How to Advertise a University to Students

As a university recruiter, you know engaging with Gen Z students on their higher ed journey is mission-critical. But succeeding in higher ed marketing can be challenging.

How do colleges advertise themselves effectively? With online advertising.

Why do you need to advertise online?

Today, university marketing strategies are about expanding your reach to new markets, standing out, and driving engagement.

Why is student engagement important? Because it creates conversions.

We’re quick to assume reaching our online advertising goals will be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s what to know.

What do you need to know before starting?

Audience

You’ll never know how to advertise to students without a clear understanding of who they are.

First, focus on your target audience, both earned and prospective. Then, dig deeper into the data: What works for them? What doesn’t?

Unibuddy is an excellent resource for gathering insights on your prospective student audience. Through your analytical dashboard, your team can sift through conversational data, assisted by our AI-integration, to create short summaries or supplementary questions based off of what is important to a target demographic.

Audience language

Advertising doesn’t stop when a student sees your ad – they need to click it. You have to engage them – by speaking their language.

That means moving away from the institutional language often associated with higher ed. Ad copy should reflect your brand, personality, and the “good vibes” Gen Z craves.

Consider asking student ambassadors to help create a brand voice that’s professional but authentic. You also can skim through Unibuddy Chat conversational data, or Unibuddy Community group activity, to understand how students speak, what questions they ask, and what sort of language helps engage them further.

Privacy laws

In 2023, privacy is still a significant player in the advertising world.

With dozens of privacy laws to know, from the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to state-specific laws in the US, where do you start?

Do privacy laws even impact your higher ed marketing team?

Yes – especially when it comes to international recruitment.

If an international student falls under more stringent government regulations and opts out of ads, the noncompliance is on you.

If you plan to collect data, you must be crystal clear about how you’ll use it.

Where should you start?

Choose the right advertising channels

With so many advertising channels available, how do you pick one that will be within budget and future-proof?

Do you want your ads visible to students searching for answers on search engines – like Google? Do you want your ads to grab the attention of students using social media?

Usually the answer to these questions relies on what messaging and what audience you are looking to target. Keep in mind how different types of campaigns work on different platforms.

An informational campaign about a timely event, like an open house or digital drop-in session, for example, might perform better through paid social channels as opposed to a paid search campaign through Google. Whereas a more evergreen campaign, referring to campaigns which do not expire and plug into consistent search queries, might work well through paid search Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads – think queries like “best engineering schools in US” or “what do I need to know to apply to School X, Y, or Z,” for examples.

Understand how paid advertising works for a chosen channel

You’ve identified your audience. You know what sort of messaging you’re pushing out. You know where you want this messaging to appear. Great! But do you know to create ads for a chosen channel? While many higher ed institutions employ specialized agencies to run paid ad campaigns, having a base understanding the nuances of online advertising helps university teams direct and manage their work.

With PPC ads, referring to those ads you see at the top of search results pages, you need to determine which groups of keywords you want to target before creating sets of interchangeable copy to be used for these ad sets. Keep in mind that any one of the headlines or descriptions you create can appear in the search engine results pages of your target keywords.

The classic metric used to determine, and charge, for effective paid search ad campaigns is the click-through-rate, referring the the percentage of users who see your ad and click on it through to your website. Powerful algorithms, based on the keyword sets your bidding on, determine the ultimate cost-per-click of a PPC ad.

Paid social ads, on the other hand, are a different ballgame. Depending on the social platform you run your ads, think Facebook or TikTok, you are often charged per impression, referring to the amounts of times your ad is seen. With that said, with paid social, audience targeting and visuals of the ads you run are special considerations. In other words: you want to make sure users who see your ads are likely to engage with your ads.

Tips for successful programs

Stay consistent

Consistency is a cornerstone of good online advertising. It ensures a smooth journey while creating a sense of familiarity and authenticity, which is crucial for landing a Gen Z student.

“In the past, the student journey could be quite fragmented,” explained Elissa Parker, Head of Recruitment Marketing at the University of Leicester. “Today, we aim to provide one picture to them so they fully understand what’s going on and where they are in their higher ed journey.”

Utilize student ambassadors

Leveraging your student ambassadors can be key to successful online advertising. As the vetted peers of your prospective student audiences, with 92% of Gen Z students reporting that student ambassadors can help them decide where to study, you might consider integrating this group into your paid ad mix. An effective paid social campaign, for example, might involve encouraging a target audience of prospective students with questions to engage with your student ambassador team.

Use multiple channels

Gen Z has grown up surrounded by computers, digital devices, and social media.

They’re “omnichannel” consumers, meaning they use more than one channel to make a purchasing decision.

It’s the same with higher ed.

So whatever channel they’re on, you should be on to maximize your exposure and earn conversions. Create accounts on platforms like TikTok, BeReal, and more (another place to utilize student ambassadors!) and start interacting.

Optimize your content

Whether you realize it or not, effective content is a huge part of your advertising plan. An effective ad is only successful if it is driving traffic towards relevant, concise, and well-organized digital assets. As such, these assets need to answer questions, provide sought-after “good vibes, and, ultimately, help a prospective student decide where to study. So writing content tailored to your audience, and the search engines they use, is a non-negotiable for increasing visibility across all platforms.

Final thoughts

Figuring out how to advertise a university can feel overwhelming to even the best recruitment teams.

But higher ed technology from a SaaS partner like Unibuddy helps create cohesive marketing strategies that attract students and drive digital conversion.

Reach out today to see how we can help.