The students you’re trying to reach today have grown up in a world in which nearly everything was an advertisement. When they were still in diapers they were bombarded with cartoon characters aggressively hawking sugar-laced cereals, and as they’ve grown older, the commercials, emails, texts, pop-ups and social posts crowding their view have only increased in volume.

As a result, education marketers concerned themselves with how to “cut through the clutter.” Unfortunately for students, the knee-jerk reaction for many education marketers was to produce more content. The logic—although flawed—was simple: “To rise above the noise, you need to be the one yelling the loudest.” But remember, this generation was raised in an advertising echo chamber, so you can scream until your throat is raw, and they’ll happily tune you out.

Keeping a constant line of communication with prospects is a good thing, but inundating prospective students with too many emails, letters, postcards and phone calls can be counterproductive. Most students know what they want and look for specific information (i.e., location, cost, degree program, etc.). When a university barrages them with many different types of content, which might not add value for the student or doesn’t specifically address what he or she is looking for, they are likely to mark these messages as spam or disregard them completely.

The key to reaching prospective students isn’t to produce more content, it’s to produce more relevant content, and deliver that content effectively using the channels students use most. To ensure messages don’t go unread or ignored, education marketers need to focus on quality and providing value in each engagement.

Instant Insights /

Are you sending students too much marketing content?

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