As a junior in high school, I conducted extensive research before choosing a school that was the perfect fit for me.

I wished to attain a liberal arts education while pursuing a career in Strategic Communications.

Marketing and advertising had always been of particular interest to me. Having spent years observing my dad run and operate his marketing agency, BKM Marketing, I was enamored by the glitzy, attention-grabbing content that the team produced.

Based on my love of writing and persuasion, I knew that I wanted a school with a strong Communications, Marketing, and Advertising program.

Steeped in Tradition; Looking Forward

At The Fessenden School, the oldest all-boys junior boarding school in the nation and a pre-K through ninth-grade day school, fifth-graders can still study Latin. Even the youngest pre-K students must follow a dress code.

But along with this old-school rigor, Fessenden is committed to maintaining its standing as a leader on the latest educational thinking. IPads and 3D printers are as familiar on its suburban Boston campus as wood-paneled lecture halls and blazing autumn foliage. Fessenden’s marketing and admissions teams have embraced the digital world, as well.

Up against the anachronistic stereotype of private school education, Fessenden wanted to use the educational power of online content to:

• Dispel myths about all-boys education.
• Bolster the reputation of its faculty and staff as nationwide thought leaders.
• Attract new families to its Upper and Lower schools.

Students and their families conduct most of their research on schools online. As a school admissions marketing director, being a successful content creator and marketer should be a major focus for you.

Heading up a college blogging project sure can be a headache. There are a lot of people on even the smallest college campus, and sometimes it can seem like everyone wants to have their say — especially when it comes to the content on your college’s website.

The admissions department wants to speak the language of high school college searchers. The faculty wants to show off their academic bona fides. The vice president of development is nervous about upsetting donors. The college president wants to honor your school’s longstanding traditions and values.

Is it possible to please all these people without succumbing to blog schizophrenia?

A few years ago, college admissions teams were struggling to figure out their social media strategy. Today, most schools have a robust social media outreach program. Many have taken it a step further by using social media to check out prospective students.

According to a Kaplan Test Prep survey, 40 percent of college admissions officers browse social media profiles to learn more about admissions candidates. I am sure that this percentage will continue to grow and reviewing a prospective student’s social media presence will become part of the application process checklist.

Now that they seem to have a handle on using social media to attract and find students, I believe the next big technology that admissions teams will need to come to grips with is virtual reality (VR).

As a marketing agency that has a practice focusing on EDU, we are always reading reports and research papers that talk about trends in higher education admissions marketing.  While we are an agency that uses HubSpot as our standard marketing automation tool, we do follow other marketing automation companies like Marketo. Just this week I came upon a report from Hanover Research sponsored by Marketo called “2016 Trends in Higher Education Marketing, Enrollment and Technology."