Organic Ways to Promote Your Higher Ed Brand

Elevating your higher ed brand doesn’t always demand a hefty budget. This short guide proposes practical and cost-effective strategies for resourceful higher ed enrollment teams, including graduate schools. Explore organic growth through the best edtech tools and uncover the potential of Unibuddy—a platform that helps you expand your brand while optimizing the value yielded from your investment. 

How is organic branding different from paid?

For many higher ed enrollment teams, a common question always bubbling to the top is “How can we be better at recruiting students?” Often a follow up question might be: “How much is this going to cost?” 

The good news? Branding and marketing strategies, so integral to boosting student recruitment, don’t always involve spending more money. This is where organic efforts become crucial for strategic success. But what exactly does this mean? And how does organic branding differ from paid?

In a nutshell, organic strategies involve unpaid methods like content creation, community building, and word of mouth, contrasting with the paid approach reliant on advertising expenditure. This crucial difference is especially pertinent to smaller higher ed enrollment teams, like those at graduate schools, where resources are spread more thinly. 

According to a revealing statistic, 69% of enrollment professionals feel more stretched than ever, with nearly one in five nearing burnout. Amid budget cuts and ever-rising enrollment targets, the pressure is palpable. 

Standing out in the competitive higher education market can be challenging due to its large size and quick pace. Knowing your student audience well is crucial, but how you position your university brand is equally important. Think of your higher ed institution as the product, and your audience as your prospective students, including those from other countries. How do you make your university or college stand out? 

Choosing organic branding helps you create more meaningful and personalized messages for students. Showcasing qualities like personalization, empathy, and authenticity in your brand can make it easier for potential students to connect with your university. 

Common organic tactics used in higher ed

These organic strategies for student enrollment can help strengthen your higher ed branding efforts:

Emailers, organic social, and SEO

Given the prevalence of apps, like TikTok or Instagram, among younger generations, higher ed institutions can use social media for branding. But these apps stress authentic moments above all else – something hard to achieve through a paid ad for higher ed. Consider that paid social banners do not resonate well with 1 in 5 of students surveyed by Unibuddy and may not achieve the same level of success as organic and personalized branding.

In higher education, for both undergraduate and graduate schools, targeted email campaigns are a cornerstone of organic student recruitment strategies. These campaigns should be crafted not just to inform, but to forge a connection with your audience. By segmenting email lists according to specific interests, academic focus, or past engagement with your school’s digital platforms, you can tailor your messages to resonate deeply with each segment.

When it comes to website optimizations, it’s all about making your higher ed institution’s digital presence not just visible, but compellingly attractive to the students. By integrating carefully chosen keywords that resonate with your target demographic’s search behaviors, your website becomes a beacon of relevant information. 

This isn’t just about climbing the search engine ranks; it’s about creating an online space that speaks directly to prospective students, offering them the exact information they seek, right at their fingertips. Your focus on SEO ensures that when students search for their future in education, your institution stands out as a guiding light, leading them to a wealth of knowledge and opportunity that aligns with their aspirations and needs.

Events and In-Person Visits

Beyond the digital realm, in-person events and open days hold substantial significance. These provide unique opportunities for personalized and relevant interactions, transcending the impact of generic paid means. Such first touchpoints contribute to a more nuanced understanding of student needs and preferences.

The value of organically sourced leads becomes evident in their potential for enhanced lead nurturing. Unlike generic ad clicks, these first touchpoints offer a more profound connection, fostering meaningful engagement throughout the student recruitment journey.

As students increasingly rely on digital assets, Unibuddy data highlights that nearly 3 in 4 prospective students turn to higher ed institution websites for initial research, emphasizing the pivotal role of online platforms in influencing decisions.

For further insights into higher ed digital marketing, explore Unibuddy’s comprehensive guide. 

Leverage student ambassadors – your best organic resource

Regarding higher ed recruitment, your most potent brand advocates are the student ambassadors. They embody your brand, offering authentic insights that resonate with the authenticity current generations of students crave. A staggering 78% of students find speaking with a current student crucial, highlighting the significant impact of peer-to-peer (P2P) interactions. These students seek genuine connections and engaging with current students fulfills that desire, providing an authentic, P2P experience devoid of ulterior motives. Over 9 in 10 recruitment professionals emphasize the pivotal role of student-to-student interactions in shaping the prospective student experience. 

Consider avenues such as personalized email invites and chat options on your website to enable these connections. As the initial touchpoint for three-quarters of prospective students, your website becomes a powerful platform. Unibuddy’s higher ed solutions seamlessly facilitate direct connections with student ambassadors, leveraging their influence to create a welcoming and trustworthy environment for potential students. The University at Buffalo achieved a 75% conversion rate to application with Unibuddy, allowing prospective students to connect with current students through an embedded chat tool on the university website.

So the answer to “how to recruit university students?” is to leverage your existing students!

Encourage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) in higher education branding is a powerful edtech tool that brings authenticity and relatability to the forefront. When students share their experiences, insights, and perspectives, it creates a genuine narrative that resonates with potential students. Examples could include student testimonials and vlogs to social media posts capturing campus life.

Unibuddy makes organic branding easier by putting UGC in the spotlight. You can start with a catchy headline, visuals, and genuine stories about student life, academics, successes, and location details. You can also tailor content to highlight your institution’s uniqueness. Whether it’s a day in the life or academic insights, Unibuddy helps ambassadors connect authentically, guiding prospective students in their educational journey. You can create engaging content, from blogs to videos, and share it across your marketing channels effortlessly.

In the higher ed funnel, these interactions can tip the scale in your favor. Unibuddy chat allows you to share UGC, empowering ambassadors as storytellers. 

On the backend, your enrollment team can pull AI-sourced conversational insights from student chats to help inform UGC strategy. For example, you might see the majority of prospective students speaking to student ambassadors through Unibuddy are asking about financial aid. The takeaway here would be to encourage your student ambassadors to create content around this topic. 

Discover how Newcastle University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences garnered 12,000 distinct views on student-written blogs covering various topics.

The role of data in organic search

Key metrics like engagement, conversion rates, and community growth are vital for success in higher ed brand strategy. Unibuddy, an edtech SaaS platform, fortifies data-driven higher ed strategies with AI integration, featuring new reporting tools and streamlined content submission for student ambassadors. The AI integration analyzes conversational data, offering key insights instantly. Unibuddy provides data-backed sample questions from trending topics and introduces new features for efficient data analysis. Reports and visualizations consolidate student data, while the funnel snapshot offers real-time views of prospective students’ positions. Confidence scores gauge student sentiment, informing strategic decisions in recruitment, admissions, and enrollment processes. This comprehensive approach enhances organic branding, search optimization, and recruitment outcomes in higher ed. 

Student communities: A self-renewing organic approach

To boost higher ed recruitment, colleges can leverage the power of P2P interactions to foster student communities as a self-renewing organic tactic for sustained engagement. Unibuddy amplifies this approach, providing a dedicated community platform and advanced chat features. 

Community marketing in higher ed involves initiatives that promote inclusive engagement. When choosing tools, understand your specific needs and seek versatile options. Unibuddy Events facilitates hassle-free live sessions for prospective students, accommodating remote and hybrid events. Unibuddy Community, on the other hand, provides safe hub-style group spaces for students to “find their people.”

Discover how the University of Leicester achieved a 23% enrollment boost by implementing Unibuddy Community.

Enhance your higher ed brand organically by cultivating meaningful connections through Unibuddy’s dynamic edtech tools for higher education. Learn more.