Higher Education Marketing

08/24/2026

AI can help higher education teams respond faster, organize inquiries, personalize communications, and identify where prospective students may need support.

Yet efficiency alone does not create confidence during a major life decision. 🤖

The strongest recruitment approach treats AI as a support system for people, not a substitute for them.

Routine tasks can be automated, but complex questions, sensitive circumstances, and moments of uncertainty still benefit from empathy, judgment, and genuine conversation.

Clear disclosure, responsible data use, and timely staff handoffs help ensure technology strengthens the student experience.

Consider where AI could create more time for meaningful human interaction in your recruitment process: https://higher-education-marketing.com/contact

08/21/2026

Authenticity describes how content represents an experience, while user-generated content identifies who created it. A school can produce content that feels genuine, while a student can create UGC that offers an independent perspective. The concepts overlap, but they serve different roles within a content strategy. 🤳

In this clip from HEM’s webinar on UGC and authentic school marketing, Scott Cross discusses why both matter. Institution-led content can provide accuracy, structure, and context. Student and alumni contributions can add personal detail, social proof, and perspectives that official messaging cannot replicate in the same way.

Higher education teams considering how these formats fit together can get in touch with HEM: https://www.higher-education-marketing.com/contact

08/19/2026

Can your admissions team handle the next surge in inquiries and applications? Capacity planning helps schools anticipate recruiter workloads, overdue tasks, response times, and enrollment bottlenecks before intake activity peaks. Learn how enrollment systems and CRM data can help teams plan resources and maintain consistent student follow-up.

Use enrollment data for capacity planning, forecast admissions workload, identify staffing gaps, and prepare your team before the next intake.

08/18/2026

January enrollment campaigns are often judged by what happens close to the deadline, but their effectiveness depends on work completed months earlier. Schools need time to prepare useful content, align landing pages with ads, build follow-up workflows, monitor performance, and keep marketing and admissions working from the same plan.

HEM’s webinar, “Start January Enrollment Campaign Now: How to Build a Coordinated Strategy that Has Time to Work,” will outline a 120-day campaign model from August to December. It will explain how early setup supports later acquisition and nurturing, when activity should intensify, and how analytics can guide decisions before the final enrollment period.

The session is intended for teams responsible for January starts that want a more connected planning process across channels and departments.

Add the webinar to your calendar and register for the session that matches your time zone.

🔗 Register here:

Session 1. Thursday, August 20, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. GMT / 2:00 p.m. CET.: https://landing.higher-education-marketing.com/webinar-august-2026-uk/europe-start-january-enrollment-campaign-now-how-to-build-a-coordinated-strategy-that-has-time-to-work

Session 2. Thursday, August 20, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. EDT.: https://landing.higher-education-marketing.com/webinar-august-2026-na-start-january-enrollment-campaign-now-how-to-build-a-coordinated-strategy-that-has-time-to-work

08/17/2026

Search visibility no longer guarantees a website visit. Prospective students can find program details, deadlines, locations, reviews, and answers directly within search results, AI-generated summaries, maps, social platforms, and video feeds. 🖱️💭

For higher education marketers, this changes what meaningful performance looks like. Website sessions and last-click conversions still matter, but they tell only part of the story.

Search impressions, branded demand, profile activity, content engagement, assisted conversions, and CRM outcomes can provide a broader view of how visibility influences student decisions.

🔗 Consider where zero-click signals could add context to your institution’s reporting: https://higher-education-marketing.com/contact

08/14/2026

Paid search and social advertising have both been reshaped by automation, machine learning, privacy changes, and increasingly complex platform tools. Even so, their foundational difference still matters. Search generally responds to expressed demand, while social helps institutions create awareness through interests, behaviours, and creative context.

In this clip from “2026 Digital Marketing Roadmap: Top Trends to Drive Enrollment,” Scott Cross examines what has changed and what remains consistent across these channels. Keeping their roles clear can help higher education teams align audience strategy, creative, budgets, and performance expectations with how prospective students use each platform.

➡️ Institutions reviewing their paid media mix can get in touch with HEM to continue the discussion: https://www.higher-education-marketing.com/contact

08/13/2026

Planning for January enrollment in August may feel early, but a coordinated campaign needs time to build momentum. Schools must create content, prepare landing pages, launch paid activity, improve search visibility, nurture inquiries through email and CRM, retarget engaged prospects, and support admissions follow-up before the holiday slowdown.

HEM's upcoming webinar, “Start January Enrollment Campaign Now: How to Build a Coordinated Strategy that Has Time to Work,” will present a practical 120-day framework from August through December. It will cover how to move from awareness to application urgency, what content to prepare before advertising peaks, and which metrics to monitor throughout the campaign.

Marketing and admissions leaders, enrollment managers, digital marketing specialists, and school leaders planning January program starts are invited to attend.

Select the session that fits your time zone and register below.

🔗 Register here:

Session 1. Thursday, August 20, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. GMT / 2:00 p.m. CET.: https://landing.higher-education-marketing.com/webinar-august-2026-uk/europe-start-january-enrollment-campaign-now-how-to-build-a-coordinated-strategy-that-has-time-to-work

Session 2. Thursday, August 20, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. EDT.: https://landing.higher-education-marketing.com/webinar-august-2026-na-start-january-enrollment-campaign-now-how-to-build-a-coordinated-strategy-that-has-time-to-work

08/13/2026

Prospective students want to understand an institution through the people who have experienced it firsthand. Student and alumni ambassadors can provide that perspective through campus takeovers, interviews, testimonials, event coverage, career stories, and answers to common questions. 🤳

When supported by thoughtful prompts, accessible tools, editorial guidance, and clear consent practices, ambassador programs can generate a steady flow of useful content without flattening individual voices.

The result is not simply more material.

It is a broader representation of campus life, academic experiences, and graduate outcomes across the recruitment journey.

🔗 Consider how student and alumni voices could strengthen your institution’s content strategy: https://higher-education-marketing.com/contact

08/12/2026

Are your program pages, blogs, FAQs, and admissions resources working together or operating in isolation? A program-led topic cluster content strategy can help schools create clearer student pathways while strengthening topical authority across traditional and AI-powered search. Learn how to structure content around individual programs, improve internal linking, and connect student research with enrollment action.

Build program-led content clusters connecting program pages, student questions, proof content, and internal links for stronger SEO and AI search visibility.

08/08/2026

When marketing, admissions, finance, and other institutional teams operate through disconnected tools, each department may hold only part of the student record. This can create duplicate work, inconsistent follow-up, and reporting gaps that make recruitment performance difficult to assess as a whole.

In this clip from “One System. Total Control: The Future of Enrollment Management, Scott Cross explains why enrollment management benefits from a shared platform. Connecting data and workflows can help teams preserve context, coordinate responsibilities, and make decisions using a more complete view of prospective student activity.

🔗 Institutions considering a more connected enrollment environment can continue the conversation with HEM: https://www.higher-education-marketing.com/contact