The rapid mushrooming of higher education institutions has made it challenging for universities to endure stiff competition and stay profitable. Revenue sources threaten to dry up if adequate strategic interventions are not taken to draw, engage, and retain students. 

Competing institutions are always ready with predatory tactics to snare prospective students. In such a gloomy situation, 8 proven strategies can save the day for your higher education institution.

These strategies can help you stay competitive and steal the march over your adversaries. Properly implemented, the success recipes can ensure financial sustainability in higher education in the long run.

Table of Contents:

Top 8 Proven Strategies for Honing the Competitive Edge of Higher Education Institutions

Adopting the strategies discussed here can help your higher education institution survive the headwinds of fierce competition and stay competitive by unlocking streams of sustained revenues.  

1. Unlock the Power of Responsive Ads

Responsive ads can drive revenue growth in higher education because of their versatility in navigating the different constraints of ad platforms and viewers’ devices. These scalable ads should be a pivotal part of your strategy to garner optimum attention for your institute. Your campaign’s deployed assets are intuitively scaled by responsive ads based on the dimensions of devices or unique requirements of social platforms.

This offers viewers a uniform and spellbinding viewing experience that boosts your education brand’s credibility and reputation. You need to provide Google Display Network with varying advertisement formats, visuals, campaign copies, and headlines. The Network leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to intuitively deliver the ad variant that optimally fits the user’s device or social platform.

Your institution can also use Meta’s AI-powered Facebook Dynamic Ads to captivate students with unique presentations that match their preferences. Responsive ads facilitate 2x more lead conversions compared to static ads, as multiple visuals, descriptions, and headlines drive better click-through rates.

Also Read: The Impact of Web Accessibility on Higher Education Experiences

2. Forge Strategic Alliances With Onshore and Offshore Consultancies

Your institution can widen its reach among prospective students by collaborating with reputed national or offshore consultancies. These higher education-focused consultancies offer career guidance to students aspiring to materialize their future ambitions with the choicest degrees.

You can enter into strategic agreements with consultancies located in uncharted territories. These consultancies would counsel students about your institution’s programs, guide them on the study options available, help with the admission process, and allow students to interact with your institution’s expert mentors.

The consultancies’ ability to provide a trustworthy picture of the higher education industry trends before students reinforce their credibility among prospective learners. During the decision-making phase related to admission, students are more likely to believe the suggestions of such consultancies.

Hence, your institution can experience a steady inflow of admission requests by partnering with consultancies in strategic locations.

3. Develop Online Programs for Students’ Knowledge Enrichment

Your institution can generate consistent revenues by capitalizing on the millennials’ craze for online education. To this end, record professors’ lectures and package them into immersive online courses. Interested learners can then access the courses for a reasonable fee. This potentially opens up new online learning revenue streams without significant investment in infrastructure.

The efficacy and relevance of online courses can be improved over time by factoring in feedback from learners and tapping into contemporary trends. You can leverage any good LMS (Learning Management System) to deliver the programs or hold live interactive sessions with teachers and students. LMS helps monetize online classes by restricting course access to enrolled learners and authorized accounts only.

4. Provide Holistic Support Services to Students to Retain Them

Students who are content with the support extended by higher education institutions are likely to stay longer and pursue other courses of interest. Thus, one important student retention strategy is offering them additional resources accessible through laptops or handheld devices.

The learning environments and course offerings should be made more accessible and easy to discover. Students receiving personalized and customized educational experiences are 69% more likely to continue with their institutions.

You can enhance the quality of students’ experience by:

  1. Using student data strategically to create tailored welcome emails or videos during onboarding.
  2. Making students feel connected through dorm segmentation based on common academic or extracurricular interests.
  3. Offering students the choice of communication channels to stay engaged with your institution and seek timely assistance.
  4. Creating a one-stop digital services center for students to answer their queries.
  5. Starting hybrid or virtual classes, virtual advising, and peer mentorship for proactively reaching out to students and familiarizing them with extra resources available.
  6. Ensuring that adequate financial aid is provided to students to help them navigate mid-course monetary crises.
  7. Organizing telehealth wellness checks to keep students motivated and in high spirits.
  8. Help them prepare for their future career with career chats by academic advisors, pairing them with alums with the same majors, and regular discussions on career opportunities.
  9. Holistic support from your institution will foster a sense of belonging among students and keep them engaged.

5. Leverage the Potential of Short Videos

One of your key student enrollment strategies should be to highlight the facilities offered by your institution, particularly for out-of-location students. By raising prospective learners’ awareness with short videos, you can present your institution as the best place for admission. 

These videos can offer exclusive virtual tours of your campus and facilities or answer the common queries of learners. The video bytes can also supplement the experience of those who personally visited your campus.

To gain a competitive edge, try posting such short videos on your official website and prominent social platforms. The videos would engage learners better if they were 90 seconds or less. You can link the bytes to long videos for those who desire to explore things at length.

6. Offer Better Internship Opportunities

You can engage in higher education revenue optimization by offering your students better internship opportunities that will serve as the stepping stone for a lucrative career. For this, you need to enter into strategic agreements with world-renowned and infrastructurally developed organizations operating in your institution’s vicinity.

There should be matching internship opportunities for all the courses you offer. As the word about the practical skill-enrichment avenues offered by you will spread, more admission requests from students and higher revenues will knock at your door.

7. Focus More on Real-Life Stories of Student Success and Career Placement

You can exhibit the value and appeal of your institution’s courses by sharing the success stories of students who have enrolled in them in the past. Advertise their exponential career growth in the strongest terms.

Showcase your partnerships with leading companies and recruiters on all digital touchpoints to inspire trust in your institution’s ability to drive potential students’ career growth. 

One proven competitive strategy for universities to generate revenues is to attract students by convincing them that the programs offered will help them land lucrative jobs with prestigious firms.

8. Engage in Influencer Marketing

In this age of social media, influencers can play a critical role in sparking potential students’ interest in your institution. You need to conduct thorough research to shortlist influencers with significant social media fan followings in the academic domain.

Hire their services and leverage their infectious charm to spread the good word about your institution. Also, you can ask successful alumni to publicize your institution.

Check out EXCLUSIVE: Hurix Minibook: Immersive Learning for the WIN in Education!

Way Forward

The importance of proven strategies in bringing widespread popularity to your higher education institution cannot be overstated. Tactical interventions need to be pursued in full swing to let prospective students know what your institution stands for and the unique aspects that set it apart from the others. The strategies, however, have to be personalized to the expectations and requirements of students to be effective in driving revenue. 

Hurix Digital has an experienced team of academicians and ace marketers who can drive your higher education institution’s branding efforts and optimally showcase your shiny side to potential students. We use cutting-edge marketing tools and strategies to overcome the challenges of generating revenues and attracting the best students for enrolment.

Get in touch with us today to get your institution on track for success.