There is no magic button you can just press to increase enrollment, but there are some simple strategies that you can put into place that will give you better results than you are currently seeing. Every school operator and administrator should read this complementary high-level list of strategies and decide if a full custom marketing strategy from Noodle Group is right for their institution.
Student demographics, financial circumstances, technological advances, political pressures, and most recently, the pandemic have all played a major role in the decline of college enrollments and in how colleges & universities are having to adapt. Combine that with the fact that today’s students are also highly connected, tech-savvy, and maybe even skeptical of spending such a large amount on higher education, that we are in the third year of decreased average enrollment across the country. Strategies that are outdated, that aren't personal or authentic, or transparent, will reduce the probability of a positive outcome. Simply put, there is a significant need to adapt in order to stop the decline.
The first 3 strategies below are all about lead generation. With each of these lead generation strategies, there are many choices to be made to customize, target, and convert leads for an institution's specific needs. For example, which ad channels should be chosen, how should the ad budget be spent, what should the user experience look like, etc.? All of these questions and others add a level of complexity that will need to be analyzed and optimized for each particular college. However, if your school uses these lead-generation strategies effectively, you can be assured that most of your needs will be met to increase enrollment conversions. The difference between most marketing strategies and what Noodle Group provides is the fact that we do not take a canned approach. Our strategies are customized and targeted to the very specific needs of your institution.
1. Paid Digital Advertising Campaigns
The key to paid digital advertising campaigns is truly targeting the correct market by utilizing targeting & re-targeting thru geo fencing. In addition to the targeting, the creative needs to represent the brand thru not only its content but its design too. At Noodle Group, our digital advertising campaign strategy goes through a very specific recursive approach with very detailed phases: Discovery, Content Creation, Testing & finally a Metric & Evaluation phase.
2. Implement a Content Marketing Strategy
You most likely have heard the phrase, "Content is King!" Well, over the years, that has remained constant. Content really is king. But the content these days is more than written words. It is what you do to refine the content that matters by matching it to the channel and overall user experience. All of the steps play an integral part in getting your prospects to keep moving toward conversion. And the missing piece that a lot of canned marketing strategies miss, leveraging digital media to support your text. With Noodle Group, you'll get professional-grade video content, motion graphics, and static images, all created in-house. Everything is refined according to your distinctive brand and differentiators. You need a team that is willing to collaborate with you to rapidly increase views and engagement of your content whenever possible. How does it sound to create custom landing pages in your CRM or on your website to optimize the student journey toward enrollment? Pretty good, right?
3. Optimizing to Convert
With Noodle Group, you will receive content that is tailored to your specific market, optimized to convert, and is developed, and refined to effectively engage prospective students at each step of the custom journey developed for your institution. We choose channels that are right for you to advertise on, and we leverage the nuances of each channel to provide the very best user experience for each and every prospect. The metric and evaluation phase we use is critical to converting prospects into taking action.
4. Integrate & Automate
At Noodle Group, we have a team of highly skilled developers who will integrate with your third-party systems to streamline your workflows and keep all data sets up to date. Real-time awareness across all departments leads to the very best enrollment outcomes!
5. Cast a Wide Net
Too often, marketing specialists niche down too far when they implement their marketing strategies. It is important to target your niche for sure, but be open to casting a wider net, and let the data direct you on where to go from there. Fill your funnel, then filter down the data and adapt. Too many are too eager to narrow their target market too fast and they miss out on a lot of prospects.
Many colleges and higher education institutions used and still continue to rely on conventional marketing methods like direct mailings, television, radio commercials, and billboards to reach potential students or their families. These methods, while time-tested, must be given new life with a complementary digital approach. Times have changed, and consumers have adapted. It is time to supercharge your marketing strategy today!
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