Your higher ed inbound marketing strategy is likely made up of several components, but delight is an essential ingredient for success. You must serve up content that leaves your reader satisfied, engaged, and otherwise happy. A delighted prospective student will look more fondly upon your school and remember its name while he or she is making a decision about their education.
Personalization Helps Create a Connection With Prospects
Don’t talk to the group. Talk to just one student if you want to delight and engage your audience.
One essential element of delighting your students lies in your ability to personalize content. Whether it’s an email, a reply on social media, or an interactive website, you can increase student engagement if you focus on making content all about the individual.
Patrick Burke of the Content Marketing Institute points out that people are naturally self-centered. Your prospective students don’t care about what’s best for your school; they care about how you can serve them. If you personalize your messages, you’ll delight and encourage them, which means more engagement and higher enrollment numbers.
Asking for Your Prospects’ Opinions Makes Them Feel Like They Matter
Surveys, polls, and other mediums through which you might solicit feedback help you make your prospective students feel important. Everyone wants others to value their opinions, so why not deliver on that desire? If you solicit feedback, you show that you care what your prospects think.
Each time you collect a survey or poll result, you gain insight into how your prospects think and feel. This data can then be used to inform your marketing strategy going forward.
Finding Qualities That Set Your School Apart Makes You Memorable
Do you want to delight your prospective students? Give them something they haven’t seen before.
Learning what your competitors offer and creating a more appealing value proposition will always delight your target audience. This makes your prospective students feel special and wanted, which will increase enrollment rates. Think about what your competitors are doing. What perks and incentives do they offer? How can you improve upon them? Use those value-added perks in your marketing messages and your personalized correspondence.
Students Desire a Welcoming Environment
Your prospective students want to feel valued. They want to know that you value their academic pursuits and their contributions to your campus, and when your higher ed marketing strategy focuses on the delight element, you can achieve this goal.
If you can make your school — or even your individual programs — as inclusive as possible, you’ll create better engagement and attract more students to your school. It’s a little like peer pressure in reverse. You’re inviting students into a nurturing and accepting environment where they can grow and prosper.
Delighting your audience is an essential component of your higher ed marketing strategy. To learn more, contact us to discuss your specific marketing needs.
