Higher Education Content Marketing: 5 Tips for 2023 

Higher education content marketing is a competitive game. Universities and colleges throughout North America have stepped up their content marketing efforts to attract quality prospective students. Since the competition is steep, it’s important to develop a robust content marketing strategy that speaks to prospective students of various backgrounds, age groups, and academic interests. The pros at Pel Hughes work with higher education institutions throughout the United States with direct mail campaigns and cross media marketing.  

Below are five helpful higher education content marketing tips for 2023.  

5 Tips for Higher Education Content Marketing 

#1 Utilize Video and Podcast Formats to Give Prospective Students a Deeper Dive into Your Institution 

Videos and podcasts are powerful content formats that can resonate with prospective students across many demographics. Those already interested in your institution will appreciate a deeper dive into your campus’ culture, academic programs and research, the qualifications of your faculty, and extracurricular opportunities. These types of topics can provide years of content that resonates with students around the world.  

#2 Show the Human Side of Your Student Body, Faculty, and Staff 

People fill academic institutions at every level—from students to faculty and staff. The people who fill the halls of your university all have a story to tell. Highlighting accomplishments, triumphs, and even delving into life’s more upsetting challenges puts a human face behind your college or university. More than likely, a prospective student can see a piece of themselves in every person you showcase.  

Student case studies are especially powerful. Showcasing a student’s academic journey juxtaposed with real life issues of overcoming economic disadvantage, illness, or another type of hardship can help prospective attendees feel a connectedness to your university that is safe, inclusive, and welcoming.  

#3 Launch a Blog 

A blog is a great place to house content that may be too in-depth for a digital guide, a welcome video, or a piece of direct mail. Blogs are wonderful places to flesh out topics at a deeper level, announce upcoming events, or celebrate important milestones.  

From a digital marketing perspective, blogs are incredibly useful for ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines like Google and Yahoo view blogs as news articles, which means they help keep your main website active among their indexing algorithms. In short, a blog is a great way to reach two audiences: human beings interested in attending college and algorithms that sort content online.  

#4 Use Infographics to Highlight Your University’s Strengths 

Infographics are wonderful tools for simplifying information in a highly digestible format. For instance, an infographic is the perfect medium for showcasing the retention and graduation rates of particular programs at your university along with internship and hire rates after graduation. Infographics are useful for making statistics and facts reader-friendly for prospective students.  

#5 Create User-Friendly Digital Guides 

While printed catalogues and guides still have their place in higher education marketing, digital guides are becoming increasingly popular among Gen Z. A digital guide can cover broad subject matter or be scaled down to a particular niche. Digital guides can cover everything from specific programs and extracurricular opportunities to campus information on libraries and recreational facilities.  

Higher education content marketing is just one piece of the puzzle. Pairing your digital content with well-executed print marketing like direct mail and catalogues can help you gain a competitive edge. Pel Hughes is a full-service printing company experienced in higher education marketing. We offer direct mail, campaign automation, cross media marketing, database services, and graphic design. Call one of our friendly experts at (504) 486-8646 to learn more.  

 

Personalized Marketing Copy: 5 Tips for Optimal Results 

, ,

Personalized marketing copy can be a game changer—particularly for businesses providing individualized services like dental and healthcare along with brands that produce consumer goods. With personalized marketing copy, you can help set your business apart from your competition by making your customers feel appreciated and valued. Valuing your clientele can go a long way in today’s technology-forward commerce climate.  

Following are five helpful tips to get optimal results from your personalized marketing copy.  

5 Tips for Personalized Marketing Copy 

Keep Your Copy Casual and Relatable 

Using overly technical vernacular in your copy can confuse and even turn away potential customers. Whenever possible, it’s best to use casual and simple language that can highlight the benefits of your goods and/or services with minimal risk of confusion. While maintaining a simple, friendly tone is important, it’s wise to avoid being overly informal as it could come off as unprofessional. Our team recommends creating copy with short sentences, an informative tone, and personalized touches.  

Anticipate Your Customer’s Needs in Your Copy 

Every customer has specific wants and needs. When you draft marketing copy, understanding these needs is critical to creating messages that spurn interest in your goods and services. One way to demonstrate your understanding of your target consumer is to anticipate their needs in your copy and offer solutions to their problems. For example, let’s say you provide residential cleaning services. Your clients likely struggle with keeping a clean home due to time constraints from work and family life. Your copy should recognize your customer’s desire for a cleaner home while also offering a solution: a team of professional cleaners who can make a house spotless in a couple of hours. 

Abide by the Golden Rule 

It might not seem like the Golden Rule applies in business when the focus is on expansion and profits but treating your customers with empathy and respect can go a long way. When drafting marketing copy, ask yourself questions like “if I were in this consumer’s shoes, what type of communication would resonate with me?” With marketing copy, your mission is to make decision-making easier for your potential customer. Highlighting the unique advantages associated with purchasing from your brand is a great way to demonstrate to your consumers that you value their wants and needs.  

Consider Feedback from Surveys 

One way to connect with your customers is to conduct brand surveys and carefully evaluate the feedback. Understanding the wants and needs of your customer base helps foster long-term relationships with your business. Customers want to be understood and appreciated so implementing surveys and taking constructive criticism seriously shows your clientele that you make their satisfaction with your products and services a priority. The results of these surveys can help shape the tone and direction of your future content, which can help your brand build staying power.  

Leverage CRM Databases to Your Advantage 

CRM databases are valuable tools to help you produce content that resonates with your target consumers. You can use CRM technology to create detailed personas of the people who purchase from your brand as well as those who show interest in your business by interacting with your social media and website. CRM makes it possible to understand what messages drive customer interaction and their purchases. These reliable metrics can be used to make sure your personalized marketing copy strikes a chord with customers.  

Print and digital personalized marketing copy can make a world of difference in your messaging. Our team at Pel Hughes can help you develop personalized marketing campaigns through e-mail, direct mail, social media, and more. We also provide online databases to store approved brand messages, retargeting technology, variable data printing, and CRM software to help you create effective personalized marketing.  

Give our friendly experts a call today at (504) 486-8646 to request a quote.  

 

 

Psychology Hacks for Marketing & Advertising 

,

With widespread access to the Internet and social media, today’s consumers have abundant purchasing options and a wealth of information at their fingertips. This can make selling your service or products more difficult as you likely face steep competition from your peers in business. Producing effective marketing and advertising campaigns is a necessity to stand apart from your competition and break through the onslaught of brand messaging consumers see on a daily basis. Implementing these psychology hacks for marketing can help you develop compelling messaging that resonates with consumers.  

Helpful Psychology Hacks for Marketing & Advertising 

Tap into the Power of Social Proof  

Social proof is a powerful psychological phenomenon. Human beings are a highly social species and respond to messaging that conveys the popularity of a product or service. A common example of social proof you have likely seen is the classic “As Seen On TV” icon found on packaging for consumer goods like appliances, kitchenware, and gadgets. The “As Seen on TV” icon legitimizes a product or service by demonstrating that other people have used and bought a particular item.  

Essentially, social proof helps consumers feel more comfortable making purchases. While not every product or service can be advertised on television, smaller brands and businesses can use social proof by sharing testimonials, positive reviews, follow counts from official social media pages, and more. For example, highlighting testimonials in an easily-seen location on a website’s product page is a great way to benefit from the social proof phenomenon.  

Use Symbols & Shapes to Enhance Your Brand Messaging 

As visual creatures, people respond to images. The way our brains are wired makes the use of symbols in marketing especially powerful. One easy-to-implement example is placing checkmarks in your copy. For instance, rather than using traditional bullet points, use checkmarks in your copy for bulleted lists. Our brains interpret checkmarks like we would a green light at an intersection. Checkmarks send the message that we are on the right track and can positively influence our decision-making behavior.  

Shapes help convey your brand’s tone, too. Following is some helpful information on how particular shapes enhance your messaging: 

  • Triangles: Psychologically-speaking, triangles evoke emotions of stability and strength. Common brands that utilize triangles in their messaging include Mitsubishi and Adidas. Triangular shapes can often be found in branding and logos for legal practices and businesses in scientific industries. 
  • Horizontal Lines: Lines oriented horizontally convey tranquility and community. A famous example of horizontal lines used effectively is IBM’s logo.  
  • Vertical Lines: Suggesting masculinity, aggression, and strength, vertical lines are eye-catching and attention-grabbing when used in infographics, logos, banner images, and in printed marketing pieces like direct mail.  
  • Circles and Ovals: There’s a reason circular shapes are wildly popular in marketing and advertising materials. Well-known brands like Ford, Land Rover, Pepsi, and GE all incorporate ovals and circles in their imaging. Circular shapes are associated with feelings of unity, community, and trust.  

These psychology hacks for marketing only scratch the surface. There’s been a wealth of research devoted to this topic, especially the effect shapes, font, and color have on consumer emotion. In a previous blog post, our team delved into the psychological effects of color on consumer habits, which you can read by clicking here. The pros at Pel Hughes recommend devoting some time to studying the psychological impact that graphic design can have on your business for optimal marketing and advertising campaigns.  

Based in New Orleans, Pel Hughes is a woman-owned, full-service printing company that offers graphic design, direct mail campaigns, database services, and campaign automation. Give us a call at (504) 486-8646 to request a quote on your next project.  

Content Marketing Tips: How to Launch a Content Program 

Are you new to content marketing? Perhaps you’re browsing the web for content marketing tips because you realize how important this form of marketing is for inching ahead of the competition and building a brand with staying power. Developing a content marketing program—particularly in the beginning—can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, the pros at Pel Hughes have compiled a list of helpful tips to point you in the right direction.

4 Easy-to-Implement Content Marketing Tips

#1 Evaluate Your Competition’s Content Strategy 

A great place to start a content marketing journey, is to take a look at what your competition is doing. Let’s say you operate a dental practice. Doing a Google search of what neighboring practices are doing in your area can be a big help. For example, a Google search could reveal that a top practice runs a blog that is updated regularly, has plenty of original copy on their website, and offers e-mail-based marketing like newsletters. If you’re on friendly terms with fellow dentists in your area, consider giving them a call and asking them for content marketing tips or inquiring about what works for them. You might find out that posting weekly to a blog and offering e-mail newsletters is a recipe for success. This kind of information can guide you forward. While you shouldn’t copy exactly what your competition is doing, taking similar approaches can help you reach more patients.

#2 Strike Up Content Marketing Partnerships 

One of the greatest content marketing tips we could offer is to strike up partnerships with vendors, local notable people, or social media influencers to expand the reach of your brand or organization. This tip works especially well with non-profit organizations, retail-based enterprises, and service-oriented businesses. A content partnership can be as simple as working with a local social media influencer to promote a specific product or promotional offer on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Another popular avenue you could take is to appear on a podcast or YouTube video from a creator related to your industry or organization.

#3 Refresh Existing Content 

More than likely, you have some existing content that could be repurposed for social media, your website, blogs, videos, and e-mail campaigns. We recommend going through your existing content assets and determining which of them could use a facelift. Re-using old content saves time and money but it’s important to ensure that what you repurpose is relevant and effective. Sometimes, something as simple as creating an infographic from a previously-written how-to article can breathe new life into existing content. Other options you could pursue include generating short videos highlighting products or services you’ve discussed in social media posts or on your website. Giving existing content a facelift is quite easy when you change its format.

#4 Outline a Content Marketing Editorial Calendar 

Once you’ve evaluated your competition, searched through your existing library of content, and considered your options for content marketing partnerships, it’s time to build an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar helps you map out your marketing content for the future. We recommend using a sharable and editable format, like Google Docs. This can help your team add suggestions, develop a clear path forward, and avoid repeating topics or keywords. Editorial calendars could be short-term like a couple months or cover your content strategy for the next year.

Content marketing can be daunting but careful research and planning makes all the difference. We post content marketing tips regularly on our blog so check back for more insight.

Pel Hughes is a family-owned, full-service printing company that offers cross media marketing, direct mail, graphic design, and campaign automation. Give our friendly experts a call at (504) 486-8646 to learn more about our services.