Marketing to Your Whole Portfolio – Part 2: Advisors in the College Search
This series explores the idea that institutions benefit from a diverse enrollment portfolio to help them weather the ups and downs of demographic and economic trends that invariably come. It is very similar to the way that an individual would cultivate a diverse financial portfolio to reduce dependence on just one type of investment. This approach requires marketing offices to become adept at creating marketing segmented plans for the different audiences that make up the portfolio.
In Part 1 of the series, we focused on higher education marketers’ primary audience – prospective students. We explored how segmenting this audience based on geography and the special interests or characteristics leads to better results. We also examined ways to employ both general and targeted messages to engage those submarkets.
In this second part of the series, let’s look at some individuals who have a direct impact on a student’s college decision.
Audience 2: Prospective Students’ Parents
Parental influence in the college decision has only increased since the pandemic. A 2022 survey from EAB showed that 48 percent of graduating seniors named parents as one of their top five sources of information on colleges, up from 34 percent in 2019.
Like students, parents are not one unified market. Picture, for example, three types of parents that are likely represented in your applicant pool:
Parents of first-generation students who know almost nothing about the college search process.
Parents with a college education, but who are helping their first child through the process.
Parents who have older students who have recently gone through the college process
As you can imagine, these types of parents often approach the decision process differently and are likely to respond to different messaging. Knowing this, it is important to make sure we are including messages that appeal to this range of needs.
For first-gen families, provide messages that are educational about the process. Help them see how to make the most of a college opportunity. Include messages that demonstrate that students will be supported, even when challenging things happen.
For college educated parents walking their first child through a college search, we may be doing some myth busting, or we may be educating them about how the college experience has changed since they went through it themselves.
For parents who already have experienced a child’s college search, demonstrate that we are easy-to-work-with partners in their student’s success. We should also be sending messages about outcomes, both by providing statistics and sharing stories.
The good news is that these different groups are not likely to be put off by the other messages, so the key takeaway is to remember to provide answers to parents of all kinds and allow them to respond to what resonates with them.
Audience 3: Counselors
Parents are not typically their students’ only sources of support. Most students’ college search process is also influenced by some type of counselor. Almost every student in the U.S. has access to some professional source of guidance for the future through their school system or the growing industry of private college counselors.
At public schools, “school counselors” or “guidance counselors” often wear several hats. Not only do they meet with students to talk about college and career plans, but they often also handle a wide range of social, psychological, and even disciplinary questions. Some work with dozens of students, some with hundreds. Because of this volume challenge, school counselors need colleges to help them cut through the noise. Institutions can build a positive relationship with them by providing helpful educational resources, opportunities for professional development, and easy-to-find information. Make sure your website is simple to navigate and helps counselors find the information that they need quickly. Consider developing a newsletter for counselors or even a section of the website dedicated to them. By making their work easier, colleges make it easier for counselor to recommend us to their students.
At private schools, there are typically designated “college counselors,” who focus totally on preparing students for the future. These counselors need less support from institutions in providing educational resources or making things quick and easy. Instead, they need to understand your college’s differentiators so that they can recommend you based on those unique advantages. In the absence of clear differentiation, students will default to the same familiar suspects. Many college counselors want to help their students broaden their choice sets, but they need to clearly see what differentiates our programs, culture, location, and philosophy.
Independent college counselors are a unique group. Families hire these individuals to help them organize their search and maximize their results. Their clients are typically families who have a strong interest in seeing outcomes information. When we present those outcomes, it is important to keep in mind the marketing principle that people don’t buy features, they buy benefits. It is not enough to tell people we have small class sizes or fabulous faculty. We need to help them understand why they should care about these features and how they impact them personally. Our anecdotes and the statistics we use need to clearly demonstrate the benefits students will receive by choosing us as a partner.
Influence the Influencer
With all of these direct sources of influence, our goal should be to invite them to partner with us in helping the student make the right match. The more that we can send our messages clearly and persuasively, the more champions we can create to direct students to us in a crowded market.
In the final part of this series, we’ll look at another circle of people who influence college choice and focus on how to build our brand through them.
Do you need help refining your university’s differentiators or developing a consistent brand message? Let’s talk about how 5° Branding can help.
