Near 77% of university seekers first enter a faculty’s website at least two weeks – and often two months – before taking any further action, according to a Google report. 

Seeking for the right higher education institution is a long-term process that involves many touch points, and digital is an important touch point for universities nowadays, and not an easy one. “The key is to engage potential students in the right mindsets, on the right channels, and to enable them to experience all the great things your school has to offer,” QS Universities explains.

Faculty leaders have understood the importance of marketing strategies and they have been implementing it in student enrollment management, student engagement and student retention, even in post-graduation strategies.

Basically, what an Inbound Marketing strategy offers to higher education is to build a relationship between the student and the institution based on trust and transparency, through a content strategy that aims to be educative, informative and interactive, that provides value and motivates students to look for your institution.

This marketing strategy has been well accepted in many universities around the globe. They first started with the basics and, little by little, have been adopting it as one of the main supports for enrollment and student retention strategies. This wide acceptance has allowed to develop best practices, that heads of marketing, student recruitment managers and IT managers in higher education should constantly follow because marketing is always evolving, mainly due to the advance of mobile and interactive technology.

The following are the current most common trends in Inbound Marketing applied to higher education.

Episodic content

If your university has already developed and maintained a solid net of online communication channels with your students, that’s an important first step. Now, you have to make sure that your content is as attractive and interesting as your web design, otherwise you won’t get the expected results.

Nowadays, what is working better in content are compelling and emotional stories, that truly represent the interests, expectations and concerns of students. Marketing specialist Stuart Banbery says that:

“The use of storytelling has became en vogue in marketing in 2015, and this trend

is set to continue in 2016 – with this technique particularly relevant to HE (higher

ed) marketing. But this practice shouldn’t just be limited to stories about

students. Stories have the power to bring to life and humanise lecturers, alumni,

customer service staff and ambassadors.”

Relationship marketing

According to Banbery, “those universities that produce value-added content, personalised messages and appropriate channels are the ones that will build trust, transparency and tangible relationships with their audiences.”

“So, how does a university develop an effective relationship marketing strategy?

adds Banbery. Data. Through the collection, intelligent storing and

analysis of student data, institutions can develop highly-personalised

communication and promotional strategies based on an individual’s preferences,

behaviours and previous interactions with the university.”

Virtual Reality

What started as a device for gaming is becoming a useful tool for many other applications, even in the academic field. The web editor of Collegewebeditor.com Karine Joly, explains that “virtual reality could help reduce the physical distance between users and a range of experiences: a lecture, a lab, a trip or even a campus visit. Schools such as UC Berkeley, Rochester Institute of Technology and Virginia Tech have created labs and research units to explore these applications.

"Regis University in Denver partnered with the agency Primacy to create a virtual

reality tour of its campus. Other providers such as Higher Ed Growth and YouVisit

are exploring the virtual campus tour market as well. Broad adoption may be

some years away, but early adopters might want make a move now.”

More visual content 

This is a trend basically for the entire digital world. People aren’t stopping consuming content, but they’re preferring the visual format. It’s more attractive, easier to digest, it’s captivating, easily shareable, and everyone can do a high-quality video or an amazing photo with a smartphone.

“To put this growth in perspective – Lawlor marketing for HE company says – it

is estimated that 3.8 trillion photos were taken in all of human history until

mid-2011, but 1 trillion were taken in 2015 alone. Many of those images (not

to mention videos recorded by 1 billion YouTube users) make their way onto

the Internet every day.”

“As the web has become a more visual medium, content that lacks compelling

imagery risks being overlooked. While digital marketers once lamented “ad

blindness” they now fear a far more potent and growing trend: “content

blindness.” Analytics show that users ignore content that lacks a strong visual

component, and that social media algorithms favor content with strong graphical

elements,” Lawlor adds.

Location Marketing

Do you remember how the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing higher education? In a previous blog we explained that “the possibility of interacting with so many everyday objects connected to the web allows us to access unlimited information from anywhere, anytime, and opens a new horizon of ideas and developments, a vision that is already being considered by academics.”

“We’ve already looked at how important engagement, storytelling and

channel selection are going to be for Universities in 2016 – Stuart Banbery

says. Well, apps present an opportunity for universities to deliver access to

their website and content in a much more intuitive, engaging and powerful

way. Those universities that have developed effective apps have a much

greater presence and greater control on a student and prospective student’s

smartphone than ever before. What’s interesting here, is that this then brings

into play location-based Marketing and the Internet of Things (IoT).”

Last, but not least, it’s good to consider how social media is used in higher education. Related to this, Hanover Research consultants has a report about it:

Facebook is the most common form of social networking being used, with

• 98% of colleges and universities reporting having a Facebook page  
• 84% report having some form of an institutional Twitter account    
• 86% report having an institutional YouTube channel/presence    
• 66% report maintaining some kind of blog    
• 41% report the use of podcasting  
• 47% of admissions professionals report using LinkedIn  

Which of these inbound marketing higher ed trends do you think that are more suitable

for your higher education environment?