Everything the Higher Ed Marketer Needs to Know in 2024

Build a content product, not just a campaign calendar
Kyle Campbell draws a clear line between campaign-led and content-led marketing: campaigns rent attention, content programs build it. Full Sail University's Twitch streaming channel is a concrete example of what this looks like in practice. If your team is still organizing around individual campaigns, you're starting from scratch every time a flight ends.

Peer community at the application stage is a measurable enrollment factor
Zeemee's data shows prospective students are 3x more likely to choose a school where they connected with peers before enrolling. As Campbell put it, "community almost becomes this differentiator." This isn't a student experience add-on, it belongs in the recruitment strategy, not the orientation plan.

Let AI handle email send-time optimization, the results speak for themselves
UCAS used Salesforce's AI-powered send-time optimization and saw email open rates climb 20-30%. Campbell's framing is blunt: "Let the robot do it, it will just send it out at the right time." For teams already on Salesforce or similar platforms, this is likely an underused feature, not a future capability.

Gen Z trusts AI-generated content more than most marketers assume
Salesforce data shared in the episode: 80% of Gen Z use AI regularly, and 52% trust content that comes from AI sources. That gap between marketer skepticism and student reality is worth sitting with. Your audience is already comfortable with AI-assisted content, the question is whether your team is producing it thoughtfully.

Publish less. Make it count.
Social media attention among young people plateaued around 2019, and Campbell's read is that frequency-driven content strategies are running out of road. His benchmark: ""publishing when you have something meaningful to say."" For enrollment marketing teams under pressure to post constantly, that's permission to slow down and raise the bar.

Start publishing on LinkedIn, one year changes your career
Campbell recommends LinkedIn as the single best professional development move for higher ed marketers right now. One year of consistent publishing, in his view, is career-altering. This matters institutionally too: marketers who build personal authority become stronger advocates and conveners for their institutions.

Differentiate, don't iterate, the London Interdisciplinary School example
Campbell references the London Interdisciplinary School as a case study in being "distinctively different" rather than incrementally better. Most institutions improve on existing models; a smaller number redefine them. For marketing teams, this applies to the content itself: doing something no other institution in your space does will outperform doing the standard things slightly better.

You have a responsibility to the mental health of your audience
Campbell cites research from Singapore University showing that children aged 3-5 weigh information from robots and humans equally when both are accurate, which signals just how early trust in digital content forms. His point for marketers: "Could we add to that noise with low value content? I think we have responsibilities as creators." It's a useful check on volume-first content strategies.