花都各地积极开展未成年人"清明祭英烈"文明传播活动

Just like that, the holidays are over. Of course, with the new year, comes the new goals: New me (hopefully). And if you're a marketer in the Education industry, among your top-of-mind goals to kick off the year, without doubt, is: Increase enrollments in your institution's programs. But how?

As a keen learner myself, and having spent several years delving into data to understand emerging industry trends and audience behaviors, I can candidly admit that the education landscape today has evolved deeply with the world around us. As online learning programs gain more popularity, it has never been more important for marketers to stay in tune with the prospective online student's journey, and to have actionable data available at their fingertips to leverage when deciding on what programs to chop or double down on.

And that is exactly what we set out to deliver. Below, we dove into the trends we’re seeing on LinkedIn based on online program enrollments happening in the fall* across a sample of large US schools. These insights are based on our analysis of nearly 13,000 enrollments correlated and validated with historical data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Read on for growth patterns in specific online education programs, and audience signals marketers can harness to best reach and engage these highly motivated prospective students.

Online Programs See Growth in Health and IT Degrees 

In general, US online schools saw ~17% growth in fall enrollments year over year. For both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, the top-growing programs are in the fields of business, technology, and healthcare. 

When it comes to Bachelor’s degrees, analytics, IT and healthcare programs continue to be of high interest, while criminal justice and HR management remained steady year over year. More specifically, we are seeing the following growth patterns:

• Moderate Growth: Health Information Management, Industrial & Organizational Psychology, and Health Administration
• Small Growth: Analytics, Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Technology, Accounting, Management, and Marketing

For more detail, see the accompanying infographic. 

For Master’s/MBA degrees, we see growing interest in cybersecurity, marketing, and ITMS online programs, while finance, and industrial and organizational psychology remained relatively flat. Specifically, we see the following trends:

• Large growth: Cybersecurity and Health Administration
• Moderate growth: Social Work and Public Health
• Small growth: Marketing, information Technology, Accounting, and Nursing

For more detail, see the accompanying infographic. 

Understand the Typical Bachelor’s Candidate

The most prevalent occupations among these Bachelor’s degree candidates are the following:

A number of factors make these BS-degree prospects an ideal audience for marketers to target:

• 25% either changed positions within three months of considering an online program or obtained an advanced degree within the past 18 months. In other words, they consider higher ed as their career progresses.
• 67% of them have either completed a job search, applied for a job, or viewed a job posting within 30 days of our data analysis.
• 34% of them are early in their careers, with 2-7 years of work experience.

Understand the Typical Master’s Degree Candidate

Below, I’ve listed the most common occupations among fall Master’s degree candidates:

The following factors make these Master’s-degree prospects a fitting audience to target:

• 33% either changed positions within three months of considering an online program or obtained an advanced degree within the past 18 months. In other words, they consider higher ed as their career progresses.
• 68% of them either completed a job search, applied for a job, or viewed a job posting within 30 days of our data analysis.
• 31% of them are early in their careers, with 2-7 years of work experience.

Note that across both BS and Master’s candidates, “skilled multi-tasker” was the top-growing skill by a far margin. Think of this as a soft skill connected to both computer and human multitasking. 

Proactively Target Prospective Students

By tapping into the trends above, along with the following demographic and behavioral insights, you can drum up interest in your online program.

To reach Bachelor’s candidates, appeal to high-interest skills like computer networking and problem-solving – along with multitasking – and align with the content themes they increased engagement with prior to enrollment:

• Carbon neutral
• Cultural diversity
• Cyberwarfare
• Splunk

When it comes to reaching Master’s candidates, explore themes around personal finance and health, while aligning with topics they more heavily engaged with prior to enrollment:

• Emergency Management
• Occupational and workplace health
• Organizational development

Of note, 22% of these candidates have volunteer experience, so look for ways to tie into such interests outside of education to draw them in. 

Our Campaign Manager tool empowers you to reach these targeted audiences. You upload a list of your down-funnel leads – such as app starts, app submits, enrolled, and deposited – and we map those to LinkedIn members by the following criteria: location, function, seniority, years of experience, skills and job titles. That way, you reach highly targeted audiences of ideal candidates for your program, helping boost down-funnel results.

Here are additional best practices that work well for higher-education marketers on our platform:

• Speak directly to your audience. For example, if you're promoting a Masters in Marketing, call out marketers in your copy.
• Address program costs and ROI. Highlight any scholarship opportunities and waivers you offer, along with the types of jobs and companies your program graduates find themselves at. Share average time to land a job and salary ranges of your graduates. 
• Highlight alumni stats. You can further promote the value of your program by calling upon insights from the Alumni tab on your LinkedIn Page. This shows where alumni work, what jobs they hold, their skills, and what they studied – and provides access to their detailed professional profiles.  

Check out our infographic for another view into these insights and tips.

* July-December 2021