Higher education institutions of all sizes and varieties need effective and proven ways to attract potential students for enrollment. After all, regardless of the size or specialty of a school, these institutions continue to exist to serve, equip, and train student learners.

Community colleges are a staple in the higher education marketplace, but many of these institutions have experienced declining enrollment in recent years. There are many reasons for such enrollment drop-offs, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a delay in degree attainment in favor of work, or fewer community resources to make enrollment possible.

But community college leaders want (and need) to get more students in the door. If you’re tasked with local recruitment, what can you do? How can you boost brand awareness while encouraging future registrations? 

The answer has to do with your community college marketing plan. Let’s create one!

Why Community Colleges Matter for Higher Education

Community college institutions are a staple in the realm of higher education. Not only do these institutions receive funding differently than private schools, but they’re also able to cater directly to students in a particular region or geographic locality. 

To build more effective (and persuasive) community college recruitment strategies, marketing, and admissions leaders must start by recognizing the major selling points of these schools.

Community schools are often more focused on life and career preparation, with direct on-the-job training available as part of academic programming.

Students can earn credits beginning in high school with dual enrollment programs and then transfer new credits to four-year institutions later on; this plan often saves substantial time and money.

According to U.S. News & World Report, community colleges also provide highly flexible scheduling and lower costs for students that want to work while earning an introductory-level degree. 

Community colleges offer fewer barriers to entry and more resources for local students, allowing learners to enter quickly and experiment with courses before committing to an expensive degree.

These reasons may appeal to many students, particularly those who want to work, commute, or ease into the higher education experience right after high school. Incorporating them into your marketing plan can result in more students who want to inquire or enroll.

Do You Need a Community College Marketing Plan? 

Yes—you should have a community college marketing strategy in place. 

Why? Because building an in-depth marketing plan gives everyone the tools, resources, and materials that are essential for reaching more students.

A community college marketing plan also promotes the following benefits:

A marketing plan generates internal brand cohesiveness, which provides staff members one “source of truth” when it comes to important brand questions. 

Plans offer the ability to market to your audience cross-channel, meaning that you can reach more students on various platforms (social media, email, website visits, etc.)

Having a plan also means that you can test, experiment, and measure results. When you have documented goals, it’s easier to survey the results and readjust those KPIs according to performance.

According to national data, the number of community college students has dropped by 2.6 million attendees since 2010. Fortunately, many issues that contributed to these declines (like lack of advising services or non-transferrable credits) are getting ironed out through new, modern approaches to post-high school learning. 

Even better, some reports now show that community college enrollment is on the rebound in a post-pandemic environment. Enrollment trends are leveling; there were 6% more community college freshmen in fall 2023 than in the previous enrollment cycle.

While recovery is on the way for community schools, staff members and leaders must be mindful of what modern students seek. New student expectations often include:

Transferable credits and dual enrollment options

High levels of academic and personal support

Additional advising support and on-campus resources for minority student groups (Black, Latino, and Native American students)

When creating a productive marketing plan, make sure that you address these concerns and speak directly to students that may have questions about how enrollment impacts their future.

The success of a community college marketing plan depends on how well you understand your audience. This is as true in business as it is in higher education. Without a rich, data-backed understanding of your target audience, you can’t hope to fine tune your messaging accordingly.

As you prepare your plan, always ask a few basic questions.

What marketing messages have been effective (or ineffective) in the past?

What’s our target demographic? Which students are we not looking to reach?

Where do our ideal students spend most of their time (online and offline)?

Although this list of questions simply scratches the surface on where to start, it will help you get in the marketing mindset. 

Community colleges in the United States cater to over five million students every year. While the pool of prospective attendees is substantial, remember that many community college students attend based on their physical proximity to a campus.

Marketing to prospective learners should begin in high school, since so many community college learners take advantage of dual enrollment academic programs. Leverage the following methods to attract new students for your school’s local programs.

Partner with high school guidance offices to reach more eligible students

Use video marketing to showcase academic programs or incentives

Use email marketing to nurture students on the path to enrollment

Build effective social media channels that inform, educate, and entertain

As you market to prospective students, explore every possibility. While you might not have the highest advertising budget, you can take advantage of direct opportunities that other institutions might not have. Work with local high schools to clearly market the advantages of attending community college before other academic options. 

How to Reach Non-Traditional College Students

At a community college, you have the unique privilege of marketing to non-traditional students or those who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. As you cater to these populations, you may need to adapt your digital marketing strategies to accommodate when, where, and how you reach these learners. 

Non-traditional students might be older than the average attendee, work part-time or full-time, have a GED (as opposed to a diploma), or have caregiving responsibilities that keep them from full-time school. 

Remember—these qualities don’t discount or exclude non-traditional students from degree attainment. Instead, they simply determine how and where a student might expect to learn. If your school offers substantial resources to provide assistance, always include those details in your marketing plan.

Revolutionize your higher education marketing and enrollment strategies using the incredible potential of ChatGPT and AI tools. Unlock the full potential of prompt engineering to connect with your students more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

How to Increase Yield With ChatGPT Prompt Engineering

Marketing to College Students—Develop Your Strategy

Here’s the secret—your community college marketing plan doesn’t have to be confusing. In fact, the more streamlined you make it, the easier it is for everyone to get on board and start implementing. 

Keep your students the central focus of any new plan or strategy. If you want to reach them at the right times and with the right content, your main goal is to get to know them at a deeper level. Here’s how to accelerate your strategy for any academic term.

Identify Goals and Objectives for Your Plan

What does your community college admissions team want to accomplish this year? Is it to increase dual enrollment students? Could it be to reach more career learners who want to obtain a degree to help them professionally?

Whatever your goals might be for an academic year or term, start building your marketing mantras accordingly. Match your objectives with the types of student personas you most want to reach.

Construct a timeline around when students start to research academic options. 

For example, dual enrollment registration must happen early, often before a high school senior’s fall start date. As a result, you’ll need to start marketing a least one semester before if you want students to be able to register. This looks like:

Getting exposure with new students at least one term ahead

Starting to communicate or send emails about six months prior to decisions

Hosting or attending registration fairs, events, and conferences

Sending follow-up communications about important deadlines and milestones (hint: use your engagement platform to take care of these automatically!)

Your marketing plan should be conclusive and include every channel that you plan to leverage. And don’t worry—if you don’t have the budget for expensive community college ads, you can always take advantage of free real estate on channels like social media.

Decide which channels you have the people and time to focus on, or automate your digital tasks with an intuitive student engagement platform. Then, document the plans and goals you have for each separate channel.

As a general rule of thumb, focus available resources on the most impactful channels for your student population. For example, if your email nurturing consistently underperforms but your SMS results are a huge success, boost your text campaigns.

Any effective marketing plan must always leave room to pivot. Plan to regularly check on how campaigns perform, particularly across various channels. 

Be flexible and agile as you market to all types of students. You can even ask your enrolled students for feedback on the admissions experience, evaluating what they liked or found to be challenging. When you have a fluid mindset, you can tweak your marketing game plan to make it even more successful. 

How Does a Student Engagement Platform Help?

A student engagement platform or CRM software allows you to collect essential data on every student who expresses interest or wants to attend. Over time, this makes it easier for admissions personnel to stay in touch and to provide personalized touch points throughout the student journey. 

With Element451, community colleges get unique tools that help mitigate enrollment challenges and prevent declines. The enrollment process is completely digital, fast, and easy. As a result, students have lower barriers to application and fewer roadblocks when enrolling in community programs. Such a personalized experience boosts productivity for staff and better reaches all students right where they are.

At Element451, we want to see all types of institutions win. That’s why we continue to focus on innovative features and solutions that offer better results for college personnel at every level, regardless of whether they work at community schools, massive four-year state institutions, or small private colleges.

With an intelligent and highly automated student engagement platform, your team can build a marketing plan that’s designed to scale. Attract more students, deliver personalized messaging, and start seeing the sustainable growth you want to keep your campus thriving. 

Ready to revolutionize the way your community college does marketing? So are we.

Develop a More Effective Community College Marketing Plan

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