Category: hemj

  • Asking the Right Questions- Archer Education

    Asking the Right Questions- Archer Education

    Why Universities Need the Right Partnership Criteria 

    When a higher education institution outsources its enrollment, marketing, or student engagement efforts, the stakes are high. Missteps don’t just cost money — they cost time and, most critically, can hinder enrollment growth. Many universities make the mistake of selecting vendors that focus on chasing leads, rather than aligning with the school’s mission or long-term goals.

    Without clear partnership criteria, even well-intentioned collaborations can falter. Misaligned university partnerships often lead to disjointed campaigns and wasted resources. What begins as a lead generation effort can evolve into dependency on a vendor that operates in isolation, without being guided by the institution’s strategy. 

    The right partner, by contrast, integrates seamlessly with the institution’s mission, aligns its services with the institution’s desired outcomes, and acts as a true extension of the institution.

    The Risks of Choosing the Wrong Partner               

    The wrong partner can create more problems than it solves. Some vendors sell services focused solely on activities — ads placed, events hosted, emails sent — without tying its efforts to the institution’s overarching strategy. This approach often fails to generate real enrollment growth, causing internal teams to struggle with unqualified leads and retention challenges. 

    Another potential risk stems from failing to consider how a partner will mesh with the institution’s legacy systems. Universities invest heavily in their marketing resources, such as their customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and brand assets. A vendor that imposes its own tools without considering the university’s existing infrastructure can create costly redundancies. 

    Equally concerning are long-term, restrictive partnership contracts that lock an institution into dependency and limit its flexibility, leaving it at the mercy of a vendor whose priorities may clash with the institution’s broader objectives or evolving market conditions.

    Strategic Alignment as the Core Test               

    The foundation of any successful university partnership is strategic alignment. True partners base the services they offer on the institution’s unique goals. They view marketing, admissions, and student success teams as interconnected — not completely separate entities.

    Shared key performance indicators (KPIs) are a key component of this alignment. When both the institution and its partner commit to tracking metrics such as the conversion rate from inquiry to application, the yield rate from admission to enrollment, and the one-year retention rate, they create mutual accountability across every stage of the student journey.  

    Archer’s Growth Readiness Assessment offers a model for this type of collaboration. This tool helps an institution evaluate its readiness to scale its programs — whether they are in person or online — by evaluating the university’s internal capacity, identifying any potential hurdles, and aligning its in-house teams and external partners. Performing such an assessment early in the vendor selection process ensures the university partnership is built on a foundation of clarity and trust. 

    Procurement Criteria That Drive Success              

    When it comes time for an institution to formalize a partnership, focusing on transparency, flexibility, and accountability can make the difference between achieving sustainable growth and creating new operational challenges. 

    Institutions that emphasize these criteria are better positioned to form partnerships that deliver measurable results and long-term value. 

    • Transparency in reporting and asset ownership is vital. An institution should establish whether it will retain full ownership of the assets created and determine how often performance reports will be shared. A transparent partner will make reporting accessible and collaborative, not proprietary. 
    • Flexible contracts are another hallmark of a strong university partnership. The institution should have the freedom to pivot when markets shift or as its internal capacity grows. It should avoid rigid, long-term agreements that limit its control or create dependency. 
    • Accountability across the student journey should be among the institution’s demands. The most effective partners understand that success extends beyond generating leads and inquiries. Contracts should define what accountability looks like from marketing through enrollment and retention, with clearly articulated performance standards for each stage. 

    Integrating With Legacy Systems               

    Integration is a crucial element of successful university partnerships. A capable partner doesn’t replace or disrupt the institution’s existing systems — it strengthens them. 

    When integration is done well, the partner respects the university’s existing data, assets, and workflows, leading to a more unified, seamless experience for both staff and students. When integration is done poorly, the results can be costly, creating redundancies, inefficiencies, and siloed teams. 

    Archer’s Onward student engagement platform demonstrates how thoughtful integration can amplify an institution’s capacity without disrupting its operations. Onward uses behavior-based triggers and personalized multichannel engagement efforts to guide students from inquiry through enrollment — working alongside admissions services and complementing the institution’s existing systems rather than supplanting them. 

    By respecting the institution’s infrastructure, this kind of partnership model helps the university scale its engagement strategies without losing its operational continuity.  

    10 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Partner

    Selecting the right partner for an institution requires more than comparing price points or promises of lead volume. The most beneficial partnerships are built on mutual accountability, transparency, and shared metrics for success. The right partner should have staff with extensive institutional knowledge and higher ed industry experience, enabling it to provide universities and colleges with the best tools to improve their operations and achieve growth. 

    Asking the right questions early helps ensure alignment and prevent costly missteps. Institutions can consider asking the following 10 questions when vetting potential partners:

    1. How do you handle internal and external communications? Institutions need to know who their main points of contact will be, and how knowledge and strategies will be shared across teams.
    2. What metrics do you use to measure success across the student journey? The ideal vendor should be able to provide full-funnel visibility and focus on metrics that truly drive enrollment growth. 
    3. How frequently will our teams review results together? Successful partnerships depend on transparency and regular communication.
    4. What have you learned from working with other institutions, and how will that inform our partnership? Vendors should always be willing to adjust their services based on past wins and challenges. They should also have the right resources to serve all of their clients with equal urgency.
    5. How will you collaborate with us to set enrollment goals and forecast program growth? Credible vendors rely on historical data to inform their projections, and take the time to carefully explore existing growth drivers. 
    6. How do you differentiate marketing strategies at the institutional level from those at the program level? Institutions can benefit from asking for examples that illustrate this distinction.
    7. What can we expect from this partnership in the first 90 days? Vendors should be able to communicate clear timelines for processes, such as onboarding steps, reporting cadence, and performance metrics. 
    8. Will our institution own all assets, data, and creative from day one? Institutions should have ownership of any assets created and have a clear understanding of how they will be shared and managed.
    9. Are there any additional fees we should be aware of? Items such as creative assets will need to be refreshed over time, so institutions need to understand what associated costs may arise.
    10. What questions do you have for us? An ideal partner wants to understand the institution’s unique needs, strengths, and challenges. Using historical data, it can shape a data-driven strategy for the institution, including realistic marketing budgets and lead goals.

    These questions establish a framework for transparency, accountability, and scalability — ensuring the partnership begins from a place of trust and aligned goals.

    Key Takeaways

    • Effective university partnerships start with asking the right questions.
    • When your institution prioritizes alignment, accountability, and integration, you can avoid critical missteps.
    • The right partner will strengthen — not replace — your institutional vision and help equip you to scale sustainably.

    Build University Partnerships That Advance Your Goals

    At Archer Education, we work with accredited universities to build strategic partnerships rooted in a shared vision that drive scalable enrollment growth. With decades of higher ed experience, our team of industry experts has developed a flexible partnership model that supports internal growth, so that institutions can build self-sufficiency over time. 

    Contact our team to learn how our tech-enabled marketing, enrollment, and retention services can support your institution’s long-term goals. 

    Source link

  • Strategic Planning for Legacy Programs: Rejuvenating Degrees

    Strategic Planning for Legacy Programs: Rejuvenating Degrees

    Don’t Let Legacy Programs Stall Your Growth

    In higher education today, generating buzz around new program launches is often viewed as the key to growth and market relevance. While there’s nothing wrong with investing in new programs when it makes sense, institutions tend to do so at the expense of existing offerings — including those that built their reputation. Yet legacy programs, when strategically audited and repositioned, can become some of the strongest assets in an institution’s portfolio.

    The challenge is that these programs often don’t receive the same level of attention or investment as new launches. Over time, many become overshadowed — not necessarily because they’ve lost relevance, but because the institution’s focus has shifted. Without consistent evaluation and modernization, the programs may begin to stagnate — enrollments flatten, marketing efforts diminish — while they continue to drain resources and faculty energy.  

    At the same time, legacy programs often hold unique advantages that newer offerings lack: established reputations, loyal alumni networks, and faculty with deep expertise. When they’re reexamined and repositioned through a strategic lens — leveraging internal data, market insight, and refreshed messaging — legacy programs can drive renewed growth in an increasingly competitive marketplace. 

    Auditing Programs for Their Growth Potential 

    A deliberate, data-informed audit of an institution’s programs can be the first step toward revitalizing those that are underperforming. A well-designed audit doesn’t just identify weaknesses — it also can uncover opportunities for renewal and growth. 

    A program life cycle audit assesses the current health of existing programs and tracks their performance over time. Key metrics in an audit might include:

    • Enrollment and retention trends, to gauge the program’s long-term viability
    • Course completion and graduation rates, as indicators of students’ satisfaction and support
    • Employment outcomes, to measure the program’s industry relevance and career alignment
    • Faculty-learner ratio, to ensure efficient use of instructional resources
    • Program search demand trends, to gauge the market’s interest in the program

    This process helps institutions identify whether their legacy programs are declining, stable, or experiencing renewed interest. These insights enable academic leadership teams to direct resources toward the programs that are most likely to drive growth — or sunset programs that no longer advance the institution’s goals.

    Audits shouldn’t rely solely on internal data. Comparing a program’s performance results with market demand data — such as regional job growth projections and competitors’ offerings — can clarify what the program’s challenges are and whether they stem from internal execution or broader shifts in the field. 

    Measuring Program-Market Fit 

    Analyzing a program’s market fit is just as important as evaluating its internal performance. It can help institutions decide which legacy programs need retooling, which ones are suitable for scale, and which ones should be phased out.   

    A program’s market fit analysis doesn’t have to be overly complex. It can begin with three fundamental questions:

    • Is there still demand?
      The analysis should start with a review of labor market data, industry trends, search trends, and alumni outcomes to determine whether a particular field remains robust or if demand is shifting toward other subjects or credentials.
    • How does our program compare?
      The next step is to assess what other institutions are offering in terms of delivery format (such as in-person versus online learning), curriculum, and pricing for similar programs. Understanding the competitive landscape helps identify areas where an institution’s program overlaps with others and where there may be opportunities to differentiate.
    • Does the program align with our institutional strengths?
      Legacy programs often reflect areas where the institution already has deep expertise or established credibility. If those strengths still align with current market demand, they can serve as a solid foundation for a program’s revitalization rather than a reason for its retirement. 

    Evaluating these three dimensions helps determine whether a program needs a full-blown relaunch or a more subtle refresh. The goal isn’t to reinvent for the sake of reinvention. It’s to make sure that each offering continues to serve students while also supporting the institution’s objectives. 

    Relaunching Programs With Purpose: Marketing Strategies 

    When a legacy program still holds value but needs renewed visibility, a structured relaunch can help ensure its continued relevance. Effective relaunches align academic updates, marketing strategy, and admissions communication so that all teams are working toward the same goal: positioning the program for growth. 

    A comprehensive relaunch checklist can help guide this process. Elements to consider include:

    • Program curriculum and delivery updates that reflect today’s learning preferences — such as hybrid or online models to accommodate adult learners — and industry expectations
    • Consistent messaging across marketing and admissions, ensuring that both internal and external audiences understand what’s new
    • Refreshed and tested marketing materials, including program pages and collateral materials that articulate outcomes, flexibility, and value to prospective students

    Refreshing a program’s branding and positioning is a crucial step. Students’ needs evolve, so the program’s story should evolve too. Simple adjustments — such as updating program names for clarity, refining messaging to align with search trends, or highlighting regional workforce connections — can make legacy programs more discoverable and relevant.

    Faculty also play a vital role in rebranding. Leveraging their expertise lends authenticity and authority to program relaunches. Featuring their research and industry partnerships in marketing materials reinforces the program’s real-world impact and signals that it’s grounded in experience, not just theory. 

    Key Takeaways

    • New program launches aren’t the only pathway to growth. Sustainable success also stems from repositioning existing programs.
    • Strategic audits of legacy offerings that assess their long-term performance and market fit enable your institution to relaunch them with intention.
    • Institutions that regularly review and refresh their degree portfolios are better positioned to achieve scalable, market-responsive growth while honoring the programs that built their foundation. 

    Reinvigorate Your Programs — and Your Growth Strategy

    Archer Education partners with dozens of institutions to help them launch new programs and revitalize existing ones to amplify their visibility and drive real growth. In a competitive market, data-driven program strategies enable greater institutional alignment and better market fit. 

    Contact our team today and let us help you rejuvenate your degree portfolio.

    Source link

  • AI in Higher Education: Academic Thought Leadership

    AI in Higher Education: Academic Thought Leadership

    How Faculty Expertise Boosts AI Search Results in Higher Ed

    Many higher education enrollment teams assume that the key to growth is spending more on paid leads. It feels logical: increase visibility, boost inquiries, fill the pipeline. Yet, too often, they end up paying for quantity, not quality — resulting in higher budgets that fail to yield students who are a good fit. They see short-term spikes in inquiries, followed by low conversion rates and retention challenges from mismatched students. 

    Achieving sustainable enrollment growth doesn’t have to mean spending more. What’s needed instead is smarter strategies that enable institutions to attract the right students earlier in the decision process — when they’re still exploring their options, defining their goals, and forming impressions of institutions’ credibility. 

    Shifting the focus of enrollment strategies from paid acquisition to earned attention — building organic visibility, authority, and trust with prospects before they fill out an application form — is the key to true growth. This approach is increasingly important as more and more students use artificial intelligence (AI) to navigate their higher education journey. 

    Building Organic Demand with AI and GEO 

    AI is reshaping how students discover institutions and their programs. While Google used to dominate prospective students’ search efforts, they are increasingly using AI-powered search assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini to find, summarize, and compare higher education offerings. A 2025 study by the Online and Professional Education Association (UPCEA) found that roughly 50% of prospective students use AI tools at least weekly to research programs, including about 24% who use them on a daily basis. 

    As AI’s role in higher education marketing expands, institutions have begun to adopt generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies to improve their visibility in AI-driven search results. Unlike standard search engine optimization (SEO) — which focuses on keywords and backlinks — GEO prioritizes structured, authoritative content that AI systems can easily understand, cite, and incorporate into their responses. 

    When institutions feed these systems with content featuring faculty-driven subject matter expertise and clearly structured information, they train the AI algorithms to view them as authoritative and credible, and to surface them in students’ search results more often. This makes it easier for these institutions to engage high-intent students earlier in their enrollment journey.

    The Role of Faculty in Building Authority 

    No one conveys academic quality and institutional credibility better than the people who embody them. Faculty members represent some of an institution’s most trusted — yet often underutilized — marketing assets. Their expertise not only validates the institution and its programs but also humanizes them. 

    When faculty voices appear in thought leadership articles, Q&A features, or explainer videos, they do more than share knowledge — they strengthen confidence in the institution among both prospective students and their families. 

    Leveraged strategically, faculty expertise can enhance multiple facets of an institution’s marketing ecosystem:

    • Public relations: Faculty insights can position schools as trusted commentators in media coverage on industry trends. 
    • Search: Content that highlights subject matter expertise is seen as more credible by both traditional search engines and AI assistants, improving the content’s organic rankings and GEO performance. 
    • Enrollment marketing: Faculty-driven content that targets prospective students — such as video Q&As, informative blog posts, and interactive webinars — can help bridge the gap for these prospects between aspiration and application.

    When institutions center faculty in their marketing efforts, they connect academic storytelling with enrollment strategy, transforming their outreach from promotion into education.  

    Improving Efficiency and Results

    Today, higher ed enrollment growth depends on smarter strategy — not higher spending. Institutions can achieve greater success by balancing their paid and organic channels, building durable content engines, and aligning their marketing spend with actual enrollment outcomes.

    Balance Paid and Organic Marketing               

    Paid campaigns still have great value. But overreliance on them can drive up cost-per-enrollment (CPE) while producing prospective students who are a weaker fit. According to data from UPCEA, the average cost per enrolled student is more than $2,800. By mixing organic channels — faculty thought leadership pieces, GEO-friendly content — with paid efforts, institutions can achieve lower long-term costs while improving the fit and retention of their prospects.

    Create a Long-Term Content Engine               

    Temporary campaigns can deliver short-term boosts, but real authority that leads to sustainable enrollment growth stems from consistent, faculty-led content. Building a content engine anchored in faculty expertise and optimized for AI and GEO is essential, allowing institutions to maintain their visibility and credibility. Over time, this strategy can lower acquisition costs, boost engagement, and support retention.

    Align Marketing Spend With Enrollment Outcomes               

    Too often, marketing dollars are funneled toward maximizing the volume of leads rather than focusing on actual outcomes. True budget efficiency comes from aligning spend with each stage of the student life cycle — supporting strategies that move prospects from application to enrollment to persistence. When institutions’ budgets prioritize quality, engagement, and long-term fit over volume, they can strengthen both their conversion rates and their retention outcomes. 

    Key Takeaways

    • More leads don’t always translate to real growth. Sustainable enrollment comes from reaching the right students — not just more of them. 
    • By embracing GEO, leveraging AI in their higher education marketing strategy, and elevating faculty expertise, institutions can deliver content that builds organic authority and attracts qualified prospects earlier in their decision journey. This approach reduces institutions’ reliance on paid efforts, improves their cost efficiency, and enhances their credibility. 
    • Schools that invest in faculty-led content strategies can gain stronger conversions, better retention, and enduring brand trust — the foundation of meaningful, measurable enrollment growth.

    Drive Enrollment With Faculty Voices

    At Archer Education, we partner with accredited institutions to help them leverage AI and faculty thought leadership to build their credibility and drive their enrollment growth. Contact our team to learn how our tech-enabled marketing and enrollment solutions can help your institution attract the right students more efficiently. 

    Sources

    Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, “Greater Impact Through Faculty Thought Leadership”

    Online and Professional Education Association, “AI Tools Are Driving Prospective Student Decisions, UPCEA and Search Influence Research Shows”

    Online and Professional Education Association, “How Higher Education Marketing Metrics Help You Boost Enrollment”

    Source link

  • Enrollment Planning: Stop Chasing Student Leads

    Enrollment Planning: Stop Chasing Student Leads

    From Lead-Chasing to Mission-Aligned Enrollment

    I spent 16 years as an enrollment leader and another 10-plus years working with enrollment leaders. As a result, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the standard lead-generation model for building enrollment is failing institutions. 

    The promise is enticing: Your marketing agency delivers a list of thousands of names of prospective students, your enrollment team works the list, and students materialize. But this approach creates a vicious cycle that undermines everything mission-driven institutions stand for. It’s like the effects of taking steroids to enhance your athletic performance — you see short-term gains that appear to be unstoppable, but they ultimately take your money, identity, and health.  

    Here’s what I’ve learned about shifting from a lead-chasing mindset to a long-term perspective focused on building enrollment foundations that actually last.

    Why Lead-Generation Strategies Fail Mission-Driven Institutions

    Finding mission-aligned students requires more than asking your institution’s marketing agency to generate leads. The traditional model — buy bulk leads, work leads, generate students — seems efficient on paper. In practice, however, it produces low conversion rates, disengaged enrollment staff, escalating acquisition costs, and devastating attrition rates.

    The math alone should give you reason to pause. When you generate more leads, you need more enrollment personnel to work them. Now you have two major problems: low-converting prospects and mounting personnel costs. Your enrollment counselors spend their days chasing people who don’t understand your mission, don’t fit your institutional culture, and, if they do enroll, often disappear after a term or two (often because they become a lead for another institution).

    This isn’t just inefficient. It’s likely counterproductive to establishing your institution’s identity. Students recruited through generic lead generation don’t know anything about your institution or what it represents. They can’t articulate why your institution matters, which turns it into a commodity in their eyes. Students can simply ask “How long will it take?” and “How much will it cost?” and not fully realize that the college experience is about so much more than that. 

    Look Inward, Not Outward: The Moneyball Principle for Enrollment

    There’s a powerful scene in the movie “Moneyball” in which Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team, tells his scouts: “If we think like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there.” The same principle applies to your enrollment strategy, particularly for online and adult learners.

    If you think like Grand Canyon University, Western Governors University, or Southern New Hampshire University when designing your enrollment strategies, you likely won’t win the enrollment game, and you’ll waste an extraordinary amount of money and time in the process. 

    Those institutions have built their models based on scale, national reach, and high-volume lead generation. They have the infrastructure, capital, and brand recognition to make that work. Your institution probably doesn’t, and it shouldn’t try to.

    Just as consumers often turn to unique restaurants and up-and-coming artists once the chain establishments and pop stars start to feel too ubiquitous and impersonal, prospective students are increasingly drawn to institutions that offer something distinctive and local. Niche markets can be extraordinarily powerful when you serve them authentically. They generate raving fans. They create word-of-mouth referrals. And they build communities that sustain themselves.

    Your competitive advantage isn’t going to come from outspending the national players. It can only come from your institution being exactly what it is, something that no other institution can be. It’s about attracting students who are attracted to your mission and vision. 

    Understanding the Complete New Student Journey

    Creating a mission-centric marketing strategy begins with understanding every aspect of how prospective students experience your institution: from the design of your logo the first time they see it through the response to their first communication, the cadence of subsequent touches, and the tone of every interaction.

    One of my greatest frustrations in how higher education operates is the request-for-information (RFI) process. We ask students to provide their information and then tell them to wait for someone to contact them. 

    Almost no other industry operates this way anymore. Imagine filling out a form on Amazon and receiving a message that says, “Thank you for your interest. Someone will call you within 48 hours to help you complete your purchase.” It’s absurd. Try it out for yourself. Request information from your institution and see what happens. 

    My advice is to move away from the “Thank you, someone will be in touch” message immediately. Create an instant post-RFI experience that welcomes students and allows them to explore right then and there. Give them immediate access to program information, faculty insights, student stories, and next steps. Let them self-serve while your enrollment team prepares for meaningful, high-value conversations with them.

    When students arrive at those conversations already informed and engaged, conversion rates improve dramatically and the students who enroll actually fit the university’s mission. Let’s also not forget that passionate graduates have historically led to alumni giving down the road. 

    Using Faculty as Your Most Credible Marketers

    Building a mission-centric enrollment strategy requires faculty involvement. In the age of large language models and content generated by artificial intelligence (AI), credible human voices matter more than ever. Prospective students can spot generic marketing copy instantly. What can’t be replicated is the authentic passion of a faculty member explaining why their discipline matters and how your institution approaches it differently.

    Your faculty are your best marketers, especially right now. They bring subject matter expertise, institutional knowledge, and genuine enthusiasm to your messaging. They can articulate your mission in ways that marketing agencies never will. When faculty are engaged in creating content, participating in virtual information sessions, and connecting with prospective students during the exploration phase, the return on investment is extraordinary.

    Embracing Cybernetics: Governance That Learns and Adapts

    If you haven’t read Robert Birnbaum’s “How Colleges Work,” I strongly recommend it. Birnbaum outlines four organizational models in higher education, and I can typically identify which model an institution operates under after just one interaction. I can definitely confirm it if I look at their historical enrollment data.

    For enrollment management specifically, I advocate for what Birnbaum calls the cybernetics model. Cybernetic systems are self-correcting. Teams gather feedback, learn from outcomes, and adjust their strategies accordingly. This stands in stark contrast to the way the political, bureaucratic, and collegial organizational models that often dominate campus decision-making operate.

    A cybernetic approach to enrollment planning means:

    • Creating governance structures in which teams have genuine authority to act
    • Establishing clear feedback loops among marketing, admissions, student success, and academic affairs
    • Using data to inform decisions rather than defend territories
    • Building accountability that’s linked to shared outcomes rather than departmental metrics
    • Adapting strategies based on what actually works, not what teams wish would work

    A cybernetic approach requires institutional leaders, particularly presidents and provosts, to take ownership of the enrollment vision and build governance bodies that align departmental goals with shared institutional goals. Cross-functional committees need decision-making power, not just advisory status. And planning must extend beyond annual cycles to capture multiyear trends and institutional transformation.

    Reallocating Budgets for Mission-Aligned Impact

    Shifting to a mission-driven enrollment strategy requires budget reallocation. You must move dollars away from lead volume activities and toward initiatives that create lasting impact, such as:

    • Faculty-driven enrollment strategies that showcase your distinctive strengths
    • Mission-driven search engine optimization (SEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies that capitalize on these distinctive strengths 
    • Content creation that tells your institutional story authentically
    • Relationship-building programs that deepen community connections
    • Course scheduling systems that ensure students can access the right courses at the right terms

    These investments usually don’t generate immediate returns in the same way that purchasing 10,000 leads might. But they compound over time. They build an institution’s reputation. They create the conditions for sustainable enrollment growth rather than the enrollment roller coaster that exhausts everyone involved.

    Key Takeaways

    • Lead-chasing produces shallow growth that fades quickly and corrodes an institution’s culture. The alternative isn’t to abandon growth. It’s to anchor growth in the institution’s actual identity and what it genuinely offers.
    • Mission-aligned enrollment requires a commitment to optimizing the entire new student journey, from first awareness through graduation and beyond. It demands faculty involvement, genuine differentiation, and governance structures capable of learning and adapting.
    • Gone are the days when institutions could buy leads, work the leads, and generate students. That approach leads to poor outcomes for everyone: low conversion rates, disengaged employees, escalating costs, and high attrition.
    • The institutions that thrive in the coming decade won’t be those that outspend their competitors on lead generation. They’ll be the ones that know exactly who they are, communicate it with clarity and conviction, and build enrollment systems worthy of their mission.

    Stop thinking like the Yankees. Start building on the foundation you already have.

    Let Archer Help You With Enrollment Planning

    In my years of experience, I’ve helped many institutions establish a strong enrollment strategy. And I’m far from alone in my expertise at Archer Education. Our full-service team partners with colleges and universities of all kinds to help them build and scale their capacities. 

    Is your institution ready to work with a collaborative partner who takes the time to get to know you, then makes custom recommendations based on their decades of experience? Reach out to us today! 

    Source link

  • President’s Role in the Enrollment Experience

    President’s Role in the Enrollment Experience

    Why Enrollment Should Be a Shared Institutional Priority

    The future hangs in the balance as enrollment management at your institution spirals into chaos. 

    Siloed growth initiatives are relegated solely to marketing departments, which bear the full weight of institutional pressure yet lack the authority to grow enrollment throughout the entire funnel. Overburdened marketing teams bombard campus stakeholders with complex, opaque data and demand astronomical digital marketing budgets that few truly understand. It’s just easier to say no. 

    Meanwhile, admissions teams and faculty pursue divergent, often conflicting strategies to recruit students, each operating in isolation with little coordination. 

    Student success teams, critical to retaining and supporting new enrollees, are entirely excluded from strategic discussions, leaving vital continuity efforts out of the equation. 

    As these disconnected forces collide, the institution risks a catastrophic decline in enrollment, eroding its mission and future viability — an unfolding crisis in which collaboration is abandoned and the system teeters on the brink of collapse.

    This isn’t the latest thriller from your favorite streaming platform but instead a worst-case scenario of what some higher education institutions face today. The only one who can save them? You, the university president.

    The President as Chief Enrollment Champion

    It would be easy to assume that enrollment success and growth are mandates of marketing, admissions, and student support teams, as they focus on enrollment key performance indicators (KPIs), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, return on investment (ROI), lead-to-enrollment (L2E), and other such tools and metrics. For many university presidents and leaders, the details of enrollment management success are often isolated from broader priorities, such as mission, strategy, and resource allocation, even if enrollment growth is mentioned in the strategic plan. 

    Enrollment success is the lifeblood of institutional stability. The president and provost set the tone, vision, and degree of urgency around enrollment success initiatives. Without executive involvement, schools and departments compete instead of collaborating, pitting enrollment management teams against each other in a crowded market. This approach can lead to silos, missed opportunities, and uneven accountability. At worst, this approach leads to finger-pointing and a cycle of frustration and disappointment across the president’s cabinet.

    While marketing and enrollment management teams are the frontline drivers of enrollment strategies, the ultimate success of growth and student satisfaction hinges on the strategic leadership of university presidents and provosts. Effective leadership necessitates active engagement and oversight to ensure that these efforts are successfully integrated into the university’s priority initiatives. 

    Strong executive involvement signals holistic institutional commitment. This helps break down barriers that can impede enrollment success and diminish the student enrollment experience, such as disconnects between the operational teams supporting enrollment management and the academic teams safeguarding quality, reputation, and ranking. 

    Here, we discuss why the university president must champion ambitious and responsible enrollment. We explore how executive leadership can ensure that enrollment efforts are appropriately resourced; aligned under a single vision; and integrated across governance, academics, operations, and administration to achieve the most compelling metrics: exceptional student experiences and outcomes.

    Ensuring Adequate Resources and Support

    One of the key ways presidents and provosts can bolster enrollment success is by ensuring that marketing, recruitment, and student success teams are sufficiently resourced. No one expects executive leadership to be in the weeds of enrollment management operations. 

    However, having a working understanding of digital marketing and how it differs from event-driven marketing (for example, enrollment fairs or conferences) can be helpful during budget allocation conversations for marketing campaigns. 

    Equally important is ensuring that faculty and enrollment management staff have access to training and development opportunities to stay current in a rapidly evolving field, which is full of new tools and approaches, as well as a diverse ecosystem of third-party support opportunities. Faculty and staff are on the front line of student engagement. Presidents and provosts can cultivate an environment of continuous professional development focused on inclusive teaching, technology integration, and student engagement strategies. Well-supported faculty and staff are more effective in creating positive learning environments that attract and retain students. 

    Finally, presidents and provosts should invest in a process for new academic program development that assesses whether programs meet market demand and provide graduates with specific professional outcomes. 

    When components such as the above are underfunded, efforts to increase enrollment and enhance the student experience are likely to falter over time.

    Leveraging Modern Data and Analytics

    Are enrollment management staff using outdated and siloed technology systems that require significant manual work to develop basic reporting and analysis? This is a critical area for institutional-level investment and support. 

    Data-driven decision-making is essential in today’s competitive enrollment environment. Presidents and provosts should champion investments in analytics platforms that provide insights into prospective students’ behaviors and indicate their likelihood of enrollment, academic performance, and postgraduation outcomes. 

    Using this data, enrollment management and academic leadership can tailor recruitment strategies, optimize academic pathways, and identify at-risk students early, enabling targeted interventions that improve retention and graduation rates.

    Championing a Student-Centric Institutional Culture

    At the heart of enrollment and student success is a culture that prioritizes the student journey, from initial inquiry through graduation and beyond. While the traditional student journey may be well understood, that of the adult and online learner may require special analysis and support. 

    Presidents and provosts must champion this student-first culture by fostering collaboration across academic units, student services, and administrative departments, ensuring that every touchpoint enhances the student experience for all types of learners. 

    Establish Intentional Governance for Enrollment Success With Shared Performance Metrics 

    Enrollment growth and student success are inherently cross-functional. Presidents and provosts can foster collaboration by establishing formal structures with the authority to act, such as integrated enrollment planning committees or task forces that bring together academic leadership, student affairs, admissions, marketing, and technology teams. This helps align cabinet-level leaders around a unified enrollment vision. 

    These cross-functional collaborations ensure that strategies are coordinated, data-driven, and responsive to emerging trends. For example, aligning ambitious enrollment growth plans with course section scheduling and staffing planning ensures responsible outcomes, rather than having faculty leaders scramble at the last minute to find instructors to cover overfull admitted-student course sections.

    To ensure sustained focus, presidents and provosts should embed enrollment growth and student experience metrics into the university’s performance evaluations. This reinforces their importance across the institution and encourages all units to align their priorities accordingly. Shared accountability metrics should measure success from inquiry through graduation and be accessible to all teams through executive dashboards and regular reviews.

    Promoting Innovation and Building External Partnerships

    Staying competitive requires ongoing innovation and connection to the broader marketplace. Presidential and provost leadership should support the development of flexible academic pathways, such as online or hybrid programs, competency-based education, and microcredentials that appeal to diverse student populations. 

    Partnerships with industry, community organizations, and alumni can keep academic programs and curricula relevant, expand opportunities for students, and enhance the institution’s reputation. Presidents and provosts can lead efforts to establish these collaborations, opening pathways for internships, research projects, and employment while keeping a finger on the pulse of evolving industry and workforce skills needs and gaps.

    Demonstrating Visible Leadership and Accountability

    Finally, effective presidents and provosts demonstrate visible leadership by regularly communicating progress, celebrating successes, and holding units accountable for results. Transparent reporting on enrollment trends, student satisfaction, and graduation rates fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Training everyone to understand the basic KPIs that connect marketing, admissions, academics, and retention ensures that all are speaking the same language and working in partnership.

    Key Takeaways

    The strategic leadership of university presidents and provosts is essential for sustainable enrollment growth and a high-quality student enrollment experience. By actively championing student-centric culture, ensuring appropriate resourcing, fostering aligned governance and collaboration, leveraging data, and embedding metrics into institutional goals, executive leaders can create an environment where enrollment strategies are not only initiatives but also integral components of the university’s shared mission, leading to higher retention; better outcomes; and a stronger, more competitive institution.

    Increase Leadership’s Role in Your Enrollment Experience

    Archer Education partners with institutional leaders and admissions, marketing, and strategy teams to help them overcome enrollment challenges. Using tech-enabled, personalized enrollment marketing and management solutions, we can help your institution align its teams and create a strategic roadmap to sustainable growth. 

    Click here to request more information about Archer’s full-funnel engagement strategies and digital student experience technology.

    Source link

  • Designing a Seamless Student Journey

    Designing a Seamless Student Journey

    Every Gap Is a Broken Promise 

    Ever call a service provider only to get bounced between departments, retelling your story to every new agent, each one promising a fix that never comes? You hang up frustrated, unheard, and uncertain.

    This same dynamic plays out in higher ed every day. A prospective student tells an admissions counselor, “I need to finish my graduate degree in one year.” That context gets lost in the handoff. The student success team never hears it. Course sequencing doesn’t line up. Frustration builds. Momentum stalls.

    That isn’t just a communication slip. It’s a broken promise.

    Too often, institutions treat the student journey as a series of separate phases — marketing handles outreach, admissions manages enrollment, and student success supports retention — but students don’t experience their education in phases. They experience it as one journey.

    And when we don’t design for that, we create invisible gaps that undermine trust, break continuity, and erode outcomes.

    This isn’t a marketing problem. Or an admissions problem. Or even a student success problem. It’s an alignment problem. 

    The real challenge is that internal teams aren’t playing from the same sheet of music. Without shared data, shared metrics, and shared goals, it’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation about where the student journey breaks down.

    It also makes improvement feel like guesswork. One team pushes harder on applications. Another tries to boost first-term persistence. But without a full-funnel view, efforts remain disjointed and hard to scale.

    To grow enrollment and retention sustainably, you need institutional alignment around the full journey, from first click to graduation.

    Full-Funnel Enrollment Planning as a Solution for Growth

    A full-funnel strategy doesn’t just connect dots — it puts everyone on the same map. Sustainable enrollment growth requires moving beyond early-stage efforts and focusing on a unified enrollment strategy that carries a prospective student from interest all the way through graduation. That means marketing, admissions, and student success teams need to share the same data, vision, and goals. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

    Connect Marketing, Admissions, and Student Success

    Replace handoffs with collaboration. That means shared access to student data, from first inquiry to graduation. When teams see the same big picture, outreach becomes more relevant, timing improves, and support gets proactive.

    Build a Shared Road Map With Clear Metrics

    Institutions need to establish a single road map that charts the student journey from inquiry to enrollment to graduation and attach measurable goals to each phase, such as enrollment yield, first-term persistence, and long-term retention rates. A shared scorecard keeps the discussion focused on the big-picture student journey, rather than team silos.

    This shared dataset should be analyzed to detect patterns and trends. Where are students dropping out of the funnel? Which programs retain the best-fit learners? Which messages produce the best engagement? The insights you glean from your analysis can help you tweak targeting and support.

    Align Around Student Fit Early

    Retention starts with recruitment. When marketing and admissions teams are aligned with student success, they can spot patterns of persistence and adjust targeting accordingly. It’s not just about getting more students in the door — it’s about attracting students who will thrive.

    Structure Cross-Team Check-Ins

    Yes, it means more meetings, but structured, purposeful alignment sessions across departments can surface insights you’d otherwise miss. Better yet, tie every meeting to shared key performance indicators (KPIs) and use that data to drive strategy.

    Treat Technology as a Bridge, Not a Band-Aid

    Modern customer relationship management (CRM) platforms give you visibility into every stage of the funnel. Real-time reporting and alerts enable teams to identify issues — where students are disengaging, where more support is needed, which outreach messages are failing to resonate — and respond quickly before they become systemic.

    Reframing Retention as a Targeting Opportunity 

    Strong retention doesn’t begin in week eight of the semester. It begins the moment a prospective student clicks “Learn More.” Strategies for success include the following:

    • Target right-fit students using behavioral and demographic data.
    • Tailor outreach to meet the expectations of adult and online learners.
    • Use predictive insights to intervene before a student disengages.

    When you design a journey that prioritizes clarity, continuity, and fit, your enrollment and retention numbers start to reflect that.

    Key Takeaways

    With the value of higher ed under scrutiny and students facing more choices than ever, institutions must start treating the student journey like a customer journey.

    That means designing around measurable satisfaction at every stage. Rallying around shared information. And giving every team a role in both the promise and the delivery of student success.

    Because when students fall through the cracks, they don’t just feel confused. They feel let down.

    Enrollment growth requires an end-to-end student journey approach, not a single-stage fix. 

    Full-cycle planning drives stronger enrollment and better retention.

    Alignment among internal teams is the foundation for sustainable results.

    It’s Time to Close the Gaps

    At Archer Education, we partner with institutions to connect marketing, enrollment, and student success into one seamless journey. We help you build full-cycle strategies that grow enrollment, increase retention, and, most importantly, deliver on your promises to students.

    Ready to start the conversation? Let’s talk.

    Contact our team to learn more about our tech-enabled strategy, marketing, enrollment, and retention services.

    Source link

  • Good Marketing Won’t Fix Unpopular Programs

    Good Marketing Won’t Fix Unpopular Programs

    In full disclosure, I work in higher education marketing. But I’m here to say: Marketing can’t fix a bad program. OK, maybe “bad” is too strong of a word, but degree programs that aren’t aligned to the modern learner’s needs and expectations — or the job market — can be challenging. Let’s discuss.

    For this article, we’ll primarily focus on adult online learners. And these prospective students are very different from those coming right out of high school. According to Common App, first-time college students apply to about six different colleges, on average. The online learner typically inquires with only two institutions, according to an EducationDynamics report, and 45% apply to just one.

    What does this mean for schools with online programs? You have to get in front of your target audience quickly and make your case clearly. But if you don’t have the right mix of features or programs for these students, it doesn’t matter if your marketing is excellent.

    Give Online Learners What They Need 

    Online learners typically work at least part time and often full time. They have different needs and expectations for their higher education experience. They need flexibility. They also don’t want to be in school longer than necessary. Most are earning a degree to improve their career options. 

    Below are a few things to consider when formatting your programs and processes for online students.

    Efficiency 

    Once online learners have decided to take the step of applying, they’re committed and want to get started quickly. According to the EducationDynamics report, 80% enroll in the school that admits them first, and more than 50% expect to begin courses within a month of being admitted. 

    That means admissions teams have to move quickly and the programs must offer multiple start dates per year. If you make prospective students wait, you lose out. Delays can make an otherwise good program fall into the “bad” category.

    This one can be challenging. You need enough students to merit multiple start dates. That’s where that good marketing comes in!

    Relevant Skills

    Online learners choose online because they’re working and need a flexible school schedule to accommodate their work and personal commitments. But let’s focus on the work part here. These students need skills and credentials that will boost their earnings and opportunities. That’s one of the most cited reasons for returning to school.

    So, again, the degree must match the skills students need to find work. If the only online programs you offer are in computer science, you may find that you’re wasting your marketing dollars. Yes! Computer science! In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), computer science and engineering graduates are struggling to find work. 

    Personal opinion: Liberal arts and studies will become more important if they can teach students the durable skills needed in the AI era — communication, critical thinking, and research skills.

    Clear Information

    Degree program pages and websites sometimes obscure information users need to make decisions. And we saw above how quickly online learners are making decisions and want to get started. If your program page hides costs, financial aid information, credit hours, and requirements, you’re going to drop out of their consideration set. 

    Online learners want to weigh available information and make informed decisions. Some will certainly have price sensitivity, but it’s not the only consideration, so don’t hide tuition rates and fees. The EducationDynamics report notes that “flexibility can even overcome cost, with 30% of respondents indicating they would enroll at a more expensive institution if the available format, schedule, or location were ideal.” Show your cards. Let the students make their decisions with the information available.

    If your program doesn’t meet student requirements in this area, marketing won’t make a significant impact on your enrollments.

    Be Discriminating in Your Marketing Spend

    Sometimes there are politics at play or other reasons to market or support certain programs, but when possible, be thoughtful and intentional about where you spend your marketing dollars. Because marketing can’t solve for a challenging program, you must put your budget toward programs that meet student needs, including those that meet the criteria above.

    It’s tempting to give equal shares to all programs, but unless you have an unlimited budget, that’s not the best use of your funds. 

    If you must give some marketing love to all programs, even the “bad” ones, try a brand-focused approach that connects to an all-programs page. For example, send some limited traffic to a dedicated landing page that briefly covers all available programs. That way, you’ve covered the challenged programs without dedicated resources.

    Use the remainder of your budget on programs that align with students’ needs, so you can enjoy a lower cost per enrollment. Who doesn’t love a “chase the winners” strategy?

    Need More Help?

    Archer Education has deep expertise in both of these areas: marketing and program assessments. Our Strategy and Development team can help you take an unfiltered view of your programs and processes to create a plan for future success, even as the market shifts. If you have good programs and need marketing support, we’re here for that, too.

    Source link

  • SEO for Universities Drives Enrollment

    SEO for Universities Drives Enrollment

    How SEO for Universities Powers Sustainable Enrollment Growth

    There’s a good chance you landed on this article after typing a question or a set of keywords into a search engine. That’s because we optimized this article for said search using search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. As a university marketer, you should be doing the same thing to reach prospective students. 

    Today’s recruitment landscape is digital, and a search engine query is often the first and most critical step a prospective student takes toward enrolling. SEO for universities is a central driver of discoverability, engagement, and application starts. 

    By employing higher education SEO tactics and investing in strategic, search-focused marketing, institutions can build sustainable enrollment pipelines. But how do you build an SEO strategy that goes beyond plugging keywords into program pages? 

    In this article, we’ll cover: 

    • Why search is the cornerstone of student decision-making. 
    • How SEO aligns with every stage of the enrollment funnel. 
    • How universities can improve their rankings, engagement, and lead quality. 
    • Why higher education SEO efforts deserve long-term strategic investment. 

    Why Universities Use SEO Strategies for Enrollment Growth

    In an increasingly competitive enrollment landscape, SEO offers higher education institutions a sustainable, cost-effective foundation for long-term growth. Unlike time-limited paid campaigns, SEO builds momentum and equity over time, positioning your institution in front of prospective students at the exact moment they’re looking for options. 

    Today’s Students Start With Search

    Before a prospective student ever talks to an admissions counselor or clicks on an ad, they almost always begin with a Google search. In fact, a majority of students report using search engines as their first step in looking for college and university options, according to recent research from EAB and Modern Campus. 

    If your institution doesn’t show up organically on the first page of results, you’re not in the conversation.

    What makes organic search results particularly powerful is the trust factor. While ads can drive visibility, organic rankings signal authority, relevance, and credibility, especially in the eyes of Gen Z prospects, who are increasingly ad-skeptical and research-savvy.

    Additionally, mobile-first behavior and voice-assisted searches for terms such as “best online MBA program in Texas” or “affordable RN to BSN degree near me” raise the stakes for technical SEO. A university’s site must not only be optimized for keywords but also be fast, intuitive, and responsive to be able to meet students where they are: on their phones, on the go, and expecting answers immediately.

    Long-Term ROI of Organic vs. Paid Media

    SEO is an investment, not a line item. While a paid search ad can generate quick visibility, it’s fleeting, as your ad disappears the moment the budget runs dry. But SEO creates a compounding return. Each blog post, landing page, and FAQ that’s optimized for student search behavior becomes an evergreen asset that continues working long after it’s published.

    Over time, this strategy leads to a lower cost per inquiry compared to paid media. And, more importantly, SEO brings in better-qualified leads from students who find your programs through specific, intent-driven queries. They are more likely to be engaged, aligned with your offerings, and prepared to convert.

    Mapping SEO to the Student Enrollment Journey

    To maximize the impact of SEO for your university, you need to guide prospective students through a decision-making journey that’s often long, nonlinear, and filled with questions. The most effective SEO strategies map content to each stage of the enrollment funnel, from first touch to final application.

    Awareness Stage Content

    At the top of the funnel, students are exploring their options. They’re not searching for your university by name. They’re asking broad, future-focused questions such as “What degree do I need to become a UX designer?” or “What are the best jobs in environmental science?” This is where search-driven blog content plays a critical role.

    By creating optimized articles with titles such as “Top Degrees for a Career in UX Design” or “10 Top Environmental Science Jobs in the Next Decade,” an institution can capture early interest from prospective students who haven’t yet narrowed their choices. These types of pieces not only build organic traffic to your site but also establish your institution as a thought leader in career-aligned education.

    SEO-optimized pages that provide detailed degree overviews and career outcome lists can further reinforce your institution’s relevance while helping students begin to connect their goals to your academic offerings. Remember: This stage is about visibility and value, not a hard sell.

    Consideration Stage Content

    Once students have a clearer sense of their path, they shift into the consideration phase, digging deeper into specific programs and comparing schools. They want evidence of factors such as faculty expertise, curriculum relevance, and positive student experiences. 

    This is where midfunnel content shines.

    Detailed faculty bios, curriculum guides, and sample course descriptions — each optimized for key search phrases — can improve your search rankings while offering meaningful substance to prospective students. For example, a student researching “online master’s in public health with epidemiology focus” should land on a program page that mirrors those terms and provides them with real answers.

    Video content, especially when paired with keyword-rich titles and descriptions, helps tell the story of your institution in a more human, engaging way. Students’ testimonials, day-in-the-life videos, and faculty spotlights can also help move students from interest to intent, especially if that content is discoverable via search.

    Conversion Stage Content

    As prospective students near a decision, they seek clarity and confidence. They’re looking for reassurance that they can take the next step, and that it’s the right one. Conversion-stage SEO content should answer students’ practical, high-intent queries about your institution, such as “how to apply to [University Name],” “[University Name] financial aid for graduate students,” or “[University Name] application deadlines for fall 2026.”

    For institutions with campus-based programs, locally oriented SEO becomes critical at this stage. Optimizing for geographic search terms, such as “colleges in Chicago with data science programs,” ensures you show up in local map packs (the local business listings that appear with a map in location-based Google searches), directory listings, and mobile searches. 

    It’s about being visible and accessible right when students are ready to act.

    Optimized admissions FAQs, application checklists, and explainers on cost, scholarships, and financial aid reduce friction and address students’ common concerns. These pages nudge students across the finish line.

    Proven SEO Strategies for Universities

    To truly move the needle on enrollments resulting from organic search results, universities need to go beyond the basics of content creation. SEO success in higher education relies on a layered approach that blends technical excellence, strategic content development, and an optimized student experience. 

    Technical SEO as a Foundation

    No matter how compelling your content is, it won’t perform if search engines can’t access and interpret it. That’s why technical SEO is the critical first step in building your search visibility.

    To help your site show up in search results, you need to fix problems such as broken links, too many redirects, slow-loading code, or pages that are hard for search engines to reach. Tools like Google Search Console and Screaming Frog can help you identify these hidden roadblocks.

    One particularly valuable tactic for universities is adding schema markup — structured data tags — to your content, especially on pages with information designed to respond to high-intent queries, such as those containing academic program descriptions, faculty bios, and FAQs. With schema, search engines can better understand the structure and purpose of your content, making it eligible for rich results, such as showing up in featured snippets and accordions. That visibility boost often translates into higher click-through rates from searches.

    Content That Matches Searchers’ Intent

    Great university SEO content is as student-centric as it is keyword rich. The most effective universities use keyword research to inform their content strategy, ensuring that it aligns with the questions, concerns, and goals of prospective students.

    This includes building program clusters, or content hubs, around key degree areas. For example, a hub for your Master of Science in Data Science program might include pages on career paths, curriculum breakdowns, faculty Q&As, students’ success stories, and downloadable guides — all linked together to establish topical authority.

    Modern search results also reward content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT). Universities are naturally well positioned to feature real instructors, cite data, and include named authors with academic credentials to increase their credibility with both students and algorithms.

    Student Experience + SEO

    The student experience is not separate from SEO. Google’s algorithm increasingly favors sites that provide clear, intuitive pathways to information, particularly on mobile devices.

    For universities, that means streamlined site navigation and a logical content hierarchy that surfaces pages with key data such as program offerings, admissions steps, and tuition details within two or three clicks from the homepage. Critical content shouldn’t be buried beneath layers of institutional jargon or outdated menus.

    Internal linking is another underrated but powerful tactic. By connecting related content — such as linking from a faculty bio to a program page, or from a blog post to an application checklist — you improve the crawlability of your site, increase the depth of information you provide on a topic, and keep students engaged longer. 

    The result? Higher page authority, better rankings, and more informed prospective students.

    Treating SEO as a Strategic Enrollment Asset

    In many universities, SEO is still siloed within the marketing team and treated as a narrow tactic for improving search engine rankings. But SEO should be reframed as a long-term, strategic asset that drives enrollment growth and informs data-driven decision-making. 

    Holistic Attribution Models

    One of the biggest missed opportunities in SEO for universities is how it’s measured. Traditional models often rely on last-click attribution, a model that gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the final touchpoint a student interacted with before taking action. This underrepresents SEO’s influence, particularly in a student journey that spans weeks or months and touches multiple channels.

    Universities should adopt holistic attribution models that track assisted conversions, or interactions a student has with your marketing channels that contribute to their conversion, not just their final clicks. A search may not be the student’s last touchpoint, but it often plays a vital role in their early awareness or during their midfunnel research. Ignoring that role means underinvesting in a channel that silently drives consideration.

    To see the full picture, it’s essential to align tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics with your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Mapping behaviors based on organic search results, like blog visits, program page views, or FAQ engagement, to downstream enrollment actions helps quantify SEO’s true impact and justify investment at the leadership level.

    Collaboration Across Teams

    Your SEO team shouldn’t live in a vacuum. They intersect with admissions, content strategy, web development, student experience, and even academic department teams. When these teams operate separately, SEO efforts stall. But when collaboration is intentional, the entire enrollment ecosystem benefits.

    For example, admissions teams can surface real students’ questions to inform keyword targeting. Student experience teams can help optimize navigation for both search bots and prospective students. Academic departments can contribute subject-matter expertise to improve your pages’ EEAT and topical depth.

    SEO-informed content planning — whether for a blog calendar, landing page update, or digital ad campaign — ensures every piece of your content is geared toward a discoverability goal. This strengthens your SEO’s performance and boosts the efficiency of your other marketing channels, from paid search ads to email nurture campaigns.

    Preparing for What’s Next

    The SEO landscape is evolving rapidly, and universities need to anticipate what’s coming, including search tactics driven by artificial intelligence (AI). With Google’s AI Overviews (also known as Search Generative Experience, or SGE), zero-click searches, and the growing prominence of featured snippets, institutions must rethink how visibility is defined.

    Ranking No. 1 doesn’t guarantee clicks if the answer is shown directly in the search result. That’s why future-ready SEO strategies focus on content depth and authority. Winning in AI-driven search engine results pages requires comprehensive, well-structured content that answers layered queries, not just surface-level questions.

    Institutions should also monitor how AI tools interpret their content and brand. Structured data, semantic markup, and content clarity all influence how your pages are represented in machine-generated summaries and voice search results.

    Bonus: See our full article on AI-driven search, “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for Higher Education.” 

    Ready to Make SEO a Strategic Pillar for Your School? 

    SEO for universities isn’t a mere marketing tactic. It’s a foundational strategy for long-term enrollment growth, helping to future-proof your institution’s enrollment efforts in a volatile higher education market. 

    While SEO is critical, it’s also complicated, which is why Archer Education provides colleges and universities with the expert insights required to create a truly strategic SEO plan that integrates with other elements of your marketing strategy. 

    Contact us to learn more about how SEO can ignite your institution’s growth over the long haul. 

    Sources

    EAB, “The Top 5 Ways Prospective Graduate and Adult Learners Are Finding Your Programs” 

    RNL, 2023 E-Expectations Trends Report 

    Source link

  • Benefits of Centralized Marketing in Higher Ed Institutions

    Benefits of Centralized Marketing in Higher Ed Institutions

    Why Centralized Marketing Matters for Online Programs in Higher Ed

    At Archer, we’ve onboarded hundreds of institutional partners to help them grow their online programs. And while every partner is unique, there’s one pain point we encounter time and again: decentralized school-level marketing that creates more friction than momentum. 

    In many institutions, individual colleges or schools manage their own marketing campaigns, budgets, and creative direction. While this siloed approach offers an initial promise of agility and autonomy, it often leads to deeper problems in the market, such as: 

    • Fragmented messaging 
    • Inconsistent branding 
    • Internal competition 
    • Wasted spend as schools bid against each other 
    • Missed opportunities for reach and impact at the brand and portfolio level

    The result? Confused students consuming competing voices from the same institution, and internal marketing teams scrambling to scale best practices and measure impact — often without apples-to-apples data and reporting for performance comparisons. 

    Universities need an integrated marketing strategy that balances a holistic brand and portfolio-level approach with maintaining individual school-level autonomy for certain decisions and activities. This hybrid model unlocks collaboration, reduces conflict, and lifts visibility for all programs within a portfolio. 

    With shared goals, aligned messaging, and coordinated tactics across all of their schools, universities can amplify their brand and stretch their budgets further — delivering clear, compelling stories across myriad channels to prospective students. 

    Risks of Decentralized Marketing

    In some models of governance, decentralization can be a strength — empowering local leadership and ensuring responsiveness to specific community needs. But when it comes to marketing online university programs in a highly competitive environment, decentralization alone as a strategy is more often a liability than an asset. 

    Having different departments, schools, or programs run their own campaigns and technology stacks may seem like a way to move faster, but in practice, it creates challenges that can hinder online program growth. Let’s explore some examples.

    Brand Confusion          

    As prospective students evaluate your institution’s online offerings, they are not concerned with the internal structures of your institution. They expect clarity and consistency in the information you provide. When each college or division presents a different tone, design style, and creative messaging approach, you’re left with a weakened institutional brand. 

    Mixed marketing across digital ads, program pages, email drips, and even tuition and scholarship messaging can erode the trust and credibility you’ve been building with prospective students. For example, inconsistent explanations of scholarships or conflicting tuition information (e.g., on program pages and via tuition calculators) can trigger frustration or skepticism. 

    In short: Your audience — the prospective student — sees one university. If your university is in conflict with its own marketing, the brand loses power. 

    Inefficiency and Internal Competition

    Without centralized marketing oversight, different teams often end up targeting the same audiences with overlapping campaigns — sometimes even bidding against each other in paid channels. This dilutes your paid marketing efficacy by driving up your cost per lead, wasting precious budget dollars, and undermining the collective impact of your institution’s marketing investments. 

    Inconsistent Student Experience and Success Metrics

    Perhaps the most concerning result of decentralized marketing is a fragmented and uneven student journey. One program might offer seamless inquiry-to-enrollment processes, while another loses momentum after the application process due to poor follow-up and disconnected systems. 

    When your programs use different customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, it becomes difficult to track leads accurately and measure outcomes with consistency. Reporting becomes murky. Success metrics vary. Problems get misdiagnosed. 

    Instead of addressing the root causes of problems, your teams might blame each other (e.g., the marketing team and the admissions team) for the other’s perceived performance issues, when the real problem is systemic disconnection. 

    The Case for Centralized Marketing 

    Centralization doesn’t mean turning every school or program into a cookie-cutter version of the institution’s mission statement, and it doesn’t mean taking any team’s autonomy away. It’s about aligning around a shared strategy — one that empowers individual teams to execute effectively within a cohesive, coordinated framework. 

    Unified Brand Messaging 

    A strong, centralized brand platform allows your university to speak with one clear voice about its online programs, telling the story of: 

    • What your programs offer 
    • Who your programs serve 
    • Why your programs matter 

    This shared narrative should be rooted in your institution’s values and designed to build trust with prospective students. When every program draws from the same story and messaging pillars, it strengthens your presence across every touchpoint — from digital ads and landing pages to nurture emails and program brochures. Each program’s value propositions may differ, but the institution’s story endures. 

    Additionally, a unified approach enables your institution to leverage the brand and portfolio-level marketing that raises visibility across all your programs. For example, some institutions have an integrated marketing program for their undergraduate experience but lack a cohesive approach for their online graduate programs. This is a missed opportunity to build a portfolio-level branded presence through channels that individual schools may not be able to afford on their own. 

    A robust YouTube presence that highlights the benefits of your online graduate education experience (program agnostic), showcases your alumni and graduate education outcomes, and forefronts your strategic organizational partnerships that span individual schools and programs increases the impact for the entire institution with one investment.

    Integrated Campaign Planning 

    Centralized marketing brings together your paid media, content marketing, email strategy, and organic social media into one master plan. 

    Gone are the days of multiple teams across your institution launching disconnected campaigns, as central calendars and shared audience strategies help ensure each tactic contributes to every team’s strategic goals. This means reduced duplication, avoidance of internal bidding wars, and maximization of every marketing dollar. 

    However, your individual schools can and should have decision-making authority over the key value proposition definitions, target personas, and positioning of programs within their fields. This requires a collaborative conversation in an integrated campaign-planning scenario. 

    And schools should continue to develop campaigns where the impact is greatest for them — for example, hosting prospective student events and webinars, offering ambassador programs for prospective student questions, and attending events meaningful to their specific program field, such as at conferences and exhibit halls. 

    Shared Data and Measurement 

    In a world of data, perhaps the greatest and most immediate impact of centralized marketing will be felt in how your institution tracks performance holistically. With unified key performance indicators (KPIs) and shared access to insights, marketing teams at all levels — central and within academic schools — can identify what’s working for them, pivot when needed, and scale successful tactics across programs. 

    Teams can review where the branded portfolio-level efforts are causing the greatest lift in impressions and leads and determine together how school-level marketing activities can make the most impactful use of funds.

    What Centralized Marketing Looks Like in Practice 

    At Archer, we’ve seen institutions achieve dramatic improvements simply by unifying their marketing strategy — even if execution remains shared and distributed. With a strong central foundation in place, teams tap into shared creative resources, coordinate campaigns across programs, and drive stronger performance through unified media buying and consistent messaging. 

    At its best, centralized marketing can: 

    • Empower programs to amplify one another rather than compete 
    • Allow creative strategy to be produced once then repurposed widely 
    • Create paid efforts that are smarter, more cost effective, and better targeted 

    In sum, when your institution implements an integrated marketing model that fosters collaboration among academic schools, it can result in performance that is greater than the sum of its parts. 

    Archer Education knows what it takes to bring siloed departments together. Our unique partnership-based approach allows us to truly understand your institution, then implement efficiencies to ignite your online programs’ potential through a centralized marketing strategy that is balanced with school autonomy and meaningful participation. Contact us today to learn more.

    Source link

  • Are LLMs.txt Files Being Implemented Across the Web?

    Are LLMs.txt Files Being Implemented Across the Web?

    For the past year, our team at Archer has fully embraced the shift towards AI in enrollment marketing, especially in SEO. We have reshaped the way we think about the tools, experiences, and content we can deliver across the student journey. This radical shift in approach now has us pushing for more automation and innovation. 

    As a team, we decided to leave no stone unturned until we could reverse-engineer the output and influence it at will. Under that lens, we examined an emerging web standard for AI, the LLMs.txt file. 

    Are LLMs.txt files being implemented across the web? The short and simple answer is no. As of today, Anthropic is the only major player in the LLM space that supports this standard. But the file is getting crawled. As of this blog post, our log file shows that our LLMs.txt files have been pinged over 8,000 times. 

    The table below shows the total number of pings for eight sites that we tested this file with. 

    AGENT TOTAL %
    8LEGS 5 0.06%
    AhrefsBot 162 1.83%
    AhrefsSiteAudit 8 0.09%
    Applebot 3 0.03%
    AwarioBot 6 0.07%
    Barkrowler 20 0.23%
    bingbot 41 0.46%
    CCBot 5 0.06%
    Chrome/Safari 101 1.14%
    DataForSeoBot 10 0.11%
    Dataprovider.com 8 0.09%
    Edge 1 0.01%
    Facebook 1 0.01%
    facebookexternalhit 9 0.10%
    Firefox 14 0.16%
    Google-Apps-Script 3 0.03%
    Googlebot 55 0.62%
    GPTBot 2 0.02%
    meta-externalagent 6 0.07%
    Mobile Safari 4 0.05%
    Mozilla 3 0.03%
    Mozilla/5.0 26 0.29%
    OAI-SearchBot 8,330 94.35%
    Opera 1 0.01%
    PTST 9 0.10%
    Safari 1 0.01%
    Scrapy 1 0.01%
    search.marginalia.nu 1 0.01%
    SEOkicks 1 0.01%
    SemrushBot 12 0.14%
    SiteAuditBot 1 0.01%
    Slurp 1 0.01%
    Yahoo Slurp 1 0.01%
    YandexBot 8 0.09%
    TOTAL 8,829

    What is LLMs.txt and Why Does It Matter?

    If you’re tuned into the GEO/SEO debate, there seems to be a great shift in how LLMs differ from traditional search engines. An LLMs text file is most comparable to a robots.txt file, as it lives in the root directory of a site and provides instructions for crawling. The LLMs.txt file enables the conversion of your site’s information architecture into Markdown language, resulting in a simplified and clean view of your site’s structure. 

    This simple, clean view offers LLM crawlers an unmitigated path to your content, and that matters because LLMs cannot render JavaScript. This means that LLM scrapers are inferring context around a document from raw HTML. As Jono Alderson noted back in May 2025, this has a profound impact on how LLMs ingest your content. 

    Websites built using client-side rendering have a chance of displaying no content at all, which reduces the likelihood of your content being cited. Simply put, if LLMs can’t parse your content, then you won’t be able to stay competitive. 

    How Crawlers Are Interacting with Archer’s LLMs.txt Files

    When looking at the crawl numbers, OpenAI is dominating the crawl, with over 94% of our pings coming from OpenAI’s search bot. When examining the log file, we can see that the search bot pings our servers several times per hour, sometimes even within seconds of each other. 

    I had Gemini 2.5 analyze the log file for patterns, and here’s what it identified:

    This pattern is consistently observable throughout the logs. For example:

    • On June 26, 2025, the bot requested a URL from genericsite.com at 14:05:55 UTC and then again just three seconds later at 14:05:58 UTC.  
    • On July 10, 2025, genericsite2.com was subjected to a sustained burst of requests, with hits logged at 15:21:46, 15:23:03, 15:29:09, and 15:32:16 UTC.  
    • On July 6, 2025, two requests were made to the same domain just one second apart, at 02:49:15 and 02:49:16 UTC.

    When looking at the Ahrefs AI citations sections, we’ve only just begun to see an uptick in performance for citations across AI. The screenshot below shows what we’d expect from such low-traffic sites. A few weeks ago, when this reporting feature launched, these numbers were closer to zero.

    What’s also interesting  to note is that GPT bot pinged our LLMs.txt file for two smallers sites, which saw less pings from OpenAI’s search bot. GPT bot is exclusively used to train the model, so this indicates that OpenAI found our file valuable. 

    In full opaqueness, I’ve anonymized our sites to avoid malicious intent, but these sites are niche-specific. The sites focus on industry-specific degrees and mainly features informational content around career outcomes, licensure, variations of degrees, and helpful information for prospective students looking to enroll. There’s a lot of great information to train on and surface in outputs. 

    How Did We Get AI Bots to Crawl our LLMs.txt File?

    I saw your questions, asking us how we coaxed LLM bots to crawl our file. Many of you wanted to know if we added a link to our file; of course, we did! We treated this file like any other standard for SEO. If this were an XML sitemap, we’d submit it to Google Search Console and link to it on our robots.txt file.  So why wouldn’t we treat this standard the same way?

    I’m a big baseball fan, and our methodology for implementing the file is inspired by a line from one of my favorite baseball movies, Field of Dreams.

    “If you link to it, they will come.”

    Thanks to the brilliance of our team, we decided to approach this differently. Rather than listing a link to the file in robots.txt, which is common practice for an XML sitemap, we decided to inject a link to the file in the

    section of our sites. 

    We implemented this using the “alternate” link relationship type, which suggests an alternative version of a document. We expected to get crawls from all sorts of bots, but we didn’t expect to get so many in such a short period. 

    Have We Checked the IP Addresses of AI Bots?

    When I first announced this on Twitter, many of the initial comments inquired about IP abuse and malicious intent. Given the frequency of server pings, we were concerned about the potential for spoofers looking for site vulnerabilities.  We checked the IP address 135.234.64.13, which is identified within OpenAI’s documentation.

    Should You Implement LLMs.txt on Your Site?

    When looking at the evolving landscape, I’d say yes. Google has a 20-year head start, which enables it to parse unstructured data with ease. That’s a significant investment in infrastructure, which means competitors must raise substantial capital to catch up. 

    With that said, if you have a deadline-driven product, such as a master’s degree or a relatively new offering with limited documentation, and your site is not optimized for AI, your users may encounter hallucinations. I hypothesize that the LLMs.txt file serves as a safeguard, providing pertinent information to the LLMs and can help reduce errors by serving fresh content. 

    For example, a prospective student searches for a Fall application deadline, but LLM models have been trained on an earlier version of our site. LLMs need to do a live search or RAG to satisfy user intent. Another example might be sweeping changes to the curriculum for a new semester. How can we maintain accuracy for our students? 

    The Future of LLMs.txt

    I am not a crystal ball gazer, nor do I possess the power of prescience. At this moment, all we can do is test and monitor the file. Our team will continue to monitor bot behavior and report on our findings. 

    With each passing day, we’re seeing shifts in user behavior, improved models, and wide-scale change. No one knows what the future holds for agentic search, but I do know that the industry needs to evolve with the tech stack. 

    At Archer, our team would learn firsthand. It’s the only way we can future-proof our university partner’s success. In higher education, we face various challenges, including declining enrollments, which is an industry-wide issue.

    Final Thoughts on the LLMs.txt File

    While the LLMs text file is not yet a widely adopted standard across the web, the recent flurry of bot activity suggests there is value. Given the limitations of current LLM crawlers, this file might be your best bet in safeguarding against pitfalls that will have you excluded from these new systems. 

    As the industry evolves, it’s our duty as stewards of the web to test, try, break, and fix things. I encourage marketers, SEOs, and web engineers to think differently and lean into curiosity. It is through that lens that we can help our partners be found wherever their students are. 
    If you’d like to talk more about AI-powered SEO and how Archer is helping universities show up where students are searching, the Archer team is ready to help.

    Source link