Integrating Marketing and Enrollment in Higher Education

Integrating Marketing and Enrollment in Higher Education

• Enrollment and marketing are often housed in separate offices with competing visions, but it makes sense to unite them as enrollment is the marketing office’s largest client.
• Marketing and enrollment are steps in the same journey for students, and strong marketing makes recruiting students easier.
• Mergers of marketing and enrollment are growing in popularity in higher education.
• Marketing offices are filled with people from various backgrounds, shaping how a marketing team carries out its work.
• Disparate backgrounds can lead to a lack of agreement about the marketing team’s role, but recognizing varied backgrounds can help build a well-rounded team.
• One of the biggest challenges for communications teams is that everyone thinks they can do marketing.
• Marketing offices often attract artists, but most campus clients want the marketing team to function more like a business.
• Staff members in many marketing offices feel as if they are constantly reacting rather than progressing in any particular direction.
• Discovering an institutional narrative that is authentic and resonates with students is the biggest opportunity for marketing offices.
• Identifying the narrative allows a marketing office to prioritize and plan in a coherent way.
• Integrating marketing and enrollment is not enough to just share office space or an organizational chart, but the two teams can learn to work in tandem.
• Structural changes can make people nervous but can lead to new leadership skills and staff members finding more of a voice.