Personalization in Higher Ed Marketing: The Key To Transforming Student Engagement

The best students can attend any university, but they’ll choose the school that provides the opportunities that align most closely with their own interests and goals. With dozens or hundreds of schools to choose from for some students, higher education marketing is becoming increasingly competitive — and personalization is the key differentiator. 

Yet, many universities still use generic messaging, overlooking the power of tailored outreach that speaks directly to a prospective student’s aspirations, academic interests, and career goals. 

As higher ed institutions face enrollment challenges, schools that embrace personalization in their marketing efforts will be the ones that stand out, drive engagement, and draw in the next generation of students.

While using a student’s name might catch their attention for a split second, it doesn’t do much to create a meaningful connection or demonstrate a true understanding of that person’s unique interests.

The most successful personalized marketing delivers a prospective student journey that aligns with their desires and plans for the future. One-to-one messages tailored to student interests and goals are now the best way to capture and maintain prospective students’ attention.

At least one in five applicants are now “stealth applicants” — those who make the first identifiable contact with a school when they apply. That means they don’t sign up for email lists or campus tours; they do their research independently and quietly. 

The lack of data on these students makes them tough to identify, and even harder to reach out to. This forces universities to rethink their recruitment strategies to focus more heavily on digital touchpoints, like virtual tours, website content, and program pages.

One of the biggest challenges in higher education recruitment is the College Board’s halt on selling personal data collected through student SAT exams under penalty of law. While this is great news from a data security perspective, it’s not so much for colleges and universities that once relied on that purchased data to fuel personalized outreach efforts.

This increasing difficulty in collecting prospective student data is defined as the “search cliff,” and it’s not just attributed to data sales: Some higher ed institutions are adopting test-optional policies, which is reducing the number of students taking the SAT and ACT and thereby limiting the number of people who opt into data-sharing programs.

What does personalization mean in a world of shifting recruitment strategies? We consider it to fall within the following four categories:

Personalization is a need for successful higher education marketing — not a luxury. Done well, and it can create strong connections with prospective students that lead to higher enrollment rates.

But if personalization is so mission critical, why doesn’t every school do it? There are a few common challenges holding some back:

Schools that want to leverage personalization to stand out, create meaningful connections with prospective students, and see higher enrollment numbers need clear strategies that make the most of their resources. Here are four strategies that universities can use to approach personalization deliberately and effectively.

Building in-house solutions is often too resource-intensive for strapped recruitment teams. It’s time-consuming, expensive, and risky — when solutions are already out there. One overlooked consideration is that building your own solution means creating several soft conversion points for collecting student data.

Purchasing a solution can mean buying into a system created by experts and already bolstered by student data. Plus, it means you can quickly test if a solution works for you instead of investing time and energy in building something that may not work for your institution. 

Relying on a third-party vendor can give you the flexibility to scale if needed, and allows you to focus on nurturing relationships without getting bogged down in technical development.

Personalizing marketing for students starting at the very top of the marketing funnel can make an impact right away — but the key is to keep it going throughout their journey down to the bottom of the funnel. Consistent and relevant engagement maintains attention and makes prospective students feel valued, whether it’s through personalized emails, targeted content, or interest-based outreach.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has its limitations, but it shines when used to scale repetitive tasks. In higher-ed recruitment, AI can expand your ability to reach out to prospects with personalized messages. Instead of making overburdened marketing teams reach out to every lead, you can leverage AI-driven tools to generate initial outreach with a message that touches on each student’s particular interests. Then, the students who engage can be passed along to a human recruiter to nurture that lead.

Personalization isn’t a one-time effort — it’s an ongoing, evolving strategy that changes as student expectations shift, new technologies emerge, and goals adjust. Continuously refining and updating your approach ensures that your messaging strays relevant and impactful over time, leading to long-term relationships with future students.

FlippedApp bridges the gap between universities and prospective students, allowing them to make direct and relevant connections. As an AI-powered matchmaker between students and schools, it can seamlessly modernize your school’s recruitment strategies.

It works by allowing students to make profiles sharing their desired major, career ambitions, interests and hobbies, and what they seek in a school. Universities, in return, can search for students and filter by GPA, location, school preferences, and academic interests. 

Automating outreach, AI can send initial messages to student matches like “Hi [Name]! [University name] is really interested in you, and we at FlippedApp notice you’re on the ambitious and needed path of becoming a doctor with a passion for helping children. They offer a strong program in healtchare and could align with your career goals as they’re partnered with the local healthcare community and offer regulary shadowing opportunities. Plus, their intimate campus culture and mountain scenery fosters a close-knit community where we believe you’ll thrive. Interested in learning more about the university?”

Once a student engages, human recruiters can engage with the lead to offer more complex answers to questions.

Personalization is the new norm in higher-ed marketing. To get a competitive advantage, your personalization should be specific and truly touch on prospective students’ real pain points.

As the use of data-driven personalization expands, it will go beyond getting students in the door — it will become a tool for engaging students throughout their time in school and finding opportunities to support students academically. This will make personalization not only a recruitment tool but a retention tool.

FlippedApp combines the power of automation, data, and AI into a specific and targeted tool for university recruitment.

Create hyper-personalized experiences for students at scale starting from the very first touchpoint. Trust us, you’ll make an impression.