In 2020, colleges and universities around the country had to move online to continue serving their students in the midst of a global pandemic. Most weren’t ready. What began as an emergency response has evolved into a fundamental transformation of how we deliver education. Online education isn’t merely an alternative—it’s an integral component of the education ecosystem.
During this current moment of turbulence in higher education, developing a credible and sustainable online strategy is once again an imperative. Amid declining international enrollment, changes in endowment taxes, and cuts to federal and state funding, schools must seek alternative revenue streams to fill the gaps and continue serving students. The current boom in interest and enrollment in online education may be the solution.
Universities must adopt a strategic and data-driven approach to scale their online programs successfully. Simply adding more online courses is not enough. Provosts are in a unique position to centralize this work, ensuring it is the institution-wide priority it must be.
Here are the six areas that every provost should consider when scaling their online offerings:
1. Understanding student demand and competitive landscape
Before expanding online programs, it’s essential to understand market demand and how your offerings compare to competitors. Student demand signals, such as search trends and query data from tools like Google and IPEDS, provide insights into which programs are most in demand.
Taking it a step further, the truly innovative institutions should look to the labor market trends and identify future workforce needs to design programs for emerging roles.
Evaluating both quantitative market data and qualitative industry insights can create distinct program portfolios. The success of these programs will not just be in how many students they enroll but in the sustainable pathways to career advancement they create.
2. Brand messaging: Crafting a unique message for online learners
We know online learners are motivated by different factors than traditional students—flexibility, career advancement, and personalized support. Your brand messaging should reflect these core attributes, but also adapt to your institution’s unique methodologies and expertise. What can you offer online learners that they won’t find at other programs?
Take a page from how on-campus programs market themselves—thinking beyond just metrics and outcomes to highlight culture, belonging, and transformative educational experiences. This approach will ensure prospective students understand how your institution can align with their personal and professional goals, ultimately driving engagement and conversion.
3. Program profitability: Evaluating financial sustainability and growth potential
Financial sustainability is essential for scaling online programs. Program profitability evaluations should go beyond reviewing basic cost structures. Every program should have a robust profit and loss statement to track investment requirements, costs, and revenues. And the finances of all programs should fit together into a larger profitability plan.
With data-driven financial analysis, institutions can identify new revenue streams and optimize pricing strategies, ensuring programs remain profitable and capable of funding further growth and innovation.
4. Streamlining the student journey
A streamlined, seamless enrollment process is critical for driving conversions from inquiry to enrollment. For traditional undergraduate students, this can mean personalized attention, academic advising, career coaching, and enrollment counseling. Why shouldn’t online learners get the same experience?
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Institutions should assess if their enrollment management systems are fully optimized to accommodate online learners and give them robust, personalized enrollment journeys. Prospective online students should feel as supported, confident, and well-informed as their on-campus counterparts.
5. Marketing & recruitment infrastructure: Ensuring scalability and efficiency
As online programs scale, institutions must ensure that their marketing and recruitment infrastructure can handle the increased volume of prospective students. This includes assessing systems such as CRM, telephony, SMS, and email systems, ensuring that they are fully integrated and capable of supporting personalized outreach while still being scalable.
A robust, well-integrated infrastructure allows institutions to manage larger volumes of inquiries and recruitment efforts, ensuring they maintain high-touch engagement with all types of students even as they scale.
6. Program design & teaching online programs: Meeting the needs of distance learners
Online programs must be designed to meet the unique needs of distance learners, who often require more flexibility, interactive learning, and personalized support. The most transformative online programs leverage the unique aspects of a digital environment, rather than attempting to replicate traditional classroom experiences.
Institutions should review the design of their online programs so they are not only academically rigorous but structured in ways unique to online instruction. Thinking ahead, this also means investing in training and support for faculty who lead online instruction.
Conclusion
The prevalence and demand for online programs will continue to grow. The schools that succeed in this space will be those that treat online education like the powerful and unique offering that it is. Celebrating and optimizing around what’s great about online learning rather than making up for what it lacks. By focusing on market research, brand messaging, financial sustainability, enrollment management, marketing infrastructure, and program design, provosts and university leaders can create an online program marketing strategy that positions their online offerings for long-term success.
