How to Market STEM and Technology Colleges and Universities: Strategies, Tactics and Best Practices

There is an art and a science to marketing of STEM and Technology 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. Create a fields of study section to create content relevance.
7. Romance prospects with high-fidelity academic program pages. They are money pages. Feature alumni, career paths, and placement companies and stats. Spotlight special STEM scholarships. Market how AI is being integrated into the curriculum and pedagogy.
8. Use retail merchandising techniques to promote related programs.
9. Create a career pathways section outlining possible career paths.
10. Streamline admissions process. Avoid frustrating prospective digital native students with arcane process. Develop an accepted student microsite.
11. Make students and alumni the hero of the institutional journey, not the institution. Celebrate successful alumni.
12. Prominently display STEM designation to attract more international students who are entitled to an extended practical training opportunities.
13. Express Gen-Z diversity — religious, racial, and gender.
14. Feature brand anthem video.
15. Create a STEM lovers resource channel as an extension of your website. Feature symposiums, summits, graduate addresses, keynote speakers, and STEM topics from 3D printing to solar eclipses to robotics to medical breakthroughs. Promote all this via social media.

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. Create unique STEM competitions that attract a broader community of technology enthusiasts such as robot competitions, autonomous vehicle competitions, and more.
4. Create a large variety of STEM clubs and organizations.
5. Befriend high schools and community colleges.
6. Offer pre-college STEM programs and summer STEM camps.
7. Create joint programs with high schools.
8. Create 3+2 programs with liberal arts colleges.
9. Create, cultivate and fortify corporate relationships for internships, coops and job placement.
10. Attend extracurricular events where your prospects hang out such as Comic Cons, First Robotics competitions, Maker communities, Lego Mindstorm communities, Videogame communities, Raspberry Pi clubs, Cybersecurity clubs, Girls Who Code clubs, and Women in STEM clubs. Follow Twitch streamers.
11. Create speaker series that attract STEM lovers in the surrounding communities with topics like Machine Learning, AI in medicine, and more.
12. Throw game launch parties.
13. Influence ranking and rating agencies.
14. 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 broader habits of the mind. We make the case that core courses nurture the development of seven habits of long term success and fulfillment; learning, relating, organizing, creating, connecting, communicating and leading.
2. We develop sophisticated fields of study pages and tie them to degree offerings.
3. We focus on faculty imparting maturity, discipline, discernment, perspective and resilience — the things that lead young people to early success and traction. 
4. We connect the classroom to various facets of experiential learning, including internships, coops, capstone projects and undergraduate research.
5. We look for and tell rich stories of interdisciplinary centers of excellence and symposia funded by corporations, major foundations and other government sources.
6. We connect the success of STEM graduates with specific aspects of their education in ways sufficiently concrete that they make sense to prospects and their parents.
7. We make a compelling case for why a STEM education is unmatched in helping students to transition into the world of practical work and the work of the future. 
8. We highlight STEM designation to attract more international students who are entitled to an extended practical training after completing their program.
9. We highlight how faculty and alumni open doors for students to gain internship 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, acceptance rates into graduate and professional programs, and the institutions at which they are completing their advanced studies.
12. We raise ambitions of students towards realizing leadership in their fields of study.
13. 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 STEM programs and marketing imagination to bring vibrancy to the life of these majors.

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