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.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) — and Google AdWords specifically — is a line item in just about every school’s marketing budget. Which is why it’s particularly shocking to me how so many schools are blowing their precious marketing budget on AdWords. I’m not saying that AdWords is a waste, I actually think AdWords and PPC in general are actually a great “rocket fuel” for inbound marketing (so long as you set your campaigns up strategically).

How much are you spending on AdWords campaigns for your school each month? And what’s the return you’ve gotten? Are your ads targeting the right audience and incentivising them with the right offers? How can you be sure?

Ah, winter break on your college campus. Sure, you’re stuck in the office while the rest of the college community is lounging by roaring fireplaces with eggnog and hot cocoa, but at least you get to enjoy a few weeks of peace and quiet. You might even head home an hour or two early to get started on your Christmas shopping. But wait, before you try to beat the traffic to the mall, is there something you’ve forgotten? Oh right, that pesky college blog.

Bah, humbug.

Your college’s inbound marketing campaign is finally starting to cook. You’ve got the whole campus blogging. You’ve polished up your school’s website with immaculate landing pages and calls-to-action to push prospective students toward your valuable new content. You’ve empowered your smartphone-wielding campus community to contribute insider videos and 360-degree campus tours. Your admissions people are drowning (happily) in a torrent of new leads from qualified high school students.

It’s a good year to be a college marketer; it was, anyway, until the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard came along and ruined everything.

What do your school’s campaigns for attracting qualified applicants look like? If you’re like most higher education marketing and admissions teams, your strategy is thin and your campaigns look something like this: 

One of the most challenging aspects of inbound marketing for any organization is finding someone to write all the blog content necessary to keep the inbound engine chugging along. Colleges don’t have that problem—at least not in theory, anyway. Colleges have access to one of the most readily available, enthusiastic pools of blogging talent there is: their own students.