If you work in enrollment marketing or admissions, chances are you’ve asked yourself this question at least once: “Am I normal … or is something wrong with the way we’re doing this?”
You’re not alone. In fact, many of the pressures, frustrations, and obstacles you’re facing are not only common, they’re systemic across the higher education enrollment landscape, and we hear a wide range of issues as we work with our partners to meet their enrollment goals.
Let’s unpack what “normal” really looks like right now.
“Our Leads Are Up, but Enrollment Is Flat.”
This is one of the most common pain points institutions share. Marketing teams are generating interest, inquiries are flowing, and yet deposits and enrollments aren’t keeping pace.
This disconnect often stems from:
- Incorrect targeting/mass lead strategies focusing on quantity over quality, geared towards supporting media channel metrics rather than end enrollment results.
- Longer decision cycles and increased prospect skepticism. The application is really the new starting line, and we need to further market to these prospects.
- Inconsistent follow-up or handoff between marketing and admissions, who are operating in silos, where data showing the full journey from initial exposure to enrollment isn’t shared or known, hindering data-led marketing decisions.
- Prospects applying to more institutions than ever before.
If any of this sounds familiar, it doesn’t mean your strategy is completely broken; it means the funnel has fundamentally changed, and we need to rise to the occasion.
It’s essential to look at the full funnel and ensure marketing and admissions work closely together, sharing data and identifying opportunities to seize, from lead nurturing gaps to determining which channels are actually generating the highest-quality leads. As we’ll talk about later, your marketing strategy is your admissions strategy.
“We’re Being Asked to Do More With Less.”
Budget constraints, higher enrollment goals, and shrinking teams have become the norm. Many enrollment professionals are managing multiple roles and are expected to be the marketing strategist, analyst, content creator, CRM expert, and counselor all at once!
This strain isn’t a reflection of poor planning; it’s a reality of an industry navigating demographic shifts, a population questioning the value of higher education and whether it’s even worth it, rising costs, and increased competition for every student, especially with the enrollment cliff now in full effect.
The good news is that you can do more with less. It’s essential to take a step back and realize that media budgets aren’t the only lever you can pull for enrollment growth; there are many levers you can pull to increase your competitiveness and stride towards your enrollment goals, such as:
- Applying AI-SEO best practices to your website for enhanced discoverability to increase organic traffic.
- Leveraging SEO article content that is tangentially related to your programs and answers key discovery questions from prospects, creating a steady stream of organic traffic to your website that will compound over time.
- Reviewing your lead nurturing workflows, identifying gaps and areas of improvement to better nurture and move those leads from inquiry to enrollment.
- Undertaking CRO to core pages on your website, ensuring visitors are taking the actions you want and engaging with the right content at the right time.
- Revisiting your messaging. Creative is fast becoming the new targeting strategy, and it’s essential you communicate the value proposition of your institution as well as making sure you don’t get lost in the sea of sameness with tired creative in market.
Again, there are multiple areas to compete that will compound your marketing investment over time, so don’t feel that paid media is the be all and end all of your enrollment strategy.
“Our Prospects Are Harder to Reach.”
Email open rates fluctuate in your CRM. Your phone calls go unanswered. Your text messages are ignored one week and welcomed the next.
Welcome to today’s students!
It’s very clear that in today’s enrollment marketing environment, prospective students:
- Expect personalization – cookie cutter generic messaging just won’t cut it. After all, we’re not competing against other institutions, we compete against every communication a prospective student receives.
- Research extensively before engaging with longer discovery cycles. That means we need to make sure we are in the conversation across key channels that matter with content that engages and persuades.
- Want communication on their terms. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work anymore, and variety of communication and content is key.
If you’re struggling to break through, it doesn’t always mean your messaging is ineffective; it means students’ expectations have evolved, and we need to strategize around them. More variety of content, channels, and ways students can access information will give you a wider net to capture prospects.
“Marketing and Admissions Feel Disconnected.”
The main problem we see is that many institutions still operate in silos, even when both teams are aligned on outcomes. Misaligned KPIs, unclear ownership of the prospect journey, and inconsistent data visibility and sharing can quietly undermine enrollment results.
This is a common structural challenge, not a cultural failure! The good news is that this is fixable with intentional collaboration.
If you truly think about it, your marketing strategy is your admissions strategy, so it’s vital that the left hand talks to the right here. When we have clear funnel visibility and clear attribution, we’re able to make data-led decisions to strategically inform our marketing mix, leaning into what’s working and moving away from what’s not.
So, speak to admissions, and get insight into the funnel. Is it a case that marketing is generating quality leads, but the lead nurturing experience is poor and there’s room for improvement? Are certain channels generating more enrollments than others, warranting a media mix shift? When these two departments share data and work together, enrollment increases, period.
“Our Messaging Feels Generic, but We Don’t Know How to Fix It.”
Standing out as an institution is harder when:
- Programs sound similar across institutions.
- Everyone is targeting the same student segments.
- Everyone is launching the same in-demand programs.
Struggling to differentiate doesn’t mean your institution lacks value, it means articulating that value clearly has become more complex, and a creative strategy is needed in order to stand out within the sea of sameness higher education marketing often operates in.
Research shows that the value of a degree is in question by our target audience, and we can no longer rest on the age-old assumption of students understanding the value of a degree and the upward social mobility it enables, we have to take a step back.
Are you truly communicating the value of your institution throughout your messaging from paid campaigns to CRM communications to your website itself?
Here’s a quick exercise for you: Take a look at a program page on your site and ask yourself:
- Does it speak to job outcomes?
- Does it feature salary ranges the student could enjoy?
- Does it feature employment stats in the area?
- Does it feature a testimonial from a graduate?
- Does it feature logos of companies your students have gone on to work for?
If your program page reads like a course handbook, opportunity awaits!
So… Am I Normal?
Yes. Completely.
If any of the above sound familiar, you’re not alone, and what you’re experiencing reflects broader enrollment trends we’re experiencing in the market.
The institutions finding success right now aren’t immune to these challenges; they’re simply acknowledging them, adapting their approach, and leaning into data, alignment, and experimentation.
If you’re asking, “Am I normal?” you’re paying attention. And that’s exactly where meaningful enrollment growth begins.
If you’d like to find out more about how to get away from the norm, get in touch. We’d love to explore how we can help your enrollment marketing efforts and would welcome the opportunity.
