For those of you who attended this year's Annual NAGAP Conference, and for those of you who missed it, I can tell you one thing for sure - if you go to San Diego, you will not want to leave!
It's been a few weeks now since returning from a fantastic event focused on "managing change" in the Graduate Enrollment Management (GEM) field. The NAGAP annual conference continues to deliver data-driven educational sessions with many opportunities for networking. I've been thinking a lot about the dozens of conversations I had with GEM professionals and the consistent themes our team heard throughout the conference. I've determined that there are 3 marketing insights worth remembering as we all go back to our offices and inevitably get buried under an ever-growing task list.
For those of you who don't know me, let me clarify that I am not employed by an educational institution. I'm a marketing guy, and my perspective comes from working in higher education marketing for the last 9 years, and attending NAGAP events since 2006. I've worked with graduate schools large and small, public and private, decentralized and centralized, non-profit and for-profit.
#1: Most Graduate Schools are Fumbling with Social Media
Just about everyone we talked to was doing something with social media specific to their graduate admissions office. And just about everyone admitted they did not have a real strategy guiding their social media activity. This is probably a bit of an over-generalization, but here's a typical situation for most GEM professionals:
The good news is that most GEM professionals know that social media is here to stay and is a huge opportunity to augment recruitment and engagement with prospective students. This is no longer a question. This is now reality. The question is HOW to move forward. (SPOILER ALERT! Next year's NAGAP conference will have more data-driven case-studies showcasing social media success!)
#2: Traditional Recruitment Methods are Not Very Effective
Large space ads. Single-channel marketing. One-off email blasts. Anything that smells of "if you build it, they will come"... these traditional strategies aren't working like they used to. Not only that, but most enrollment offices don't have the budgets they used to have.
Instead, GEM professionals are testing new strategies for marketing programs and engaging prospective students. As a result, the next academic year will include more of the following emerging tactics for both recruiting new prospects as well as engaging existing inquiries:
Variable-Data Marketing: providing relevant content to appropriate prospects
Tracking Technology: capturing program interests earlier in the engagement process
Blogs and Social Networks: finding niche audiences of students
Mobile Optimization: ensuring that landing pages, forms, applications, and emails look awesome on all device platforms
Inbound Marketing: Leveraging content to attract prospects and convert them
Don't worry, if you aren't familiar with some of the above terms, you will start to hear more about them in the near future.
#3: The Only Constant is Change (at least for now!)
At NAGAP I learned that many GEM folks are dealing with shrinking programs, merging grad schools, reduced budgets, and of course, pressure to increase enrollment. Change is happening, and is going to continue to happen for many graduate schools.
Guess what - the same is true for how your office will go about communicating with prospective students! The world of enrollment marketing is changing, and the more we track real data and measure marketing effectiveness, the better prepared we will be to know what strategies are right for your particular school and programs.
The good news is that the NAGAP community is one of the few professional associations where members are very open to sharing what's working (and what's not!). In the marketing agency world I come across some consultants who are hesitant to share their industry knowledge. There's really no need for that. The more sharing of ideas between higher education professionals and service providers who work in this industry, the more the GEM profession will continue to grow. Enrollment management professionals benefit from best practices and good strategies, and the service providers benefit by being challenged to keep testing new methods and innovative technologies.
It's win-win...because things keep changing. Now, if I could only find an excuse to get back to San Diego! ;)