Have you come to a halt in your enrollment marketing campaign? Do you want to extend your reach but aren’t sure how?

The key lies in having a mobile optimized website and marketing campaign. Consider that 53 percent of college students own a smartphone and 47 percent own a feature phone. The relationship that young adults have with their mobile devices is worth noting, too. They use them when standing in line at the coffee shop, while waiting for class to start, while lying in bed and even while exercising. Basically, young people are never without their phones.

Why Some Universities Have Been Slow to Implement Mobile Advertising

With college students spending so much time on their mobile devices, it makes sense to have a mobile optimized website and marketing campaign. The challenge is that mobile advertising can be a complex advertising method. From an advertising perspective, mobile is very different from web. Cookies are not available, so marketers can’t follow users or learn their likes and dislikes. Smartphone users also tend to have shorter attention spans, with their time split between browsers, apps, maps and messaging.

Since mobile advertising isn’t a walk in the park, many colleges and universities have yet to optimize their enrollment marketing campaigns. But by not giving enough attention to mobile campaigns, you’re overlooking potential students that are spending their time on their smartphones rather than on laptops, PCs and even tablets. And since students keep their phones on them throughout the day, this is an opportunity that no marketer wants to miss.

Benefits of Mobile Ads for Enrollment Marketing

For enrollment marketing, the ability to reach potential students at any time is a major asset. Since enrollment is time-sensitive, your university can use mobile ads to alert students of important messages and reminders, such as an upcoming webinar or campus tour times.

Mobile ads also have the ability to target specific audiences, allowing you to focus on certain groups of students, such as those who have visited your school or those who have filled out an inquiry online. Lastly, mobile ads can be personalized, which is helpful when communicating with students through all stages of the enrollment process.

As you look to improve your enrollment marketing campaign, be sure to keep mobile ads in mind as well as the importance of a mobile optimized website.