Campaign Show and Tell: How UC Irvine Put Student Voices at the Heart of Recruitment

How can universities turn student experiences into marketing that builds trust, drives engagement, and supports enrollment?

At Unibuddy’s Campaign Show and Tell session, Rachel Cox, Marketing and Recruitment Specialist at UC Irvine’s Wen Public Health, shared how her team brought student voices into recruitment campaigns, with measurable results across prospective and admitted student engagement.

Here are three takeaways from UC Irvine’s approach.

Build consistent, relevant communications

UC Irvine developed a series of recruitment emails around the questions prospective students care about most: Is the degree worth the investment? What career opportunities will it offer? Can I afford it? Will I feel supported and belong?

By combining regular, relevant email outreach with events and personal follow-up, the team built trust throughout the student journey. Its email open rates reached around 2.5 times the industry benchmark, showing the value of communications that speak directly to students’ concerns.

Make peer connections easy to find

UC Irvine expanded its student ambassador team, introduced new onboarding and training, and made it easier for prospective students to find someone they could relate to. One simple but important change was moving the chat prompt higher up in recruitment emails, alongside featuring recommended ambassadors and introducing a recognition program.

The impact was clear: applicants who engaged with ambassadors grew 69% year over year, more than twice the growth of the overall applicant pool.

Today, 41% of visitors to UC Irvine’s student chat sign up to connect with an ambassador, demonstrating the value of making peer conversations visible and accessible.

Let student insights shape the journey

UC Irvine also launched its first dedicated yield campaign, helping admitted students explore the factors that matter most when choosing a university: affordability, academic opportunities, support, and belonging.

Student conversations and video testimonials helped Rachel’s team understand what applicants really wanted to know. Those insights informed content across email, social media, YouTube, and webinars, including new sessions focused on financial aid and meeting faculty and current students.

Rather than creating content based on assumptions, the team used real student experiences to guide its messaging and decide where to focus its efforts.

Make every campaign more personal

UC Irvine’s experience offers a useful reminder: consistency builds trust, peer connections help students explore their options, and listening to students makes marketing more relevant.

By bringing student voices into every stage of the recruitment journey, universities can move beyond simply promoting their programs to helping prospective students picture themselves there.

Watch the full session above to hear Rachel share more about UC Irvine’s campaigns and the lessons behind them.