Digital Marketing Innovations Help Montgomery College Stay Connected with Prospective Students
As the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted daily life for MC students, the College increasingly uses modern digital marketing strategies to stay connected and relevant. Combatting the tedium caused by social distancing at home, students spend more time on their devices – keeping up with friends and trends on social media, binge watching favorite programs, streaming music, and browsing the internet. In every one of those digital experiences, Montgomery College is raising its visibility as an educational resource and forging more personal connections with students looking to make their move into higher education.
“Like other colleges and universities, MC has fully embraced a digital marketing strategy to connect with our prospective students,” said Emily Schmidt, MC’s marketing and digital media director. “Of course, we have retained our more traditional media strategies, such as direct mail, print advertising, and out-of-home advertising (such as transit advertising in Metro stations or on buses), to enhance our audience reach throughout the county.”
该学院的户外广告通常获得了相当多的观众观看量——郡居民每年观看约7500万次。其他传统媒体技术，如广播和直邮，也有助于提高蒙哥马利学院品牌的知名度。世界杯摩洛哥vs克罗地亚欧赔该学院向蒙哥马利县近2.5万名高中生(通常是三年级和四年级学生)寄送彩色明信片，宣传MC比其他大学节省的学费。邮件活动在全县范围更广，以吸引成年学习者参加劳动力培训或继续教育。
“Traditional media, such as cable television, which can be highly targeted within a school’s primary/secondary geographic areas, are very efficient. And focusing on high-profile networks, such as ESPN, Bravo, and news channels, helps elevate MC’s brand messaging,” said Erin Giordano, account director at JL Media, MC’s marketing firm. The firm helps the College develop efficient media buying plans and negotiates pricing to fit the budget.
This investment in advertising bolsters the College’s already dominant brand awareness in Montgomery County. MC enjoys a 92% brand awareness score among county residents, according to a 2019 research study, that’s higher than the University of Maryland, Towson University, Strayer University, and University of Phoenix.
“Montgomery College has the strongest brand awareness, yet our marketing spend is a small fraction of what other institutions spend on advertising in our market. That’s a testament to MC’s reputation as a quality institution that serves the community,” said Schmidt.
The Message Is Everything
Removing barriers, such as making students aware of scholarship opportunities, is a key message in MC’s social media marketing.
MC在现有学生和县居民中进行的调查显示，人们最希望从高等教育经历中得到什么。首先，他们希望以可承受的成本获得高质量的教育。他们还表示，他们希望在多元化的校园环境中感受到受欢迎和包容的感觉。支持性的教师排名很高。他们希望MC提供便利和灵活性，以适应他们繁忙的生活，这对社区大学生尤其重要，他们通常也在工作或照顾家人，特别是在疫情期间。
From the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic, MC dramatically shifted its marketing to emphasize safety and flexibility of remote learning and advising. “We know that in this unpredictable environment of pandemic and economic uncertainties, it is important to provide students options. MC is providing maximum flexibility, offering distance learning, synchronous remote, hybrid, and 100-percent in-person classes in 15-, 13-, and 7-week terms,” said Dr. Sanjay Rai, senior vice president for academic affairs.
“We are also providing short-term training programs resulting in entry-level job skills in high-demand areas to help residents who are in vulnerable occupations,” Rai says. “We remain focused, too, on high quality and rigorous academic programs that are highly transferable and have high labor market value.”
为了在疫情期间以及疫情之后加强其品牌并促进招生，学院精心制作了营销信息，强调其为学生提供的较低学费、质量和灵活性，包括更多的第一代大学生和非传统学生。它也强调了教育可以帮助他们实现他们的目标。
Digital Reaches the Right Students in Their Languages
Leveraging its commanding brand awareness to drive enrollment for the College’s courses and engagement with community services, MC’s marketing team uses a year-round digital marketing plan that reaches prospective students with call-to-action messages designed to drive registration. The marketing can specifically promote a degree program, tuition savings, or online learning, based on each prospective student’s profile.
Rather than the typical broad approach of traditional media, digital marketing can serve MC’s messages to prospective students on an individual level. Regardless of platform – social media, streaming video or music, or internet browsing – MC’s strategies efficiently reach prospective students based on highly defined profiles for a wide variety of credit and noncredit students.
“We can deliver messages to prospective students based on their geography, such as a neighborhood or their school, their interests in online browsing and search engine history, and more traditional demographic parameters,” said Ray Gilmer, associate senior vice president for Advancement and Community Engagement.
“We had 2.5 million people visit the MC website last year,” added Gilmer. “For those website visitors, we employ a technique called ‘remarketing’ that serves Montgomery College ads over the following weeks, encouraging those people to come back to MC’s website and continue exploring educational options.”
Montgomery County’s richly diverse population provides opportunities for the College to engage with the community in their own languages. In addition to English, MC’s marketing is provided in Spanish, Amharic, Korean, Chinese, French, and Vietnamese. Response rates and enthusiasm for the non English ads are strong.
Spanish language ads forGeneración Latina, a program produced by Montgomery College Television (MCTV), which features Hispanic students, alumni and youth, as well as the long-runningMi Escuela es su Escuela(My School Is Your School) efficiently drive viewership and perform better than the norm. Additionally, video and static ads appearing on Facebook, Instagram, and myriad websites promote credit, noncredit, and community resources, and link back to related MC webpages.
“The strong performance of this digital marketing, and the popularity of the video programs, tells us that MCTV is filling a void in Spanish higher education information in the county,” said Melissa Pace, managing director at MCTV.
“通过数字营销的力量，MCTV寻求与我们社区的特定人群建立和建立关系，”Pace补充说。“早期，我们为退伍军人、单亲父母、母语非英语的人、未来的第一代学生、食品不安全的人以及寻求职业转变的成年人设计了定制短信。”
Facing the Challenges of the Pandemic
Across the nation, the pandemic has disrupted enrollment at community colleges more than other institutions, according to reporting from theNational Student Data Clearinghouse．研究结果甚至显示出私立和公立四年制大学之间的巨大差异，只有各部门中“高度挑剔”的学校的入学人数有所增加，这表明社区大学的学生由于经济和其他原因在疫情期间尤其脆弱。
“Students are facing new challenges balancing school, work, and family obligations,” said Melissa Gregory, associate senior vice president for student affairs. “They are reaching out to MC for help in ways – and numbers – that we have never seen before. Thanks to the federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Funds we received, as well as generous donations from the community, the College has been able to help thousands of students buy food, pay rent, cover child care, and buy their school supplies – anything it takes to meet students’ short-term financial needs so they can continue to pursue their educational goals.”
Even with all the academic advantages and support that MC offers students, and the innovative marketing that helps connect students to the College like never before, the fears, economic disruption, and life uncertainty remain a formidable challenge.
“At this moment, removing barriers is paramount,” said Gilmer. “We know that students are interested in enrolling, just from seeing the strong website traffic driven directly from our marketing. Yet, life during the pandemic, and just trying to stay safe, is only adding to the traditional hurdles our students face. We’re working to chip away at those barriers, however we can, to help our students succeed.”