What Should a School or University Include in Its Enrollment Marketing?

The enrollment journey now begins on a screen, long before a campus visit or an application. Industry research on higher-education marketing finds that more than 90 percent of prospective students visit an institution’s website during their search, and most begin with a search engine. If your school is hard to find or unconvincing online, you’re losing students before the conversation ever starts.

Build for the search that starts the journey
Because most students begin with a search, your program pages have to answer the questions they’re actually typing: cost, outcomes, location, and what sets the program apart. Those questions aren’t guesses. Hanover Research’s 2025 survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. high school students found that cost, career readiness, flexibility, and a sense of connection now sit at the center of how students decide where to apply, so the pages that speak to those things directly are the ones that hold attention. Search itself is also shifting fast. A large share of students now read Google’s AI-generated overviews before they click any result, which means clear, well-organized content is what gets your school surfaced and cited, not just ranked.

Tip: Ask an AI assistant something a prospective student would ask, like “best nursing programs near me.” If your institution is missing or wrong in the answer, that’s your most urgent content gap.

Tell the story in short-form video
A website answers questions. Video earns feeling. Prospective students engage far more with short videos on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok than with static pages, and the best enrollment marketing uses that format to show real campus life, students, and outcomes. You don’t need a production budget. With this audience, authenticity beats polish.
Lean into the content that answers what students are weighing:
• Day-in-the-life videos that show what attending actually feels like.
• Outcome stories that follow graduates into the jobs and transfers that came next.
• Straight answers on cost, financial aid, and how to apply.

Personalize the follow-up
The decision takes months, so the follow-up has to stay relevant. A prospective nursing student and a prospective business student shouldn’t get the same emails. Even basic segmentation, whether by program interest, stage in the process, or student type, makes your outreach feel like it was written for that student, which is exactly what they’ve come to expect.

Strong enrollment marketing isn’t one big campaign. It’s being findable when the search begins, compelling once they’re watching, and relevant the whole way through a decision that can take months.
At Romark Strategies, we help schools and universities turn online interest into enrolled students. Let’s talk about your enrollment strategy.

Sources: “2025 National Prospective Student Survey,” Hanover Research: hanoverresearch.com. “2025 Higher Education Marketing Trends,” EducationDynamics: educationdynamics.com.