In addition to education, higher learning institutions provide a space for young adults to experience diversity and develop their identities. Inclusion is not a new concept for colleges and universities, but authentically capturing a campus’s diversified student body and faculty can be tricky. At the same time, failing to accurately reflect the student body can negatively affect your ability to reach prospects.

AMNY Education Marketing has numerous marketing capabilities designed to help higher education institutions strengthen their advertising. Here, we dive deeper into this topic and detail what colleges and universities can do to successfully portray diversity.

How to Tackle Diversity in Education Marketing

When it comes to promoting diversity on college campuses, there is a fine line between proudly showcasing and exploiting. Higher learning institutions want to appear authentic in their marketing tactics, but also want to attract as many potential students as possible. The easiest way to do this is to simply give students from various races a visual presence on the school’s websites, social media pages, and other mediums. While this may be the simplest approach, it’s not always the most effective.

To reach a more diverse population of prospective students, higher learning instructions should instead aim beyond demographic factors and focus on celebrating students’ passions, interests, and personal traits. By emphasizing these qualities and not just images of diverse students, education marketers can engage with a wider range of students and potentially unite them under common goals or affinities.

The following are some methods that enable colleges and universities to connect with a more diverse audience without exploiting or offending the groups they most want to reach:

Create Relatable Content

Content that goes beyond race, ethnicity, and other demographic traits tends to be more effective because it’s more relatable for prospective students. For example, an image of a student who reflects the prospect’s race may not be enough, but the student’s testimony of how the college guided and advocated for them speaks to the prospect’s specific concerns. It demonstrates the higher learning institution’s willingness and dedication to seeing their students succeed no matter their background, which relates to a wider audience.

Inclusive Web Copy

Copy that illustrates a college’s level of inclusiveness can be the key to marketing success when striving to highlight diversity. Accomplishing this requires being aware of the language, style, and word choice of your content because even the most subtle detail can convey the wrong idea. For instance, using gendered pronouns or phrases like “those people” when referring to certain ethnic groups can offend.

Verbiage might seem small, but it’s important to remember that young people — who likely make up the bulk of your target audience — have vocabularies and sensibilities tuned over the years to respond to inclusivity.

Accessible Website

Students from all over the world with different backgrounds may be interested in furthering their education at your institution. Because of this, you need to ensure your website is functional and can accommodate a variety of languages. Having a language translation feature on your website can assist families with non-English speaking parents or guardians. Furthermore, colleges and universities should comply with website accessibility standards to make certain they are not alienating any students or parents with disabilities.

These approaches not only have the ability to improve how higher learning institutions communicate and connect with underserved students — they convey that exposure to diversity is a strength that benefits all students.

Effectively Incorporate Diversity into Your Marketing

When trying to underscore diversity in marketing, content that focuses on people as individuals and their unique stories is more relatable and engaging than standalone images or statistics. If you want more guidance on implementing diversity into your marketing materials, turn to the award-winning creative team at AMNY Education Marketing.

We focus on delivering content that resonates with prospective students, helping higher learning institutes reach a more diverse audience. Backed by Advance Local, one of the largest media enterprises in the country, our team possesses the skills and resources to successfully navigate diversity and inclusion for education marketing. To learn more about our content services and the ways we can help your college or university, contact us today.