7 College Enrollment Marketing Tools for Your 2024-2025 Strategy

The pressure is on. With the college admissions landscape in a season of tremendous change and a shrinking pool of students to reach via traditional marketing methods, college admissions and enrollment marketing staff are stressed…and that’s putting it lightly!

Step back from your day-to-day and read this blog post where we help you look at your current enrollment and admissions marketing tools (and maybe some new ones) from a different perspective.

This article may be especially helpful for small colleges and universities with limited budgets.

7 Admissions Marketing Tools to Consider for 2024-2025 (And How to Make the Most of Them)

Odds are, you’re already using a lot of these tools. Here are some ways to maximize them this academic year.

If you’re not already using them, these can be great enrollment marketing tools to consider adding to your strategy.

1. Virtual Tour Software

This college brand-building tool has gained a ton of traction since 2020. Tours are a crucial factor in the final college decision-making process, making them a great event to revisit this year to boost enrollment numbers (especially if you haven’t touched yours since 2020 or 2021). 

Features to look out for: Mobile functionality, interactive campus maps, 360 views

Audience: Students and their families

Funnel stage: Consideration and decision (Bottom of the funnel)

Key metrics to track: Tour view rate, percent of the tour watched, post-tour inquiry submissions

Ways to optimize: 

• Add in testimonials from current students
• Highlight what’s truly unique about your college
• Start sharing in email marketing, social media, and your school’s website

2. Task Management Tool

Say goodbye to the days of rouge sticky notes. Get on the same page with teammates and reduce meetings.

Features to look out for: Time tracking ability, communication tools with teammates, fields to organize task categories

Audience: College admissions staff

Funnel stage: All

Key metrics to track: Average tasks completed per month, workload per employee

Ways to optimize: 

• Track average time spent on tasks to help determine your high-impact tasks
• Configure goals to track progress
• Create projects for your top initiatives
• Invite your team to collaborate with you in the task management tool

3. Email Marketing Software

Okay, we know you’ve got this one. This year is a great time to try new highly-targeted campaigns and do an email marketing health check-up. This article on higher education email marketing must-knows is a great resource to check out!

Features to look out for: Robust reporting, drag-and-drop editor, segmentation abilities

Audience: Students and families

Funnel stage: All

Key metrics to track: Open rate, bounce rate, click-through rate

Ways  to optimize: 

• Try cleaning your lists (removing bounced contacts, for instance)
• Create a new lead nurturing campaign for students at each stage in the funnel
• Revamp your email design
• Revisit your segmentation and determine how to get even more targeted with your email campaigns

4. Asynchronous Video Recording

Are you looking to save time and start making video content for students yourself? This is a great option if your team's budget is too tight to fund for high-production video.

There are numerous video recording tools that allow you to record yourself (and/or share your screen) and share those videos with students or coworkers. Videos like these are great to add to your website, in email marketing, or directly to students.

Features to look out for: A large storage capacity, the ability to record self and screen, the option to add your school’s branding elements

Audience: College admissions staff, students, and families

Funnel stage: All

Key metrics to track: Percent focus rate, click-through rate, post-video form submission rate

Ways to optimize: 

• Think about: where can we add more personalization to our enrollment marketing? Video may be the answer
• How can we convert our written content into video?

5. SEO Research Software

A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool can help you determine what phrases students search for on Google to find colleges like yours.

Psst…you may not need to actually buy one. There are many free resources out there to teach you about SEO. 

Features to look out for: Keyword management, content optimization ideas

Audience: Students and families

Funnel stage: All

Key metrics to track: Website traffic, organic traffic, keywords your domain and your competitors are ranking for

Ways to optimize: 

• Update the content you already have (How can you make it more helpful and evergreen?)

6. Website Chatbot

Chatbots are a great way to answer questions fast. 

Your CRM or marketing automation software may allow this, or you could go with another vendor. 

Features to look out for: AI functionality, the option to speak with a bot or real person

Audience: Students and families

Funnel stage: All

Key metrics to track: Engagement rate, progression through chatbot steps and phases

Ways to optimize: 

• Branding (How can you give our chatbot our unique voice?)
• Chatbot pathways (How can you make the potential chatbot paths more helpful?)

7. Webinar Hosting Tool

Ah, yes. A marketing classic. And for a reason!

Webinars can be a great way to interact with prospective students and help them get to know your school’s culture (plus learn the answers to any FAQs they may have).

Features to look out for: Ability to prerecord webinars, simple registration flow, automatic reminder emails

Audience: Students and families

Funnel stage: Consideration and decision (bottom of the funnel)

Key metrics to track: Engagement rate, focus rate during the event (time actually spent watching), attendance rate

Ways  to optimize: 

• Analyze past webinar performance and determine which dates and times work best

Bonus: Go Where The Students Are

If you’re looking for a new, high-impact enrollment marketing tool, we think Scoir is worth a look! 😉

Scoir is the place where students do all things college search and planning. Every college has a profile on Scoir, similar to a social media profile. When you become a Scoir partner, you can take your profile to the next level, message students who follow your school on Scoir, and see insights about those who follow you.

Our college partners find that 52-90% of their interested students on Scoir are stealth (meaning, the students weren’t already captured in their CRM)!

Check out what we’re all about, view our case studies, or schedule a consultation to get started.

This article was originally published on April 22, 2024. It was updated on October 24, 2024 for accuracy and comprehensiveness.