Ideas, insights and inspirations.

Elliance, a higher education enrollment marketing agency, has built a reputation by both increasing and growing enrollment for more than 100 colleges and universities. Founded on the principle of right-fit matchmaking, our recommended strategies revolve around six 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, back your claims with proofs. Fourth, ensure that students are able to see themselves at your institution. Fifth, pursue right-fit students at all cost. Sixth, you must be easy to do business with. All our recommended actions for increasing and growing college enrollment revolve around these core beliefs: 1. Activate a Winning Strategic Plan Winning, not playing and optimizing, is what successful college presidents focus on. To create an inflection point, they sometimes deepen their competitive advantages and at other times disrupt and challenge the status quo. College presidents lead strategic planning based on thorough, objective … Continue reading

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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 attracting students from across the nation and across the globe. 2. Bake research about student behavior and what they value into website, microsite snd landing pages. When we reflected GMAC research findings into Carnegie Mellon’s MS in information systems management program microsite, its applications grew by 118 percent within one year. 3. Tell a better story. Romance prospects and show that the … Continue reading

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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

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With strained budgets, weakened endowments and the anticipated demographic cliff when college bound undergraduates will begin to shrink, colleges are eyeing international students from emerging economies. With over one million international students heading to the US in 2023, the race is on to attract the brightest and most financially well-off international students.  Our clients have started asking us to prepare a playbook for successfully recruiting and growing international student enrollment. In increasing and significantly growing enrollment for international 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. INVEST IN FIRST IMPRESSIONS INSTITUTIONAL TOUCH POINTS Your website and social media are the most important touch points … Continue reading

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In anticipation of the looming 2025 demographic cliff when college bound undergraduate students will begin to shrink, colleges and universities have started investing in launching and growing graduate programs to diversify their revenue.  Our clients have started asking us to prepare a playbook for successfully recruiting and growing graduate student enrollment. In increasing and significantly growing enrollment for graduate programs for the past 25 years for over 50 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 achieve success with recruiting graduate students, universities must start with the right portfolio of programs, assess the environment, and deploy a balance of the marketing air-game, boots-on-the-ground game and follow-up contact strategies. WIN BEFORE YOU WIN Start by creating distinctive, in-demand graduate programs in areas where your college can claim indisputable competitive advantage. Fight the temptation to start … Continue reading

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The era of traditional high cost, high-volume and low-performance student search services is over. Here’s how traditional student search services used to work: first, when taking SAT and AP tests, students gave permission to the college board to share their contact information with prospective colleges; in turn, the college board licensed (for one-two-use only) the student names to potential colleges at 50 cents per name; then, colleges bought boatloads of names from the college board; finally, colleges bombarded the prospects with commoditized emails/direct mail, hoping some would raise their hands, and praying some would convert.  Traditional student search worked initially but, over time, it started to backfire. Students and families got tired of being spammed by colleges and they got smarter. They started taking control of their college search. They are now consulting their peers, families and friends about which colleges they should consider. They are searching on Google for the college that’ll suit them the best. The privileged ones … Continue reading

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In the early years of our existence, we generated leads through a wide variety of tactics: websites, SEO plus engaging content, display advertising, emails to purchased names, postcards to purchased names, LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, YouTube ads, retargeting ads, social media promotions, chat bots, lookalike audiences, webinars, campus visits and events, PR, branding and scholarship contests. And we observed which leads converted the best. Slowly but surely, here is what we discovered. Purchased Names Convert Poorly The era of buying prospect names, bombarding them with commoditized emails/direct mail, hoping some will raise their hands, and praying some will convert is over. Royall & Company, which built a successful business on this premise, cashed out when they saw the model crumbling. What happened? Students got tired of being spammed and they got smarter. They took control of their college search. They started asking their peers, families and friends for their recommendations. They started searching Google and perusing their favorite … Continue reading

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This blog post about how to recruit and enroll adult students was partly inspired by our work with forward thinking clients like Kathy Groves and Emily Horstman at William Woods University, Jacqui Spicer and DaRon Hairston at Baker College, Mollie Cecere at Carlow University, Brad Sims and Dianne O’Neill at Capitol Technology University, and Karen Nichols when she was at Limestone University. In increasing and significantly growing enrollment for adult programs for the past 25 years for over 25 colleges and universities, we have learned two things: First, students can’t buy your programs or buy-into your college unless they can find you; Second, you can’t bore students into enrolling in your college. Adult students are a very special breed of people. Life changed course and they couldn’t complete college, or they now see the realities of working life their younger selves couldn’t see before. Thus begins a new internal battle. PLAN: BEFORE YOU START OFFERING ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAMS 1. Acknowledge … Continue reading

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As one of the top higher education marketing agencies, we are frequently asked to share our thoughts on emerging trends in this space. Here is what we are seeing. The past two years have seen a historic decline of more than one million students in US colleges and universities. Racially and ethnically diverse student populations continue to grow. The number of International students shrank during the pandemic but are growing again. College endowments surprisingly grew at first and then took an inflationary hit. The race to win the marketing and enrollment game is on. Colleges are battling to win an outsized share of a shrinking pool of domestic students, and facing stiffer competition for international students. Here are the top twelve higher education marketing trends for 2023 that we are sharing with our clients and partners: 1. Merchandising of Hope and Support Services The Covid pandemic has precipitated a crisis of mental health and a need for support among young … Continue reading

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Welcome to your new adventure. You may have been invited into this presidency as a change agent or a strategic visionary. Either way, get ready to liberate new growth for your college by focusing on the 3 R’s of prosperity: Revenue, Reputation and Rankings. These three currents flow under the sixteen best practices for managing and running a successful college, gleaned from working closely with more than twenty college presidents and reading more than a dozen books written by them: 1. Winning Strategy: Winning, not playing and optimizing, is what successful college presidents focus on. To create an inflection point, they sometimes deepen their competitive advantages and at other times disrupt and challenge the status quo. College presidents lead strategic planning based on thorough, objective assessment of institutional strengths and weaknesses in the context of societal shifts. They involve board members, faculty, alumni and corporate partners in their strategic planning process. To enact change, presidents must be keen observers, strong persuaders … Continue reading

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