With or without masks: marketing the college experience
In the higher education business, spring is a time of hope, new beginnings, and renewal.
Believe it or not, institutions are recruiting the class of 2026, admitting new students who will begin the fall 2021 semester, and returning to a COVID-19 hybrid or fully online learning environment.
If you work in higher education marketing or enrollment, you’ve hopefully discussed the approach to recruitment materials this year.
Should your recruitment marketing reflect what your institution was pre-COVID-19 , what your institution is like now, or what you hope it will become in the next normal?
For returning students, they’ve already weathered an unreal fall 2020 semester and, though Covid-19 vaccines are being administered, know the spring will likely be a repeat of the fall semester.
For future students, they aren’t just considering the next semester, they are thinking about the next 4 years of their lives. Surely they won’t always have a college experience with masks, glass partitions, and virtual classes, right?
So where does that leave us as marketers? Reusing video footage from 2018 when the world was “as we knew it?”
No. Just tell it like it is. This is the environment students will jump into, but just as your institution’s history isn’t defined solely by 2020, students will have 4 years to experience your school. So, show 2020 while letting recruits see who you’ve been and who you hope to become.
Let’s assume that by fall 2021, the significant majority of Americans will have the Covid-19 vaccine and universities will invite all their students, faculty, and staff back to campus.
This is your opportunity to tell a powerful story of unity, vision, and success to your recruits.
Context is key to ensuring you aren’t recruiting students by offering promises you can’t keep. Be cautious when using photos of students without masks in lecture style classrooms or sitting in groups on the campus quad unless you’re accompanying this with a script that adds context or some messaging that sets the scene.
You can and should still show students having fun and being part of a community, just be authentic and provide a little context so you can successfully straddling a pre and current Covid-19 era.
We’d all love nothing more than to come to campus and see students gathered together less than 6’ apart on the lawn without a care in the world. Unfortunately, this is not likely the college experience this years recruits will encounter so don’t bait and switch!
In times of uncertainty, hardship, and crisis, some organizations stumble — They become separate rather than united.
Show the various ways your institution rallied to protect its students, faculty, and staff during nearly the entirety of 2020. Incorporate pre-covid visuals and say (and show) something like “As a university, we had it all. State of the art facilities, world class teaching, and bustling student life. With COVID-19, our community was tested, but we never lost our momentum. And, as we teach our students, we evolved and adapted. We still had it all, it just looks a little different…” That was a subpar script, but you get the picture. Don’t judge me!
Marketing, especially for admissions, is about storytelling so the student can see themselves at your institution. Convey a sense of pride, togetherness, and momentum.
The truth is, we don’t know exactly what the college experience will look like at our institution or when it will reset.
But, if we stick to our principles — listening to the voice of the customer and delivering honest, authentic communication with frequency and transparency, then I have faith we (as marketers) will be doing our institutions a service.
