Carefully curating the content you “own” enables you to “earn” influence and build reputation. Search engine rankings, AI inclusions and social connections (“likes,” “shares,” etc.) are among the most trusted endorsements available online today. Managing your content and your interactions carefully allows you to maximize your success in SEO/AIO engines and the social media. Finally, advanced analytic approaches help you understand type of content and communications your prospects value.

Brand marketing creates a hub of value and trust. As this foundation is established, the cost to build upon it naturally drops. Over time, this translates to a very strong ROI for your brand marketing efforts.

If you are seeking a transformative higher education marketing agency, college branding agency, or enrollment marketing agency, please see our work and consider partnering with us.