What Higher Ed Can Learn from Consumer Brands

It’s not enough for schools to recruit and retain students with the same traditional marketing strategies from the past. The pandemic accelerated new realities around digital accessibility, academic interests, and student engagement. Now, schools that focus on digital-first recruitment, behavioral marketing, and student-centered experiences are leading the way despite historic enrollment lows.

Their inspiration? Today’s biggest brands. From Netflix to Nike, large B2C (business to consumer) brands and eCommerce giants have a lot to teach higher ed about recruiting and retaining loyal constituents. Since these brands are usually catering to the same audiences as colleges and universities, it makes sense to take a page out of their playbook.

While some of the multi-million dollar marketing strategies these brands employ may seem out of reach to small schools, there are ways to harness the power of what the best brands do and translate them into actionable steps in higher ed. Four of the ways that institutions can step into the digital age are by implementing landing pages, building microsites, increasing personalization, and automating their marketing.

Landing Pages: Creating a Smoother Experience With Clear Calls to Action

Landing pages with RFI (request for information) forms are essential components for modern consumer brands. Uber utilizes landing pages to persuade customers to sign up and download the Uber app onto their mobile devices.

By implementing simple design components that are unmistakably branded to Uber, short requests for information forms, and focusing on a single call to action button, Uber gets the job done efficiently and effectively. 

Like Uber’s, the best landing pages have these important features:

• Forms are short — 3 fields max so users can fill it out fast
• On-page buttons to help users navigate to page sections
• Copy is broken up into short content blocks with clear subheadings for better readability and scanability
• Mobile friendly. Most visitors are viewing on a cell phone
• Personalized content to help better connect with and engage your audience

With Element451, building a winning landing page requires zero coding and only a couple of minutes of your time. The best part is that anyone can build a landing page withElement451’s drag-and-drop builder, which makes it easy to modify pages.

Different design blocks help you build out the perfect page. Want to embed a video? Need to update a data point? Want to display different headers for different audiences? Do it all at the click of a button.

With Element, design intersects with data without additional coding or technical support.

You can easily pre-populate forms with information you may already have about a prospect, letting them just confirm or update rather than fill in from scratch.

Microsites: Building Personalized Spaces That Encourage Next Steps

Microsites are important ways for today’s brands to hone in on specific messaging that will appeal to diverse audiences. By creating specific microsites, they can further appeal to diverse cohorts of consumers. Oftentimes these microsites will craft important narratives to inform and nudge audiences to take a specific action.

Brands like Ikea, Spotify, and Nike are known for utilizing microsites for specific campaigns. Ikea, for example, uses microsites for its LIfe at Home campaign. This centralized site allows the audience to learn more about creating a healthier living space, while always positioning Ikea as the solution.

In higher ed, microsites are uniquely branded sites that often encourage students to:

• Apply
• Enroll
• Commit

With Element451, microsites are easily customized to an individual student, featuring content relevant to their planned program of study and more. Microsites allow higher ed institutions to emulate big brands and create personalized spaces where students feel like they’re seen and heard, informed about their interests, can picture themselves on campus, and feel empowered to take the next step. 

Personalization: Letting Learners Know You Care 

The best brands speak to you like you’re their only consumer. When you log in to Netflix, you’re presented with recommendations that you connect with because the platform knows your interests, dislikes, actions you’ve taken, and demographics. In higher ed, we know these things about our students too, but we stop short at giving them the Neflix experience when they enter our admissions funnel.

Think about the last time you received an email that was clearly written for a mass audience. There was either too much irrelevant information to wade through, or it left you feeling unimpressed and unimportant. Element451’s personalization features allow you to easily and quickly send different versions of a message to many audiences, ensuring students always feel seen and heard.

You can set conditions that easily swap in variables wherever you set dynamic content. Variables can include:

• Images
• Paragraphs
• Fom name
• Subject line
• From email address

This is important because it tailors your messaging to appeal to unique segments of students whether the differentiator is academic level, interests, home state, legacy status, athlete, or whatever you decide. 

Instead of casting a wide net and hoping something sticks, you can be intentional and send communication that speaks to students—all without needing to write hundreds of individual messages.

Automation: A Streamlined Experience for Prospects That Saves You Time

Major brands know that the ability to send timely communication based on a consumer’s actions is exactly the kind of behavioral marketing that keeps audiences loyal and engaged. 

The biggest clothing and retail brands like Levi's, Pottery Barn, and Macy’s know that timing can sometimes be more important than the message itself. That’s why retailers send follow-up emails with a coupon code when you’ve left items in your virtual shopping cart or text you about similar products after you’ve made a purchase. Why shouldn’t today’s learners expect the same tailored immediacy in their educational journey? 

But who has time to duplicate hundreds of emails and texts for each possible scenario and manually schedule sends? (Answer: no one!) 

With a CRM like Element451 that offers easy-to-implement automation, you can:

• Schedule sends by date and time or, even better, by a trigger 
• Easily adjust the days between sends and rearrange the order of messages with Element451’s workflow builder
• Reuse sequences for different campaigns so all you have to do is change content
• Build out more robust, personalized, and data-informed sequences as you learn more about your student’s actions

You can even automate territory assignments, application completion push sequences, and more. Automation not only provides your students with a smoother and more enjoyable experience, but it decreases the number of repetitive tasks on your plate and gives you back time and energy for what matters most—personally engaging with students.

Increase Your Enrollment and Retention Without No Additional Staff

With these built-in solutions, it’s possible and easier for smaller, tightly stretched enrollment and marketing teams to punch way above their weight. It’s time for your team to experience every enhancement that Element451 can offer you. Schedule your personalized demo and we’ll brainstorm ways to solve all your most extensive recruitment and retention challenges.