Mobile marketing is changing the game for higher education institutions.

For the higher education industry, mobile marketing provides an opportunity to offer services in a new way and expand their reach to a broader audience.

Mobile marketing strategy for higher education lets you market your school, college, or university via social media, search Ads, mobile apps, AI personalization, and VR, as well as target prospective students based on their geographical location.

Leveraging these mobile marketing channels will give higher education institutions the power to unleash their full potential and reliably scale their growth.

In this blog, we’ve explored the key areas of mobile marketing for higher education institutions, including the following:

note

1. The Mobile-Centric Student Landscape

Mobile Engagement for Students in College can yield better results, as 40 percent of undergraduate students in the U.S. reported using their mobile device, either a phone or tablet, to complete most of their course-related activities. 

And 20 percent of students said they had used their phone or tablet device to complete their course-related activities. Therefore, increased information consumption through mobile devices has made it imperative for Higher Ed marketers to make it part of their strategy.

Since the number of mobile-centric students is increasing, mobile dependency in higher education institutions is increasing. Mobile phones have become the norm for student connectivity or digital learning.

Navigating the mobile-centric student landscape, higher education institutions have developed new ways of engaging, targeting, and attracting students to colleges and universities. The changing student behaviors demand to stay ahead of the trend. 

With so many mobile marketing ideas for higher education, you must see which works best for your school or college.

2. Tailoring Content for Mobile Audiences

One of the most critical aspects of mobile marketing strategy for higher education is tailoring content. It will impact the results and deepen the relationship with your target audience.

Tailoring Content for Mobile Audience

Here are some benefits of tailoring content for an exceptional user experience:

  • Improving conversion rates
  • Increasing engagement rates
  • Increasing enrollment ratio
  • Enhancing customer relationship
  • Sending personalized messages 

Consider these tips when optimizing content for mobile audiences:

  • Know your audience, leverage analytics, and create personas
  • Think as your audience thinks, get the direction set for the content
  • Ensure it is mobile-friendly content, and the viewer doesn’t have to zoom or pinch in
  • Give the audience something of value through mobile marketing content
  • Using a clear and detailed structure with coherent and compelling content

Ideations: Explain the importance of creating mobile-friendly content, including websites, emails, and social media. Discuss responsive design and user experience.

3. Leveraging Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are projected to generate more than 613 billion U.S. dollars in revenues in 2025, with the number of mobile app downloads worldwide surpassing 255 billion downloads.

Today, students are digital natives as they grew up with mobile phones in their daily lives. University-branded apps that engage students in a positive experience have a lasting impact. Because they are always demanding everything at their fingertips.

User-friendly and feature-rich mobile apps will help educational institutions’ businesses by

  • Increasing brand awareness
  • Enhancing brand visibility
  • Improving loyalty
  • Increasing enrollment rates
  • Growing your target audience

Mobile Apps provide different features such as campus services, student communication support, faculty support, and student engagement activities options.

App accessibility gives your existing and prospective students the freedom to access resources from anywhere they want to, and that, too, is hassle-free.

Here’s a breakdown of steps for enhancing student engagement through mobile apps:

  • Prelaunch marketing – Create awareness about your mobile app
  • Postlaunch marketing – Encourage students to download the app
  • Engagement and retention – Run mobile marketing campaigns

Mobile app marketing tools are an excellent way to streamline campaigns and promote your higher education institutions.

4. Mobile Advertising and Outreach

Reaching prospective students with mobile advertising has become easier as internet users worldwide spend 57 percent of their time browsing the Internet via mobile phones.

Mobile advertising and outreach enable higher educational institutions to Improve enrollment marketing ROI and drive results.

Needless to say, social media outreach to prospective students can be done through social media ads as they maximize the effectiveness of your mobile marketing strategy. However, it is essential to choose the right social media platform.

Mobile Advertising and Outreach

Here are the top benefits of including social media ads

  • Access to a large audience
  • Connect on a personal level
  • Drive engagement
  • User targeting
  • User-generated content
  • Analytics to track results.

Pro-tip: As mobile advertisement and outreach are all based on how you communicate and deliver the message, a strong content marketing strategy for your higher Ed can up your game.

Today, students can find everything they need on a single click. Therefore, higher education institutions must add search ads to their mobile marketing campaigns. It offers a number of benefits for ad campaigns with targeted marketing, some of which are:

  • Resistance to Adblock
  • More organic traffic
  • Focus on intent marketing
  • Wider Reach = High-Cost Per Click

Many Higher Ed experts can help your higher education institutions with geotargeting ads to reach prospective students within a precise physical location. Besides this, geotargeting also allows you to consider students’ interests and preferences, making targeting even more precise. 

5. Mobile Engagement Strategies

More clicks mean more engagement and revenue for your educational institution.

But how do we catch their eyes? Through mobile engagement strategies. Mobile marketing campaigns for universities focus on engagement and touchpoints to drive results. 

SMS Campaigns best practices to keep in mind:

  • Always ask for opt-in consent
  • Provide opt-out options
  • Include brand name or use customization
  • Avoid ambiguity and confusion
  • Set up clear goals and KPIs
  • A/B testing

Push Notifications are handy tools that engage your audience and drive them back to your website. Follow these best practices for push notifications:

  • Build the right permutations and combination
  • Choose the right time to send the message
  • Always include visually appealing images
  • Personalization is the key to conversion
  • Be strategic, as too many push notifications annoy people

Chatbots are the big next step for mobile marketing. Consider these primary applications for chatbots:

  • Student support chatbots
  • Virtual career counselor chatbots
  • Admission support chatbots

Fostering student engagement through mobile strategies will increase revenue as it targets the right audience through instant messaging.

7. Measuring Mobile Marketing Success

Measuring success in mobile marketing enables you to gain insights into the data and the value it brings to the table. You can determine how much ROI mobile marketing generates for your school or college.

It is crucial to understand how effective mobile marketing for colleges and universities was and the results produced. So, how should you measure?

Follow these simple steps:

  1. Clearly define your KPIs
  2. Track cross-device behavior
  3. Optimize your campaign
  4. Define attribution strategy
  5. A/B testing campaign 
  6. Analyze mobile app and website performance.
Measuring Mobile Marketing Success

Here are the key mobile marketing metrics or KPIs you must monitor to measure success:

  • Active users – Number of active users who interact with your mobile app or respond to your message.
  • Churn rate –  Number of users who stop using the app over time.
  • Average revenue per user – Total revenue generated by a single user, leading to app monetization.
  • Acquisition cost per user – To measure the ROI and efficiency of mobile marketing campaigns to acquire new users.
  • Conversion rate – Number of users who completed the desired action through mobile marketing.
  • Click-through rate – Number of users who clicked on a mobile ad, in-app message, or any other promotional content shared on mobile.
  • Bounce rate – Number of users who leave the app or ignore the text after viewing it only once.
  • Social sharing & referrals – Number of times a single user share content from the mobile app or refer it to a new user.
  • User lifetime value – The revenue a user generates over their lifetime.

The information generated and gathered for performance analysis by these metrics supports data analytics and success measurement of the higher education mobile marketing strategy.

The Future of Mobile Marketing in Higher Education

Overall, the higher education sector has witnessed a drastic change in the mobile marketing landscape with the advent of AR, VR, AI personalization, and other technologies.

Global mobile marketing is predicted to reach 57.85 billion dollars by 2030, and the future of higher education is bound to see an integration of mixed reality in mobile marketing.

Let’s face it – AI is taking over the world. AI can help higher education institutions strengthen their content marketing game.

From targeted ads to tailored messages, AI personalization enables Edtech marketers to deliver content that resonates with them, driving higher conversion rates.

AR and VR hold a new world of potential to work as an enrollment marketing funnel effectively. With AR, students can experience rich visuals and immersions in college, university, or even the subject they choose and make better decisions.

As we foresee future trends, mobile marketing will continue to increase as a powerful tool to reach and engage students.

Innovative technologies are shaping the future of mobile marketing to create more effective and personalized marketing campaigns to enhance student experiences.

Conclusion

As the landscape for higher education continues to transform, mobile marketing should be at the top of the marketing agenda. 

As colleges and universities look for new ways to engage with their prospective students, mobile marketing strategy for higher education effectively complements the outreach strategy. 

It can also be a useful tool to provide improved user experience and student support and convert more of your prospective students into enrolled students.

So, get your mobile marketing strategy in place for enhanced outreach and engagement.