Admission Marketing
Universities and colleges throughout US have rightly realized the importance of marketing their services to prospective students. This is the reason why we have seen a tremendous increase in expenditure budgets of HE admission and marketing departments. As a marketer and sales experts, I believe that identification and utilization of information platforms still remains an enigma for most of these organizations. There is an immense need to explore information venues which are suitable to reach high school graduates. Following are some considerations and strategies which can ensure maximum return on efforts made by concerned departments.
Websites
Websites remain the primary source of information for prospective student throughout the world. Irrespective of the marketing strategy we adopt, students are always going to validate acquired information through official websites of respective universities and colleges. This is the reason why these organizations spend an exceeding amount of capital on making their websites informative. In fact, these websites hold so much information that it becomes very difficult to maintain desired navigation standards. Making information easy to find by relevant navigator is the biggest challenge that educational institutes need to divert their attention to.
Engaging High School Students
This type marketing is probably the most result oriented strategy that universities adopt for student recruitment. It allows admission and marketing personal to have face to face interaction with their prospective candidates. This concept can be implemented through something very basic like online recruitment drives. Alternatively, HE institutes can organize events like official campus visits, tailored to market services offered by the colleges or institutes. On a more specific level, institutes can work on a lead of any brilliant prospect. This can be done by contacting concerned high schools and setting up a face-to-face meeting.
Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms are quickly gaining importance as easy to access and credible source of information. Universities and colleges can market their products on multiple platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Slideshare etc. These platforms offer access to maximum high school population. This strategy can be implemented through trained social media marketing professionals within reasonable price range.
The major challenge that HE institutes face during implementation of these strategies is lack of coordination with high schools. The best way to minimize gap between High school and HE Institutes is regular interaction with high school counselors. This can only be perceived possible if universities maintain a proper state wise database of this hard to reach market. Don’t worry; you do not have to make this database from scratch. High School Counselor Marketing (www.highschoolcounselormarketing.com) provides a complete updated database of high school counselors along with contact details and email addresses. Considering the prospect of information gathering opportunity, you can purchase this database at a very reasonable price.