Building effective marketing plans is essential in any industry. One of the first steps, and arguably the most important, in an effective marketing plan for higher education is a determining a specific target audience. Having a strong target audience or buyer persona is critical to developing effective campaigns. We can only be as effective as our understanding of how our audience gets their information.
Assuming that institutions of higher education are targeting high school students, it’s important that we go to where they are. In the case of this example, we know that high school students spend a large amount of time on social media, so that’s a good place to start. Too many institutions, though, perceive social media to be an overarching channel for marketing communications. It’s essential that marketers dive deeper and determine which social media platforms are most effective.
If we’re trying to reach the high school students directly (and not their parents), it would make more sense to advertise on the social media platforms that are most popular with that age group: Snapchat and TikTok. Many institutions in higher education often forget these important platforms and focus more on Facebook and Instagram, where the demographic is older than our target audience.
While parents of high school students may be highly influential in the student’s choice of college/university, it’s essential that marketers meet them where they are to create brand affinity. We need to utilize the platforms that they’re on to generate interest and build affinity early on so that the student wants to go to our college/university. We are more likely to recruit if the interest comes directly from the student rather than as a directive from their parent(s).