As a higher education marketing leader, part of our job is to always be learning. There are new trends, new technologies, and new approaches always coming online.
Coupled with student behavior changes and demographic changes, the work of a MarComm leader must include learning about new trends and sussing out how those will work for their organization.
As we are starting on a new academic year, here are a few trends I’m thinking about this academic year that I think will be important for MarComm leaders.
Five Trends to Consider
AI Governance – Based on what I’m seeing at my own university, I think this will be the year that some guardrails happen around AI. I think many institutions will put policies into place about AI use. Our university has a task force looking at this, but our MarComm team is also working through this and how we think about AI in our work. I also believe this indicates we will see some levels of adoption are formalized and fully accepted for how we work.
Emphasis on Attribution – There are many challenges that higher education is facing. As those pressures rise, marketing leaders will be expected to show how our resources impact the work. Whether it’s driving enrollment, boosting quality applications, or supporting specific programs, it will be more important than ever to show the impact we have on those objectives. To address this, I think this year we’ll see more adoption of attribution models to prove the tactics we use are effective and to help advocate for additional resources in the channels that work.
AI Monetization – As AI pulls people away from Google search, I think universities will pull their dollars from paid search. When that happens, Google (or someone) will figure monetizing AI. I asked Google search about this, and the AI summary shared that Google was working on a monetization strategy. The revenue impact to Google would be in the millions if universities began pulling away from paid search, combined with the same in other industries, I think Google will be very vested in shoring up this revenue stream.
Search Cliff – The Fall 2026 recruitment cycle is the year that we will begin to see the effects of College Board changes around name buying. However, the impacts in the next recruiting cycle will be even more problematic. For universities relying heavily on buying names, this is an opportunity to partner with Admissions to ensure there are new strategies around lead acquisition. Specifically, from a marketing lens, this might be a time to think about adjusting marketing strategies to support lead generation.
Graduate Emphasis – I think more institutions will focus on graduate enrollment this year. Because of the challenges with undergraduate recruitment (search cliff and enrollment/demographic cliff), I think the graduate landscape is one where universities should look at recruiting future students. Recruiting graduate students is a much longer sales cycle, so the work done in this space could take up 18-24 months to materialize. That means, if you need more students in this audience, it’s important to begin this work immediately.
What else?
What are you thinking about this academic year that I haven’t thought about? I’d love to hear your insights and thoughts about what leaders should be considering.
And Carrie On 