School Marketing Strategies

Collaborating on Credentials The future of the workforce and the future of education lie in collaborative models where industry and academia work together to create relevant, practical learning experiences. Whether through advisory boards, design challenges and projects, or comprehensive microcredential programs, these partnerships are reshaping how we prepare talent for tomorrow's workforce. On a recent podcast, sie.ag/443UxN, I connected with Michael J. Readey and Christy Bozic, PhD, PMP, CPEM to discuss the transformative power of industry-academia partnerships. Together, we have been collaborating on credentials and sustainability to improve the circular economy digital mindset. Here are some insights we discussed that every education and industry leader should consider: The Traditional Model is Evolving: The "degree-only" mindset is shifting as we recognize the growing importance of continuous, skills-based learning. With the majority of credential-seekers being full-time professionals, the demand for flexible, targeted upskilling is clear. Industry-Academia Partnerships Matter: We must continue to invest in partnerships that bridge the critical gap between classroom theory and rapidly changing workplace demands. Together, we can enable faster identification of emerging skill needs and create timely real-world learning opportunities through immersive experiences. This provides learners with early and direct industry exposure. The Rise of Microcredentials: We're seeing a trend of professionals who actively seek, learn, and collect badges and microcredentials for career progression. Agile learning formats offer just-in-time education and experience for quick adaptation to industry needs, and flexible learning paths can address immediate and targeted skill application. Learn more about what hiring managers look for, how to build industry-relevant learning pathways, and what the future holds for collaborative academic-industry relations. I remember when I started in this industry, the focus was on how we could break down the walls between CAD and CAM. There are still walls between academia and industry we must break down. The collaboration we experienced with Michael, Christy, and the University of Colorado Boulder gives me hope for a new path forward. Listen to the full episode and share your perspective below: sie.ag/443UxN.

I guested on 99 podcasts in 2 years for $0, after spending $6k on 12 mediocre ones via a placement agency. 🎧 A couple years ago, a prospect in my demo told me he closed some deals from people who found out about him through podcasts – a new marketing strategy he was testing. He suggested I give it a try at eWebinar because we were desperately looking for new ways to get eyeballs, and introduced me to his agency. A few episodes in, I realized the shows I was getting on weren't that great. Some were completely misaligned with my expertise. I knew I could do a better job marketing myself and started researching what other founders were doing to get booked on podcasts. I learned that there was a whole world of podcast marketing out there that very few founders were taking advantage of…but should. 🎙️ Podcasts are great for marketing and branding because: 1. It's effortless because they're unscripted and casual. 2. It has evergreen value, $0 ad dollars spent = extremely high ROI. 3. Hosts are always looking for great speakers and content, so one podcast can turn into 1-3 more. 4. It's 30-60mins of undivided attention for you to share your story, the problem you’re solving, and build credibility. 5. It forces you to think about your business, sharpens your speaking skills, and expands your business network via hosts. I believe podcasting is the most underrated marketing channel. Last year, I took a break from doing as many podcasts as I did the previous 2 years because I traveled non-stop. Our demo traffic that came from podcasts dropped from 10%+ to ~4%. 👉 On my latest newsletter, I shared my podcast outreach process and email template so you can do the same: https://lnkd.in/ePQ5xJ48 ___ I'm Melissa Kwan, 3x bootstrapper with 1 exit. I'm the Cofounder of eWebinar & Host of ProfitLed Podcast. 🔔 On my newsletter, ‘your founder next door', I share what it's like to build a company without an abundance of resources or friends in high places.

🎯 Colleges, Your Admissions Funnel Might Be Leaking – Here’s How to Fix It If your college is spending thousands on ads but not seeing a surge in applications, the problem isn’t always the budget. 👉 It’s your funnel. We analyzed campaigns for 30+ educational institutions and found three common gaps: 1️⃣ Wrong Audience Targeting: If your ads are reaching the wrong students, you’re wasting money. ✅ Solution: Use Meta’s interest-based targeting and layer it with location and behavior filters. Test different creatives for UG vs. PG courses. 2️⃣ Landing Page Drop-Offs: Most students leave if a form has more than 5 fields. ✅ Solution: Keep it simple. Name, Email, Phone, and Course Interest are enough to start. Track the drop-off rate using Google Analytics. 3️⃣ Delayed Follow-Ups: Lead response time is everything. Colleges that respond within 5 minutes see 21x higher conversions. ✅ Solution: Automate initial responses using AI chatbots or WhatsApp Business API. 💡 Bonus Tip: Track your lead source performance weekly. Adjust bids, creatives, and CTAs — no campaign should run on autopilot. The result? Higher-quality leads, lower ad spend, and a streamlined admission process. 👉 Struggling to fix your funnel? Let’s chat — I’d love to share insights from what’s worked for colleges like yours. #CollegeMarketing #LeadGeneration #AdmissionsStrategy #EducationMarketing #HigherEd

Podcasting wasn’t always the marketing powerhouse it is today. Remember when podcasts were mostly niche conversations, hobbyist recordings, or long-form interviews with limited reach? In fact, if you’d told someone five years ago that a podcast could drive investor interest or build a high-growth brand, they’d probably have given you a polite smile and moved on. That phase is long gone. Today, podcasts have quietly become one of the most intimate, trust-building tools in a marketer’s arsenal. The shift happened not with noise, but with consistency. Not through ads, but through authentic storytelling. A podcast today is almost like having a dedicated, 24x7 channel in someone’s ear. Take The Barbershop with Shantanu, for example. The podcast wasn’t a platform for the VC fund Barbershop but guerrilla marketing tool for the Bombay Shaving Company. A brand that was targeting youth & competing with a monopoly MNC player. The young marketing team suggested it & Shantanu Deshpande being the risk taker & visionary rolled into one, decided to go ahead. What followed was amazing success with the brand growing in online search & creating an impact. The candid, unfiltered conversations with founders, makers, and leaders soon became much more than just a podcast. It became a brand in itself with a community, a point of view, and a clear ethos. It thrives on depth and realness, qualities that are surprisingly hard to find in today’s overproduced content universe. As the podcast evolved, they introduced Raiser’s Edge, a segment within the show where early-stage founders get a chance to pitch their startups. This isn’t just for visibility or feedback. Some of these founders have received actual funding interest, mentorship offers, and meaningful traction, directly because of their feature on the podcast. So in effect, what was once a simple conversation series now doubles up as a discovery engine, an incubator, and a relationship-building platform, all rolled into one. Without sounding like a campaign. Without spending lakhs on performance marketing. Just by building value, one episode at a time. What makes it work? Consistency, because podcasts only build traction with time Intentionality, because it’s not about being everywhere, it’s about being meaningful Respect for the listener’s time, because your audience can sense when you’re just filling airspace The real power of podcasting isn’t in the metrics. It’s in the mindset. So the next time you're exploring marketing channels, don’t overlook the one that’s quiet, high-trust, and community-first. Because in an age of fleeting scrolls, the real win is being the voice people choose to listen to. Have you come across any other podcasts that became community or brand movements? I’d love to know which ones made it to your regular listening list. #podcasting #marketing #branding

Podcasts are still the most underused growth channel in B2B marketing (and yes, they can produce SERIOUSLY good ROI) In B2B, deals flow from relationships. Whatever stage you’re at, pre-seed or Series C, people buy from people. So here’s the Shake play: 1. Get your founder, CEO, head of sales or commercial lead to host (or co-host) a podcast 2. Build it around your category Example: if you are a sales enablement tool, we are building a podcast called Sales Therapy. 3. Then use Sales Nav, Apollo, Beauhurst, whatever you’ve got to build a list of your 20 dream customers. 4. Invite them on (DM, email, voicenote - its still sales) 5. About 50% will reply and many will accept to chat (nothing beats a podcast conversion rate from outreach to 'close') They might not take your sales call But they’ll accept a platform to share their story Sweeten the deal by offering 3–4 edited clips they can post to their own socials Now you’ve got: - Industry experts on your podcast - One-on-one time with a decision maker (on and off mic) - A long-term relationship that’ll beat a cold email any day What we have seen work and close over £100,000 for ourselves from podcast: - An easy follow-up reason weeks later“Know anyone else who’d be great for the pod?” - A reason to grab coffee in 3 months and pick up the conversation again The BIGGEST learning from running my own podcast and our clients is: ✔️ Do a research call first, qualify them as a guest and a prospect ✔️ Prep them properly: ask for stories, bring data, tailor the angle ✔️ In person smashes virtual, however, with tools like Riverside or Zencastr for online recording allows for high-quality worldwide recordings. Also...they are FUN. I love hosting a podcast and its increased my network with incredible incredible founders, entrepreneurs and people tenfold. _____________________________ I am James Farnfield, I am building Shake Content, a LinkedIn content agency that creates posts, videos, webinars and podcasts. All wrapped in a beautiful marketing strategy perfect for time-poor, resource strained B2B high-growth leaders and their teams.

Free game for anyone who wants it… especially B2B brands and solopreneurs struggling to get noticed. There’s a massive opportunity in audio content that most people are sleeping on: dropping a podcast the same way a hip-hop artist releases an album. Here’s how one play helped a SaaS brand go from invisible to everywhere… I had a B2B SaaS client who was struggling with reach… low organic traffic, poor SEO, and content that wasn’t landing. Every quarter, I pitched the same play: stop overthinking it. Don’t start a never-ending podcast. Just drop a content album. One audio series. 12 to 15 interviews or solo episodes, recorded in a week, then released all at once across Spotify, Apple, Google… every major platform (think Drake or Kendrick when they drop a surprise album). Free distribution that keeps working long after launch. They pushed back. “It doesn’t meet the immediate needs of the business.” Fair… no single piece of content fixes years of inconsistent marketing. But here’s what it did do: it created a ripple effect that shifted their entire organic presence. Every episode had backlinks, keywords, and CTAs baked into the show notes. And because platforms like Spotify and Apple index episodes publicly, their brand started showing up in places it never had before. Guests shared the episodes. Their sales team used the content in outbound. Newsletter click-throughs jumped. Most importantly… their site started ranking. No paid traffic. No endless blog grind. Just an audio album dropped like a mixtape… and suddenly they had momentum again. Here’s the kicker: B2B decision-makers are 3x more likely to listen to podcasts weekly than the average internet user. Why? Because audio fits into their day… commutes, workouts, flights. While others chase social reach, your voice is in their ears when they’re actually paying attention. And you don’t even need to be the star. Interview thought leaders… they’ll likely share it with their audience. That’s built-in distribution. Clip it for social. Drop it in your newsletter. Use it in sales. Interview clients, prospects… even customers of your competitors. People love talking about themselves. Give them the mic, and they’ll do the marketing for you. If you’re a solopreneur, this is a no-brainer. You don’t need to spend months or tens of thousands writing a book. Just record an audio series… 12 episodes, 12 chapters. Same impact. Faster to produce. Built to last. Most people overcomplicate content. They think if it’s not weekly, it’s not worth doing. But ask yourself… if you were writing a book, would you release one chapter a week for two years? Of course not. You’d drop the whole thing. That’s what this is. A digital book, in audio form. A moment… not a marathon. If it works in music, it can work in B2B. Whoever does it first will look like the leader. If you’re ready to run this play, let’s talk.

A powerful brand is a promise kept consistently across all touchpoints. Here’s how this principle manifests in branding. ➡ Every interaction with your brand shapes customer perception: From website navigation To customer service responses To product quality ➡ Consistency across all channels fosters: ☑ Trustworthiness ☑ Recognition ☑ Customer loyalty ➡ Inconsistencies can lead to: ❌ Confusion ❌ Disappointment ❌ Erosion of brand equity ➡ By ensuring alignment in messaging and experience, you create: 💎 A unified brand identity 💎 A stronger emotional connection with customers 💎 A reputation for reliability ➡ To maintain this consistency, focus on: 👍 Training employees to embody brand values 👍 Regularly reviewing customer interactions 👍 Utilizing feedback to refine touchpoints Remember, a brand is not just a logo or tagline; it’s the cumulative experience your customers have with you. Are you delivering on your brand promise at every touchpoint? ------------------------------------------ 💬 Let me know what you think 🔗 Share if helpful! ------------------------------------------ #brand #strategy #experience #touchpoint #promise

Every Sunday, my kid’s school principal sends out a weekly email. Curious, I asked the school about its open rate last week while waiting in office to pick up my kiddo for a mid day appointment, and the response was, “extremely high. Consistently.” In marketing, email open rates are everything. Companies invest heavily in crafting the perfect subject lines, personalizing content, and using complex machine learning algorithms to boost those numbers. Yet, many businesses still see stagnant open rates. Now, here’s the kicker: This weekly school email—sent with the same subject line, zero personalization, and no fancy algorithms—has an incredibly high open rate. So, how do they do it? It’s simple: The email delivers real value. Their mailing list has real emails provided by recipients directly who want this information (pull versus push). It’s content is consistent and time-relevant (covering activities in the next two weeks), and it’s the single source of truth for all important updates—whether it’s change in time for school gate closures or teacher changes. You can’t get these critical updates anywhere else, not even the school website! Proof that when content is truly relevant and useful, the open rates will follow. Even without complex #AI / #ML behind it!

There’s a saying, ‘If you want to build a great city, build a university’. The chair of Lloyds Banking Group Sir Robin Budenburg recalled that recently as we launched a joint report - ‘Drivers of Growth’ - which presents a number of ways the UK’s existing universities could play an even bigger role in building a greater Britain. UK universities are pivotal to our growth story - for every £1 that’s invested, £5 is returned through additional economic output. This is our starting point. We believe there are ways universities can be supported and can innovate to strengthen their contribution to the economy. In our report we discuss many strategies, including ways to develop strong partnerships with employers, something that’s extremely important to us as demonstrated through our Flying Start degree programmes. We also looked at the power of long-term partnerships and my own university - Newcastle University- is one of the case studies highlighted.  It’s been collaborating with Procter & Gamble for many years and has enjoyed a wide range of successes, including Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, research and workforce skills development. There are ways we’ve identified to make it easier for universities to effectively engage with external stakeholders - by having clear systems, spaces, and people in place. If you’d like to know more - read the report here. https://bit.ly/4iGGSDZ

Are you a higher ed leader interested in what transformational enrollment AI actually looks like in practice? Read on. Today we turned on another instance of our AI reasoning + guidance platform for one of our partners. Here's what this foundational enrollment AI means and does for the institution: Auto-Organized Intelligence The enrollment funnel is now auto-organized daily around custom AI-derived, complex behavioral patterns that signal individual student intent. This delivers deep visibility and real-time precision into who's leaning in vs. leaning away, guiding teams to the exact students where they can make a difference—before it's too late. This significantly increases precision at the individual student level beyond contemporary regression-based methods, replacing the constant churn of list analysis with powerful machine learning. Deep-Reasoning Strategy enroll ml's deep-reasoning engine then creates highly nuanced analysis and individualized enrollment strategy for every student, delivering insights in plain English right at the team's fingertips. This replaces the challenge of counselors trying to "connect the dots" among hundreds of seemingly unconnected student data signals, turning those signals into the "keys to unlock" each student's path to enrollment. Guided Personalization at Scale The enroll ml guidance engine utilizes that analysis to create outreach recommendations for each student—including channel, timing, and message angle—based on their unique signals, language sentiment, and behavioral patterns. Counselors can review, modify, or approve before sending, maintaining their authentic voice while delivering consistency and speed that enables truly personalized outreach across the entire team. Work that once took 30–60 minutes per student now takes seconds. This isn't hypothetical, theoretical, experimental, or performative. We've spent 4 years building the AI that we would deploy inside our own institutions, with our own students and teams, and bet our careers on—and it's very much real, and I believe it is 100% the future for enrollment management. The new enrollment playbook requires a more efficient, precise, and personal enrollment experience. AI is the efficiency multiplier for admissions teams: more precision, depth, and personalized connection; better yield at lower cost; and stronger teams that preserve the humanity of the mission as higher ed rapidly transforms.