Higher ed marketing is having a moment. Here’s why.
There has never been a quiet time to work in higher ed marketing. But the scope of what institutions now expect from marketing leaders is expanding well beyond communications.
Why? Well, some of higher education’s biggest challenges are increasingly marketing challenges—or, at minimum, challenges that marketing leaders are uniquely equipped to help solve.
Questions facing CMOs include: Who are the students we can best serve? What do they need from us? Where can our institution credibly grow? What makes us meaningfully different? Is the market hearing that story? Does the student experience reinforce it? And can we demonstrate that our investments are changing student behavior and institutional outcomes?
Notably, these aren’t simply questions about promotion. They’re questions about growth, strategy, trust, and institutional relevance. As digital marketing expert Emily Upton put it: “Marketing is increasingly expected to function as an architect of institutional growth.”
I sat down with five higher education marketing experts to discuss why higher ed marketing is having “a moment”—and what that moment demands of today’s CMO.
What is the biggest change higher ed marketing leaders need to respond to?
Val Fox: Institutions no longer completely control where—or how—their story gets told.
Students can ask highly specific questions of AI platforms, compare schools and programs, and narrow their choices before an institution even knows they are in the market.
Search engines and AI systems are interpreting an institution based on information distributed across its entire digital footprint. That means a brand no longer lives only in the channels a marketing team owns or manages. Marketing leaders now have to understand—and actively manage—the version of the institution that AI and search engines infer.
“AI visibility is becoming an enterprise-wide brand responsibility.”
That raises the stakes for CMOs and VP MarComm leaders who straddle communications and marketing. They still need to build reputation, manage issues, tell a differentiated story, and drive enrollment. But now they also need to ensure the broader digital ecosystem contains clear, consistent, credible evidence of who the institution is, whom it serves best, and what value it delivers.
This is bigger than adding GEO to the SEO checklist. AI visibility is becoming an enterprise-wide brand responsibility.
Michael Koppenheffer: The marketers I talk to are well aware that AI is dramatically changing how their audiences find information and how they interpret what they receive. But most have barely begun to mobilize. They’re not yet developing a scalable analytics approach, let alone retooling their strategies for this new AI-first environment.
We see this urgency—or lack thereof—in the data, too. In our survey of over 120 marketing leaders, only 33% said they had conducted a formal traditional or AI search visibility audit in the previous year. For institutions ready to act, that gap creates an opportunity to build an early advantage in visibility and authority while competitors are still catching up.
“The marketers I talk to are well aware that AI is dramatically changing how their audiences find information and how they interpret what they receive. But most have barely begun to mobilize.”
The ultimate goal isn’t simply to appear in more AI-generated answers. It’s not even to make the institution’s broader digital presence more accurate, differentiated, and coherent—although that is critical. I’d argue an even bigger objective in monitoring and analyzing AI search is to glean insight into how well the market is responding to the institution’s value proposition. Then, use those insights to inform the highest-level strategic questions about how to position the institution to win in the market long term.
Why does this moment feel bigger than previous disruptions? What is ultimately at stake for marketing leaders?
Emily Upton: Marketing leaders are no longer being asked only how to promote the institution.
They’re increasingly expected to identify where the institution can credibly grow, which programs and audiences offer the strongest opportunities, how to differentiate, and when more marketing won’t solve an underlying demand or value proposition problem.
At the same time, they’re being asked to connect those decisions across the digital ecosystem, guide AI adoption, allocate limited resources, and prove the connection between marketing investment and enrollment.
“Higher ed marketing is evolving from a communications function into an institutional growth, intelligence, integration, and trust function.“
That requires marketing leaders to see the whole system: combining market and student insight with institutional context, connecting decisions across channels, and understanding how one part of the student journey affects another. Automation can create efficiency, but human judgment becomes even more important for protecting differentiation, trust, and brand reputation.
That is what makes this such an important moment for the profession. Higher ed marketing is evolving from a communications function into an institutional growth, intelligence, integration, and trust function. Marketing leaders have an opportunity to become the bridge between institutional strategy and student choice. I think marketing might be one of the most pivotal roles at all institutions going forward, if it was ever in question.
Michael Koppenheffer: When I’m feeling particularly philosophical, I say that the most important job of marketing is to help an organization crystallize what it means to be the best version of itself and then communicate that identity outward.
Right now, that work is especially important. This is a challenging time for higher education in this country. The decade ahead is going to demand strategic, bold leadership to establish—and articulate—a truly differentiated and valuable approach. Marketers will need to craft a compelling message for students, families, alumni, lawmakers, funders, and the public about why higher education is critical for advancing the collective good.
“…the most important job of marketing is to help an organization crystallize what it means to be the best version of itself and then communicate that identity outward.“
With students discovering institutions everywhere, how should CMOs think about brand?
Amaris Kobolak: Start with cohesion.
A strong brand can’t live within one campaign, platform, or webpage. Students experience each touchpoint as one continuous impression of your institution.
The look, tone, and story will flex by channel, but they should all reinforce a clear and differentiated idea of who you are as a brand.
This will help you reach the right audience and communicate why you are the right choice.
“CMOs need to know when the market is ready for something new.”
Think of each interaction with your audience as part of a larger conversation. With each touchpoint, you’re building a relationship. The impact of that relationship is just as dependent on what your brand communicates as it is on how those communications are received. When your strategy is cohesive, yet flexible, it creates a cumulative impact larger than any single touchpoint alone can achieve.
That also means CMOs need to know when the market is ready for something new. How many campaign cycles have you run using the same creative? The same messaging? Are performance trends showing creative fatigue? And does that work still represent the brand experience you want your audience to have?
But a new campaign or refreshed ad creative isn’t always the answer. There’s an important difference between a campaign that feels tired or unrelatable, and a brand strategy that was never distinctive enough in the first place. Before increasing investment, ask a more fundamental question: Is your underlying brand idea bold enough to cut through a crowded market and connect?
“Before increasing investment, ask a more fundamental question: Is your underlying brand idea bold enough to cut through a crowded market and connect?“
AI Search raises the stakes even further. When your brand narrative and pillars are vague, results become conflicting and your proof points lose strength. Those inconsistencies have more opportunities to surface and negatively shape student perception.
We know it takes less than a half-second for first impressions to be made. Will yours be memorable?
How should CMOs prioritize when expectations are growing faster than resources?
Val Fox: Today’s marketing leaders are expected to steward reputation, support enrollment and revenue goals, identify market opportunities, improve the digital experience, interpret changing student behavior, guide AI strategy, and demonstrate measurable institutional impact. Yet many are doing so with fragmented authority, decentralized budgets, thin teams, and incomplete data.
That makes diagnosis one of the CMO’s most important strategic competencies. Before pursuing the next promising idea, leaders need to understand the problem they are actually trying to solve. Is it insufficient awareness? Weak differentiation? Poor search visibility? An underperforming website? Creative fatigue? A conversion problem?
“…diagnosis one of the CMO’s most important strategic competencies.“
Different problems require different investments—and the newest tactic is not necessarily the right answer. A CMO who understands the market should be able to distinguish an execution problem from a strategy problem.
Michael Koppenheffer: Marketers often feel like they’re being asked to do more with less, but never has that expression been more apt than it is today. Changes in the external environment are making the execution imperatives for marketing teams ever more complex, while many marketing leaders are feeling the pressure to prove greater efficiency and effectiveness through AI-enabled tools.
It’s no secret that the higher education market is going to become even more competitive in the coming years, especially when it comes to enrollment. I think that means that marketers need to stop trying to do everything—pursuing all good ideas, trying to be all things to all people. Instead, they need to figure out what strategies are most important for driving results and put their time, energy, and investments there.
“Marketers need to stop trying to do everything. Instead, they need to figure out what strategies are most important for driving results and put their time, energy, and investments there.“
As marketing’s role expands, how should CMOs know what’s working?
Emily Upton: A strong click-through rate can tell you whether an ad generated response. A favorable cost per lead can tell you whether a campaign acquired inquiries efficiently. Neither tells you, on its own, whether those students ultimately enrolled.
Students don’t experience paid media, organic search, the website, recruitment campaigns, and enrollment as separate workstreams. They experience one institution. We need to measure the decision journey the same way—as one connected system.
“[Students] experience one institution. We need to measure the decision journey the same way—as one connected system.“
That means connecting marketing activity to downstream enrollment outcomes wherever the data allows—and using those outcomes to improve what happens upstream. Questions students ask conversational agents, pages that generate engagement, messages that stop performing, and points where students hesitate should all feed back into the broader marketing and recruitment strategy.
This is marketing’s moment to lead higher ed forward
Marketing leaders possess something institutions urgently need: an external view of the market. They understand how students are changing, where trust is eroding, how competitors are positioning themselves, which claims audiences believe, and where the institutional story does or doesn’t match the experience being delivered.
That may be the clearest reason higher ed marketing is having a moment. The work is no longer only about getting your institution noticed. It is increasingly about helping your institution understand what it stands for, where it can succeed, how it earns trust—and why it matters.
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