Higher ed marketers are busy.
(Okay, maybe that’s an understatement.)
It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day hustle of being productive and delivering output that, many times, we overlook the parts of the marketing and admissions process that are getting stale.
Here are six ways to evaluate some of your essential touchpoints to make sure that you're bringing a fresh and practical approach to your marketing strategy, software automation, student experience, and organizational alignment.
The first touch is one of the most critical moments of the entire lifecycle because it’s the moment of highest intent. Sometimes, you only get one opportunity: either you make a connection with the prospective student, or you don’t.
When a prospect submits a form, makes a call, or clicks “request info,” they are at peak motivation. They’re actively seeking answers, they’re emotionally and cognitively open, and their problem is top-of-mind. If that moment is missed or mishandled, intent decays rapidly—often in as little as a few minutes or hours.
Here’s where we often see Marketing make a misstep: they tend to be too general with their messaging, missing their opportunity to really form a connection.
Not all prospect inquiries are the same, and the fastest way for the Marketing team to lose credibility with Admissions is to treat them as such. Where the lead comes from, whether it’s an inquiry form, an open house event, or a college fair, doesn’t tell the whole story.
Marketing often optimizes for volume and efficiency, not intent. As a result, different prospect behaviors get funneled into the same workflow, even though they signal very different levels of readiness.
This is a true story from my days working in Admissions.
One afternoon, I pulled two inquiries that had come in on the same day. It was the same inquiry form, from the same source, and both prospects were of the same status in our CRM. On paper, they were identical.
But when I looked at the details, the story changed completely.
The first prospect was an experienced professional exploring an online career-advancement program. Before submitting the form, they had reviewed transfer credit policies, checked program length, and looked at tuition. Their question was straightforward: “How many credits will transfer, and how quickly can I finish?”
The second prospect was someone considering a hands-on, on-campus trade program. Before submitting the form, they had looked at class schedules, program start dates, and commute times. Their question was equally practical: “What are the class hours, and can I work while enrolled?”
And yet, we were responding to both of them the same way: same email, same tone, same call-to-action.
In that moment, it was obvious why things felt off. These weren’t two “leads”—they were two people making very different decisions under very different constraints. The working professional needed clarity, efficiency, and respect for their time, and the trade-school prospect needed reassurance about schedule fit, attendance expectations, and real-world feasibility.
By treating them the same, we weren’t being neutral. We were being irrelevant.
That’s when it clicked for me: where a lead comes from doesn’t tell the whole story. An inquiry form, an open house, a landing page…those are just the doors someone walks through. What matters far more is the context they bring with them: program type, modality, scheduling needs, and readiness to enroll.
When we tailor our communication to that context, something shifts. Conversations feel more natural. Admissions teams trust the handoff. Prospects feel understood, sometimes before they even realize why.
Speed still matters. Relevance builds trust—and trust, more than anything else, is what turns an inquiry into a conversation, and a conversation into a decision.
This is the other side of the first inquiry capture—making sure there is internal alignment between Marketing and Admissions.
From a Marketing perspective, we need to make sure that we’re getting the right information at the first inquiry so that we’re supporting the relationship that Admission is building with the prospect.
It’s not Marketing’s job to qualify the student, but the more information captured in the initial inquiry, the higher the quality, and it builds momentum for the Admissions team to establish a connection with the prospect earlier in the process.
Part of this is making sure that you have the right CRM—as well as the right administrators to support it—and that you’ve set up the right automation and communication triggers. Marketing should own the first response to the inquiry form, even if it’s automated. The moment the lead comes in, text goes out, email gets triggered, chatbot fires, etc., with tailored messaging for that specific student.
If these touchpoints feel too generic, you could miss out on the opportunity completely.
And, if Marketing doesn’t capture the right information in the first inquiry, Admissions has to spend time gathering information instead of having a quality conversation that provides value to the prospective student.
Of course, all of this is easier said than done. However, the more work these two teams can do up front to better work together, the more automated and streamlined this process can be, and the better the conversations with the prospect will be.
Where are your marketing campaigns currently running?
Most Marketing departments are actively running engagement campaigns across multiple channels at any given time: email, social media, video, advertisements, print, etc.
But how unified are they, really?
It’s like with a symphony—even the best musicians in the world would sound terrible if they aren’t all playing the same song.
Similarly, your marketing channels should all be orchestrating the same message with harmony, balance, and cohesion.
Too often, I see schools that use social media for one message, email marketing for another, and so forth down the line. It creates such confusion for the prospect, and most importantly, it becomes less impactful.
Disjointed outreach like this feels overwhelming, noisy, and frustrating, which is likely to cause the prospect to disengage or opt out completely.
This is really important: just because Marketing has handed off a prospect to the Admissions team doesn’t mean that Marketing’s job is done with that prospect.
This is especially true with career-focused schools.
Our prospective students are busy people, with many of them working full-time, supporting families, and balancing other life responsibilities while exploring education opportunities. For many people like this, there isn’t a straight line from prospect to enrollment.
However, oftentimes the students who take longer to consider their options end up being the best-fit, most qualified students who are most likely to retain through graduation.
Most marketing nurturing strategies fade too quickly, with the Marketing department typically “backing off” once Admissions takes over. However, the most effective Marketing teams are following through and supporting the admissions process all the way through enrollment.
To do this well, Marketing needs full visibility into the entire student lifecycle.
It’s an unfortunate reality, but too often it seems that the Marketing and Admissions departments are at odds with each other.
Marketing is generally focused on the volume of leads and prospects, and Admissions is generally focused on quality.
And, both sides are quick point fingers when goals aren’t met.
The highest-performing institutions are able to align these two teams by bridging the gaps, creating understanding and common goals, and most importantly…communicating.
Not only does this help with enrollment numbers (and it does…a lot!), but it actually creates a better student experience because there is a unified message and seamless process from inquiry to enrollment.
So, what does creating an effective feedback loop look like?
For starters, it’s important to have regular meetings (say, monthly or quarterly) with stakeholders from all key teams, including Marketing, Admissions, and Academics. In these meetings, you should be discussing what’s working and what’s not, reviewing your school’s performance against its goals, and addressing any major pain points in the way you’re operating.
Ask questions like:
Using questions like these as a launching point will facilitate productive, positive meetings that will benefit every department as well as your students.
But most of all, this initiative has to start at the top. Being more strategic and unified as an organization has to start with leadership. Do that well, and the rest will follow.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but it addresses a frequently overlooked aspect of higher ed marketing and admissions strategies, which is restraint.
The “old ways” of marketing and admissions told us that the more communication, the better, but for today’s audience, that isn’t necessarily true.
People are busy. The world is noisy. Everything is fighting for everyone’s attention.
So, higher education needs to do a better job of embracing the power of the “silence period.”
Marketing teams sometimes forget that silence can be intentional and respectful, and that over-automation will sometimes erode trust rather than build it with prospective students—and even with enrolled students.
Knowing when not to message is as important as knowing when to engage.
Remember, students and prospects don’t disengage loudly. They are not going to reach out and say, “I don’t like this.” They’re simply going to disengage, unsubscribe, and stop responding altogether.
Don’t be afraid to embrace the quiet periods.
If you want to learn more about getting the most out of your tech stack, download The Career School’s Guide to Higher Ed Software! Inside, you’ll learn how to better align all of your essential tools: CRM, SIS, financial aid software, attendance tracking, and more.
Inside the guide: