Demographics aren't a personality - so stop trying to recruit students like they are then!
Yes, when it comes to targeting ads and thinking about strategies for different cohorts of students, demographics obviously will play a part. But most of us don’t think of our demographics when it comes to our purchasing decisions and behaviours.
Beyond traditional demographics, students are forming identities around shared interests and fandoms. Being aware of how these play out for some of your prospective students, may allow you to enrich your organic and paid social, bringing to life the clubs and societies, the “tribes”, in which they may feel more drawn to, and even shine a spotlight on aspects of course content they may not have even considered relating to their passions.
While making defying gravity your entire personality (I’m just holding space for the lyrics this week ok?!) may be sneered at, increasingly audiences, particularly those younger ones being targeted for higher education, are identifying as being a fan of something or someone.
Behaviour change approach
When you’re thinking about behaviour change marketing and understanding, empathising and helping your target students make decisions about their study and whether you are right for them, you could level up your approach by doing the work to understand them better by moving beyond age and location.
Take social trends as an example. Yes, it’s great to find one that you can make work. But it would be even better if you’d considered some of the fandom groups within your prospective student audience and what trends and perspectives might be most relevant to them.
There’s enough generic “making futures start here” and “sparking brilliance” university content that tries to speak to all young people all the time. Trying something that might connect on a deeper level with a particular fandom group might help students really see you as a place that attracts other people like them, like they will find their group at.
There is some incredible content on fandoms from @zoe scaman worth taking a look at that I’ll link to along with the reports I mention below as well.
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