Innovation in higher education marketingTips and tricks on how marketing professionals can be more innovative

Source: Buyersphere report, BaseOne

Change the way teachers interact

with students

It has the power to:

Offer innovative ways to reach new learners

It has the power to:

It has the power to:

Enhance relationships and ultimately make

education more engaging, with personalised,

self-directed experiences

So, the opportunity for using new technology to attract

students is huge.

And higher education is catching on.

Take these

emerging technologies which are beginning to shape the

world of education:

4

Photo Credit: Sergey Galyonkin Source: Flickr

Virtual Reality

1

Oculus Rift has transformed the gaming industry and it’s beginning to influence education. With Oculus Rift’s open platform:

Photo Credit: Global Panorama Source: Flickr

Virtual field trips solve the problem of limited time and resource, allowing all students to visit a multitude of places

in a fraction of the time. Students in Ireland, for example, were able

to re-create and then explore a historical site at Clonmacnoise.

Learners can be introduced to practical knowledge by completing tasks within VR, such as undertaking

an archaeological build.

Learning becomes an engaging, immersive experience which is motivational and fun. Combining Oculus Rift

with a gaming controller allows for further virtual movement which becomes second nature to students,

with 80% of 12-17 year olds owning a console*. *IPSOS tech tracker Q1 2015

Gaming

2

Minecraft has over

players with around 8,000 new gamers joining every day.

It’s been used as an incredible tool to inspire creative learning through world building.

19m

‘MinecraftEdu’ has been set up as a school-ready remix, with discounted Minecraft licenses available to educational institutions, custom features especially for the classroom, and a hosting service which lets students craft and solve mathematical concepts together.

minecraftedu.com

Students (and teachers) are empowered as creators, rather than passive consumers, resulting in a deeper, more personalised and exciting learning

experience. With Generation Y having been born into a technologically-centric environment, gamification feels intuitive and familiar.

3D Printing

3

3D printing within education is on the rise. Not only does it give students the ability to hold and feel their designs, it also helps to ignite their imagination, while aiding in problem solving and product iteration

Photo Credit: Shapeways Source: Flickr

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson Source: Flickr

• It can showcase modern production and architectural techniques, allowing learners to make physical copies of their designs

• Engineers can create prototypes for product designs with moving parts

• Medical students can study a cross section of a heart in intricate detail from a variety of angles

• Historians can print and hold replica artifacts within their hands

3D printed objects can help to bridge the gap between visual perception and spatial reasoning. And these days they’re more affordable, with a high performance printer costing under a grand.

Online Lessons

4

Existing tools, such as YouTube and Google Hangouts, create virtual conversations beyond

the classroom and more efficient access to education.

Not only is e-Learning more cost efficient, it can increase

retention rates by up to

Pre-recorded seminars and online courses (MOOCs) are becoming increasingly popular, with

over 1/3 of higher education students taking at least one online course.

60%

In the US, new technology has allowed Stanford’s Ignite innovation programme to beam high definition lectures live from California

to India - with a version planned for London later this year.

The Digital Business Academy already has 12,000 sign-ups, having only launched last year. And the University of Cambridge now offers Postgraduate Diplomas with part-time virtual learning at their heart.

.

12,000

It’s clear – modern education needs to revolve around technology.

Teaching and learning is increasingly becoming global and social, and digital is the facilitator of this.

For education providers, e-learning offers efficiencies in education both in and out of the classroom, and can help to save time and money (as well as doing some good for the environment).

Crucially, it allows new and exciting ways to engage students, making learning come alive through interactive experiences which feel relevant to them.

It’s clear that educational marketing departments need to keep up. But

what are they doing about it?

And who’s ahead of the curve?

Virtual Reality Tours

• Many universities are creating immersive virtual tours of their sites, which can be accessed both online and through virtual reality on open days.

• Both the University of Bolton and also Stony Brook University in New York have begun implementing VR technology into their marketing efforts, with others such as Yale now exploring the possibilities.

• And with a variety of DIY cardboard kits out there, everyone has access to a virtual experience.

• Youvisit.com also displays a list of colleges and universities where VR tours have been made available for anyone to view.

Experiential

The University of Engineering and Technology in Lima attracted prospective students by producing a billboard that extracted water vapour from the air and turned it into drinking water.

Erecting it in a desert region with hardly any rainfall, the billboard helped to increase UTEC applications by almost 40% from the previous year (as well as generating $500,000 in media coverage) .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35yeVwigQcc

Click here to see a case study of UTEC’s Portable Water Generator.

Personalised Immediate Service

These days, everyone expects a personalised service.

Stanford’s D. School allows learners to download ‘Playbooks’ to try out their style of teaching.

And Full Sail University created a fantastic personalised online tool called ‘Pathfinder’, which creates a bespoke course finder site specific to your academic interests.

Social Media

Campaigns don’t need to focus solely on student enrolment. Harvard’s Senior Gift ‘Leave your mark’ programme, designed to encourage alumni to donate money back into the university, utilises Instagram and YouTube to help drive contributions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RBTHNPrfTY

https://instagram.com/p/13pBcEwOR0/

Click here to have a look at Harvard’s Senior Gift 2015 video

There is clearly a wealth of opportunity within technology for higher education marketers

to embrace.

So what new innovative techniques could education providers use

to build awareness?

Soundcloud

With

plays in Dec 2014*, this low bandwidth, mobile friendly streaming service is the perfect channel for thought leadership pieces, lecture samples and sharing student experiences.

2.4bn

*nextbigsound.com

Remote controlled students

Responding in real time to social media requests, prospective students can ask them to see specific areas of the university or meet certain people.

Programmatic advertising

of online advertising is now bought programmatically. Universities will soon be able to use optimised digital campaigns for more efficient student targeting.

80%

Meerkat and Periscope (Twitter)

Up and coming live streaming applications built real-time into social feeds. Higher education institutions could exploit this tech as an opportunity to share lessons and broadcast open day events in a media where most of their audience reside.

Mobile

iBeacons are low-powered, low-cost transmitters which allow IOS devices to perform certain actions when in close proximity. With 90% of students (aged 15-24) carrying a smartphone in their pocket, the opportunity exists to ping them information as they walk around campus, record footfall and to create a more personalised experience.

*Cisco: The Internet of Everything 2013

Are you ready?

Download our guide to Innovation in higher education marketing

Earnest: 12 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 8BZ

www.earnest-agency.com@earnestagency