Targeting and personalizing content for consumers is a core component of most every successful marketing technology platform.
The sophistication of marketing technology today is mind boggling to an average consumer. What you searched on Amazon last year still impacts the featured items and search results within your Amazon account and that a pair of shoes you viewed on a shopping website now show up on your Instagram and Facebook feed in a matter of seconds.
These are only a couple of examples of the incredible ability of today’s marketing technology landscape. In nearly every industry report you see companies increasing their investments in digital marketing spending and this is driven by the fact that targeting and personalization works.
In contrast, higher education has retained a noble focus on equality and taken this as far as a desire to create equitable, and at times identical, experience for all types of students. This important goal of inclusivity paired with today’s ability to use email as a primary, low cost communication channel has at times created an onslaught of messages. In other words, all students receive nearly all messages, regardless of their relevancy.
Students are exposed to a massive amount of messages on a daily basis that often creates the opposite impact – virtually all messages become meaningless. Today’s students expect personalization. Their everyday lives provide it in the form of personalized social media newsfeeds, video streaming services suggesting content and digital media advertising that takes into account demographics and past behaviors to determine which ads are served.
Once again, marketers know that this type of personalization and customization creates a better experience for consumers by making content more relevant. Students (consumers) expect a personalized experience and institutions must work to create scalable ways to execute on this both in the digital and physical world.
Institutions are generally not trying to sell something to active students, they are selling students on how to utilize their time. Whether it is encouraging students to attend campus or online events, dive deeper into their academics, utilize resources or engage with campus activities; students have a choice on how engaged they become with an institution and how they utilize their time.
As VP of Product, Jason Stele leads the product and engineering team and is responsible for overall product vision for ClearScholar. For the past 20 years, Jason has enjoyed a rewarding career as a seasoned technologist and Information Systems leader. Jason spent 10 years as CTO for a national nonprofit consumer advocacy organization and three years as an Innovation Architect and Technical Manager supporting Medicare systems at Anthem. Jason has presented at numerous ed tech national and international conferences.
On the other hand, through ongoing institutional research efforts, the incredible access to data institutions have about their students and the recent explosion of data science being leveraged in higher education, institutions are truly able to predict success and know what actions are proven to lead to success for students.
The challenge then becomes marrying this data back to students in a way that feels natural and drives students to utilize their time engaged in proven, success-driving activities. This institutional-driven targeting of content based on student demographics, digital behaviors and self-reported preferences is vital for institutions to effectively communicate and drive resource utilization.
In addition to ensuring that the timing and content of communications are data-backed, it is also integral that the correct medium is chosen. The answer in many cases for this is that the medium is mobile technology, including SMS, push notifications and customized in-app content.
Some specific ways where known and proven marketing technologies are being effectively leveraged in ed tech tools include the following scenarios, which are truly just the beginning and in many cases on the bleeding edge of ed tech. In the coming years, the need to more rapidly adopt and adopt tools that leverage the below marketing technology tactics will be compulsory for innovative institutions.
- Personalization: No two Facebook feeds look identical — they are highly specific to an individual’s friend group, their past interactions, self-selected preferences and more. Additionally, most all email service providers encourage the personalization of messages alongside strong preference centers that allow customers to dictate the type and cadence of messages they receive. This type of personalization today is often advanced in the admissions offices within higher education, but does not permeate throughout the student experience. Ongoing, elements of personalization must be a part of student communications, to prevent the onslaught of emails and instead provide students with a curated, personalized source of information.
- Mobile-First Design: The idea of an eCommerce company not having a fully functional, rich mobile experience for their customers is unheard of in today’s marketing technology world. In contrast, many universities have online sites, tools and resources that are not mobile-friendly. The path forward for institutions will likely include integrated approaches with a mobile on-ramp
- Data Science: The use of data science is rampant in marketing technology today including using data science to analyze social activity, effectiveness of advertising and overall budget optimization alongside dozens of additional tools and use cases that leverage data science. Many higher education institutions have also heavily invested in various institutional research projects that use data science to help predict individual student success and test what interventions are most effective. There is a need ongoing to ensure that this data is actionable and that interventions (including leveraging behavioral science) can be scalable applied and tested.
- Language Analysis: Language sentiment analysis and effectiveness of language has been leveraged by several technology tools including Salesforce Social Studio (formerly Radian6) alongside tools like Persado, which analysis the sentiment and effectiveness of email subject lines through multi variant testing. Today there are tools built into learning management systems that are leveraged to better understand the engagement level and sentiment of students within online discussion forums. This is likely only the beginning of language analysis tools being used to understand students’ engagement, emotions and skillsets.
There is a feeling amongst some within the higher education industry that, due to the history and academia, the industry is built on the assumption that there is an excuse to be less innovative than other industries. Endearingly, many say that higher education is a decade behind other industries. This may have worked in generations past, but the expectations of today’s modern student paired with the increasingly competitive and changing environment of higher education, now is the time for innovation and borrowing theories and approaches from rapidly evolving spaces such as marketing technology.
Equity in education does not have to be seen as disallowing a personalized experience that serves the individual needs of students. Utilizing personalization, mobile-first design, data science and language analysis will ultimately improve the equity by providing students with content and customized resources that drive their personal success regardless and with respect of their behaviors, preferences and background.
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