The Circle of Excellence Awards recognize a variety of work in marketing. When the judges for the 2022 marketing categories issued their results, their comments brought to light a common theme: 

“Great understanding of targeted demographic and community.” 

“A great example of a school understanding its market.” 

“Clearly defined audience and well targeted.” 

More than ever, higher education enrollment marketing professionals are targeting, segmenting, and personalizing their content. Winning 2022 entries had tailored messages to well-defined audiences such as low-income, high-achieving students; those who are undecided about a major; Spanish-speaking students; admitted students; nontraditional students seeking an online education; and parents. 

Personalization is essential in today’s increasingly competitive enrollment marketplace. With fewer high school graduates projected in the U.S. after 2025 through 2037—experts predict an 11% to 15% decline—the “enrollment cliff” is looming. The pandemic may have even accelerated the cliff: the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center showed an overall decline in U.S. postsecondary enrollment in spring 2022 by 4.2%, with public institutions disproportionately affected. 

Plus, conversations about student debt in the U.S. have shined an even brighter spotlight on affordability and value of education, leading many students and their parents to be more discerning in the college search. 

This generation of digital natives have tools at their fingertips to compare colleges and universities like no other generation. With so many more choices coming their way, that means marketing approaches need to be “fire.”  

“Gen Z expects personalization,” says Terry Flannery, author of How to Market a University: Building Value in a Competitive Environment and CASE Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “They’ve grown up with technology and data. They are bombarded by brands that track their interests and send personal messages directly through texts and social media. Higher education is catching up to Amazon-like data-driven marketing. We’re getting better at it because if you want the attention of Gen Z, it needs to be personal and relevant.” 

As if there wasn’t enough to consider in this new era of enrollment marketing, the pandemic added unpredictability. 

“With use of data, we knew that students who come for a visit are more likely to apply, and if they are admitted and visit, they are more likely to commit,” says Jimmie Foster, Vice President of Enrollment Management at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S. With more than 20 years in the field, Foster says, “We’ve not seen anything like this before. We learned to be flexible by doing things like hosting virtual open houses. The pandemic also confirmed the importance of targeted communication, which became even more essential with the loss of in-person touch points.” 

The 2022 Higher Ed CMO [Chief Marketing Officer] Study by SimpsonScarborough, a higher education marketing agency that tracks trends in the industry, makes that clear. This survey of 230 CMOs concluded, “personalization is crucial to building consistent and authentic brand experiences—which underpin trust; something that has been increasingly fragile—especially in higher education—since the pandemic started.” 

Targeting Underrepresented Students

OUTREACH WITH A FAMILY FOCUS: Texas State University homed in on an underrepresented student population with its
Spanish Recruitment Campaign, which included social media ads, streaming content, and a Spanish-language landing page.

As a prominent public research university, the University of Florida does not have a brand-recognition problem. With an average of 65,000 students applying each year to fill a class size of about 6,500, it doesn’t struggle with recruitment. But in the fall of 2021, the U.S. university launched an admissions campaign to target an often-underrepresented group in higher education: low-income, high-achieving students.   

“Campuses are missing opportunities to engage underrepresented students,” according to a 2020 enrollment management research study by Ruffalo Noel Levitz, a firm specializing in higher education fundraising and enrollment solutions and market research. “As the student body becomes more ethnically diverse and increasing numbers of first-generation students look to attend college, campuses should have messaging and resources in place to help these students enroll and persist.” 

That’s just what the UF Dream Forward Student Recruitment Campaign did by encouraging Pell Grant-eligible Florida students with household incomes of less than $45,000 to take the first step toward college. With the tagline, “If you can dream, you can apply,” the campaign received a silver COE Award. 

It included a microsite, an announcement postcard, a series of print ads, and 10-second videos for a digital ad campaign. To better understand their audience and to create assets that would resonate, the enrollment management marketing team met with financial aid and admissions staff members, who often meet one-on-one with students and therefore understand the challenges these students face in considering and applying to college.  

The campaign started on Oct. 5, 2021, and lasted 32 days, reaching 34,565 households. The university received 13,779 applications from the target group, representing a 40% conversion rate. 

The results exceeded staff members’ expectations, but they didn’t stop there. 

The second phase of the campaign provided an even more personal touch, focusing on financial aid information, helping students see how they fit into the UF community, and showing the outcomes of a UF education. The microsite intentionally provided clear points of contact with names and phone numbers, an assurance there were staff members committed to them. 

COE judges commended the Dream Forward Student Recruitment Campaign for taking a “simple aspirational message and executing it in an original and thoughtful way… with a very clear call to action.” 

Similarly, Texas State University homed in on an underrepresented student population with its Spanish Recruitment Campaign, which received a bronze COE Award. The marketing team focused on the Rio Grande Valley, an area at Texas’s most southern tip with a population of 1.3 million, where 86% of residents are considered economically disadvantaged. College completion rates in the area are lower than the state average, with only 19% of the area residents between ages 25 and 64 holding at least an associate’s degree. The region is 90% Hispanic. 

To understand the community there, the marketing team worked with the undergraduate admissions regional manager to interview families and young alumni in South Texas. They learned how entire families are often involved in educational decisions, says TXST’s Callie Lewis, Project Manager in the Office of University Marketing. 

“Those conversations helped us better understand the dynamics of family units in the Rio Grande Valley and how important a college decision is for students from that area,” says Lewis. “Many of the families in the valley share vehicles or provide care for their relatives, among other responsibilities, so it’s not one person’s choice—it’s a family decision. We know that parents have tremendous influence on a student’s decision to leave their hometown, so we made sure to talk to both the recent graduates and the parents of those graduates during these interviews. Those stories, each unique, sparked the design inspiration and the messaging.” 

The multifaceted campaign included social media ads, streaming content, and a Spanish-language landing page. The Facebook ads received more than 141,000 impressions and the Spanish-language ads received 384,920,000 impressions with an 82% engagement rate. 

The RNL study urged education marketers to “keep parents engaged at all stages of the [enrollment] funnel.” The report found parents are among the most important influencers in their students’ college decisions, yet many institutions are missing opportunities to engage with them directly.  

COE judges took note of the campaign’s attention to family: “Great understanding of a targeted demographic and community. Thoughtful consideration of multiple generations.” 

Reaching Community College Prospects 

Northern Virginia Community College, U.S., received a gold COE Award for its “ible/able” digital ad campaign. The ad copy reads, “We make going to college achievable. We make going to college possible. We make going to college doable. And ultimately, at NOVA, we make college better.” 

Community colleges begin with an inherent target audience: students who are looking for an alternative to a four-year education, and who want to stay local. 

“When looking at our prospective students, we look at what they need and what is driving them to go to college in addition to why they may select a community college over a four-year university,” says Toni Angelo, Director of Marketing. “You have to find a way to connect with them and we have many subgroups. Some are adult learners who are working and raising children, who may be interested in part-time classes; affordability may be the main factor; others are looking to get directly into a career as quickly as possible through a trade or certificate; some new high school graduates are looking to get adjusted to college-level work before transferring to a four-year university; and some first-generation students who are not familiar with the college process may be looking for extra support.” 

The campaign’s goal was to go beyond those more tangible drivers—such as affordability, location, and flexibility—and embrace the student “mindset for all subgroups by letting them know that NOVA is not only valuable to them, but that the experience is transcendent, and success is within their reach,” says Angelo.  

After the ads, which ran across social media channels, were in the market for 10 months, NOVA saw an improvement across all engagement metrics, notably a conversion increase of 28.9%.  

Judges said the campaign addressed the target audience through “excellent use of connecting words. [Kudos for] showing the diversity of your campus and showing solutions to potential barriers.” 

Engaging Admitted Students via Yield Campaigns 

WELCOMING MESSAGE: The University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism received a silver award for its yield campaign that aimed to help students picture their future at Annenberg.

Admitted students make up one of the most important and clearly defined target audiences in higher education. Getting them to say “yes” takes more than a great proposal. A strong yield campaign feels personal for each student holding a “congratulations” letter. 

Yield campaigns fall into two categories, says Tony Fraga, CEO of the DD Agency, an enrollment marketing consulting firm. First, there are campaigns mainly driven by the deposit deadline and other functional reminders. And second are the campaigns that engage students with compelling content that helps them see themselves on your campus. The latter are much more effective, because in a yield campaign “there should be an emotional impact,” says Fraga. 

“At this point in the admission cycle, through data collection, your target audience is sharply defined,” adds Foster. “With affordability at the forefront of college decisions, help your admitted students see the value of their investment. Show outcomes by sharing alumni stories. And show them the support they will receive on campus that will help lead to their success. And most important, show a personal interest in each student with content tailored to what they are looking for, such as a specific major or athletic program.” 

The USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, California, U.S., received a silver COE Award for its yield campaign. Its entry states: “How we choose to welcome newly admitted students determines if they see a future for themselves at Annenberg.” 

Prior to the pandemic, print materials were the cornerstone of the school’s campaign. But in 2021, the communication and marketing team considered the “virtual” year their prospective students had experienced and collaborated with the school’s admissions team to reimagine the conversion process to reflect the new reality of high school students. The new digital campaign, “Starting at Point A,” begins with a “unique, yet minimal” print piece that drives students to a newly created microsite that links to immersive experiences, such as virtual tours, event sizzle reels, and student stories. 

COE judges called the site “a great example of a school understanding its market. Not only is it welcoming and vibrant, but it is professional with consistent branding and clear calls to action. The virtual tour was outstanding.” 
The digital experiences help students see themselves on campus. 

“For admitted students, who are already familiar enough with USC Annenberg to have applied and been accepted, the challenge is in helping them visualize their own experiences and successes here, and ultimately to encourage them to take the final step to enroll,” says Mike Mauro, Associate Director, Communication and Marketing Operations. “We chose to literally create the site as a path, helping them to travel through the opportunities that the school provides, to explore the kind of close-knit community we are, and to delve into the aspects of the school that interest them the most, and end at enrolling.” 

Mauro says the pandemic accelerated the transition to digital. 

“Going digital provided greater visibility into the behavior of our admitted students through analytics,” he says. “It’s opened up not only a world of possibilities as far as reviewing and adjusting based on metrics, but also contributes to the sharing of conversion marketing goals and information across communication and marketing teams and admission offices at USC. These teams now have a foundation on which to work together to create conversion communication assets based on reliable data and user information.” 

Sophisticated, Student-Centered Marketing 

Using both print and digital, as the team at USC Annenberg did, can be highly effective, says Fraga. But he urges marketers to put the message before the media in planning a strategy: “Begin with the end in mind. Who is your audience? Get the message right and then move to the format.” 

Heightened sophistication in using data is where higher education marketing is trending right now, he says. “In fact, it’s now considered best practice.” 

As higher education marketers have become more adept in their marketing strategies through technology and data and analytics, they remain focused on their human-centered mission. The SimpsonScarborough CMO survey comes to that insightful conclusion: “Paradoxically, the more advanced your digital marketing maturity is, the more human it becomes. The infrastructure trio of centralized and reliable data, marketing automation, and continual measurement are what enable brands to create highly personalized, multi-moment brand experiences simultaneously across channels.” 

Foster finds the greatest reward and satisfaction in his enrollment marketing career comes from keeping the student front and center. 

“Sure, it’s a numbers game,” he says. “But most, if not all of us, are working to help students find the right fit for them and their families—a fit that sets them up for success. The most sophisticated marketing strategies only work best when they serve students, and that’s why segmented, targeted marketing is always a good bet.” 

For the many enrollment marketing professionals embracing personalized messaging to unique student segments, Flannery shares a tip. 

“Targeted messages—the visuals and the narrative—can and should be integrated with the institution’s overall brand,” she says. “Your audience should be left feeling the message was targeted personally to them but comes from this place they recognize. Personalized content strategy should always have a relationship to the brand.”