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TRANSCRIPT – click video above to watch.
Hi. My name is Chris Tyburski, vice president for higher education consulting here at Encoura, and I'm bringing you today's Enrollminute.
The higher education marketplace is highly competitive and crowded. If you develop your marketing materials without considering external factors, you're going to fall behind. Knowing who your competitors are isn't sufficient. You have to understand them and distinguish yourself from them. But where do you begin?
First, recognize that your competitors change over time, and not all of them target the same students in the same markets. You want to regularly use tools like the National Student Clearing House, the ACT Freshman Class Reports, IPEDS, and others to validate your dataset on a regular basis.
And if you're an Insights Cloud user, Encoura consolidates this data into our competitive Insights Reports.
Once you've identified your competition, study them. Sign up for their mailings, discreetly visit their open houses, ask your recruiters to gather their promotional material at college fairs. Assign a team member to check out their website, and report back on key messaging.
Ensure that your team knows more than just your competitors' names. They need to really grasp how those rivals are attracting students.
Lastly, make sure to differentiate yourself. If your research leads you to think, hmph, these emails sound a lot like ours, that's a gigantic red flag. Your goal isn't to blend in, it's to stand out and beat your competition.
Let's chat! Our team is happy to answer questions and talk about which solutions are a match for your institution as we get to know your unique needs.