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.
