Developing impactful content strategies for postgraduate student recruitment. Part 4: Who does this well?
This is the final part of a four part blog series on developing impactful content strategies for postgraduate student recruitment. In this post we seek to answer the question “who does this well” by showing a small selection of best practice from across the education sector. No one institution can be singled out as a true leader in a joined up approach here, but we see examples of best practice in different content types and approaches.
In previous posts in this series we explored:
We are constantly asked “who does this well?” Our answer is, sadly and disappointingly “we’re not aware of anyone that’s doing this all well across the board, but there are pockets of excellence with some content types.” This of course also means that there’s an opportunity to gain competitive advantage in this space. And behind the scenes and behind some NDAs we are also, of course, aware of the institutions that we have already supported at Pickle Jar to develop content strategies that they’re about to implement. But there’s still vast opportunity to do something transformative, fast.
In this final part of our series we share some of our favourite examples, highlight who does particular content types or approaches (like content clustering) well.
Academic profiles: Oxford Internet Institute
The Oxford Internet Institute has by far some of the best academic profile pages that I’ve ever seen. But also look at how they showcase their postgraduate students. This attention to detail and caring for the profile of postgraduate students shows that they care, that they value them, that they want them to have a profile and be seen, and generates a sense of belonging for those students.
Visit https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/faculty/ to see a wider selection of their academic and student profiles.
Scholarship search tool: University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham have an excellent scholarship search tool for postgraduate applicants. It also performs really well in terms of search engine ranking position (SERPs) too, which undoubtedly gives the University some competitive advantage for such a prized search activity. We especially like the simplicity of asking a few core questions and then it generating search results that give the clear information that you need.
Visit https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/funding/postgraduate to try to search tool for yourself.
Prospect journey mapping: Irish Universities Association micro-credentials recruitment mapping
A disclaimer on this one: this is work that we at Pickle Jar led for the Irish Universities Association. But because we worked on it, we are also able to show a little insight into the work behind that scenes that you won’t typically see from a university or agency website. The Irish Universities Association wanted to support the sector to better promote micro-credentials, and so they invested in a project that would help them to properly map the customer journey, especially helping them to untangle potential confusion around who communicates what, and when, throughout the recruitment cycle.
Content clusters: University of Manchester’s graphene hub
The University of Manchester has done an excellent job of positioning itself as a global centre of excellence for graphene and graphic research. This is well reflected in the University’s graphene section of the website, which also has the beautifully SEO-friendly url: graphene.manchester.ac.uk.
The hub effectively pulls together a range of information about their graphene research and expertise, including links to postgraduate research and study opportunities. These opportunities could be even better showcased in our opinion, but the site is a good example of a content cluster focused on a specific research topic or theme.
Postgraduate programme or course pages: IESE Business School
Fortunately we are now starting to see more and more good examples of course and programme pages done well. There is definitely a recognition in the sector that these are the most important content types for the recruitment journey, and well worthy of investment. Sadly however many institutions invest in them from a design and layout perspective, but the content (copy, images, etc) doesn’t make the grade.
We particularly like the postgraduate programme pages at IESE Business School as an example of a strong layout combined with great copywriting. I especially love the “Why a PhD at IESE?” section with the six highlighted content blocks and strong messaging.
Research storytelling: KAUST’s Insights for National Priorities videos
Research storytelling is an important part of demonstrating your institution’s impact, culture and vibrancy to prospective postgraduate students. This is an area where universities around the world have really raised their game, especially in the use of video to communicate research impact. We particularly like the examples from KAUST’s Insights for National Priorities series. You can watch them all over two series on their YouTube channel.
How can Pickle Jar help your institution with postgraduate recruitment?
If you’ve made it this far in this long and detailed post, you must be serious about making a difference to your institution’s postgraduate recruitment. And undoubtedly you understand the importance of content strategy in doing so. At Pickle Jar we can support your institution through a bespoke programme of activity designed to meet you exactly where you are at and tailored to your budgets. This might include:
Audience journey mapping
Producing a full content strategy
Developing a content marketing plan
Creating compelling content to drive postgraduate recruitment
Training and coaching your teams to support them to create their own content strategy and approach, or to produce better content.
Contact us by email to hello@picklejarcommunications.com to set up a no obligation conversation about your postgraduate recruitment content strategy needs, and to discuss how we might be able to be your strategic content partner in addressing your challenges.