Transforming Higher Ed Marketing with Empathy

Student-centric messaging moved WSSU's first-choice rate from 42% to 62%
Over four years, Winston-Salem State University shifted its communications from institution-centric to student-centered, and first-choice preference climbed nearly 20 percentage points. As Jaime Hunt described it, that's a 50% increase in the number of students naming WSSU as their top pick. The change wasn't a rebrand or a new ad campaign. It came from auditing messaging to reflect what students actually wanted to hear, at the point in their decision process when it mattered.

Audit every stat on your site: context is what separates data from hype
"90% of faculty have terminal degrees" is a real credential. But without explaining that it means students are learning from researchers who are actively contributing to their field, it's just a number. Jaime's framework is direct: if a prospective student can't connect a stat to a personal benefit, it doesn't belong on the homepage. Go through your program pages and ask whether each claim is explained or just asserted.

Overpromising doesn't just disappoint students, it destroys trust permanently
When the lived experience falls short of the marketing, the reaction isn't mild disappointment. As Jaime put it, students feel deceived: "I can't believe I fell for this." That kind of trust deficit compounds across reviews, referrals, and retention data. The practical implication is that institutions should pressure-test their claims against what current students actually say before publishing them.

Empathy is about timing and relevance, not warm language
Jaime's definition of empathy in marketing is operational, not tonal. It's about "ceasing to communicate based on our schedules, what works for us" and instead sending the right message at the right moment in the student's decision. An almost-daily email blast to prospects isn't empathetic regardless of how friendly it sounds. Audit your cadence against the actual stages of the student decision journey, not your internal communications calendar.

Every administrative touchpoint is a brand touchpoint, including billing
One of the more concrete examples from the episode: rewriting billing communications as part of the brand experience. Students and families don't separate "marketing" from "the email about their bill." Jaime's argument is that empathy has to extend across all institutional communications, not just recruitment materials. A good starting point is pulling the highest-volume operational emails and asking whether they'd pass a basic clarity and tone review.

Run annual focus groups with admitted students, current students, and parents
Institutions that claim to know what students want rarely have a formal process for finding out. Jaime recommends structured annual listening sessions across three groups: admitted (pre-enrollment expectations), current (the lived experience), and parents (a separate and often underserved audience). The data from these sessions feeds directly into messaging audits and helps institutions catch gaps between promise and reality before they surface in reviews.

CMOs need a seat at the product table, not just at the campaign table
One of Jaime's stronger claims about the future: higher ed marketing leaders can't fix a product they don't help shape. If the student experience doesn't match what marketing promises, the problem isn't the messaging. It's that marketing wasn't involved when decisions about curriculum, housing, advising, or campus services were being made. That requires CMOs to advocate for institutional involvement beyond promotions.