What Happens to Higher Ed Enrollment When Marcom and Admissions Don’t Collaborate (Hint: It’s Not Good)
My friend Ryan Morabito posted this gem on Linkedin recently:
“A strong partnership between admissions and marketing doesn’t guarantee success.
But not having a strong partnership usually guarantees failure.
Not just cooperation but collaboration.
This is the way. 👊🏼”
It would defy all the laws of physics for me to agree more.
And yet, based on what we’re seeing in the video strategy work we’ve been doing with schools lately, a lot of colleges are still fumbling the baton between marketing and admissions. And it’s costing them.
Let me explain.
The Drop Happens at the Handoff
A marcom team at a community college we worked with recently was doing a lot of great work at the top of the funnel to drive interest. But as we were compiling their student journey map, a huge blind spot appeared. When a student showed interest—either by requesting information, or signing up for a campus tour or something like that—Student Affairs took over. Nobody in the room knew what happened after that.
This particular school is not alone. This happens all the time.
In fact, community colleges only enroll 40 to 50% of their applicants.
What Cheryl Broom from GradComm shares below actually made the dean of this college cry 😭.
Marcom teams can be living their best life feeding the enrollment machine.
But once a prospective student becomes a lead, things start to unravel.
Admissions picks up the baton and drops it. Not because they’re lazy or disinterested. They’re overwhelmed, under-resourced, and often isolated from the storytelling power and strategy marketing has already built.
And the biggest symptom of this disconnect?
A whole lot of automated emails.
Great Videos Die in Bad Emails
Let’s say your marketing team creates an amazing student testimonial video. You’ve got a first-gen student talking about how she found belonging and support at your school. It’s well-shot. The story’s emotional. It checks all the boxes.
Then it gets dropped into an email that screams “APPLY NOW” and where personalization stops at slapping {FIRSTNAME} at the top.
The subject line is “A message from University Admissions.”
The copy is A 600-word block of unformatted text.
The sender is a name no student recognizes.
Here’s what happens next:
No one opens the email.
If someone does open it, they’re hit with a wall of text and bounce.
That amazing video? Never gets watched.
And just like that, your investment in storytelling disappears into the void.
Marcom, This Is Your Moment to Step In
If you’re in marketing, this is not where your job ends. In fact, this is where your job matters more than ever.
It’s not enough to generate leads. You need to make sure those leads are nurtured with the same level of clarity, tone, and emotional resonance that brought them in to begin with.
And that means building a stronger bridge with admissions.
Here’s what that might look like:
1. Audit the emails admissions is sending.
Sit down and go through the entire email sequence your prospective students receive.
Would you read it?
Does it answer the right questions a student might be asking at that phase of their journey?
Does the content feel like a continuation of the brand voice and tone marketing has worked so hard to craft?
Are your videos being embedded and contextualized properly?
2. Optimize for subject lines and senders.
Students don’t open emails from “Office of Admissions.” They open emails from real people with real names. They open subject lines that pique curiosity or speak directly to something they care about.
3. Teach admissions how to speak to emotion.
Marketing folks tend to have better instincts when it comes to emotional resonance. Use that skill to coach your admissions partners on how to frame stories, segment messages based on student interests, and ask for the click without sounding like a spammy robot.
4. Create content with admissions, not just for them.
Ask admissions what kinds of questions they’re getting from students. What are they hearing on phone calls or campus visits? That’s the gold you need to inform future video topics, social content, and nurture sequences.
Collaboration Over Turf Wars
Don’t get me wrong. Admissions isn’t the bad guy. There are a lot of really talented admissions leaders who speak the language of emotion and understand the student journey. But if it’s not a coordinated effort with marcom, the whole funnel can collapse.
That said, I know there can be some “stay in your lane” energy between departments. But here’s the thing: your prospective students don’t care which department sent the email. All they know is whether it felt relevant, clear, and trustworthy.
If your two departments aren't in sync, you’re not just making your institution look disjointed—you’re actively losing the attention of the very people you’re trying to enroll.
And in a climate where enrollment is increasingly difficult, can you really afford to lose attention?
Final Thought
Back to Ryan’s post. He’s not just talking about internal harmony. He’s talking about the literal success or failure of your enrollment strategy.
And to take it one step further: alignment between admissions and marketing isn’t a nice to have. It’s a growth strategy.
So next time you’re celebrating the launch of a beautifully produced video, ask yourself:
What happens to this content after the post goes live?
Who sees it?
Is the student journey—from first touch to enrollment—cohesive? Or does it fall apart after the first click?
If the answer is “I don’t know” or “That’s not my department”… it might be time to revisit how your team defines success.
Because “getting views” isn’t the goal. Getting conversions is. And that’s a team sport.
Want more insights on creating emotionally resonant content for higher ed?
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