Table of Contents
The Challenge:
Winning the Student Recruitment Battle
The education landscape is slated to face a substantial shift in the coming years. The impending "enrollment cliff," a result of fewer high school graduates due to a declining birth rate in the United States, will bring decreased college enrollment after 2025. Paula Resley, Chief Brand Officer and Vice President of Marketing, Communications, and Admissions at Morehouse College is already preparing for the heightened competition amongst universities, "As a leading higher education institution, our priority is to engage with students and parents long before the decision making process begins."
Morehouse set out to do this by becoming a thought leader in the space, creating resonant content for their audience. However, their current systems were holding them back. Managing around 900 web pages became a cumbersome process, requiring a complete site push for even the most minor sentence changes, taking 15-30 minutes per quick edit. Furthermore, the limitations of their platforms in meeting SEO expectations restricted the college's ability to boost visibility and attract organic traffic effectively.
Candace Bazemore, Morehouse's Director of Digital Strategy and Transformation, knew it was time for a change. She had worked with HubSpot in her past corporate roles and understood its potential to streamline processes. “With the blog and website, we wanted to have more control and to be able to move quickly. Having a tool that enables us to do that is key.” No stranger to the latest digital innovations, Candace was looking to streamline processes and experiment with the latest tools available, including Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The Solution:
Efficiency and Automation Through an AI Content Strategy
“We are the school who produced Martin Luther King, Jr. and we're also working to make sure that we produce the next Kings by embracing an innovative approach”, Candace notes. With progress and efficiency as their drivers, Morehouse chose to harness the power of HubSpot’s AI tools to address their digital marketing challenges.
Website Migration and SEO Strategy
Morehouse selected HubSpot’s Content Hub for their website migration as it offered ease of use and efficiency in making quick updates. The task of migrating 900 web pages was significant, but Candace aimed for transformation. Morehouse swiftly enhanced all their webpages by using the AI Meta Description Generator which elevated the SEO quality of every page across the board. This streamlined approach was crucial as the team was working to update the website in a matter of months before commencement. The strategy paid off as Morehouse saw a 30% increase in website page views.
Audience-Focused Content Strategy
Morehouse also chose to consolidate their multiple blogs into two separate blogs with distinct content focuses: the newsroom blog which shares news and information about current students, alumni and faculty achievements and the admissions blog which targets prospective students and their centers of influence (parents, counselors, etc.). The admissions blog was a new approach and its imminent launch underscored the need for a seamless content creation process.
To develop the admission blog content, the team collaborated with an SEO vendor who provided customized prompts and key terms tailored to specific audience segments. Leveraging HubSpot's blog AI generator, the team produced an abundance of articles aligned with SEO best practices. This resulted in their audience spending 27% more time on site.
Morehouse's social media team also used HubSpot’s AI to speak to their audience in an authentic voice. “One of the things we often do is we’ll take some of our social media content, drop it into a HubSpot AI tool and say, ‘hey, can you write this from the perspective of a male student who’s in the 9th grade?’... to see how we can boost engagement on our social media posts.”
Morehouse’s AI-powered content creation process facilitated the development of high-quality, targeted content and around $8K in agency contract hours. “Without HubSpot's AI tools, we'd have to hire another headcount, which would be counterintuitive as I’m trying to automate everything.”, Candace remarks.
The Transformation:
Empowering Tomorrow’s Leaders with AI Transformation Today
As Morehouse College will navigate the diminishing pool of college aged students, they have sought to position themselves as a beacon of educational excellence through their website, blog, social posts, email and SMS marketing. They were able to achieve this endeavor by producing elevated content quickly and effectively.
The efficiencies Morehouse gained through automating content creation tasks has empowered the team to seamlessly bridge SEO recommendations with engaging content production. This not only optimized Morehouse's website for search engines but also facilitated the creation of tailored content.
A moment at a recent welcome event speaks to the impact of effective content created in partnership with AI. At a prospective student event, some parents in the audience took the lead in answering questions from other parents. “They became almost ambassadors for us because they had engaged with our content before”, Candace recalls. These moments underscore the importance of targeted and timely content, which HubSpot’s AI aided in producing. The collaborative approach Morehouse is taking between HubSpot’s AI technology and their own team's creativity has enabled them to elevate their marketing strategies, drive audience engagement, and establish a strong digital presence for future success.
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