Today’s career changer represents a natural fit for COE’s market-driven program portfolio. As many as three quarters of professionals in their 30s seek a career change; however, given concerns about debt and the inherent risk of changing paths, most require tangible evidence of a program’s value before deciding to inquire or enroll. If COE marketers can provide such evidence, then today’s passive career seeker represents the field’s next major growth market.
COE leaders can attract the attention of career changers with outcomes-focused marketing messages that communicate labor market demand, support a career-focused educational search, and offer authentic feedback from program graduates as social proof of a program’s value. The marketing playbook must evolve to compel prospective career changers to actively consider alternative fields and career paths, educate prospects on available programs and their link to career outcomes, and provide relatable student value stories and testimonials to validate the decision to apply and enroll.
This resource is part of the Develop Outcomes-Focused Recruitment Messages for Adult Learners Roadmap. Access the Roadmap for stepwise guidance with additional tools and research.
Use this tool to audit your current program advertisements, program webpages, and unit or institutional homepage to ensure that you are communicating program outcomes clearly. Each page includes a checklist of important content items to include, and program advertisements, program pages, and other web pages should include a majority of the checklist items. Each checklist is accompanied by an example of effective advertisements, program pages, or unit homepages to illustrate what it looks like to put outcomes marketing into practice.
Using labor market data to connect program offerings to local and national professional opportunities represents the critical first step to educating prospective students about the career value they can expect from given programs, and equips both marketers and recruiters to make an outcomes-based case for enrollment based on professional interest. This tool provides step-by-step guidance to integrate labor market data into marketing and recruiting efforts.
This tool provides start-to-finish support for members seeking to partner with key influencers, create or partner with formal and informal affinity groups, and leverage those groups for market intelligence and program enrollment.
COE leaders, particularly those with out-of-industry experience, understand the need to invest in marketing to promote existing programs and facilitate growth. However, many see the function largely as advertising spend, in both print and digital formats, that places a product-first message with an enrollment-focused call to action in front of prospective students. This tool has two parts. Part one will help you explain marketing’s challenge to your executive. Part two makes the business case for non-working marketing spend.
This tool provides important information and background on the Department of Education’s title IV Misrepresentation Rule and its enforcement to date, and provides guidance for members about red flags to avoid when using outcomes data. The following information reflects the COE Forum’s own analyses of Department of Education legislation, and conversations with higher education policy experts.
This tool helps identify the demographics of individuals active on five common social media channels—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest—according to the Pew Research Center’s study on the demographics of key social networking platforms to help marketers determine which channels offer the best opportunity to reach high-affinity student groups.
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