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Influencer Marketing Hub sets itself apart from conventional review platforms through the involvement of Digital Marketing experts such as Werner Geyser, Djanan Kasumovic, Camille Kennedy, Dave Eagle, and other notable industry figures. This expert team brings a profound understanding of the Digital Marketing landscape, assessing tools and platforms with an insider’s perspective on capabilities, experience, and industry acumen. Unlike user-generated review platforms, Influencer Marketing Hub’s evaluations are rooted in extensive firsthand experience and direct interactions with the tools and platforms in question. This ensures that the reviews are not only trustworthy but also deeply informed. High-caliber brands like SmartSites, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, and Sculpt undergo rigorous monthly evaluations, highlighting the platform’s commitment to identifying and showcasing top-tier solutions in Digital Marketing and beyond.
Influencer Marketing Hub employs an expert-driven methodology to evaluate Digital Marketing agencies, ensuring that our recommendations are both reliable and comprehensive. This approach is designed to help businesses and individuals find the best agencies to meet their specific Digital Marketing needs. Here’s how we assess the various agencies like SmartSites, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, and Sculpt:
Strategic Analysis of Agency Capabilities: We start by examining each Digital Marketing agency’s core competencies, such as SEO, PPC, content marketing, and social media strategy. Our focus is on identifying Digital Marketing that not only offer a wide range of services but also demonstrate exceptional skill in executing high-impact Digital Marketing campaigns.
Higher education institutions, such as universities and colleges, have recognized the importance of digital marketing in reaching and engaging with potential students. As a result, there has been an increase in the demand for digital marketing agencies that specialize in working with higher education institutions.
While some of these agencies exclusively provide their services to the higher education sector, others have a diverse range of clients, including higher education organizations. Either way, a higher education digital marketing agency provides a range of services, including SEO, social media marketing, content creation, website development, influencer marketing, email marketing, and so on.
Below, we’ve reviewed some of the top higher education digital marketing agencies that you can partner with in 2024 to help your institution stand out and attract more students.
Top
higher education digital marketing agencies
2024
SmartSites is a full-service digital marketing agency that has helped multiple higher education clients, such as the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in achieving their marketing goals. With a strong focus on data-driven strategies and ROI, SmartSites offers services like web design, PPC advertising, organic SEO, email marketing, and social media management.
SmartSites services
SmartSites has been in the digital marketing game long enough to understand the unique needs of higher education institutions and tailor their strategies accordingly. The agency is also a Meta Business partner, which allows it access to exclusive data and tools that can further enhance its clients’ digital marketing efforts.
Key Services
SmartSites offers enough services to be the sole partner for a higher education organization. The agency’s web design services are suitable for both new websites and redesigns.
Besides creating new websites, the agency also makes your existing ones more mobile-friendly or optimizes them for better usability. The agency’s partnership with Termly, a compliance partner, helps higher education businesses keep their websites compliant with governmental regulations.
SmartSites also offers organic SEO services to keep its clients’ websites ranking high on search engine result pages. The agency also dabbles in paid search, and even shares tips with its clients for them to incorporate in their strategies.
BrightEdge data shows that 53% of all searches come through SEO-backed organic searches. Leveraging SmartSites’ SEO knowledge and tools, higher education institutions can cash in on these high-volume searches.
Search’s dominant channel share
SmartSites further supplement your digital marketing funnel with email marketing, which the agency uses to keep your institution’s prospective and current students updated about admissions, courses, scholarships, and more.
On top of that, the agency also helps establish a social media presence for your institution and runs targeted social media advertising campaigns.
The SmartSites Approach
There’s a lot of competition in the higher education space, especially in high-in-demand degrees. SmartSites knows how to make your institution stand out from the crowd.
The agency did this for the New Jersey Institute of Technology by setting up a PPC campaign to help the institute give a tough fight to the University of Phoenix, which was previously the main market shareholder in the online learning space.
NJIT case study results
Strategic Approach: SmartSites recognized that NJIT wanted to promote themselves as a local and accessible alternative to the University of Phoenix, their competitor. Since the institute had a limited time to get the strategy into action, SmartSites had to be careful.
Instead of overwhelming the audience with a ton of options, the agency focused on the institute’s main courses: WebMaster, Green Belt, Amazon Web, and JavaScript. The agency also implemented phone call tracking to identify sales and resolve issues faced by potential students. The blend of efficient targeting and personalized messaging made all the difference.
It was due to the strategic and well-planned PPC campaign that SmartSites ran that NJIT saw a 300% increase in conversions, with a 700% increase in impressions.
The Thrive Agency is a full-service digital marketing agency with a wide range of clients, including educational institutes, even unconventional ones like seminaries and training centers.
The agency provides a holistic approach to digital marketing that includes SEO, custom website design, social media marketing, PPC management, online reputation management, content writing, and video production.
Key Services
The Thrive Agency is a renowned name in the digital marketing space, as it has been providing comprehensive services to clients in different industries since 2005. Its team of WordPress experts helps customize websites as per the client’s needs and makes them search-engine friendly for better visibility.
Since the agency understands the nuances of all industries, you can expect your website to be compliant with the educational authorities’ rules and regulations. The agency does the same for your social media presence. It develops custom social media strategies and paid campaigns that align with your educational institution’s branding and messaging. Their industry insights are a testament to their expertise.
The Thrive Agency also has an experienced team of content writers who can create content for all your marketing assets, from website copy to social media posts and even video scripts. Even better, the agency further adds a dash of storytelling to these scripts and creates videos for your organization, too.
With The Thrive Agency’s PPC marketing, higher education clients can take advantage of seasonal trends, such as enrollment drives and scholarship promotions. The agency’s expertise in paid advertising on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms ensures maximum return on investments.
Higher education institutions also have to be vigilant about their online reputation. A single claim or viral social media post can have a major impact on their reputation. That’s where The Thrive Agency’s online reputation management services come in. Their partnership with Rize Reviews allows quick and streamlined review management.
The agency monitors your online presence and quickly addresses any negative comments or reviews, ensuring your institution maintains a positive image.
The Thrive Agency’s Approach
The most appealing aspect of The Thrive Agency is its focus on client requirements and their combination with best practices in the industry. For instance, when Baptist Theological Seminary wanted to ensure user-friendliness for its website, the agency offered its custom website design services.
Baptist Seminary services offered
Strategic Approach: The Thrive Agency’s SEO efforts included link-building and optimization of new landing pages. Due to this, the seminary’s organic SEO traffic increased by 339%, and they got a 276% increase in new users. However, The Thrive Agency did not only focus on SEO to bring in new users.
The agency also kept the existing users engaged with targeted content, resulting in an increase of 4.4k% in returning users. They personalized the content based on the seminary’s target audience, resulting in a higher engagement rate.
Baptist Seminary case study results
The Thrive Agency did not stop there. It further complemented the existing campaign with paid advertising to increase the number of applications for the seminary. By using a blend of YouTube marketing and remarketing, the agency was able to increase ad clicks by 39% and interaction rate by 707%.
Sculpt is a social-focused digital marketing agency for higher education clients, providing them with an array of services, including social media content creation, community management, social media advertising, and influencer marketing.
Specializing in B2B marketing, Sculpt is particularly suitable for higher education organizations that cater to corporations that want to reskill and upskill their employees through advanced degrees and professional development courses.
Sculpt services
In a podcast, Ravi Kumar, the president at Infosys, said:
”educational institutions are moving from their traditional B2C model to adopt a B2B model.”
Sculpt proves to be the perfect agency to help educational institutions make this shift.
Key Services
Sculpt’s digital marketing services are mainly focused on social media platforms. The agency creates vertical and episodic video series for clients, which can be promoted through paid social media advertising campaigns. Sculpt understands the conventions of each social media platform, so the agency optimizes each piece of content for maximum engagement.
Moreover, Sculpt actively shares social media marketing tips on its social media platforms. Higher education institutions can engage with this content to learn how to improve their social media presence.
The agency also provides community management services, responding to comments and messages on social media platforms on behalf of their clients. Community management is extremely important for higher education clients since they have to be prompt in responding to inquiries from students and potential applicants. Sculpt follows a proactive engagement strategy, which the agency’s experts explain in this post.
Sculpt also partners with relevant influencers to promote its clients’ content and programs. For higher education institutions, this could bring in more prospective students and credibility through industry experts and thought leaders.
Sculpt doesn’t merely set up the social media strategy for higher education clients; it also creates content consistently to keep your social media presence active. The agency creates and schedules posts, curates relevant content to share, tracks engagement, and reports on social media analytics.
The Sculpt Approach
Sculpt’s approach to digital marketing is evident in the campaign the agency ran for Pearson Education, one of the largest education publishing companies in the world. Even though Pearson serves millions of higher education students, the client couldn’t get traction on its Instagram profile.
Strategic Approach: Sculpt created a strategy for the company’s Pearson Learners Instagram account and started posting regular content tailored for college-going students. The agency also managed with ”studygram” influencers and curated user-generated content from college students to populate the account.
On top of that, Sculpt recruited college ambassadors for Pearson Learners to create an authentic voice for the brand. The content created by these ambassadors, such as college life tips and study secrets, was relatable for the client’s target audience, who could see themselves reflected in the posts.
Altogether, these tactics resulted in an 88% increase in average engagements per post. Pearson Education also increased its Instagram followers by 209% in just nine months.
Pearson case study results
ED is a specialized higher education digital marketing agency that helps colleges and universities amplify their impact and reach potential students through customized digital strategies. ED’s focus lies in creating a strong brand identity for higher education institutions and implementing data-driven tactics to increase conversions.
ED Marketing
Key Services
ED offers a range of branding and marketing services for its higher education clients. Whether it’s developing a website, creating engaging content, improving search engine visibility, or managing social media accounts, ED has got it covered.
In addition to these services, ED also offers community management solutions. The agency ensures your internal community and external stakeholders are aligned with your institution’s goals and values. Even better, ED uses insights from community management to drive marketing success for clients.
For example, the agency’s team went to the University of Winnipeg and talked to the people there about what made the university special. Then, they used those insights to market the university to students and donors.
ED also focuses on keeping the brand identity of higher education intact during their marketing campaigns. Unlike other industries, higher education institutions have to stick to an identity for the long run since it becomes their mark of identification among students and faculty.
For example, when Queen’s University wanted to redesign its brand and marketing material for the digital space, ED kept the original colors and visual elements intact while modernizing the design for a more contemporary look. These designs were then translated into a well-kept Facebook page and an Instagram profile with a regular posting schedule.
Queen’s University campaign
ED also develops recruitment campaigns for universities to build a community of students for the long run. These campaigns are tailored to attract potential students who are fit for the institute’s positioning and convert them into loyal alumni.
The ED Approach
As an agency with vast experience providing digital marketing services to higher education institutions, ED understands the importance of emotion and storytelling in the education industry. So, the agency’s approach focuses on creating authentic and compelling narratives that resonate with students and parents alike.
That’s what ED did for Winnipeg’s Booth University College. Before ED stepped in, most people did not know that the college was the only degree-granting institution of the Salvation Army, one of the most renowned nonprofit organizations.
Strategic Approach: Research found that many students thought Booth UC only caters to Christian students since it’s affiliated with the Salvation Army. However, in reality, the college offers academic programs to students from all faiths or even those who have no faith at all.
ED used the college’s students as influencers to get this message out to the public. The agency created a series of videos featuring students sharing their experiences at Booth UC and how they aim to “be the change” they want to see. These videos helped clear the misconception that was keeping many potential students away from the college.
ED’s efforts were quite successful, as these videos garnered 4,034,384 impressions, resulting in the college’s highest enrolment to date of 476 students.
Booth University campaign results
Like ED, HEM is another higher education digital marketing agency that helps institutions convert more students online. The team at HEM has over 15 years of experience helping colleges and universities around the globe achieve their enrollment goals. Keeping up with the latest advancements, HEM also uses AI in its marketing strategies to get deep target insights and conduct advanced social listening.
HEM’s multichannel approach can aid your school in improving its online search rankings for critical keywords, engaging website visitors with persuasive content, optimizing your site for more applications, nurturing leads, building engaged communities, and getting insights into the performance of your digital marketing efforts.
Key Services
HEM’s inbound marketing services are designed to take your higher education institution’s digital marketing strategies to the next level by boosting your online visibility and converting visitors into applicants. The agency provides extensive SEO services to help your school’s website rank higher for relevant keywords and attract more organic traffic.
In doing so, HEM also creates engaging content for your institution. The agency takes a storytelling route since it is most effective in attracting and informing leads. During these campaigns, HEM also measures the standing of your student enrollment efforts and provides actionable insights that can help inform your future steps. Higher education institutes can couple these insights with the learnings from the agency’s webinars for informed marketing decision-making.
HEM’s services aren’t limited to search engines. The agency also provides social media marketing for higher education institutions, particularly on Instagram and TikTok, where the majority of prospective students spend their time. Since 75% of students use TikTok a few times every month and 47% use it daily, it makes sense for higher education institutions to be present on social media.
HEM also provides paid advertising services to reach out to a larger audience and connect with potential students. You can work with the agency to advertise your institution to international students on social and search platforms. The agency specializes in fostering personalized interactions to engage students from all around the globe.
The HEM Approach
One of the main reasons for HEM being such a trusted name is that the agency really understands its clients’ positioning. Merely enrolling students isn’t the end goal for every educational institute.
For example, when Business School Lausanne in Switzerland reached out to HEM, their objective was not simply to bring in more students but to attract international students who could afford the country’s cost of living.
Business school campaign
Strategic Approach: So, HEM specifically focused on digital campaigns that target students from countries with a higher GDP and who have an interest in studying business. Since Switzerland is an expensive country to live in, it made sense that students from countries with a higher GDP would have the financial means to afford to study there.
The agency saved time and resources by specifically targeting this audience, instead of a broader global market. However, this level of targeting did not stop the agency from diversifying the client’s reach. HEM did not only target upper-class students from the US and Europe but also from Asia and Africa to ensure a diverse student body.
The campaign had such impressive results that David Claivaz, the acting dean at the school, said that they plan to:
“Continue working with HEM” because “they can do magic in digital marketing.”
What Is a Higher Education Digital Marketing Agency?
A higher education digital marketing agency is a specialized company that provides marketing services specifically tailored for colleges, universities, and other educational institutions. While most of these agencies focus on conventional higher education clients, some also offer their solutions to other educational organizations such as training programs, language schools, religious centers, and academic associations.
The core setup of these agencies is just like any other marketing firm. They usually have an in-house team of strategists, designers, content creators, creative directors, and project managers. However, what sets them apart is their deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities within the higher education industry.
Why Is It Important to Work with a Higher Education Digital Marketing Agency?
According to a paper published in Business Horizons,
”Competition in academia has always been a force, and universities are used to competing for status and ranking, talent, and funding.”
So, it’s no surprise that higher education institutions want nothing less than the best for their online presence. Working with specialized digital marketing agencies can provide them with the necessary expertise and strategies to stand out in the competitive landscape of higher education.
A higher education digital marketing agency also understands the ins and outs of the education sector. They know which platforms to use, which keywords to target, how to engage different student demographics, and when to launch campaigns to maximize effectiveness.
Together, this knowledge is what keeps educational institutions afloat in an increasingly digital world. More importantly, these agencies keep higher education institutions updated with the latest digital marketing trends.
Unlike other sectors, academia isn’t always quick to adapt to change. But with the help of a specialized digital marketing agency, change is possible.
For example, when the Western University of Health Sciences wanted to advertise its MBA programs to an international audience, the university knew traditional marketing wouldn’t help the word reach across the globe. So, HEM, a higher education digital marketing agency, assisted the university in its inbound marketing and paid advertising campaigns.
HEM’s services for Western University
HEM created student personas, both local and international, and then curated the marketing message to each segment individually. Since the university wanted to target students from Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, Brazil, and the Baltics, HEM made sure to research the cultural and language nuances of these regions before launching its campaigns.
Without HEM, Western University would have struggled to reach its target audience and may not have experienced the same level of success. This is just one example of how a higher education digital marketing agency can make a significant impact and help institutions thrive in the competitive education landscape.
What Should You Look For in a Higher Education Digital Marketing Agency?
Selecting a higher education digital marketing agency is just like choosing any other service provider, except that your objectives are academia-specific. Here are some factors you should keep in mind during your decision-making process.
- Services: Higher education digital marketing agencies may be full-service or specific. For example, Sculpt is focused on social media, while The Thrive Agency offers pretty much every service you could need. Choose according to your needs.
The Thrive Agency services
- Expertise: You can gauge an agency’s expertise through their case studies and portfolio. Look for experience in the education sector, preferably with institutions similar to yours. For example, if you’re a business university or a liberal arts college, it’s best to work with an agency that has experience in marketing these types of institutions.
- Geographical Scope: While some agencies only assist local institutions, others can reach international students, too. Again, select the agency based on the students you want to engage.
- Transparency: There’s quite a bit of compliance required in the higher education sector. You cannot make baseless claims or provide false information to prospects. Any agency that doesn’t uphold ethical standards should be avoided at all costs.
- Pricing and ROI: The pricing for higher education marketing agencies differs based on their services and your needs. Get quotes from different agencies to compare their pricing. Also, ask about their expected return on investment (ROI) and how they measure success.
Conclusion
Now that you have a selection of higher education digital marketing agencies, you’re all set to opt for the one that will run the campaign for your next admissions cycle. We’ve gone in depth in our reviews to help make your decision easier.
Plus, we include success stories from clients to provide a comprehensive overview of each agency. Besides the case studies, also consider the factors we’ve listed above to make your choice.
While you’re at it, you must remember that a marketing agency is an extension of your institution. In an industry as delicate as higher education, you want to choose an agency that is transparent in its campaigns and truly understands how to reach your target audience without coming off as too salesy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which digital marketing services do higher education marketing agencies offer?
Higher education marketing agencies typically offer a range of services, including social media management, website design and development, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, and social experiential activation.
Which higher education institutes should work with a marketing agency?
Any higher education institute that wants to improve its digital presence and increase enrollment can benefit from working with a marketing agency.
Is a higher education digital marketing agency better than an in-house team?
It ultimately depends on the resources and expertise of your in-house team. In some cases, a higher education digital marketing agency can bring fresh ideas and expertise to the table, which the in-house team may not have. However, if your in-house team is strong and well-equipped, they can also handle the digital marketing efforts effectively.
What is the cost of working with a higher education marketing agency?
The cost of working with a higher education marketing agency can vary depending on the services and your institution’s size. One-off projects cost less compared to long-term partnerships. You should discuss the budget and pricing options with the agency before signing a contract.
About the Author and Expert Reviewer
Writer
Nadica Naceva, Head of Content at Influencer Marketing Hub, is a seasoned writer and reviewer with in-depth expertise in digital and content marketing. Leveraging her extensive experience in guiding content creation and strategic direction, Nadica brings a critical eye and analytical approach to reviewing articles and educational pieces. Her commitment to accuracy, integrity, and innovation with each review helps IMH grow as a leading source in influencer marketing. Her insights are backed by first-party data, ensuring content meets the highest standards of relevance.
Expert Reviewer
Trusting our digital marketing content is easy; Djanan Kasumovic rigorously tests various tools and agencies to ensure we recommend only the best options. Whether we’re reviewing hands-on or compiling insights for educational articles, our goal is to provide you with informed choices based on our extensive experience and testing.
