Encoura

Reaching Graduate and Adult Learners Action Plan

As your team dives into this action plan, you’ll learn more about today’s graduate and adult learner market, including shifts in modality, fields of study, and more. We’ve also highlighted the Eduventures® Adult Learner Mindsets™, which can help your institution better understand and market to this audience. Additional chapters focus on digital marketing strategies to keep graduate and adult learners engaged during both the inquiry and application processes.

Chapter 1

Understanding Today’s Graduate and Adult Learner Market

Before your team gets started with marketing to potential graduate and adult learners, it’s important to understand what’s happening in the market, and how graduate students’ commitment, fields of study, and modality preferences have made noteworthy shifts.

The Eduventures Adult Prospect Research™, highlighted at a high-level throughout this chapter, was collected in July 2019, October 2021, October 2022, and October 2023 from a national sample of adult prospects from different income levels, racial and ethnic groups, employment statuses, regions, and educational levels.

Market Changes

According to the National Student Clearinghouse, graduate enrollment declined in the fall of 2022 (-0.9%), but had a slight rebound in the fall of 2023 (+0.6%). Overall, Master’s enrollment is down 1% from its peak in the fall of 2021.

After analyzing NCES, IPEDS, and CPS data, Eduventures is predicting that the Master’s market will settle after a decade of growth.

Commitment

When assessed over time, Eduventures researchers found that degree interest has declined while non-degree credentials have increased. Despite this, those who have indicated their commitment (e.g., definitely/probably will enroll) to a program want a master’s degree.

Fields of Study

Health, business, education, and technology are the top fields of study for graduate students; business and education had enrollment declines between 2017 and 2022. Master’s prospects are heavily focused on business while non-degree prospects prefer computer science programs.

Modality Preferences

Graduate prospects prefer a hybrid modality, but the post-pandemic shift to fully online was at the expense of hybrid courses. Below indicates the top three reasons adult prospects prefer a hybrid learning model. Across this same audience, asynchronous with optional synchronous sessions were mostly preferred.

In the coming chapters, we’ll discuss how to personalize your marketing with the Eduventures Adult Learner Mindsets and highlight which digital marketing tactics will help your brand stand out.

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Get Started With the Eduventures Adult Prospect Research

This is just a snapshot of the Eduventures Adult Prospect Research. Discover important insights on today’s adult learners–including their delivery mode preferences, education goals, behavioral mindsets, employment interests, financial statuses, and more.

Learn More
Chapter 2

Personalizing Your Marketing with Eduventures Adult Learner Mindsets

Empower Your Team With Personas

While understanding your market will give your team strategic direction for where and for what programs you’re recruiting, your team’s success also depends on how you recruit.

Eduventures has developed Adult Learner Mindsets–or personas of today’s adults seeking to further their education–that empower your enrollment and marketing teams to best engage this population through personalization.

While adults’ behaviors, preferences, and attitudes vary, we’ve identified trends that group today’s learners into four distinct Adult Learner Mindsets. Each Mindset reveals important insights into those students’ experiences and plans that are important to consider when recruiting and marketing, including:

  • Current career experiences
  • Education plans
  • Academic areas of interest
  • School selection decision processes
  • School financing plans
  • Education pricing attitudes

The Four Adult Learner Mindsets

Career Investment™

These adult learners are ready to move ahead in their fields or with their employers.

Career Renewal™

These adult learners want to switch careers, get a new job, or maybe even start their own businesses.

Career Through Academics™

These adult learners are looking for a rigorous program with great faculty that will accelerate their careers.

Personal Discovery™

These adult learners want to satisfy their curiosities and learn new skills, but not necessarily for their jobs.

Adult Learner Mindsets tend to vary by credential type, with Master’s prospects most likely in career advancement Mindsets, while Bachelor’s prospects typically fall into career change Mindsets.

Consider which type of adult and graduate learner you are targeting with your outreach to lead with messaging that most relates to their goals. As seen in the graphic above, graduate learners are most often focused on advancing their careers, while adult learners pursuing a bachelor’s degree often desire a career change. Including communications about how your institution can support these specific plans assures these learners that your college is the right next step for them.

Personalized Outreach & Support

As you read these brief descriptions, you are probably imagining how you’d engage each of these students differently based on why they are seeking to further their educations.

Knowing that graduate and adult learners can be grouped into these four segments equips your team with the knowledge to successfully recruit and market to your audiences. Specifically, your enrollment team can segment the following by Mindset:

  • Brochures
  • Email campaigns
  • Visits/Events
  • Calls/Meetings
  • Web pages
  • Digital ads/Social media posts

For example, messaging used in calls, emails, print, or digital ads that would appeal to a Personal Discovery adult would focus on personal growth and the adventure of learning. On the other hand, messaging used in these areas that would be most effective for a Career Investment adult would focus on how your institution provides the learning, networking, and opportunities for them to grow in their chosen careers, perhaps even including testimonials from successful alumni.

Creating individual marketing and recruitment tools that cater to each Mindset will set your team up on the best path to successfully achieving your enrollment goals. Delivering the messages that matter most to each graduate and adult learner early in their college search processes ensures you build the strongest relationship with them and gives them confidence to enroll.

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Get Started With Adult Learner Mindsets

Want to learn more about the motivations and preferences of each Adult Learner Mindset and how your teams can leverage this information to speak directly to what matters most to graduate and adult learners? Sign up your institution for the Eduventures Adult Prospect Research!

Learn More
Chapter 3

Digital Marketing Strategies for Inquiry Generation


Now that you’re equipped with market knowledge and adult learner personas, you’re ready to start developing your recruitment strategy.

One of the best marketing solutions for reaching Gen Z students and their families is digital advertising. Take your refined messaging (shaped by the Adult Learner Mindsets) to prospective adult and graduate students where they are spending all their time: on their phones, tablets, and computers.

Connecting With the Right Audience

Acquiring prospective student information for adults and graduates beyond GRE test lists can be challenging. A two-fold approach can assure that you strengthen the top of your enrollment funnel to drive success throughout the enrollment cycle.

1.) Adult Prospect Pool: Ensure that you’re getting the best lists of adult and graduate profiles by connecting with a reputable partner.

Encoura clients gain access to proprietary B2C and B2B marketing databases sourced from 250+ providers with comprehensive lead profiles for 280 million consumers and 28 million businesses.

All this data is opt-in and continuously updated for use in social media, web search, email, telephone, and direct mail campaigns. Moreover, data security is our top priority; customer data is never shared or sold. Instead, campaigns are configured and optimized within your account.

2.) Digital Marketing: Leverage proven digital campaign tactics to increase your brand awareness and reputation to most strategically attract and engage with more inquiries. We’ll discuss this tactic through the rest of this chapter.

Graduate & Adult Enrollment Challenges

With the right digital solutions, you can solve these four enrollment challenges to launch your adult and graduate inquiry generation efforts. These include the need to:

  • Increase your student volume
  • Connect with stealth students
  • Distinguish your institution’s brand
  • Deliver the right information

By addressing these challenges with the right digital tactics, your institution will connect with a larger audience that identifies with your institution’s brand and has the information they need to confidently apply. So what are the right tactics?

Solutions Proven to Boost Inquiry Generation

Predictive Audiences

Imagine you could recruit your next class based on those who enrolled from your last class. With a predictive audience campaign, you can target prospective students with similar interests, behaviors, and demographics of those who have enrolled at your college before.

Additionally, further predictive audience tactics use your institution’s historical data to make predictions for the future. Let’s say you wanted to build a predictive audience based on the individuals who have previously visited your journalism college’s .edu page. You can use information on these visitors to find more prospective students like them.

Because predictive audiences use and build upon the data you already have, they often have a higher likelihood of success — 2x the engagement vs. other branding strategies.

To apply this at your institution, consider running predictive audience campaigns by searching for students like your current adult or graduate students or by building an audience based on students who have visited a relevant admissions or program page on your website.

In the example below, Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) can use this video in a predictive audience campaign by delivering the video to an audience based on its current graduate students or students visiting its graduate admissions or programs pages.

With this video, SUNO can overcome all four enrollment obstacles we discussed above to increase its student volume, connect with stealth students and those who are similar to them, distinguish its institutional brand, and deliver the right information (program availability, flexible schedule, affordable options) to prospective students.

This video also exemplifies how to integrate messaging that appeals to two specific Adult Learner Mindsets. Its use of phrases like “elevate your mind” and “inspired and encouraged” speak to the desires and motivations of Personal Discovery students. At the same time, the phrases “catapult you into a successful career” and “an important step toward a brighter future” communicate that it can be a right fit for adults with Career Renewal motivations.

Search Keyword Retargeting

Another strategic digital tactic for improving your inquiry generation efforts is Search Keyword Retargeting.

Imagine you could create a custom audience of students who would see ads about your institution and colleges based on their keyword search behaviors.

With search keyword retargeting, you can reach graduate and adult learners who have searched for specific programs and other college-based information. This digital marketing tactic allows your institution to not only engage a targeted audience, but considers re-engaging them based on their past search behaviors.

Search keyword retargeting ads can be specific to programs; the University of California’s Rossier School of education prepares leaders to achieve educational equity through practice, research, innovative thinking, and research, and their ad encompasses this—plus hits on length of the program.

Consider how you can similarly create ads that highlight specific programs, important dates, or deadlines (e.g., visit, apply, and orientation), or experiences unique to your institution to catch the attention of graduate and adult learners who are researching educational opportunities online.

Search keyword retargeting, like USC Rossier used, equips you to overcome challenges to increase your student volume, connect with stealth students, and deliver the right information at the right time.

Additionally, this ad’s messaging is a great example of how to leverage messaging that appeals to adults by their Adult Learner Mindset; for example, reminding Career Renewal Mindsets that they can achieve their goals of switching careers or getting a new job upon graduation.

Predictive audience and search keyword retargeting are just the first two of multiple digital tactics that can empower your institution to connect with your best adult and graduate learners.

Learn more about these and other digital marketing strategies that effectively boost your inquiry generation efforts on our Encoura Digital Solutions website.

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Chapter 4

Digital Marketing Strategies for Application Generation

Now that your inquiry generation strategy is ready to go, let’s develop a strong application generation strategy for your institution, backed by research and proven campaign success.

We’ll stick with a focus on reaching prospective graduate and adult learners where they spend the most time by highlighting effective digital marketing strategies that generate applications by building on the foundation you’ve set through the inquiry stage.

Graduate and Adult Application Generation Challenges

In the last chapter, we discussed challenges institutions face with making the initial connection with prospective students. In this chapter, we’ll cover how to overcome the following challenges to your adult and graduate application generation efforts. These include the need to:

  • Engage the right students
  • Deliver the right information
  • Distinguish your institution
  • Assure hesitant students

With the right digital tactics, you can engage the right students with the right information to assure them that your institution is the next best step in their educational journeys.

Solutions Proven to Boost Application Generation

Short Video

Short video advertising is a powerful tactic your institution can use to reach and engage today’s prospective students. With platforms like YouTube and TikTok continuing to rise in popularity, especially with Gen Z now looking toward adult and graduate programs, these platforms provide unique opportunities to promote your programs, brand, and more.

We've found that video ads have the highest click-through rates for any digital strategy and a 90% view rate (specific to TikTok), making this an effective platform to reach your goals.

In this higher education TikTok video spot, Elmira College specifically focused on promoting its one-year Master's Degree in Education.

This spot promoted affordability and flexibility for prospective adult learners–delivering the right information to assure hesitant students and distinguish its institution from other programs without these qualities. This video also addresses the common challenge of engaging the right students by connecting with students most likely to apply to a one-year graduate education program.

Custom Audience Targeting

Another effective digital marketing tactic for boosting applications is Custom Audience Targeting.

With this tactic, you can reach prospective students who you already know or have previously shown online interest in your college or university. Who doesn’t want a second chance to remind a prospect of your school’s financial, social, and academic value?

For example, custom audience targeting allows you to target those who visited your application page but didn’t start the application. Your team can then deliver ads that remind them of where and when to apply to your programs.

In this custom audience targeting campaign, Northeastern State University (NSU) successfully engages the right students with the right information (e.g., start of semester date).

Its “Gather here. Go far. Start now.” messaging inspires Career Renewal students seeking to switch careers, get a new job, or even start their own businesses, while its diverse images assure hesitant students that they too can succeed at the university.

Consider how you can, like NSU, strategically create ads with messaging and graphics that speak to the Adult Learner Mindsets you wish to recruit while overcoming the four common application generation challenges.

Short video and YouTube pre-roll campaigns are just the first two of multiple digital tactics that can empower your institution to generate applications with your best adult and graduate learners. Learn more about these and other digital marketing strategies that effectively boost your application generation efforts on our Encoura Digital Solutions website.

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Chapter 5

Checklist: Reaching and Engaging Graduate and Adult Learners

As your team starts to reimagine how to reach graduate and adult learners, the checklist below will help your team take action on what you’ve just read.

  • Understand the Graduate and Adult Learner Industry

    Acknowledge how commitment, modality preferences, and fields of study have made noteworthy shifts. Understanding these trends can help your institution refine your adult, online, and graduate program strategies to strengthen your competitive position in the market.

    Partner with Eduventures for personalized research on current and future adult or graduate programs. For more information on this program innovation research, visit our Eduventures website.

  • Empower Your Team With Personas

    Empower your enrollment and marketing teams to best engage this population through personalization. Apply the Eduventures Adult Learner Mindsets to your conversations, marketing messaging, graphics, and more to communicate what today’s graduate and adult learners desire and expect from their continued educational journeys.

    Discuss which areas your team will focus on first; know that this process will take time—both on the planning and creative sides. Start with one of the categories outlined above (we’ve also included a list below) and begin to reimagine how your institution can segment communication based on:

    • Brochures
    • Email campaigns
    • Visits/Events
    • Calls/Meetings
    • Web pages
    • Digital ads/Social media posts

  • Get Started With Digital for Inquiry Generation

    Solidify your two-fold winning strategy with the best data and the best campaigns.

    • Ensure that you’re getting the best lists of adult and graduate profiles by connecting with a reputable partner. Consider important factors such as volume, relevance of audience, data privacy/security, and quality (individuals are opted-in).
    • Set up a plan for a predictive audience and/or keyword search retargeting campaign. Make sure that you use phrases and graphics that appeal to your intended Adult Learner Mindsets.
    • Optimize your landing pages so that students clicking on your ads can get the information they need to visit, learn more about your program, etc., right away. Check that the messaging on your landing page aligns with what is promoted on your ad.

  • Continue Engaging Through Digital Advertising for Application Generation

    Keep your inquiries moving through the funnel while attracting new applicants with digital marketing that encourages and supports them.

    • Set up a plan for a short video and/or custom audience targeting campaign. Make sure that you use phrases and graphics that appeal to your intended Adult Learner Mindsets.
    • Optimize your landing pages so that students clicking on your ads can get the information they need to apply right away. Check that the messaging on your landing page aligns with what is promoted on your ad (financial support, application deadlines, etc.).
    • As always, we would love to partner with you to set up a winning strategy to make your graduate and adult enrollment goals.

Reaching Graduate and Adult Learners

Make the most of your marketing budget and stand out from the competition by delivering highly relevant and targeted digital marketing messages directly to graduate and adult prospects at home, in the office, or on the go.

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