September 4, 2025

Dr. Kyle Brantley
Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing & Communications

Graduate and Online Students Deserve More Attention

Graduate and online students are a critical piece of your enrollment puzzle. For many colleges and universities, they’re significant sources of revenue, often less volatile–and less discounted–than traditional undergraduate pipelines. Perhaps most notably, online programs offer the potential to extend your reach far beyond your campus’s traditional market.

And yet, too many institutions are decentralized, disorganized, and deficient when it comes to enrollment strategy for grad and online programs.

Anemic lead generation, unfocused follow-up, missed marketing opportunities, and unnecessary enrollment barriers are holding these programs back from their true potential. It doesn't have to be that way. Whether you're launching new online offerings or trying to scale existing graduate programs, these essential strategies will help you grow smarter.

Lead Generation: Create a Steady Stream of Leads

Start with your own alumni.
What better prospective student pool to target than your own alumni? Your graduates already know your brand and, if you’ve served them well, they’ll be more inclined to continue with you. Begin proactively recruiting rising juniors and seniors in your own undergraduate programs. But don’t stop there. Retarget graduates from the last ten to fifteen years who are in the early stages of their careers. Your outreach should be program-specific and compelling. Offer incentives like application fee waivers or returner scholarships/discounts. These students are your low-hanging fruit.

Layer in digital campaigns.
Utilize digital ads to drive interest and inquiries. Use Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to identify students keyword searching for the type of programs you offer (i.e. “online MBA Georgia”). Furthermore, track your own website traffic and retarget those stealthy visitors with digital ads to stay on their radar. Create campaigns around your most marketable programs and emphasize key distinctives.

Stay consistent.
Lead generation shouldn’t be a seasonal effort. When done well, it becomes a pipeline—not a faucet you turn on and off. Make sure your recruitment team has a steady flow of warm leads to engage year-round.

Each vendor offers unique advantages. For example, if your primary market is in an ACT-dominant state, College Board names may offer limited reach. Likewise, some platforms allow you to identify students who have already expressed interest in your institution or others like it. These are golden leads, but generally are not enough. To build a robust pipeline, you’ll need to go beyond those “hand-raisers” and use filters to identify other high-potential students.

Lead Follow-Up: Speed to Enrollment Matters

Once leads are flowing, the next question is: how fast can you follow up?

The best practice: establish human contact within 24 hours. Text and email first. Then attempt to connect via phone. Fresh inquiries often need a little extra guidance—and the faster you can provide it, the better your outcomes.

Recruit from a centralized office when possible.
Decentralized recruitment across academic departments often leads to inconsistency. If that’s your reality, at least establish shared standards, scripts, training, and expectations.

Train recruiters to guide, not just inform.
Your team should ask thoughtful questions, understand a prospect’s professional goals, and connect those aspirations directly to your programs. Lead with empathy. Create urgency. Cheer them on!

Establish a comm flow for both short- and long-term timelines.
Graduate and online students often have complex lives—jobs, families, and reservations about jumping back into school. Many won’t commit immediately even after initial inquiry, and that’s okay. The industry average time it takes for someone to express interest in a graduate program and enroll is approximately 18 months. Build drip campaigns that nurture leads regularly for at least six months. Then, plan longer-term drip campaigns (12 to 18 months). Use periodic check-ins, like simple “Are you still interested? Y/N” texts or brief surveys to keep your database clean while showing you care.

Marketing: View Your Website as Your Academic Storefront

Your website isn’t just a resource. It’s a recruiter.

If a student can’t quickly find the answers they need—program details, how much it costs, how to apply—they’ll bounce. It’s all too easy to channel surf the world wide web and the more easily they can find the information they are looking for, the more likely they’ll follow through.

Here’s what every program page should have:

• Clear, prominent RFI forms - strategically placed RFI forms throughout your website, especially on grad and online program pages.
• Clean, consistent page templates - a student should be able to click between programs and be familiar with the content organization.
• Student testimonials and career outcomes - showcase recent graduates and the work they are doing and tie it to your programs.
• Timeline to completion - specify the time it takes to complete the program to motivate (i.e. “program can be completed in as fast as 12 months”).
• Transparent pricing - what does it cost?
• Courses - what will students take?
• Admission steps - what are the next steps?
• Faculty or program contact info - to whom can they ask questions?

Pro-Tip: Use AI tools to assess content quality, load time, and usability. Small tweaks can have a big impact on conversions.

Know your value—and say it everywhere.
Grad and online programs are a dime a dozen, so what makes your program different? Is it the format? The connection to in-demand careers? Unique curriculum or standout faculty? These should be baked into your messaging across all channels—web, email, ads, and recruiter scripts.

Eliminate Barriers: Make It Easy to Say “Let’s Do This”

In today’s competitive environment, friction kills enrollment.

Go fully online. Offer multiple start dates.
Flexibility matters more than ever. Most prospective students are balancing jobs, families, or both. The more flexible your structure (the ability to work at your own pace and the option to start a program at multiple points in the year), the broader your appeal.

Streamline admissions.
Jettison unnecessary requirements like letters of recommendation or outdated test scores unless absolutely necessary. Make the process intuitive and mobile-friendly.

Speed up academic decisions.
Measure how long it takes departments to review completed applications and determine admission. If it’s any more than a week, you’re losing students. Set internal expectations, get the backing of academic leadership, and track progress to close the decision gap.

Consider ordering transcripts on their behalf.
Yes, there’s a cost, but proactively ordering transcripts on behalf of your applicants removes the frustration of students who drag their feet. If you can eliminate friction, you’ll convert more leads.

Final Thought: The Time Is Now

Graduate and online enrollment should never be an afterthought—it’s one of the fastest paths to strengthening your institution’s financial health, brand reach, and long-term resilience. But success won’t come from doing more of the same. It takes intentional lead generation, speedy follow-up, clear and compelling marketing, and a relentless focus on removing barriers.

Your competitors are already moving. The question is—will you let them win, or will you take the steps now to thrive?