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As a higher education institution, you have three main goals in everything you do: to attract exceptional students, to recruit and retain top talent and to encourage alumni to stay involved (particularly through donations). One excellent tool for achieving all of these goals is content marketing. That’s because the internet is one of the most commonly used resources for each of these audiences. So, how can you hone your university’s content strategy to achieve optimum results? Let’s take a look at 4 different ideas that you can consider implementing today.

• Showcase your school’s daily life through social media. Develop rich content that demonstrates to outsiders what it’s like to either attend or work for your institution. This content can be in many different forms, and the more dynamic the better, so think pictures, videos, infographics, podcasts etc. The more creative you can get, the better. Then, share that content socially via the different popular networks, like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

• Develop content that focuses on the needs of your audience. It’s not all about the programs your college offers or its many awards, accolades and achievements. While that information is important, it’s not engaging. In other words, it’s not going to draw people in, hold their interest and make them want to share. For that reason, you should also be developing content that specifically addresses your audience’s needs, desires and pain points. For instance, how about a blog post that walks a prospective student through the scholarship application process?

• Create an online magazine for alumni. The fact is, alumni are the strongest supporters of a higher education institution, both in terms of financial support and invaluable word of mouth marketing within their own networks and connections. Keeping these people engaged and connected is critical. While most schools have a small area on their website that contains information about alumni, you can go above and beyond this by dedicating an ongoing online publication that addresses the needs and wants of your former students and keeps them involved.

• Build a robust site with many subsites. With the right content management system, you should be able to develop a broad range of subsites that link from your main college website. Beyond the traditional department sections, consider categorizing separate hubs that are specifically designed for your three main audiences. Again, content managers should be creative and focus on the type of content that their target visitors would gain the most value from.

Don’t forget to make sure your site, along with any and all subsites you develop, have been designed to be responsive and mobile friendly. This will ensure that your content has a better chance of being discovered in the search engines and can be easily accessed anytime, from anywhere. The more work you put into developing an effective content marketing strategy for your higher education institution, the more it will pay off in the long run.

TAGGED: Tags: content marketing