Implicit Marketing: Understanding Your Target Prospects (part 2)
The first step in reevaluating your implicit messaging is understanding your prospective students more fully. Each group of likely students will view your school through a different lens. First-generation high school graduates with immigrant parents may need to see more students like themselves represented in your materials, while a “some college, no degree” entering student may be more impressed by the range of flexible options that allow them to change their course load to accommodate their family and work lives.
How To Attract Underserved Students with Implicit Marketing (part 1)
Enrollment marketing is more challenging than ever with the changes rocking higher education and the demographic enrollment cliff. Plus, with the changes to diversity recruitment brought on by the Supreme Court decision about affirmative action, it is incumbent upon higher education institutions to find ways to ensure that underserved students—low-income, BIPOC, and first-generation—continue to enroll.
Factors That Influence Search Engine Rankings
Now that you understand the importance of ranking in your student enrollment journey, let’s talk about what factors that influence search engine rankings and how they can make or break your site’s place on the SERPs. According to Backlinko, there are roughly 200 ranking factors. This can make managing optimizations a struggle even for SEO experts.
The Importance of Search in the Student Enrollment Journey
Search engines have become indispensable tools for students in their college discovery process. Instead of relying solely on traditional methods like campus visits or brochures, students now turn to search engines to gather information, compare programs, and ultimately make their decisions.
The Shift in Student Recruitment
Traditional Methods vs. Digital Methods In the past, student recruitment primarily relied on traditional methods such as school visits, college fairs, direct mail campaigns, and print advertisements. These approaches focused on face-to-face interactions and distributing physical materials to prospective students. High school visits allowed admissions officers to connect personally with students and provide detailed information about their institutions.
Stability, Meaning, and Overall Well-being: Selling College to a Skeptical Audience
College is about more than the dream of becoming rich. Successfully marketing your school requires tapping into students’ wishes for a future full of meaningful work and secure finances—attaining the good life.
The Cookie Rollercoaster Continues
In 2020, Google announced their plan to phase out 3rd party cookies (the small pieces of data that allow marketers to serve personalized ads across websites). In January 2024, Google began restricting access to third-party cookies by default to 1% of Chrome users.
Implicit Marketing: Understanding Your Target Prospects (part 2)
How To Attract Underserved Students with Implicit Marketing (part 1)
Factors That Influence Search Engine Rankings
The Importance of Search in the Student Enrollment Journey
The Shift in Student Recruitment
Stability, Meaning, and Overall Well-being: Selling College to a Skeptical Audience
The Cookie Rollercoaster Continues
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The Prospective Student Journey:
Reaching Traditional College Students
We have identified four specific points in the journey where schools can make small changes that can increase the number of incoming students. Learn how to implement these changes and optimize these opportunities.