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Over the past four years, my personal life as a parent of two college-bound children and my professional life where I spend time in the higher education space have been on one long, yet fascinating, head-on collision. It’s been an eye-opening look at enrollment marketing from two divergent vantage points. In the battle for the affections of my offspring and my all-too-meager tuition savings (if you don’t mind, we can explore that confession another day), colleges have wasted a lot of resources on my kids. It’s not that the colorful, photography rich brochures, invitations, emails and phone calls (kudos to those friendly, yet determined recruiters) weren’t appreciated. I analyzed them like an archaeologist on a dig. It’s simply that they missed their mark. Look, I think Thing One and Thing Two are great catches, too, but the simple truth is that these colleges weren’t “right fit” opportunities for them at the right time. And some never will be. Midway through … Continue reading
Posted in: Higher Ed Marketing, inbound marketing for higher education
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Inbound marketing, as defined on the Elliance Higher Education Inbound Marketing Flashcards website, is the continuous creation of relevant and high quality content, which helps to build strong, authentic connections with existing networks and helps to extend those networks through social sharing and conversations. In this definition lies the key to why inbound marketing is crucial for a higher education institution. Content creation for the sake of content will do nothing for brand or reputation building, SEO rankings or increasing social sharing. It’s more than just satisfying search engine bots — it’s also creating stories for people — that people want to read. Content has to be created with a goal in mind. For example, an inbound marketing campaign for a college can be crafted around telling stories – student stories, alumni stories, faculty stories – all of which tell a higher brand story. Student stories will inspire prospective students, allow them to visualize what their life will be … Continue reading