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How Higher Education Institutions Are Creating Stand Out Digital Experiences
Higher Education • Ross Lucivero, EVP, Product
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Higher education institutions are far from exempt to wider trends in consumer behavior, customer experience, and digital transformation.
Your students, their families, prospective applicants, and faculty have come to expect seamless digital experiences and on-demand access to any information they need. This has never been more important as it is today in the wake of COVID-19. With so many stakeholders to cater to, it can be difficult to design effective digital experiences.
However, creating innovative digital experiences isn’t impossible. If you want your higher education institution to stand out from competitors, break up digital trends and initiatives into three categories—marketing, your website, and online-learning experiences.
Marketing is a unique challenge for higher education institution because you’re in a constant state of acquisition. Whereas other industries can invest marketing resources in customer retention, you have the costly challenge of acquiring new students year in and year out.
Because marketing to prospective students is so costly, it’s important to make sure you’re maximizing the return on your budget. And now more than ever, that means executing innovative digital marketing campaigns. But that means more than just having a presence on your typical social media platforms. Creating stand-out digital marketing experiences requires:
All of these elements of stand-out digital marketing experiences revolve around the dominance of mobile. More than half of all U.S. internet traffic comes from mobile devices. If you want to maximize the impact of your digital marketing, mobile engagement is key.
Your website is the central hub for all higher ed stakeholders. Everyone from prospective students to faculty members expect smooth web experiences that are tailored to their needs. This is why modular web designs are becoming popular in the higher education industry.
Modular design plays a crucial role in the user experience of your website. Ensuring all stakeholders are met with the information they need when they visit your site can streamline experiences and minimize confusion in navigation. But beyond modular design, there are two main principles that will help your website stand out:
Regardless of your approach, usability, accessibility, and user experience should be your primary web focuses. While that’s not groundbreaking in comparison to years past, it’s important to continuously adapt your experiences with these principles in mind as new digital trends emerge.
Your digital experiences don’t stop once a prospective student enrolls and goes beyond your website. True higher education digital transformation requires new experiences in their educational experience, too. With the sudden shift of college’s moving to online-only education as a result of COVID-19, this need for digital transformation moved from a suggestion to a necessity overnight.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but a few examples of digital technologies that enhance online-learning:
Many institutions make the mistake of equating digital transformation with technology. Technology is important, but only if it’s serving the larger goal of creating digital experiences that bring true value to your students, faculty, staff, etc. This is why it’s so important to ensure you’re aligning digital experience trends with an overarching strategy.
The trends and tactics discussed here only scratch the surface of what you can do with your digital experiences. Creating stand-out experiences isn’t about universal approaches to digital trends. Rather, you need to understand the technologies and trends deeply so you can build creative solutions around them.
That means continuously digging into customer experience trends as they evolve over time. If you're looking to elevate your institutions digital experiences, get in touch.
